Advice from a 12-Year-Old Nobody

Author: Rutter, Helen

Interest age: from c 9 years

Published on 12 February 2026 by HarperCollins Publishers (Barrington Stoke Ltd) in the United Kingdom.

Paperback | 88 pages, 16 b/w, illus
196 x 130 x 12 | 152g

Vinny needs support from his agony-aunt mum, but she’s too busy helping other people to notice in this empathetic tale about family and mental health by bestseller Helen Rutter.

Vinny’s got problems – lots of them. His family's falling apart, and his best mates have dumped him for some really annoying girls.

He should be able to turn to his mum for help – she’s an online life coach who answers other people’s problems for a living. But she’s too busy to see that Vinny is really struggling.

Unable to solve his own issues, Vinny starts replying to unanswered posts on an old blog of his mum’s. At first the solutions seem easy, and he can be as hilariously honest as any 12-year-old boy would be, but what will happen when Vinny realises he’s out of his depth?

Particularly suitable for readers aged 9+ with a reading age of 8.