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    My Name Is Leon
    My Name Is Leon
    My Name Is Leon
    Audiobook7 hours

    My Name Is Leon

    Written by Kit de Waal

    Narrated by Madeleine Maby

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    “Taut, emotionally intense, and wholly believable, this beautiful and uplifting debut” (Kirkus Reviews) about a young black boy’s quest to reunite with his beloved white half-brother after they are separated in foster care is a sparkling novel perfect for fans of The Language of Flowers.

    Leon loves chocolate bars, Saturday morning cartoons, and his beautiful, golden-haired baby brother. When Jake is born, Leon pokes his head in the crib and says, “I’m your brother. Big brother. My. Name. Is. Leon. I am eight and three quarters. I am a boy.” Jake will play with no one but Leon, and Leon is determined to save him from any pain and earn that sparkling baby laugh every chance he can.

    But Leon isn’t in control of this world where adults say one thing and mean another. When their mother falls victim to her inner demons, strangers suddenly take Jake away; after all, a white baby is easy to adopt, while a half-black, nine-year-old faces a less certain fate. Vowing to get Jake back by any means necessary, Leon’s own journey will carry him through the lives of a doting but ailing foster mother, Maureen; Maureen’s cranky and hilarious sister, Sylvia; a social worker Leon knows only as “The Zebra”; and a colorful community of local gardeners and West Indian political activists.

    Told through the perspective of young Leon, too innocent to entirely understand what has happened to him and baby Jake, but determined to do what he can to make things right. In the end, this is an uplifting story about the power of love, the unbreakable bond between brothers, and the truth about what ultimately makes a family. My Name Is Leon will capture your imagination and steal your heart with its “moving exploration of race and the foster-care system that offers precious insight into the mind of a child forced to grow up well before his time” (Booklist).
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster Audio
    Release dateJul 26, 2016
    ISBN9781508222286
    Author

    Kit de Waal

    Kit de Waal is an award-winning short story writer. She was born in Birmingham, UK, to an Irish mother and Kittian father. She worked for fifteen years in criminal and family law and writes about the urban underbelly, forgotten and overlooked places where the best stories are found. She has an MA in Creative Writing from Oxford Brookes University and is a founder member of Leather Lane Writers and Oxford Narrative Group. My Name Is Leon is her first book.

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    Reviews for My Name Is Leon

    4/5

    106 ratings9 reviews

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    • 5/5
      I loved this book. Kit de Waal manages to show you what it's like to be a young boy without being patronising or overly simplistic. The story is heart-wrenching, funny, thoughtful and populated with some wonderful characters.This is definitely a book that will stay with me for a while.
    • 4/5
      Leon is almost 9 years old when his brother Jake is born. Their single mother, Carol, has a history of depression and other mental illnesses. As Carol's condition deteriorates, Leon struggles to take care of both his mother and baby brother but eventually the children are taken away and put into foster care while Carol receives treatment. When it becomes apparent that Carol will never be able to take care of the children, Jake is put up for adoption, however, while Jake is a white and very adoptable, Leon is an older child and of mixed race and thus has minimal chances of finding a forever home.Fortunately for Leon he is placed in a foster home with Maureen who is an older woman but has vast experience with both her own children and other foster children. Leon is an intelligent, sensitive, caring, responsible and charming child. He wants nothing more than to retrieve Jake from his new parents and reunite his family. I wanted so much for Leon to be happy and I worried every time there was a mention of guns, knives, riots or anything else that would make his life more precarious than it already was. I really needed something to make me feel more hopeful about humanity at the moment.This was an engaging story and very well written by the author. I listened to the audiobook which was narrated by Lenny Henry who did an excellent job.I received a free copy of this book from the publisher, however I wound up borrowing and listening to the audiobook from the library.
    • 5/5
      Yeah, so I read the bulk of this book close to tears. It's heartbreaking, but oh-so worth it. I have two little boys who adore each other (in between the fights), and the thought of the brotherly bond being severed is just, well, heartbreaking (I'm having a hard time finding other words to do it justice this morning). This is exactly what happens when Leon, a 9-year-old Black boy, and Jake, a White infant, are taken into foster care after their mother is deemed unfit to care for them. Because of his age and race, Jake is quickly adopted, and Leon is left in the care of a 60-something foster mother and her sister. In his effort to find a way to his brother, Leon unknowingly finds himself in the middle of the race riots of 1981 London. The author has done an amazing job thinking as a 9-year-old would, a 9-year-old that feels unwanted and cast aside. The racism theme is subtle for the majority of the book but is quickly brought to the forefront by the end. Leon never seems to fully internalize this racism explicitly, but there are hints of implicit understanding that he is viewed as different because of his skin color. The characters are wonderful and quirky, each with a back story that is touched on just enough to make them interesting but not so much to take away from the central narrative. Highly recommended - just make sure you have a Kleenex box handy.Thank you to the publisher for providing me with an ARC through NetGalley.
    • 4/5
      I cried through this entire book—really devastating and nuanced depiction of grief and loss, dealing frankly and compellingly with race and class. Left me wanting a sequel about Leon as an adult.
    • 4/5
      It is 1981 and Leon has just acquired a baby brother, Jake. They are living with their mother, Carol, who is struggling as the father of Jake has shown no interest at all in his son. Just how much she is struggling is made very apparent when Leon turns up at a friend of hers asking for money for sweets. Tina goes back home with him to find Carol a nervous wreck and in need of help. As she gets the medical attention that she desperately needs Leon and Jake are placed into care.

