Things got a whole lot better when Ella got thin. People noticed her. She made new friends. Life was good. She wanted it to stay that way. She exercised. She took control of her diet.

Or did her diet take control of her?

How thin is too thin? Cheryl Lanyon's debut Teen Read for Badger Learning fearlessly tackles an incredibly sensitive and serious issue: eating disorders, and more specifically, anorexia.

Vanishing Point follows Ella as she tries to navigate teenage life plagued by a dangerous mental illness manifesting as the 'Voice'. The story intersperses diary entries with a third person narrative, illustrating the warped perspective that eating disorders can create.

As with all our Teen Reads, Vanishing Point is appropriate for less able teenage readers who are reading at a level of about 8-9 years. The spaced-out paragraphs and simple sentence structure help to draw reluctant readers into the story while the inviting and modern covers entice them to initially pick them up. Vanishing Point is one of our longer Teen Reads at 9,000 words, but still bite-sized compared to a standard YA novel.

*We at Badger Learning are very proud of our collection of Teen Reads. Sometimes our storylines tackle difficult subject matter because we want our books to honestly reflect a variety of different teenage experiences – we also believe in the power of fiction as both a comfort and an outlet for those who need it. Any stories with potentially distressing or triggering content are read over by a specialist, but you know your students better than we do, and are therefore best placed to know what is and what isn't appropriate for them.