Picture Book Review: Hello Winter by Jo Lindley

front cover of children's picture book Hello Winter by Jo Lindley — Cover image by Jo Lindley, published by Farshore Books,
9 November 2023, ISBN 9780755503445

Hello Winter is the fourth book in the Best Friends with Big Feelings series, written and illustrated by the immensely talented Jo Lindley.

In the imaginary land of Season Isle (beautiful map at the start of the book), four friends, Spring Summer, Autumn and Winter take turns to wear the seasonal crown. The chosen one is the leader of fun and games for the duration of their season.

Imagine Winter’s surprise and hurt when Autumn passes the crown directly to Spring and subsequently her three ‘friends’ tell Winter that they don’t enjoy her frosty games! Winter takes herself off to her favourite spot in the Slippy Slopes, but somehow building a snowman and throwing snowballs is not as much fun on her own as it used to be with her companions. Meanwhile, Spring, Summer and Autumn have realised that they were unkind and start searching the snowy landscape for their friend.

With a colourful, cosy compromise, the four friends find that they can all enjoy winter activities and young readers or listeners will discover that joy can be shared when empathy abounds. This is a lovely picture book in which the expressive artwork and clear text convey the inner feelings of the characters perfectly to children of 4 to 6 years of age. It would make a lovely winter time gift and I feel sure would work very well as a read aloud book in a nursery, early years or key stage one classroom.

My thanks to Sarah Sleath at Farshore Books for sending me a review copy ahead of publication on 9 November 2023.

You can read my review of an earlier book in the series Hello Summer here.

MG Fiction Review: Knight Sir Louis and the Sinister Snowball by The Brothers McLeod

Cover art by Greg McLeod, published by Guppy Books,
26 October 2023, ISBN 9781913101961

I love this zany series written and illustrated by brothers Myles (author) and Greg (illustrator) McLeod and can only imagine the fun they must have whilst creating these stories.

Once again, our valiant hero, Knight Sir Louis, the only sensible inhabitant of Castle Sideways must battle a fiendishly nonsensical enemy in a plot bursting with with multiple layers of hilarity. In this fourth adventure quest, our brave dragon-slayer is facing his coldest-hearted opponent yet, Splint the Sinister Snowball! Splint hails from the kingdom of Brrrrrland, which lies somewhat north of Squirrel Helm, and from where mysterious blizzard conditions are heading towards Castle Sideways.

Before he can tackle the climate-changing villain, Louis finds himself sent to Knight School, where he encounters a rival in Crayko Le Faux, who plays a crucial role later in the plot. I think that many young readers will enjoy looking for comparisons between the Future Knight School and another famous boarding school in children’s literature. Louis learns some new skills which he can employ in the final hilarious battle with the ski-lodge-dwelling Splint and his five snowball siblings.

There are so many aspects to enjoy in this laugh-out-loud novel. The range of characters will certainly feed the imaginations of young readers, from an evil carrot prime minister to a two-headed dragon called Mac-and-Cheese. The mix of well-spaced text, short chapters and comic book style illustrations make the book accessible to children of 7+, whilst its length of approximately 300 pages, makes it substantial enough to appeal to readers at the top end of primary school too. I particularly enjoyed the ‘Greek chorus’ of cartoon characters who pop up at regular intervals to comment on the plot or the characters.

If you are looking for a book to entice a child who maybe has not yet discovered the utter joy to be found within the covers of a paperback book, then I highly recommend putting a copy of Knight Sir Louis and the Sinister Snowball into their hands. It will provide excellent entertainment for a wintery day.

I am very grateful to Guppy Books and Liz Scott for my review copy of this book in return for my honest opinion. To read my review of the previous book in the series click here: Knight Sir Louis and the Sorcerer of Slime.

