‘Penguins Stopped Play’ by Harry Thompson

Reviewed by Pauline Chandler

I love penguins, they always bring a smile to my face, so, naturally, when I was browsing through the books for sale at my local library and spotted a book with penguins on the cover, I took a closer look. 

Adult non-fiction? A book about men playing cricket? Even with penguins, it wasn't an obvious choice for me.

According to the blurb, the book was a ‘hilarious odyssey in which an amateurish bunch of English eccentrics play cricket across the globe’.  I’m a great fan of tv’s ‘Have I Got News For You’, so once I realised that the author, Harry Thompson, was the show's creator, and that Ian Hislop, one of the show's regulars, was also one of the‘eccentrics’, I thought I'd give it a try.

‘Penguins Stopped Play’ documents the quest of a group of failed cricket players to take a team round the world and play cricket on seven continents. They call themselves the Captain Scott XI, their aim being to lose every game. Any batsman who starts to take winning seriously, is deliberately run out. The target is to be out as soon as possible and retire to the pub.

For a number of years, the team plays on a UK circuit, against village teams, losing handsomely, before the author comes up with a more ambitious plan: to complete a world tour. His efforts to bring this had me laughing out loud. I loved the jokes and japes, the Blandings-style fixes the team gets into, and I loved the factual stuff, sometimes quite detailed, about  the geography and history of the places visited.

This book is about blokes at play, blokes with enough leisure time and financial means to go off around the world playing cricket for several weeks, with not a woman in sight. I could easily have missed it and I'm so glad I didn't! I loved it and recommend it as a thoroughly enjoyable read.

Pauline Chandler

www.paulinechandler.com        

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The Hobbit - by J R R Tolkein

Reviewed by Jackie Marchant

I re-read this wonderful book recently, and not for the first time.  I think that was when I was about 10 – the first re-read I mean.  I don’t remember my first read, only that it’s a book I love reading and will probably do so many more times. 

It’s been described as the gateway to fantasy.  I couldn’t agree more – partly because it’s the gateway to another, bigger fantasy, which has become mother to them all, but it’s also the first book I read that made me think this is a fantasy.  It’s what the fantasy genre is all about – and I don’t mean strange worlds with strange creatures.  

This is a different world, but it’s realised so perfectly you accept it without issue; its peoples and beings are not of our own world, but belong so easily here that you don’t question them.  The characters and the adventures they have belong utterly in that world – yet they are perfectly easy to relate to.  We live in the story as we live in the world of Middle Earth.

I have to admit that the reason I chose to read it again, was because of the films.  When the first one came out I kept thinking – was that in the book?  Will this really last another two films? 

Three long films from one book – impossible.  Yet, reading the book, there is so much packed into Bilbo’s adventures, it’s easy to see how Peter Jackson was tempted to spin out the action.  And, for reasons of political correctness, I might be able to forgive him for inventing a kick-ass female elf – although I could have done without the attraction between her and the dwarf. 

The films are highly entertaining with special effects begging for 3D.  But, despite being prequels to Lord of the Rings, I couldn’t help feeling that these were sequels – the sorts that have numbers 4, 5 and 6 after them, ie more of the same, but not as good.  These films fell far short of the Lord of the Rings trilogy.  Why?  In short, because they put too much in that was not in the original.

But back to the book.  If you’ve not read it and are relying on the films, then I urge you to visit this wonderful book.  It needs no 3D embellishments to make it stand out – just a great story, brilliantly realised setting, breathtaking adventure and good writing. It’s stood the test of time, as is evident by the myriad editions I could have chosen to illustrate this review – I’ve only managed a few of them.

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The Crocodile Who didn't Like Water, by Gemma Merino, reviewed by Pippa Goodhart

This is one of those very rare perfect picture books that makes you laugh, moves you, and leaves you thinking about  it for a long time after closing the book.  It is simple and fun at the same time as exploring a problem that almost anybody, big or small, can relate to; the problem of being the odd one out.

The little 'crocodile' of the title doesn't like water as his siblings do.  The bliss and excitement on those siblings' faces as they play water volleyball, jumping off trees into the water, and even synchronised swimming is in wonderful contrast to the terror and loneliness and determination of our little crocodile protagonist.  He does his very best to join in, being brave, and saving his pocket money to buy a rubber ring, but it doesn't work.  He just gets cold and miserable ... and that cold leads to a magnificent sneeze of fire that proves that he isn't actually a crocodile after all; he's a dragon!  Now that he knows what he is, he's happy.  He takes his siblings ballooning and flying on his back, but there's more.  The opening and closing images of this book are wordless but tell so much.  The opening image is of a basket of white eggs and one blue one.  The last image is of a nest made from the rubber ring, and inside that nest are lots of blue eggs ... and one white one.  The odd one out problem moves on a generation!

