Check Mates

Felix has ADHD which means that at times, he finds it difficult to concentrate, so he spends a lot of time in the “Staring at the Wall Club”. When he starts to go to his granddad’s house after school, his granddad makes a list of 10 things that he wants to teach Felix. One of the things on his list, is to play chess. You can imagine how happy Felix is about that!

What Felix doesn’t realise is that his granddad is slowly teaching him how to play chess through the 10 activities on his list! Felix doesn’t realise straight away and it isn’t until he meets his friend Jake after school one day, that the penny drops.

Felix starts to become really good at chess as he sits and plays it all the time with his granddad. He even starts going to chess club, which is something he would never had dreamt of doing before! He soon stops going to isolation because he is concentrating so much on his chess moves.

His granddad watches him in all his chess games with the school but when Felix plays his last game, he realises that his granddad is missing. His teacher tells him the bad news; that his granddad was taken away in an ambulance…. What happens next? You’ll have to read the book to find out!

We give this book 20/10 and recommend it to everyone aged 9+. It’s a wonderful story about the relationship between a young boy and his granddad and lots of things that happen in between! We absolutely loved it!