Review: Princess Katie’s Kittens – Suki in the Snow by Julie Sykes, illustrated by Sam Loman

Cover art by Sam Loman, published by Piccadilly Press,
12 October 2023, ISBN 9781800785373

The third book in the Princess Katie’s Kittens series is another sweet and gentle adventure which will appeal to young pet owners and animal lovers. This book is beautifully formatted for emerging readers of 5 years old and above. Julie Sykes’ thoughtful storytelling is perfectly complemented by Sam Loman’s cute, grey-scale artwork which helps young readers by providing frequent pausing places and visual clues. Printed in a larger than normal font, with short chapters and approximately 100 pages, this is an ideal format to provide young readers with the motivation and sense of achievement gained from reading a whole book independently.

Princess Katie, her best friend Becky and her younger brother Prince Alfie are setting off on a skiing holiday in the Tula Alps. Katie is shocked when she discovers a stowaway in her backpack – her pure white kitten Suki! The king is not amused. He is not the greatest fan of the kittens at the best of times and does not want the family holiday derailed by a naughty feline. Will Katie, Becky and Alfie be able to prevent the adventurous and mischievous kitten from causing chaos with her Alpine antics? Children in the earliest years of primary school will enjoy discovering the outcome of this snowy story.

With valuable lessons about the responsibilities that come with owning a pet and some handy hints about taking care of a cat in the colder months, this really is a lovely book to place in the hands of a young child.

I am very grateful to Piccadilly Press and Antonia Wilkinson for sending me a copy of Princess Katie’s Kittens: Suki in the Snow in return for my honest opinion.

You can read my reviews of the two earlier books in this series, Pixie at the Palace and Bella at the Ball here.

#MGReview: Finding Treasure Island by Robin Scott-Elliot

Cover image contains elements by Principesa/Anna Babich, Shutterstock/Lana Sham and Shutterstock/Tartilla
Published by Cranachan Publishing 02 November 2023
ISBN 9781911279563

This adventure story by Robin Scott-Elliot is an absolute pleasure to read. His writing flows with the sparkle and clarity of a Highland stream and totally transported me to the Cairngorm setting of Braemar in 1881. The small town in awash with excitement because Queen Victoria is in residence at Balmoral, visitors clad in tartan have flocked into the area to catch a glimpse of her. Amongst the tourists are Robert Louis Stevenson and his family, the author is suffering with writer’s block as well as poor health, spending much of his time in the holiday cottage staring at a blank page. This leaves time for his young teenage stepson, Sam, to explore the locality; falling foul of wee Dougal Dougall the butcher’s son but striking up a friendship with Jen Hawkins who helps her mother at the local inn.

Jen is a fantastic character; hardworking, brave and bewitching. She has complete affinity with the land of her forebears, dashes up the hillsides as if her feet were hardly touching the ground and navigates the landscape via animal tracks and ancient pathways. Through her character, the reader is given a glimpse of the injustices caused when rich landowners prevent the local population from living off the land in the way that previous generations had done, and the resentment and hardship caused. When Jen shares her secret quest to discover the legendary, lost Jacobite treasure with Sam, they embark on a summer of searching. Meanwhile, the story of the treasure hunt combined with some of the distinctive local residents, sets a spark aflame in the author and he sits down to write his masterpiece.

This is a classic adventure tale which combines a developing friendship between Sam and Jen; a thoroughly believable and complex narrative of family dynamics; moving and immersive descriptions of a stunning landscape and a sense of underlying peril from either the local gang of young bullies or the whip-happy gamekeepers employed by the Duke of Fife. There is also a delightful mystical element overlaying the narrative, with Jen having a slightly otherworldly air about her, allowing the reader to believe that she might well be in communication with ghosts and wood sprites. Finally, I enjoyed the structure of multiple levels of storytelling, which made this book so engaging and almost whistful.