Gemma Merino has been very clever with this book, playing with different layouts on each spread to pace the story and milk the drama and humour.  Amazingly, this is her first ever book, developed from work done on an Anglia Ruskin MA course in children's book illustration.  This book is, deservedly, winning prizes, and I can't wait to see more from this Spanish architect turned children's book creator.

NB  This book is a very good example of the way that stories about anthropomorphic characters can often more pleasingly and more deeply (therefore more effectively) address problems that children might have in being included than human characters can.  I discussed that question in this blog http://picturebookden.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/can-you-see-me-now-by-pippa-goodhart.html

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CRACKS by Caroline Green, reviewed by Cecilia Busby

I thoroughly enjoyed Cracks, although it's not the best of titles for a sentence like that - actually, it's hard to think of a sentence with the title in that wouldn't draw a snigger from several of the teenage protagonists of this book. That aside, it's a rip-roaring adventure that will appeal to many of the readers who devoured The Hunger Games, and reminded me of some of the futuristic thrillers I read as a child by Peter Dickinson, John Christopher, or Robert Westall. Essentially, it's the revolutionary underground against the evil system, but there is scope in that general area for all sorts of interesting things to happen, and Green adds her own inventive take, with some memorable characters and a good deal of exactly the right kind of nail-biting tension and multiplication of layers of plot which need to be uncovered.

In the first part of the book, we meet Cal, who appears to be an average teenage boy, stuck with a rather nasty stepfather and older stepbrother and a mother who's turning a blind eye to the bullying going on in the family. But from the first sentence we are aware that all is not as it seems: Cal sees a crack running across the ceiling of the school toilet which, when he runs and calls for help, has disappeared. More cracks appear and disappear, he hears strange voices, saying things like, "He's waking up. We need to increased the dose", and sudden stoppages or slippages in time. Despite these clues, it's actually quite a shock when Cal "wakes up" and we discover where he really is.

I don't want to give too much away, because one of the joys of this book is that, along with Cal himself, you have to piece together what's going on from little bits of information or disinformation, and often Cal is forced to reassess things he'd previously thought he had nailed. But essentially, from the point he wakes up, Cal is fighting to find and regain his lost identity, as well as to avoid the establishment scientists who took it away in the first place. Along the way he makes contact with some other lost souls, and meets a girl, Kyla.

The future as painted by Green is recognisably extrapolated from our present - more terrorism, more control, more marginalisation of the poor or non-white. It therefore asks teenage readers to think quite hard about the possible end results of the casual racism, anti-immigration and fears of terrorism we are constantly showered with by the current government and press. White teenager Cal, by way of contrast, associates his warmest memories with an Asian family who ran the local shop in his home-town, and the girl he falls for, Kyla, is black - his growing feelings for her are tenderly drawn, as is his friendship with her best mate, also black, Jax.

I read the book in a little under a day, and it was perfect for that fast-paced, can't put it down, plot-driven story that is sometimes just exactly what you want. Green has recently published a sequel to Cracks, which continues the story, but focuses on Kyla, called  Fragments - I will definitely be looking out for that one, too!


Cecilia Busby writes as C.J. Busby, and writes funny, adventure-filled fantasy for readers 7+

Website: www.cjbusby.co.uk
Twitter: @ceciliabusby



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TWO FUNNY BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS. Reviewed by Ann Turnbull.

Here are two new books for the 7-10 age-group - both by writers who have more books in the same series.

THE DRAGONSITTER TAKES OFF by Josh Lacey, illustrated by Garry Parsons.

"Dear Uncle Morton,
I know you don't want to be disturbed, but I have to tell you some very bad news.
Ziggy has disappeared.
Mum says he was asleep on the carpet when she went to bed, but this morning he was nowhere to be seen."

Uncle Morton is staying at an ashram for a week in the hope of finding inner peace. He has left his pet dragon, Ziggy, with Eddie and his mum. This unsettles both the dragon and Eddie's long-suffering mum, and sets in train a series of hilarious problems which an increasingly concerned Eddie relates to his uncle by email - along with requests for help.

This book was shortlisted for the Roald Dahl Funny Prize, and is indeed very funny. It's also very well written and tells a good story at just the right pace. Lively illustrations on almost every page add to the pleasure. I especially liked the one of Mum and Ziggy bonding over tea and biscuits.

Publisher: Andersen Press, 2013.


SIR LANCE A-LITTLE by Chris Inns and Dave Woods

Young Sir Lance A-Little is leading a quest, accompanied by the Cowardly Knights of Camelot - Sir Render, Sir Hugo First, Sir Cumference, etc. - plus a minstrel to make songs about their exploits:

"I'm Quaver the Minstrel
And we're on a brave quest.
I'm wearing clean pants
And I've tucked in my vest!"

