I’ve just finished A Secret of Birds & Bone as part of my first readalong with Tandem Collective UK and I absolutely loved it. As you might expect from Kiran Millwood Hargrave, it’s a beautifully-written, atmospheric read, with enough darkness and suspense to create all the right sorts of tingles (see photo above for synopsis).…
This was a quick and very funny read. Kale and Jaundice Bland, sock-darners of Dullsville, lead a quiet, uneventful existence until they find themselves kidnapped and loaded aboard a pirate ship with an all-female, kick-ass crew. As you might expect from a pirate adventure, there’s swashbuckling (the male pirates of The Testostero clearly don’t stand…
We have been big fans of Maverick’s Early Reader book-banded scheme for a few years now, and so we were thrilled when the lovely Kate at Maverick asked if we would like to have a look at their new range: Maverick Chapter Readers. These books follow on from the Early Readers and have been banded…
The snowy weather in the UK today makes this the perfect book to review – grab your hot chocolate and snuggle under the covers… In the snowy Alps, a young girl called Tessa is on the lookout for barbegazi – mythical avalanche-surfing, alpine creatures – as her late grandfather had told her they had rescued…
This lovely junior fiction story, written and illustrated by Jill Murphy (of Worst Witch fame), was recommended to me by a European bookseller earlier in the year. It’s a heartwarming tale of an anxious deerhound pup who goes missing, and his distraught, young owner’s attempts to find him. While lost, the dog is befriended by…
Our Advent story book has been dusted off ready for tonight! While I know there are a few Advent tales out in the wild now, How Winston Delivered Christmas is still our favourite. With 24 and a half beautifully-illustrated chapters, each interspersed with a festive craft, it’s become one of our family traditions to share…
It was Anti-Bullying Week in the UK recently and my children got involved with a few associated school events. It brought to mind this moving (but ultimately hopeful) middle grade story that I read earlier in the year but for some reason didn’t review at the time. The Fox Girl and the White Gazelle tells…
In The Sky is a fascinating book that I spotted on Instagram recently. It’s all about how nature has inspired human designs and inventions over the years, from transportation to architecture, communication to energy creation. It’s one of those books that sucks you in: you intend to quickly dip in to it and then, suddenly,…
If you liked Bad Nanna then you’ll love Pizazz: the first in a fab new series (for readers aged around 7+), written and illustrated by Sophy Henn. It has bold illustrations and creative, mixed typefaces, coupled with comic-strip layouts interspersed throughout, which make it a real feast for the eyes – brilliant for those readers…
I really like these Barrington Stoke middle grade (UK Key Stage 2+) novellas: written by an array of superb children’s authors, they have a dyslexia-friendly paper stock and typeface, a length of circa 100 pages and are edited to a reading age of 8 with an interest age of up to 12, so they can…