Do Jen and Sam discover the treasure? And what form might it take? I strongly encourage you to read Finding Treasure Island to seek the answer. I highly recommend this book for readers of 10 years and upwards, I think it would be enjoyed by Year 7 and 8 and secondary as well as upper primary school pupils. The writing is laden with Scottish dialect, and for anyone who does not have the good fortune of Scottish ancestry, there is a full glossary at the end of the book, as well as some factual content about Robert Louis Stevenson. I must admit that having finished the book I now want to pay another visit to The Writers’ Museum in Edinburgh to assess just how much of this story is based on facts!

I am very grateful to Cranachan Books and Antonia Wilkinson who provided me with a review copy of Finding Treasure Island in return for my honest opinion. This book will be published on 2nd November 2023 and is available now for pre-order.

MG Review: Alebrijes Flight to a New Haven by Donna Barba Higuera

Cover art by David Álvarez, published by Piccadilly Press,
3rd October 2023

Alebrijes is a stunning and unique work of speculative fiction for the upper middle grade market combining Mexican folklore with eco-disaster, written by Newberry Medal winner Donna Barba Higuera. Set in the San Joaquin Valley of central California, hundreds of years in the future, it is a tale of survival, sacrifice and community.

This is a story of a corrupt ruling elite who are willing to go to extreme measures to ensure their own survival. When food begins to run short they are willing to sacrifice members of their own families and other members of their own tribe, the Pocatelans, in addition to the Cascabel tribe whom they subjugate, all the while hiding their actions in a web of deceit. The central character, Leandro is a thirteen year old Cascabel orphan whose prime motivation is to protect his younger sister Gabi and seek a better life for her. The beginning of the novel plunges the reader into their harsh life, living in a shanty town and spending their days in the potato fields, harvesting the meagre crop from the increasingly barren soil that bakes under the hot sun. All the while Leandro clings to whispers of his dead mother’s stories of the “old world” and the mythical La Cuna, a cradle of hope in a desolate world, as he plots to escape the confines of Pocatel and find a new future.

Just at the moment when Leandro is ready to enact his escape plan, Gabi takes a rash action, leaving Leandro with no choice but to take the blame and face a future of banishment to the wyrm-infested desert or take on a deadly mission in the form of an ancient drone. The imaginative world building is exceptional, the metaphor of the alebrijes as spirit guides, and the inclusion of Spanish vocabulary and dialogue, make this book truly memorable. I am not going to dwell on the plot because I do not want to spoil any surprises for you, but I will say that the characterisation and sense of place and landscape are beautifully rendered. Leandro is a magnificently heroic character, his small stature being reflected in the drone form that he adopts as he seeks to prove that he is “small, but capable of great things.” I found myself gripped by his narrative and fervently hoping that the prediction that “pure hearts and strong spirits are the ones who will inherit the earth” would be borne out.

This is a 400 page novel, with some darker moments, so I would recommend it to mature readers of 10+ and I think that many children in the early years of secondary school would enjoy the complex plot and interesting use of Spanish in the dialogue. Some readers might choose to use an online translator or their own fluency, although I found that the context made the Spanish fairly straightforward to understand (I might have been helped by years of vocabulary testing with my own kids) and I enjoyed the amalgamation of languages.

I am most grateful to Piccadilly Press for sending me a review copy of Alebrijes in return for an honest review.

Review: Call the Puffins! Tiny’s Brave Rescue by Cath Howe, illustrated by Ella Okstad

Cover art by Ella Okstad, published by Welbeck Children’s,
12 October 2023 ISBN: 9781801300599

Young readers will be swooping in to read this second Call the Puffins! adventure about a flock of trainee rescue seabirds with hearts as big as their beaks!

Cath Howe and Ella Okstad have conjured up another fabulously appealing book which is perfect for children of 6 to 8 years old who are gaining confidence in independent reading. Who could resist those adorable pufflings on the cover? Cath Howe’s gentle adventure is fully illustrated in black and white, is printed in a well-spaced clear font and the book itself is the ideal size and length for young readers.

