My daughter and I have been on the road a fair bit recently, so audio books have been keeping us company in the car. Judging by the fact that Anna didn’t speak for an entire 2.5-hour journey (a full-blown miracle), I’d say she was totally captivated by this ghostly time-slip adventure. Evie, a typical teenager…
My first book of 2023 and it’s a corker. Like my last read (or ‘listen’, considering it was an audio book 😁), this is a magical, wintery tale, but whereas The Ice Children was based in the present, this is set during the Great Frost of 1683. After losing her twin brother 4 years earlier,…
This is one of my most favourite contemporary adventure stories and so I’m not quite sure why I haven’t shared this before! Ever since Tom’s accident, he has struggled to walk. but he has a secret escape: Skylark, his drone. Through this technology, he can fly above his Lake District home, exploring the world from…
What a fantastic middle grade read this is. It was one of those stories where I didn’t quite know what to expect. I started it one evening expecting to read a few chapters before bed and then before I knew it, it was late into the night and I was turning the last page! I…
I’m sticking with the panda theme today, albeit red pandas this time. This is the first in Jess Butterworth’s new junior fiction series and I’ve got to say I really like it. The story revolves around 8-year-old Tilly who wins a competition to take part in an expedition to Nepal to monitor red pandas. She…
We’ve been ratcheting up the miles over the past week, and while we often listen to audiobooks to help while away the time, I always struggle to find a story that both kids enjoy as they have such different tastes in literature. I absolutely struck gold with this, though, as both of them were absolutely…
It’s a truth universally acknowledged (well, it is in my house, anyway!) that Julia Golding is fast becoming one of my favourite authors. After diving into the mystical world of the Companions series, and travelling back in time with The Tigers in the Tower, I was delighted to be invited to join the blog tour…
But imagine if every single person on the planet just did one thing. This debut middle grade book (aged around 9+) has received rave reviews over the past few weeks, and after reading it last night I can absolutely see why. It tells the story of April, who spends 6 months on Bear Island in…
I’ve been doing some more vicarious travelling during lockdown, this time to the Sri Lankan jungle… In her small village ruled by a selfish King, Chaya is a modern-day Robin Hood, stealing from the rich to help the poor. One day she goes too far, though, stealing jewels from the Queen and unwittingly implicating her…
I immersed myself in this gem of a read last night – James Haddell’s debut book, The Lost Child’s Quest (swipe for synopsis). For those of you who follow James’ book reviews on Instagram and Twitter, you’ll know he is an eloquent writer and so it’s no surprise that this crosses over into his storytelling.…