With a short text, lots of pictures and captions, and a constant stream of verbal jokes, this book had me laughing straight away. There's a cookery-loving wizard who says things like "Abra-Kebabra" and "Hey, Pesto!", an "All Knight Diner", and the "Joust-a-Minute Jousting Tournament - sponsored by Shield and Armour Insurance." Our heroes' final task is to "slay a beast that rhymes with flagon." Now what could that be?

Glorious fun for a wide age-range.

Publisher: Orchard, 2014.


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BEAR'S BEST FRIEND, by Lucy Coats and Sarah Dyer. Reviewed by Saviour Pirotta

Bears have always been a mainstay of picture books. But they became even more so when the book industry went global and foreign co-editions became a make-or-break component of the book contract.  Bears look the same in and to every culture and and making them the star of your book often means you do away with the many niggly details that illustrations of children do.  Authors, however, nearly always use them as children-in-bear-clothing and write them into stories dealing with human issues.

The gorgeous bear in Lucy Coats and Sarah Dyer's story is blessed with many friends but not a 'best friend'.  He longs for that special someone he can share special moments with and the thought of not having one fills him with sadness.  

To while away the lonely hours Bear makes tree-pictures of all his woodland friends. He's got a real talent for trimming topiary and one day someone turns up to admire the pictures....might that someone be looking for a best friend too.....?

Lucy's witty text is a perfect foil for the childlike illustrations, full of muted colour. A winner of a book that could become many a child's best friend. 

Reviewed by Saviour Pirotta

www.spirotta.com
facebook: spirotta
follow me on twitter @spirotta



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WHERE THE POPPIES NOW GROW by Hilary Robinson and Martin Impey. Review by Penny Dolan.

This year we are, in a variety of ways, commemorating the outbreak of the 1914-18 Great War.  

It is a topic that has led to reports of spats between historians and Michael Gove, as well as Jeremy Paxman’s comments about young people being taught about the war only through the poetry of the period, which seem to have annoyed both English and history 

teachers.

Although Odeon Cinemas are offering the Morpurgo’s “Warhorse” ntlive production, and the novel has shot to fame and film, teachers involved with the Key Stage One “picture book” age may also want to be involved in the significant year. 

Where can they find a book to fit this sombre anniversary? Maybe with this title?

Schools – and possibly families - will surely welcome “Where the Poppies Now Grow”, a book inspired by the family histories of both writer and illustrator.

 This rhyming text has been written by Hilary Robinson. Hilary uses the familiar “This is the house that Jack built” pattern, which makes the text simple enough for use in school or similar assemblies:

“This is Ben and his best friend Ray 

Who are two of the children that like to play

Out in the field where the poppies now grow.”

As the rhyme grows,  the book tells how the two childhood friends, Ben and Ray are eventually forced to join up and share the terrible experiences of the trenches together. It is clear from the mood and detail of the pictures that this is a terrible event, even though the two pals do at last return home.

The text is sympathetically developed through Martin Impey’s powerful illustrations of both friendship and war, using a colour palette that is totally fitting for its sombre purpose.

 

“Where the Poppies Now Grow” is published by Strauss House Productions.

Penny Dolan

www.pennydolan,com

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THE SILK SISTERS: PINK CHAMELEON by Fiona Dunbar; reviewed by Gillian Philip

There's something especially exciting about diving into a book when you really don't have a clue what awaits. I knew that Fiona Dunbar's Silk Sisters trilogy had a fashion element and that it was futuristic, but that was pretty much it. I was expecting quite a 'girly' story, what with the pink cover and the fashion theme, but what I got was something else entirely. The running girls are more of a clue, because this is a fast-paced adventure that never entirely lets up.

Rorie is a wonderful heroine. She and her little sister Elsie (who is something of a loose cannon, but a very entertaining one) have a near-ideal life until one day, their inventor parents vanish on the way to a business meeting. Taken in by their foul uncle and aunt – who make the Dursleys of Privet Drive look like models of foster parenting – they have to survive the boarding school rigours of the horribly named Poker Bute Hall, escape their relatives' dastardly clutches (for Uncle Harris and Aunt Irmine have Ulterior Motives), and discover the truth about their mother and father. And since it's a trilogy, that's never all going to happen in the first book.

What I love about the futuristic aspect of this story is the assumption that the reader is in on the details. This isn't a story full of spaceships and aliens - it's a future world you can imagine happening tomorrow, with digitalised clothing, intelligent SatNavs, 'shels' (the new cellphones) and 'slants' - the new and better version of jeans that were developed for use in mines on Mars. It all seems so very close and next-week-real, and if anything it makes the story seem more contemporary than sci-fi. That leaves the reader free to enjoy the ride as Rorie and Elsie make their escape attempts, and to wonder and fret about the awful hidden secrets of Poker Bute Hall. Because it seems there is something very, very dark going on, something that's even worse than the strict regimen of housework, cataloguing classes and hammerball...

