By K.L. Kettle (published by Little Tiger)
No. Focus on the Chancellor. I bow, full charm turned up, squeezing down the fear in my gut. This is about you, Vik.
The Chancellor’s sweet, slow tones offer her reserve. “One merit,” she says.
The silence is loud enough: no one’s going to outbid her.
I think the woman I’m meant to kill may have just saved my life.
Continue reading “The Boy I Am | Young Adult Book Review”
By Kiran Millwood Hargrave (published by Chicken House)
She checked her neck again, feeling for the clasp. She searched the front of her tunic, down her trouser legs, all the way to her shoes. Then she felt her neck again.
But she was not mistaken. There was no sign of the locket. It was gone.
It matters, Sofia. Keep it safe, always.
Continue reading “A Secret of Birds and Bone | Review”
By Onjali Q. Raúf (published by Orion Children’s Books, an imprint of Hachette Children’s Group)
I waited for him to shout and scream. But he didn’t. Instead, he took off his yellow hat and his shoulders began to shake. That was how I knew that he was crying.
‘How could you do that?’ asked a voice from behind me.
Continue reading “The Night Bus Hero | Book Review”
Retold by Kristina Stephenson and illustrated by Hoang Giang (published by Puffin Books)
“I bring you a warning,” replied Marley. “Tonight, you will be visited by three spirits. Listen to what they tell you, Ebenezer, for each of them means to help you.”
Continue reading “A Christmas Carol | Picture Book Review”
By Lesley Parr (published by Bloomsbury Children’s Books)
‘One boy, I believe,’ Mr Bevan says.
One.
I think I might be really sick, properly sick, all over my shoes sick. I just want to go home.
I’m gripping Ronnie’s shoulder so tight I must be hurting him but he’s just watching her. Then the woman called Mrs Thomas looks at me and I get the same smile.
‘I’ve changed my mind, Ceri,’ she says. ‘We can make room for two.’
Continue reading “The Valley of Lost Secrets | Book Review”
By Katya Balen, with illustrations by Angela Harding (published by Bloomsbury Children’s Books)
She wanted me to go to school and spend my weekends with her far away, but then when would I ever be wild and free and climb trees and scavenge for treasure and tell stories by a fire?
I don’t want her.
She’s not wild like we are.
Continue reading “October, October | Book Review”
By Gill Lewis (published by Oxford University Press)
Semira looked behind her as if she felt someone was watching her. A diary was personal wasn’t it? Private?
But surely if it had been written over a hundred years ago, the writer of the diary would be dead by now.
It wouldn’t matter if she read some of it.
Would it?
Continue reading “The Closest Thing to Flying | Book Review”
By Neil Gaiman (Bloomsbury Publishing)
The old man leaned down, so close that the bottom of his moustache tickled Coraline’s ear. ‘The mice have a message for you,’ he whispered.
Coraline didn’t know what to say.
‘The message is this. Don’t go through the door.’
Continue reading “Happy Halloween! | Coraline | Book Review”
By Lavie Tidhar, with illustrations by Mark Beech (Scholastic Children’s Books)
“If I’d ever thought about it before, I imagined the candy trade was just a game, a handful of chocolates at a time, but this shocked me – the scale of it was much bigger than I’d expected. It didn’t feel so much like a game, all of a sudden.”
Continue reading “Candy | Book Review”
By author Jason Fry and illustrator Phil Noto (Disney-Lucasfilm Press via Egmont UK Ltd.)
“A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…”
Continue reading “Happy Star Wars Day! The Weapon of a Jedi | Book Review”