Ten-year-old Julie does not have an easy life. She (like many other children) has recently lived through the divorce of her parents, and with her younger sister she is trying to get used to her father’s new partner and children. The situation is further complicated by the fact the disintegration of the original family unit is accompanied by a move from Prague, an environment of shopping malls, selective-entry schools and other amenities of urban life, to an ordinary village where her fellow pupils at the small school have little idea about anything. Against the background of Julie’s story the reader is acquainted with a veritable dictionary of terms from the adult world that often and inadvertently penetrate the world of children and may well be a source of worry as well as humour. The child reader encounters interpretations of words, including ‘divorce’, ‘sex’ and ‘cyberbullying’ as well as terms such as ‘disability’, ‘dental hygiene’ and ‘credit card’. Young Julie also introduces us into a world of words that are strictly forbidden to children. By playful, gentle means Julie urges the reader to reflect on the meaning and use of words. Julie and Words touches on themes (e.g., divorce of parents, family breakdown, the forming of wider emotional ties to include parents’ new partners and their children) that are frequent in children’s literature but rarely fully grasped. It helps readers to come to terms with one of childhood’s most painful experiences.
The book is illustrated by a leading Slovak artist.