The good news is, the Silk sisters have allies, too, very appealing characters in their own right. And the good guys' chances look up when there's an accident involving a chameleon and a lightning bolt....

There are two more books in the trilogy, Blue Gene Baby and Tiger Lily Gold, and I really am waiting with bated breath to read them. Pink Chameleon has everything a 9-12 year old reader could want – adventure, danger, technology and super powers – and please, if you know a boy who likes any of those, just wrap the book in blue paper and persuade him to read it. This is not a book the girls should be allowed to keep for themselves.


PINK CHAMELEON (The Silk Sisters Trilogy) by Fiona Dunbar (Orchard Books 2007)

www.gillianphilip.com





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The Buccaneering Book of Pirates - Written by Saviour Pirotta, Illustrated by Mark Robertson, Reviewed by Damian Harvey

Most young boys (and lots of girls too of course) love pirates... I know I certainly did. When I was at Primary School I would have loved to have had this book on my shelf.

This is more than just a book though - it's a real treasure chest of delights. On opening the sturdy hardback cover we are presented with two choices. On the left, a pirate chest with a warning - Beware: Buccaneer Aboard, and the storybook itself - The Buccaneering Book of Pirates.



I couldn't resist opening the chest first to see what lay inside... I wasn't disappointed - Contained within the is a fold out, pop-up poster of a pirate that stands over 4 foot high. Perfect for hanging on your bedroom door or classroom wall.

The pirate poster is nicely labelled, pointing out familiar pirate iconography such as 'an eyepatch, a compass, a gold medallion, a wooden leg' etc etc each one accompanied by a brief explanation of their importance to a pirate.

I'm not allowed to hang the poster on our bedroom door so I reluctantly refold him, pop him back into his chest, and turn to the storybook.

My reluctance is soon dispelled by the stories within. Saviour Pirotta is a master at retelling old stories, breathing new life into them and making them easily accessible to young readers.

The book contains retellings of 6 pirate stories - some which will be more familiar than others - Treasure Island, The Corsair Captain, The Captain's Secret, Davy Jones' Locker, The Pirate Queen, and A Royal Pardon (a tale of the fearsome Blackbeard).

With only 2 double pages per story, Saviour has done an excellent job - retelling the tales and bringing them to life with action and adventure. Not only are the stories a delight to read to yourself but they also read aloud well too - making them perfect to share with a class.

The Buccaneering Book or Pirates is published by Frances Lincoln Children's Books ISBN 978-1-84780-483-9

Damian Harvey
www.damainharvey.co.uk



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Frost Hollow Hall by Emma Carroll, Reviewed by Tamsyn Murray

As anyone who has read my Afterlife series will know, I'm a sucker for a ghost story. I have a particular soft spot for Victorian ghost stories (M R James, Edgar Allen Poe and Wilkie Collins are favourites). So when I heard about Frost Hollow Hall by Emma Carroll, it ticked all my Fabulous Gothic Read boxes.

When Tilly Higgins and Will Potter sneak into the grounds of the forbidding Frost Hollow Hall to skate on the frozen lake, they have no idea what misery they are about to unleash. Frost Hollow Hall hasn't been a cheery place since the death of young Kit Barrington, ten years earlier, and after Tilly encounters a mysterious golden-haired boy at the lake, things at the hall get worse. China dishes leap from the kitchen tables, the servants are twitchy and some of them are too terrified to sleep. Desperate to find out more about the stranger she met, Tilly takes a job at the hall and soon finds herself embroiled in a nightmarish mystery. Why must the fire in the front bedroom always be kept lit? Whose are the footsteps that haunt the attic rooms in the night? And what is the secret hidden within the housekeeper's notebooks?

I adored this book from start to finish. Tilly was a very well-drawn character who I sympathised with immediately and I really felt for her as the outsider in her family. Will Potter, Tilly's partner in crime, was equally likeable. But it's when Tilly goes to Frost Hollow Hall that the story really get into its stride and the ghostly goings on had me gripped. I found it to be a very quick read but that's partly because I was loathe to put it down and really wanted to know what happened next. The setting of the hall and surrounding village is deliciously spooky and was the perfect backdrop the creepiness of the plot. This book has everything - an action-filled story, excellent gutsy protagonists and a brilliant supporting cast of bereaved parents, a sinister gamekeeper and a cold, distant housekeeper. As Rhian Ivory said on Twitter, the BBC needs to hurry up and adapt this one, because I can totally see it on TV at Christmas.

