This Journal Belongs to Ratchet

Meet Ratchet, an 11-year-old girl who knows more about spark plugs than sleepovers. Homeschooled by her mechanic-environmentalist dad, and with her mother long dead, Ratchet only wants one thing: to belong. While her dad fights to save Moss Tree Park, his latest cause, Ratchet struggles to find a way to become the person she hopes she was always meant to be.

Her story unfolds through her homeschool language arts notebook. In her free-writing she shares her wish for an ordinary dad and regular school friends. In her poetry and diagrams she reassembles her memories of her mum. In her memos and scripts she writes about an unlikely friendship with a boy. And when she finds a mysterious box her dad has hidden in the house, her notebook is there to hear the truths she wishes she’d left hidden.