Tiny and best friend Muffin are getting used to life amongst the rescue colony and enjoying learning from the experienced and brave senior puffins on the Island of Egg. The young puffin cadets who are training to join the intrepid Yellow Caps bird and egg rescue squadron are working on their skills to earn a Caring Badge when a rescue mission is called in. Their services are required to rescue a seabird egg which has been trapped under a bucket on a nearby beach. This rescue will require co-ordinated teamwork, but Tiny seems to be making a lot of mistakes and only some sandy good luck prevents disaster. When it becomes clear that there is something amiss with Tiny’s vision, the fitting of his new ‘Specks’ is told in a way that will be recognisable and reassuring to those young children who wear glasses. I loved that reflection of early childhood experience when I encountered it it the first book in the series, Call the Puffins!, and I hope and suspect that it might be a repeated component of future books in the series. Similarly, it is lovely to again learn some new facts about puffins in the non-fiction pages at the end of the book.

I highly recommend Call the Puffins: Tiny’s Brave Rescue for children of 6 to 8 years old and am very grateful to Welbeck Children’s Books and Antonia Wilkinson for sending me a review copy in return for my honest opinion.

@The_WriteReads Blog Tour: Feast of Ashes by Victoria Williamson

The Hunger Games meets The Eden Project in Victoria Williamson’s debut YA novel Feast of Ashes. This author already has an outstanding collection of MG novels to her name, and now has turned her craft to the YA market with a breathtaking work of speculative fiction, which is all the more hard-hitting for the elements of real world scientific experimentation that form its hinterland.

I totally engaged with this story, recounted by sixteen-year-old Adina, facing up to her guilt for the death of 14, 756 people which she starkly confesses in the opening paragraph. Big themes are related at human scale through the voice of this brilliantly written, flawed, main protagonist as we see her story unfold from the temptation of an apple leading to the fall of the only civilisation that she has known in her short life. Adina is smart but lazy and easily distracted by her own interests which leads to her slacking from her duties on the maintenance crew of Eden Five, the self-contained biodome which shelters a small population from the barren wastes of an African landscape one hundred years in the future.

The greed and corruption of global industry has laid waste to a continent, where now the few human survivors live in strictly regimented, enclosed, geographically isolated, artificial biospheres. Everyone has a role to play to maintain survival and very few know the truth of the factors which have led to their highly regulated, artificial habitat. Adina is far more interested in pursuing her own enjoyments: crushing on handsome planter Otienno; hanging out with best friend Dejen in his laboratory and finding contraband for her little sister Tash, than she is in carrying out the jobs on her maintenance roster…with potentially disastrous consequences! The growth of Adi’s character through her story arc, as she reflects on her behaviour towards others, is a strong element of this novel.

I enjoyed the clever construction of this story, the first half of the novel is a countdown to an explosive flexion point and the second half charts each of the days that a small group of survivors battle to survive the desolate plains and the genetically mutated Nomalies that roam the wasted landscape. Without wishing to give away too much of the plot, sharp-eyed readers of the novel will spot that the Amonston Corporation which claims credit for feeding the world is in fact an anagram of a well-known former agrochemical company, and the chief scientist Doctor Malathion will give further clues to the nature of the environmental disaster at play here. I think that teens, who in my experience, are very switched on to the ecological disasters being caused by corporate greed and short-sighted political decisions, will be gripped by this tense, race against the clock, eco-thriller.

Victoria Williamson has spent time teaching in Malawi and still supports a literacy charity there: CharChar Literacy, to which she will be donating 20% of her author royalties from this book. I am grateful to Neem Tree Press for sending me a review copy of Feast of Ashes and to @The_WriteReads for inviting me to join the blog tour. Do check out the other blog posts in the schedule below.

Phenomenal Non-Fiction: Wheels -The Big Fun Book of Vehicles; By the Sea – Life Along the Coast & Around the World in 80 Inventions

Wheels: The big fun book of vehicles, published by Prestel, cover art by Tom Schamp. By the Sea: Life along the coast, published by Prestel, cover art by Martin Haake. Around the World in 80 inventions, published by Templar Books, cover art by Robbie Cathro.