I did have some trouble deciding on an age range for this book - I initially thought it was for 9-12s but my opinion changed as I read and I decided Frost Hollow Hall would suit the lower end of YA best - 12-15, probably. It's a romping, squeak-inducing ride with what is easily one of my favourite covers of the year and I heartily recommend it to everyone.

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Deep Amber by C.J. Busby

Reviewed by Julia Jones

Deep Amber has pace, humour and inventiveness. It's the first volume of a trilogy aimed at 8 – 11 year olds and is also a thoroughly relaxing and pleasurable read for an adult. Things begin to go wrong in Roland Castle when first a pair of swimming goggles, then a camera and finally a scarlet DS arrive unexpectedly. The knights and ladies, servants, squires and student witches are baffled by these unfamiliar objects. Only the Druid in the cellar recognises that they are arrivals from another world and knows that urgent action must be taken. Apprentice witch Dora and kitchen-boy Jem are despatched into the Great Forest to seek advice from the sinister Lord Ravenglass. Meanwhile Simon and Cat living in their great-aunt Irene's house in a gently 21^st century world (with plumbing) begin to notice that things are going missing.

What I love about this book is that it never takes itself too seriously. Yes, there are quests to be undertaken and evil to be defeated but there is nothing portentous or sub-Pullman about the rifts between the worlds. The first Forest Agent that we meet is not a giant spider or a High Elf but a bright blue flying caterpillar called Caractacus.  This is an adventure, the writer seems to say: here are runes and swords and incredibly stupid knights in armour – enjoy! When the bold Sir Bedwyr arrives in Sunset Court Home for the Elderly the first resident he meets is already under the impression that she's Queen Elizabeth I. The rest of the octogenarians take the view that it's "a lot more exciting to prepare for battle than for hot milk and biscuits before bed". They cut the phone wires and lock up the management team with enthusiasm. 

Deep Amber is not all farce: Lord Ravenglass is ambitious and unscrupulous and his agents, Mr Smith and Mr Jones, are dangerously creepy. The child characters are attractive (especially the dopey but talented Dora Puddlefoot) and the adults are variously eccentric, benevolent, protective and fallible. There's a crackle of magic in the atmosphere and a rapidly thickening plot which promises well for the subsequent volumes. I look forward to them.

Deep Amber is published by Templar Publishing at £6.99, currently in paperback only

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TWO BEAUTIFUL BOOKS BY JACKIE MORRIS. Reviewed by Adèle Geras

 I am going to review two books written and illustrated by an artist (and writer) who's very well-known but who somehow, in spite of her talents and productivity, seems to me to be not as much appreciated as she ought to be.

Jackie Morris is on Twitter, where she frequently posts lovely 'work in progress' which delights her many followers and I do urge any of my readers who tweets to follow her. She lives in Wales with many animals and it's perhaps as an artist who both loves and properly sees animals that she's at her best. The first book I'm going to talk about is called I AM CAT and it's not much bigger than an iPhone. While watching her ginger cat, Pixie, sleeping ("curled in warm places, ammonite-tight") Morris was inspired to think of what her pet might be dreaming about. The answer is: other cats. Every kind of feline appears in the unscrolling dreams: cheetah, puma, snow leopard and many others.

Morris paints each creature in delicate colours that sing to us from the page. Even though the scale of the book is small, she manages to convey the grandeur and beauty of every single cat she describes. And she accompanies each spread with her own words which are both simple and poetic. Here is an example, describing the tiger: "s...bright, flame cat of the forest, striped like the shadows, sun-scorched." I can't think of a better way to spend a fiver.  Frances Lincoln have published it most beautifully. This is a gem of a book.

The second book is SONG OF THE GOLDEN HARE, also published by the admirable Frances Lincoln. It's a much grander production, and it tells a mysterious, entrancing story of a boy and his sister. They come from a family who protect the Golden Hare, because there  are others who would hunt and kill it. The story unfolds with all the mystery and suspense you could wish for. The children find the Golden Hare and in the end, the creature is safe for who knows how long on a special magical island, to which it has been carried by an army of obliging seals. It's a lovely tale and again, told in Morris's poetic style, but the art is the real glory of this book. The Golden Hare itself is a wonderful creation, but greyhounds and people and birds and butterflies, not to mention the detailed landscapes, fill every corner of every spread. The colours are glorious and you can spend hours just admiring them and marvelling at the skill of the artist and wishing you could frame certain images and put them up on a wall.  As it is, you'll have to be content with turning the pages, preferably with someone young on your lap, listening as you read aloud the story of the mysterious Golden Hare and the lucky children who are called to care for it.

