Young adult novel The 10pm Question by Kate de Goldi is about 12 year old Frankie Parsons. He’s a worrier. 

Frankie lay in his bed. He lay facing the wall, his eyes open, but seeing only blackness. His entire body ached. He wanted to cry but it wouldn’t happen. His insides were dried out, somehow. He was prickly and withered and exhausted

Frankie worries about all the illnesses he could catch, about his mother who never leaves the house, the fat content of his food, whether his cat has worms and smoke alarm batteries. He recites the names of birds to try and keep his unruly mind, the rodent voice, under control. Then, at 10pm every night he goes to his mother’s room for comfort, to tell her about his worries and hear her tell him everything will be ok.

He was a funny guy, and a smart one- and the smartest thing about him, in Frankie’s view, was that he never, ever, ever worried.

Frankie marvels that his best friend Gigs never seems to worry. The two of them love to sneak up on, and frighten the yappy dog they pass on the way to school every day. The dog falls for it every time. Frankie’s carefully controlled world is disrupted when a new girl with dreadlocks starts at his school. Sydney is opinionated, loud, spontaneous and vibrant and makes her own clothes. She also asks a lot of awkward questions that make Frankie look at his life through different eyes.

‘She has to be a caged bird, doesn’t she?’ He kept looking ahead. ‘Something that’s had its wings clipped. Something really pretty, but a bit sad.’

The 10pm Question is overflowing with eccentric three dimentional characters beautifully bought to life. A whimsical, heartbreaking, hilarious, thoughtful eccentric story about anxiety and mental illness more generally, told with great compassion. Enjoyable for young people and grown-ups alike.