The Doughnut Club
Kristina Rahim
Nosy Crow

There are a fair few children’s stories about blended families these days but this is the first I’ve read about donor parents.

Ollie and Quinn have always known that they were born to their mums by sperm donation and are both comfortable with this fact.

As the book opens the family is travelling to their annual holiday destination, a hotel at the seaside and the children learn from Mum and Mama as they call their parents, about a website giving more information about their sperm donor and that they have additional siblings, something neither has thought about before. Ollie doesn’t seem especially interested whereas Quinn, who is twelve and has always felt a bit different from the rest of her action-loving family, is eager to find out more. Maybe she can find a sibling who likes to take things more slowly and enjoys arty pursuits, as she does.

Mama in particular is adamant that Quinn is too young to make contact but she quickly becomes obsessed: perhaps there will be another red head with green eyes. She’s aware that tracking them down in secret involves doing things that are wrong, taking and using Mum’s bank card to pay for website access for instance, but she’s completely driven and unable to stop herself sneaking opportunities to do more research on the website without her mums knowing. Also staying in the same holiday hotel complex is Quinn’s arch enemy, Monika who starts getting rather too close to Ollie. When Quinn hears that she too had a donor, she begins to worry that Monika might turn out to be one of her donor siblings.

Before long Quinn’s focus is not on the family she loves so much and consequently she’s late to meet Olly, who ends up getting hurt. It’s pretty clear she’s out of her depth and needs to put things right with her mums but is she brave enough to talk with them before it’s too late?
Inclusive, humorous and tender, this thought provoking book will be enjoyed by children from year 4 up and should, I think, be in every primary school collection.