      Their new 'mum' is Maureen, a red-haired older woman with a heart of gold, but as good as a job as she does with them both, Leon knows that it is not the same as having your mum there. Life is about to change again; Leon is half-cast and Jake is white so social services decide that Jake will be suitable for adoption. Jake is adopted fairly quickly and Leon loses his final family member and feels very alone.

      Just when he is at his lowest ebb and doesn't think it can get any worse, Maureen is taken seriously ill and admitted to hospital. Leon moves to her sister Sylvia's house and has another bedroom and routine to get used to. He is now a little older and gets given a bike that means that he can travel and explore the local area. It is on these jaunts out that he discovers the local allotments and the men that frequent this place, Me Devlin and Tufty and the wonders that exist in their sheds. As exciting as these places are, what he really wants is to find Jake and bring them both back to his mum so they can be a family once again.

      This heartwarming story deals in a beautiful way with a whole raft of issues from race to identity, belonging and the care systems in the 1980's. It is full of happy and sad moments, as Leon comes up against a care system that didn't want to keep families together at that time. Whilst de Waal has written this story of Leon with passion and care, it is not a sugar-coated tale either. The 1980's references of events and objects are tempered by the visible racial tension in the prose between the police and the local residents. Would highly recommend this to anyone wanting a story from the perspective of most people's lives back in those days.
    • 4/5
      Just read it. It will stay with you.
    • 4/5
      A special thank you to NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

      Set in England in the 80s, this deeply touching story is about two brothers who end up in foster care when their mother is deemed unfit to look after them; Leon is nine years-old and black, and Jake is four months old and is white. Jake is quickly adopted while Leon must learn to navigate his life without his baby brother in a new home, that of his carer Maureen. When Maureen takes ill, he is shuffled to another home, that of Maureen's sister, Sylvia. Leon struggles to make sense of his feelings of abandonment, and his separation from his baby brother. He is also endeavours to find acceptance, love, and to understand what went wrong with his mother. Usually I find unreliable child narrators trite, but de Waal nails it!

      I love British authors, I love their cadence, their phrasing, and feel a sense of kinship. de Waal is no exception, and I cant wait to read what she publishes next.