I AM CAT
Written and illustrated by Jackie Morris
pub Frances Lincoln hbk £4.99
ISBN: 9781847805072

SONG OF THE GOLDEN HARE
Written and illustrated by Jackie Morris
pub. Frances Lincoln hbk £12.99
ISBN: 9781847804501



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WILD THING by EMMA BARNES. Review by Penny Dolan.

 

What’s it like to live with a four year old who thinks she’s a rock star?  Who’s the naughtiest little sister ever? Big sister Kate knows. A PROBLEM!

Emma Barnes has begun what will surely be a memorable new series. Wild Thing – aka Josephine -  is the worst kind of embarrassing, attention-grabbing, self-absorbed loud-mouthed little sister that anyone could have. Kate can just about put up with Wild Thing at home. Kate’s got used to Wild Thing’s messiness, her monkeying-about, the trips to the hospital because she’s pushed something up right up her Wild Thing nose, her favourite Bite-the-Bottom Game and more.

However, when Kate realises that Wild Thing is starting in the reception class at Kate’s school, she knows her life will be a total nightmare. 

Kate is soon dragged into the spotlight by her dreadful little sister’s escapades, when all she wants is a quiet school life - not the kind where Wild Thing causes mayhem at playtimes, refuses to sit down in class, plays air-guitar and sings out rude words whenever she feels like it! Poor Kate secretly longs to create her own identity. Who is she is when she’s not just Wild Thing’s big sister?

Told in Kate’s first person voice, gradually two strands of story emerge and this is what makes the book unique. One strand, of course, is created by Wild Thing’s constant escapades that ruin almost everything for Kate.

The other interesting strand in WILD THING is the family situation, which partly explains why things are as they are, and why Wild Thing is a little indulged.

We soon find out that the girls are looked after by their dad, a charming, guitar-playing late hippy who has given up touring to care for his two daughters. Then we notice that Gran is often around to restore the chaotic house to some kind of calm order and remind Dad about events in the school diary and so on, and then we find out that their mother is dead. So the story, although softly told, is also about a bereaved family struggling to keep “normal life” going.

For me, this second thread is what makes WILD THING – and probably the titles yet to come – much more than a book that gets 8 year-old children laughing because they enjoy reading about rude words and naughtiness. And that's important.

Wild Thing is published by Scholastic.

Review by Penny Dolan

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Goth Girl and the Ghost of a Mouse

Reviewed by Jackie Marchant

This is a beautifully packaged book, with glossy purple edging and shiny silver bits all over the inside covers.  It even has a free little book (written by a mouse) tucked into the end.  All this you’d expect from an illustrator as acclaimed as Chris Riddell, but what I discovered with this book is that he’s a pretty good children’s writer as well.

Told with warmth and humour, this is the tale of Ada Goth, who lives in Ghastly-Gorm Hall with her grief-stricken father, who believes that children should be heard but not seen.  As she hardly sees him, Ada has plenty of time to explore her rambling old home and pick up some interesting friends (and enemies) on the way.  

This book is full of fantastic characters.  As well as Lord Goth, who loves to gad about on his hobby horse, shooting gnomes with his blunderbuss (rendering him mad, bad and dangerous to gnomes) there’s Mrs Beat’Em the fearsome cook, plus a host of other servants, not to mention the ghosts, including the ghost mouse of the title.  Then there Goth Hall itself, which is full of places to explore such as the Broken Wing, the Dear Deer Park and the Lake of Extremely Coy Carp, all delightfully illustrated with wit and humour. 

This whole book is a delight – a worthy winner of the Costa children’s book award.

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'Mr Tiger Goes Wild', by Peter Brown, reviewed by Pippa Goodhart

MR TIGER GOES WILD is a wonderful book in every way.  It is handsome, funny, bold, insightful and surprising. 

The endpapers - brown brick wall at the beginning, lush green wilderness at the end – reflect Mr Tiger’s progression from, literally, buttoned-up gentleman tiger to one who knows what it is to be wild.  But this simply told story is not simplistic.  The happy ending isn’t for Mr Tiger to be totally wild, but instead, having sampled wildness, to reach a happy, flower-shirted, compromise that lets him enjoy the best of both worlds, because ‘Now Mr Tiger felt free to be himself.’

The illustrations are wonderful.  Bold and blocky, but full of character and beauty and wit, the pictures are sepia in colouring except for the bits of Mr Tiger that aren’t covered in frock coat and top hat, and those bits are orange.  The orange becomes more prevalent the wilder the story becomes.  Mr Tiger shocks his repressed animal neighbours by going down on all fours, then ROARING and leaping over rooftops, swimming through a fountain and casting off all clothing before running away to be wild.  But the wilderness can be lonely, so Mr Tiger returns to town, and we can see in the pictures that everyone has learned to loosen-up a little. 

This book is destined to become a classic, I think.  I love it!