I have received three astonishingly beautiful non-fiction works in the last few weeks, so I thought that I would round up the reviews here. All of these would make exceptional additions to primary school libraries where I think they would be enjoyed by children from Reception all the way to Year 6. If you are looking for a present to distract a child from their electronic device and immerse them in a world of knowledge, I would highly recommend all three of these; I’m sure they would have been very popular in my house 20-odd years ago.

Wheels: The big fun book of vehicles by Tom Schamp contains far more than it says on the cover! For big, read oversized, this is one of those large books which children love to open out on the floor and which allow several readers to interact with at a time. You don’t just get information on wheels; in addition to beautiful illustrations of every wheeled vehicle you could possibly think of, the highly illustrated pages are dripping with historical detail, geography, science and even myths, legends and humorous asides. The text and illustrations are both by Tom Schamp and his artwork is absolutely beautiful, the spreads are generously laden with his quirky images and I honestly think I could return to this book many, many times without managing to notice every detail. I must give a shoutout to the translator Florian Duijsens who has captured the wry jokes and factual text perfectly. My own favourite spread is the section on Woodies, I’ve always loved the look of these cars and don’t recall ever seeing them featured in a children’s non-fiction book before.

Text and illustrations by Tom Schamp, published by Prestel, 5 September 2023

By the Sea: Life along the coast by Judith Homoki and Martin Haake, is also a large format hardback with stunningly beautiful illustrations. The design as a whole is reminiscent of an treasured, ancient atlas, with its muted colour palette and classical lettering and layout. The illustrator Martin Haake is a two-time recipient of the German Art Directors Club’s silver medal, and I must say that the artwork in this book is breathtaking. The book explores the seas and oceans of the world, looking at the natural history, the different habitats and climate zones as well as the human geography of different coastal zones. There are lavishly illustrated maps as well as details about specific coastal cities and areas such Shanghai and the Riviera. You can also learn about topics as diverse as lighthouses, mangroves, the Inuit and climate change through Judith Homoki’s clear and concise text. The map of the Mediterranean below will give you a taste of the treasures to be found inside this glorious book.

Artwork by Martin Haake, published by Prestel, 5 September 2023

Around the World in 80 Inventions by Matt Ralphs and Robbie Cathro takes readers on another journey of discovery, exploring a total of 80 inventions dating from ancient times to the present day and including details of the geographical origins of the invention. This book contains larger blocks of text than the previous two and so is probably better suited to children of age 7+. The clear explanations written by Matt Ralphs will make this book incredibly useful for STEM learning in schools or homes and each page of factual information is accompanied by Robbie Cathro’s bright and colourful artwork. In a fun touch, there is a cute aviator who navigates the pages along with the reader and appropriately for this book, I have chosen the spread which explores maps and GPS as an example to share with you.

Illustrations by Robbie Cathro, published by Bonnier Books, 12 October 2023

I am very grateful to Prestel Publishing, Bonnier Books and Antonia Wilkinson for my gifted review copies of these three non-fiction books.

MG Book Review: Best Friends Forever by Lisa Williamson, illustrated by Jess Bradley

Cover image by Jess Bradley, published by Guppy Books,
12 October 2023, ISBN 9781913101558

Best Friends Forever is a super accessible start to the Bigg School series and is perfectly pitched for readers who are approaching the end of their primary school, or start of their secondary school years. I really enjoyed reading this tale of twelve year old Lola as she adjusts to some big changes in her life; the transition to secondary school, having to move house due to parental divorce and the dynamics of friendship. It is written in an engagingly direct style through the voice of Lola, a character who I am sure will be recognisable and appealing for readers of 10+. Adding to the enjoyment of this book are the cute and often hilarious black and white illustrations by Jess Bradley.

