Alvin Ho: Allergic to Girls, School, and Other Scary Things

Second-grader Alvin Ho is a highly imaginative – but anxious – boy. Alvin must learn to face and try to overcome his greatest fears including school, substitute teachers, peer relationships, and communicating with others while being too afraid to actually speak aloud. This humourous novel for grades 3-5 portrays a number of interesting, unique, and likeable characters students can identify with and relate to. Useful to discuss fears, have conversations about why Alvin is afraid, why he can't talk at school, and how individuals work to overcome fear. The illustrations give the novel a picture book quality, which may help engage reluctant readers.