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A KISS LIKE THIS by Mary Murphy, published by Walker Books, 2012: reviewed by C.J. Busby

It's Valentine's Day, so I thought I would review something that fitted the theme. A Kiss Like This is not something I'd normally pick up - it's a picture book, and my children are all past that stage - but I really loved it.

The premise is one of those beautifully simple ones that make such great picture books: what are the kisses of other animals like? 'A giraffe kiss', the first page informs us, 'is gentle and tall' - and then, you lift a flap and the giraffe adult is kissing the giraffe baby - 'like this!' Parents will immediately spot the only way to read this book: with an inventive and giggly different kiss for every page.

A bee kiss, for example, is 'fuzzy and buzzy':

I can just feel how much fun it would be to give someone a fuzzy, buzzy bee kiss. The illustrations, as you can see, are lovely - simple and colourful, just as they need to be. The story takes us through the kisses of a number of different animals, until on the last page, the reader gets 'your kiss - like this!'

My youngest daughter's first word was 'kiss'. She'd have loved this book. I don't think there's any toddler who wouldn't.


C.J. Busby writes funny magical adventures for 7-11.

www.cjbusby.co.uk

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HIS PROMISE TRUE by Greta Marlow. Reviewed by Ann Turnbull.

You might think from the title and cover that this is a romance.  And certainly it is a love story - but a realistic historical one, set in Tennessee and Arkansas in the 1820s, at a time when large numbers of people were moving west in search of land.

The first-person narrator is fifteen-year-old Maggie Boon, a mountain girl from a poor family in Tennessee.  When the story opens, Maggie, wearing her Ma's best dress and a false bosom made of rags, has been brought against her will to a barn-raising where her Pa is set on selling her into marriage to one of the neighbouring farmers.  There is dancing, the whisky is flowing, and he's determined to strike a bargain before the evening is over.

But Maggie runs off, jettisons the bosom, and meets - and kisses - John David McKellar, the youngest son of a much wealthier family in the valley.  He's celebrating his twenty-first birthday with a little dancing and too much whisky.  John David declares that he will marry Maggie - and Maggie's father, sensing better pickings, has the pair of them tying the knot that very same evening.

It's not the most favourable start to a marriage, especially as the McKellar parents are hostile.  After some bitter rows, John David decides to make the long and difficult journey to Texas to start a new life with Maggie.  And that's when their real troubles begin.

The two main characters are well developed and believable, and their relationship drives the story.  Maggie is a capable but uneducated girl whose home life has made her fearful of "smacks" whenever she makes a mistake.  John David is over-confident, drinks too much, gambles, takes risks - and yet is lovable because he is so good-hearted and loyal.  Both of them grow and change and are tested by the trials they encounter.

I was uncertain whether this book was intended for adults or YA.  To me it seems like one of those "age 13 to 95" books that get passed around the family - though it doesn't pull its punches and adults might like to check it out first.  The style is colloquial and immediately draws you in, and the story is hard to put down.

The author lives in Arkansas, and her book is published by EMZ-Piney Publishing in both paperback and ebook.

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THE FAIRYTALE HAIRDRESSER AND SLEEPING BEAUTY, by Abie Longstaff and Lauren Beard

Modern takes on classic folk and fairytales are very in at the moment, with big budget reboots of Snow White, Hansel and Gretel and Jack And The Beanstalk all hitting the silver screen in the last couple of years.  Now Abie Longstaff and Lauren Beard bring the concept to the 3-6 year reading group with their hilarious series about Kittie Lacey, hairdresser to the celebs of Fairytale Land.

In THE FAIRYTALE HAIRDRESSER AND SLEEPING BEAUTY, Kittie feels ashamed that her once-trendy looking garden is now all overgrown and unkept.  But someone she knows has an even bigger problem, something not even a good shampoo and set can solve.  Princess Rose from the nearby castle has fallen asleep and not even her godparents, the fairies, seem able to wake her up.  Can Prince Florian, hired to tidy up Kittie's garden strim his way through the thick hedge around the castle and wake up the princess?

Longstaff's text romps cheekily through this fast paced fairytale, making it an enjoyable and effortless read.  There are lots of in-jokes for those that know the original story well and the children I read the book to appreciated every single one of them.  Lauren Beard's illustrations are bright and blocky. They had the readers in my group reaching for their colouring pencils trying to emulate them.  A very enjoyable romp!

Saviour Pirotta
Website: www.spirotta.com
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The Quietness, by Alison Rattle: published by Hot Key Books, reviewed by Sue Purkiss

The Quietness centres round two girls, Queenie and Ellen. They year is 1870, and they are both living in London, but other than that they have very little in common, and at the beginning of the book it's not obvious how their lives, one lived in poverty and the other in upper middle-class comfort, can ever intermesh. One longs for quiet: the other has too much of it.

