I Hate School — Tina Brescanu

Nilly is a rebellious eleven-year-old girl who hates school, her parents and her life. No one understands her. Everyone thinks she's ungrateful, whiny and annoying, but she's really inquisitive, compassionate and open-hearted. Nilly has no friends. Yes, she does, but Pax doesn't exist in reality, not the reality of most people anyway. Pax helps her cope in a mad world, but when she's drugged to fit school, punitive parenting and a life decided by experts according to acceptable life plans she finally sets her own life plan in motion. Nilly runs away from home and finds a new home on a farm run by two elderly people for school sick children and youth. Nilly learns to grow food and tell stories and finds a new kind of love. When her parents find her and drag her back to a life that's not hers, she has to fight to stay alive. Forced back in line will she set her longstanding plan B in motion to free herself from a life of someone else's choosing? Who can save her when she has no one, as even her imaginary friend has abandoned her since her stint of freedom? I hate school is a story about the unconventional life and following one's own heart even when it doesn't agree with the rules and regulations of ancient institutions and adults with power over children.