The Asparagus Bunch by Jessica Scott-Whyte is our Featured Debut for July - a brilliant comedy about what it means to be different.

Having been kicked out of six different schools, Leon is labelled as having an attitude problem by almost everyone he comes into contact with. Dr Snot (yes, his real name!) gives it a different label and diagnoses Leon as autistic. Leon doesn't care for either label. How he manages to navigate school woes and family drama – and astonishingly ends up with not one but two friends – is nothing short of a miracle, or maybe just simply down to being different.

Our reviewers love the insight the cast of relatable and funny neurodiverse characters give into dyslexia and autism and recommend this book for readers 11+.

We asked debut author Jessica to tell us more about writing the book and her inspiration - check out her guest blog below and you can also read an extract from the book here.

guest blog from jessica scott-whyte

Dear Reader,

As it’s just you and me here, I feel I should begin the author’s note to my Middle Grade comedy by admitting to you that I don’t consider myself funny, at all. Not only that, I’m pretty sure that most people I know wouldn’t associate me with humour.  

So why a comedy then? 

In retrospect, I think the circumstances in which this story was written, were so intense and extreme, that humour had sort of become my last refuge. I began writing The Asparagus Bunch in late 2019, back when COVID was only an internet rumour, when my family and I were, like you, plunged into lockdown. It was for us, like for many, a hellish time.

‘Hang in there, you’ll get through,’ Mum said to me one morning on the phone, as I paced around our flat like a gerbil in a cage. ‘How’s the writing going?’

‘How do you honestly expect me to be writing anything at a time like this?!’ I snapped.

‘Well, keep trying. Write about things you like.’ I really wasn't in the mood for pearls of wisdom.

'Things I like? Oh, like what? Sweets?!’

‘Why not? You've always loved sweets.’

It’s probably not worth going into how those conversations ended but Mum’s suggestion did niggle away at me for a while until I decided to jot down a list of things that I liked enough to write an entire book about. Sweets was the first word I put down.   

I’ve been somewhat fanatical about sweets since I was a very small child. Yes, I was that girl who went around with a candy watch on her wrist and a coloured co-ordinated Push Pop clipped to the front pocket of her jeans, i.e. the definition of cool in the early nineties. But a landmark confectionary moment for me was when I was six, and my babyminder, Carmel, went to Blackpool on holiday and brought me back my first ever Stick of Rock. I was completely bowled over by this enormous fluorescent pink cylinder with BLACKPOOL stamped inside its white centre. It’s a memory that has always stayed with me and inspired the setting for this story.

So while I set off down the path of a story about, well, sweets and the story began to gather legs, I was surprised to find that I was having this instinctive urge to write The Asparagus Bunch through a comic lens. Why? Well, I think in retrospect humour can be a very effective tool (and often underestimated, I think) for dealing with difficult topics and also for seeing the world in a different way. When we laugh at something, that thing is itself “disarmed” or “dismantled”, enabling us to get a unique vantage point at the idea or big picture behind it. I feel strongly that challenging topics, such as racism, disabilities, bullying, betrayal, mental health, to name a few, when looked at through the lens of humour, can help understand their importance, so that it resonates it the reader in an even more meaningful way. In short, humour is serious business! 

If you decide to pick up The Asparagus Bunch one day, do keep this in mind: I consider that a book is only 50% of an actual story. Meaning, it is an author’s job to write a story that leaves some space and room for the reader to bring their own thoughts, views, feelings and life experiences to the reading experience and make the story truly come alive. And so, on that note I wish you very happy reading and hope that from time to time, Leon’s story might make you laugh….and then think. 

Jessica Scott-Whyte