Lola and Evie have been best friends since their mums met at mother-and-baby group; they describe themselves as two-peas-in-a-pod although it is clear to readers that they actually have very different personalities. As experienced by many eleven year olds, they know that they will be in different forms at secondary school but they still plan to meet every break and lunchtime and remain best friends forever according to their ‘pinkie-promise’. Unfortunately for Lola, it is not long before Evie pals up with Cleo, who is able to share her older sister’s ‘wisdom’ about secondary school behaviour and who seems so much ‘cooler’ than Lola. The thoroughly believable voice of Lola leaves the reader in no doubt of her feelings of rejection and the impact of this on her self-esteem, which is already fragile because she is having to leave her childhood home so that mum can downsize after the divorce.

All of the characters in Best Friends Forever are realistically rendered. The portrayal of divorced parents who are both determined to maintain strong, loving relationships with their children is a big theme, and Lola’s relationship with Matthew, her older teenage brother, is humorously written and genuinely touching. Through him some gentle, sensible and kind lessons about embracing change are delivered. We are given a few glimpses into the life of a peripheral character, Daniel, and the good news for everyone who enjoys Best Friends Forever, is that his story will feature in the next Bigg School book, due in spring 2024.

I am very grateful to Guppy Books for sending me a copy of Best Friends Forever ahead of publication on 12th October 2023 in exchange for my honest opinion.

MG Book Review: Adia Kelbara and the Circle of Shamans by Isi Hendrix

Cover image by Godwin Akpan, published by Usborne,
28 September 2023

Adia Kelbara and the Circle of Shamans is the first book in a planned series of middle grade fantasy novels set in the fictional kingdom of Zaria…and yes, there are beautiful maps on the endpapers (created by Adam Rufino) to orientate the reader. Author, Isi Hendrix, brings her background as an anthropologist to this vividly imagined fantasy, where she layers themes of cultural oppression as an integral part of the dramatic narrative.

Adia lives in the Swamplands, one of the poor, outlying regions of Zaria. She is an outsider; an orphan, reluctantly accepted into her aunt and uncle’s home where she is considered to be an ogbanje (a child born sickly and said to be possessed by a demon). Her rejection is compounded by the fact that her beloved younger cousin EJ, also labelled an ogbanje, disappeared and died whilst under her supervision several years earlier. The community of the Swamplands is dominated by the sinister “missionaries” who have banished traditional beliefs in Shamans and the ancient Alusi deities, and control the population by the administration of “drops” which cause a dead-eyed state of obedience.

Adia seizes her chance to escape her unhappy home at age twelve when she secures a trainee cook placement at The Academy of Shamans in the capital city Chelonia, for her Year of Practicality. In addition to removing herself from the oppressive atmosphere of the Swamplands, she hopes that the Shamans will be able to exorcise her “demon”. Her shock and disappointment on arriving at The Academy to discover that it is now a school for rich kids with no extraordinary talent but lots of entitled attitude, only magnifies her own unease that she has some kind of uncontrollable powers within herself. It is not long before she is drawn into an adventure which will take her to extraordinarily terrifying areas of the kingdom, alongside an accident-prone Alusi deity, a time-travelling teenage warrior and a trainee Gold Hat soldier. Their quest, to banish the ultimate demon who is intent on bending the entire kingdom to his will, forces Adia to confront her powers and recognise her true value.

There is much to enjoy in this fantasy which is informed by the author’s work with shamanic tribes in the Amazon and Gabonese rainforests. Nigerian customs, superstitions and stigmas are also woven into the plot, filling the imagined world with a real sense of history, nature and culture which is being eroded and replaced by the beliefs of the newcomers from the Sunless Mountains. I greatly look forward to reading further adventures featuring Adia and her friends and finding out how her powers will develop. I think that Adia Kelbara and the Circle of Shamans will be enjoyed by all fantasy fiction fans of 9+.

I am grateful to Usborne Books and Nina Douglas PR for sending me a review copy of this book ahead of publication on 28th September 2023.