I’ve long been a fan of Christopher Edge: he has a real knack for making complex scientific concepts interesting and accessible to a younger audience, weaving them into fascinating middle-grade storylines. In the past, asking which one of his previous 3 books I loved the most was like asking me to choose my favourite child.…
I seem to have focussed on adventure stories recently, and so it’s time for a bit more variety. I read Charlie Changes into a Chicken, the first in a new series by Sam Copeland, a couple of months ago and always meant to blog about it, but for some reason I just didn’t find the…
I’ve been a bit slow on the blog lately, predominantly due to it being one of the busiest times of the year on the allotment (my other passion aside from reading). However, today’s rain is a double bonus: I don’t need to water all the veggies I’ve recently planted and, as it’s too wet to…
My 7-year-old daughter is studying aboriginal art at school and wanted to replicate her work at home – I found this book on-line to inspire her. I had not come across Bronwyn Bancroft’s art before, but my goodness, what a talented lady she is. She has captured the Australian landscape in such a bold, imaginative…
As promised, here’s the second half of our Maverick Early Readers review. If you want to find out more about Maverick’s fantastic Early Reader book-banded scheme, please check out our blog from earlier this week. If, however, you want to jump straight in and check out more new Early Readers, then scroll this way! Max…
Regular visitors to the blog will know that I am a huge fan of Maverick’s Early Reader books. They are everything book-banded reading schemes should be (but are so often not…): full of entertaining, boldly-illustrated and inclusive stories, which not only help children to learn to read, but more importantly encourage reading for pleasure right…
Released at the beginning of the month, The Secret Starling is the debut Middle Grade (age 8-12) book by Judith Eagle. There’s been lots of excitement about it on Twitter, so I was keen to read it as soon as it was released. Clara lives with her mean uncle in a crumbling, old manor house,…
There are so many good books being released this month, that I’m meeting myself coming backwards trying to keep up! I wanted to quickly write a piece on this picture book, though, as I think it’s rather special… We are big fans of Clare Helen Welsh in the Merry Bookworm household, The Underwear Wolf being…
This is a very quick review as I’m a tad short on time at the moment; however, I wanted to make sure that I recorded my thoughts on this new book by Fleur Hitchcock, an established and accomplished writer whom some of you will know due to her dark thrillers for older children. Clifftoppers: The…
Back to the blog after a short break over the Easter holidays – we hope the Easter Bunny was kind to you all! This Is How We Do It is an informative and interesting picture book which allows us to live a day in each of 7 children’s lives from around the world. We can…