    • 5/5
      My Name is Leon by Kit De Waal is brilliantly written. When you read about Leon, it is like the book is living! If he was a real person instead of a fictional one, I would love to talk to him. Does it sound like I am exaggerating? I dare you to read this book and not come to the same conclusion.Leon is nine years old black child living in the UK. His father left his family long ago but he is not missing him much because he has many more bad memories of his dad’s temper than good ones. Leon’s mother Carol who is white had a second child by a white man who was married. She named him Jake. She is going through postpartum depression again and is no way capable of taking care of either child.Jake is smart, caring and fascinated by his baby brother. He prefers watching Jake to watching TV.As Carol goes deeper and deeper in depression, she lies in bed and Jake starts taking care of both his mother and the new baby. Running out of money, he has to look in her purse to get money for groceries for all of them and Jake’s necessities. He starts a little shoplifting in order to keep his family together. When the situation gets really bad, the baby gets put up for adoption, his mother goes for treatment and he is sent to live with a foster mother. His family is torn apart and he wants all of them back together. I know a little bit about how scary this would be for Jake. When I was younger than Leon, I was sent to live with my aunt when my mother was depressed. I had no idea of how long I would away from my family. It is very, very scary. But Jake’s situation is much worse. His brother Jake has been adopted. Would he ever see him again? Would he ever live with his mother again? This makes me think that children should never ever have to go through this. Why wouldn’t the family who adopted Jake take Leon too? There is a lot more to this morning but that is how it starts. I don’t ever think I will ever forget this book, I am recommending it to all of my closest friends. I received this finished copy of My Name is Leon as a win from FirstRead but that in no way influenced my thoughts and feelings in this review.
    • 5/5

      My name is Leon was an absolutely fantastic book, I'm so sad that I have finished it because I truly fell in love with little Leon.

      Leon is a 9 year old boy mixed race boy with an estranged black Caribbean father and a mentally unstable white British mother called Carol. The book is set in the early 1980's.

      "I look like my dad. Mum says he's coloured but Dad says he's black but they're both wrong because he's dark brown and I'm light brown".

      He also has a brand new baby brother called Jake, who is white and for the most part Leon is his full time carer. Leon loves his little brother and throughly enjoys taking care of him, he really tries his best and creates a heartwarming bond with his baby brother. Sadly, Leon's mother eventually has a full breakdown and is no longer able to function (not that she was functioning well beforehand, she was seemingly more interested in her uninterested boyfriend than her 2 lovely sons), the 2 boys are then taken in to care, going to live with a lovely foster mother called Maureen

      "Maureen's house smell of sweets and toast and when she stands near the kitchen window with the sun behind her, her fuzzy red hairstyle looks like a flaming halo. She's got arms like a boxer and a massive belly like Father Christmas".

      Maureen is an experienced foster mother and offers the 2 brothers a warm and loving home where the boys continue to grow their bond.

      "Leon likes to watch Jake breathing. Jake breathes through his tiny perfect nostrils and let's the air out either side of his dummy. Then just as the dummy is about to drop out, Jake, in his sleep, draws it back in, sucks on it three times and starts all over again".

      The story really starts to take shape when it transpires that baby Jake will be adopted permanently by a white family who don't want mixed race, 9 year old Leon. Jake is brutally taken away from his loving brother and Leon is of course completely devastated and heartbroken and will do absolutely anything in his power to see Jake again.

      Maureen is Leon's stabilising force through all this trauma, first losing his mother who is now totally incapable of caring for him and then his brother who is the light of his life. To make matters worse, Maureen becomes Ill and is hospitalised, so again Leon finds himself alone in the world and things start to slowly spiral out of control as he tries to get his young life back together.

      The story is told through Leon's eyes and there are so many endearing observations that only a 9 year would make which makes this book all the more heartwarming at times.

      "Right below the ball of his skull, right where his knuckly backbone pokes up towards his brain, Leon has a little dent. It's a groove that dips in between two hard bits and Maureen made it. It's where she pushes Leon with her thick fingers whenever he has to do something. She never pushes him hard but it's always, always the same place, same spot, right on his neck. Leon's dad used to use funny words and he would have called that place his 'neck-back' and then it would have been clear where it was".

      I was literally finding myself holding back tears or smiling to myself throughout the entire book. It's set in the very early 80's so there is also a lot of social commentary relating to the period which provided lots of food for thought such as the Brixton Riots, IRA bombings and the marriage of Charles & Diana. Leon also makes some interesting yet unlikely friends during this traumatic time.


      Overall this book is a must read for everyone, but I felt I could especially relate to many of Leon's struggles.

      I think this will easily be one of the best books I will read this year.