Neither of them is happy. Queenie is sick and tired of the hardships of her life. Her father disappears for a while, leaving her mother to earn some money to keep her children in the only way left to her. When a man comes to their room seeking the mother, and instead seeks to make do with Queenie, it's the final straw, and she decides to leave. She comes across a job with a pair of sisters. They take in babies, it seems, and part of Queenie's job is to help look after the little ones. It's a strangely easy job; the babies never cry and are asleep most of the time - helped by the doctored feed they are given, and by a medicine called The Quietness. From time to time one of the babies disappears - to be taken to a new home in the countryside, so the sisters say. Queenie is happy; she's able to save some money, even to buy herself an unheard of pair of new boots. So when she hears that dead babies have been found, wrapped in brown paper, she works hard to convince herself that they can be nothing to do with the sisters, nothing to do with her...

Meanwhile, not so very far away, Ellen is materially well-cared for, with beautiful dresses and jewels and a comfortable home. Her father is a doctor, but he is strangely cold - her mother even more so. So when a handsome cousin, Jacob, comes to stay, Ellen is only too ready to fall for his sweet words and flattery. But it turns out that he is not what he seems. Ellen falls victim to all of them. In her deepest despair, the only person who is kind to her is Queenie.

We all know from Dickens and others how terrible urban poverty was in Victorian times, and this book paints an unflinching picture of its horrors. The stories of Ellen and Queenie also reveal the hypocrisy of the wealthier classes, and the complete dependence of women from the wealthier classes on their menfolk. Their stories are terrible, and the ending is not an easy one, but the book is passionate and richly-coloured, with two central characters who will not easily be forgotten.

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Two Picture Books - New for 2014

“Suvi and the Sky Folk” by Sandra Horn, illustrated by Muza Ulasowski

“How to Catch a Dragon” by Caryl Hart, illustrated by Ed Eaves

Reviewed by Pauline Chandler

New for 2014 are these two contrasting picture books, one thoroughly grounded in a family life, when Albie visits the library with his Mum, and the other blending a Scandinavian folk tale with the favourite ‘I’m scared! Where’s Mummy?’ narrative, as used in such popular stories as ‘Owl Babies’ and ‘Come On, Daisy’.

Sandra Horn’s story, “Suvi and the Sky Folk” is a delight. Suvi, the baby reindeer, struggles to survive with the rest of the herd, on scarce food supplies, during the ‘long dark’ of winter. Her mother warns her to stay close, but, entranced by the Northern Lights and startled by a long loud howl, Suvi bounds away from the herd and is soon lost. When the wolf threatens her, then suddenly disappears, Suvi recalls Grand-deer’s tale of the Sky Folk who dance in the Northern Lights and snatch away earthbound creatures. She is certain that the Sky Folk have taken the wolf.  Restored to the herd, Suvi recounts her adventure. The truth is a little different from Grand-deer’s story. Nothing to worry young readers though: Old Wolf survives his fall.

There is so much to enjoy in this lovely tale. The text is simple but lyrical. Winter is the ‘long dark’. Predators are ‘yellow eyes and sharp teeth” who come ‘slinking’. On the ground shines the light from a ‘scattering of stars’. There’s humour too, in Suvi’s conversations with the other creatures on the tundra, and there’s also factual information about the lives of the animals of the north. This is a beautifully written adventure story with a satisfying ending, which young children will love.

The illustrations complement the text perfectly, with the focus on Suvi’s face and expressions, inviting the reader to engage with her feelings throughout. Highly recommended for children aged 5-7. Available now from Sandra Horn’s website: www.tattybogle.co.uk and from Tate Publishing, from  Feb 9^th. 2014.

‘How To Catch a Dragon’ is another of Caryl Hart’s riotous romps through childhood. Like Shirley Hughes, she focuses on everyday experiences that children share, told through a child’s eyes. Albie has to draw a dragon for his homework, but he’s not sure where to start. He’s never seen a dragon. When Mum calls him to go with her to the library, Albie takes his drawing along. Maybe he’ll find some ideas in the library. He makes a new friend, whose imagination takes them into an amazing adventure with a grizzly bear, a hairy troll, knights and, finally, dragons! Albie soon finishes his homework.

  ‘How to Catch a Dragon’ is a laugh-out-loud book that children will love. It has a serious message though, about libraries and about friendship, with Albie and his friend looking out for each other on this shared adventure. It’s a perfect read-aloud book, with plenty of opportunities for funny voices and sound effects. Ed Eaves’s eye-catching illustrations are bright, colourful and full of action and humour. Highly recommended for children aged 5-7

Pauline Chandler

www.paulinechandler.com

         

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