Difference between revisions of "Book Reviews From The Bookbag"

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|author=Sarah Baker
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|title=Eloise Undercover
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|summary= Eloise has a wonderful life with her two best friends, Albert and Maddie, until the German soldiers start to arrive and everything changes. Nazi-occupied France is not a place Eloise wants to be. Maddie and her family are taken away and Albert starts to act very strangely. Then her father disappears. Eloise is lost until she discovers her father has been working for the resistance and there might, if she is brave enough, be a way to rescue him before he's deported to Germany. She now has hope and a plan. But will the resistance let a twelve year old schoolgirl join them?
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|summary=I'll take is as read you have some knowledge of the story of Alice in Wonderland – certainly when she got to be 150 years old a couple of years back there were no end of editions of her story.  And as you know, 150 years is a heck of a lot of unbirthdays.  But her story got to be slightly different, and if anything only more loved, courtesy of the Disney cartoon, and the fact that this book features artwork that was generated during the production of that film is the unique selling point.
 
|summary=I'll take is as read you have some knowledge of the story of Alice in Wonderland – certainly when she got to be 150 years old a couple of years back there were no end of editions of her story.  And as you know, 150 years is a heck of a lot of unbirthdays.  But her story got to be slightly different, and if anything only more loved, courtesy of the Disney cartoon, and the fact that this book features artwork that was generated during the production of that film is the unique selling point.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405287004</amazonuk>
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>1405287004</amazonuk>
}}
 
{{newreview
 
|title=Moonrise
 
|author=Sarah Crossan
 
|rating=5
 
|genre=Teens
 
|summary=Joe is seventeen and he hasn't seen his brother for ten years. And the reason for that is brutal - Ed is on Death Row in Texas, convicted of the murder of a police officer. Ed says he's innocent. Aunt Karen doesn't believe him. And Mum is long gone, no-one knows where. When the execution date comes through, Joe passes up on his job and a spot on a summer athletics scholarship and treks from New York across the country so that Ed is not alone. He is determined to spend these last weeks with his brother no matter what anybody else thinks.
 
|amazonuk=<amazonuk>140886780X</amazonuk>
 
 
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Revision as of 16:17, 17 September 2017

The Bookbag

Hello from The Bookbag, a site featuring books from all the many walks of literary life - fiction, biography, crime, cookery and anything else that takes our fancy. At Bookbag Towers the bookbag sits at the side of the desk. It's the bag we take to the library and the bookshop. Sometimes it holds the latest releases, but at other times there'll be old favourites, books for the children, books for the home. They're sometimes our own books or books from the local library. They're often books sent to us by publishers and we promise to tell you exactly what we think about them. You might not want to read through a full review, so we'll give you a quick review which summarises what we felt about the book and tells you whether or not we think you should buy or borrow it. There are also lots of author interviews, and all sorts of top tens - all of which you can find on our features page. If you're stuck for something to read, check out the recommendations page. Ewritingservice.com is the custom writing service thousands of students trust all over the world. My Homework Done is your best choice among those websites that do homework for you.

There are currently 16,084 reviews at TheBookbag.

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Reviews of the Best New Books

Read new reviews by category.
Read the latest features.

Eloise Undercover by Sarah Baker

4star.jpg Confident Readers

Eloise has a wonderful life with her two best friends, Albert and Maddie, until the German soldiers start to arrive and everything changes. Nazi-occupied France is not a place Eloise wants to be. Maddie and her family are taken away and Albert starts to act very strangely. Then her father disappears. Eloise is lost until she discovers her father has been working for the resistance and there might, if she is brave enough, be a way to rescue him before he's deported to Germany. She now has hope and a plan. But will the resistance let a twelve year old schoolgirl join them? Full review...

Silver Silence A Psy-Changling Trinity Novel by Nalini Singh

4star.jpg Paranormal

Jump straight into a rich and diverse universe at this designated jumping on point. Visit a world of humans, changelings and Psy. The world the books have set in has faced a dramatic change and a new world-order of peace has been declared. The peace is painful and not universally loved. Into this world a bear falls in love with an emotionless Psy – how'd ya reckon it'll turn out? Full review...

Mirror to Damascus by Colin Thubron

4.5star.jpg Travel

Damascus today is a monument to her past, to all the people and civilisations that helped shape her. In this enthusiastic piece of travel writing, Collin Thubron tells the tale of a city that has seen empires rise and fall, conquerors come and go and has lasted for over two thousand years. It's rich in impressive history and this book is rich in impressive detail. Full review...

Yoga Babies by Fearne Cotton and Sheena Dempsey

4star.jpg For Sharing

Radio host, TV presenter, fashion designer, author – is there anything Fearne Cotton can't do? Based on the content of this book, we can undoubtedly add Yogi to the ongoing list of talents, because it's hard to imagine any other way in which this came into being. Full review...

Florence Frizzball by Claire Freedman and Jane Massey

4.5star.jpg For Sharing

Florence Frizzball has the frizziest, curliest, most out of control mop of hair you've ever seen! And she longs for smooth, sleek, brushable locks like all her friends. As a kid, I remember being chased round the garden by my mother, brandishing a hair brush and trying to get me to sit still and have my frizz sorted out. To say I identified with Florence would be an understatement. As the tale goes on, though, we see another side to the story. Florence gets what she wants, but when her dream comes true she quickly learns that maybe she was wanting all the wrong things, and that actually her frizzball is part of her identity. Full review...

Long Road From Jarrow by Stuart Maconie

5star.jpg Travel

I cancelled my Country Walking magazine subscription about a year ago and the only thing I miss is Stuart Maconie's column. His down-to-earth approach and sharp wit belie an equally sharp intellect and a soul more sensitive than he might be willing to admit. Let's be honest, though, I picked this one up because of someone else's review, in which I spotted names like Ferryhill and Newton Aycliffe. Places I grew up in. Like Maconie I have no connection (that I know of) to the Jarrow Crusade but when he talks about it being a whole matrix of events reducible to one word like Aberfan, Hillsborough, or Orgreave then somehow it does become part of my history too. Tangentially, at least. Full review...

The Gift of Dark Hollow by Kieran Larwood

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

This is the second marvellous book featuring the rabbits of Enderby, and the delightful young rabbit hero, Podkin One Ear. I love the format of a story within a story. The adventures of Podkin in The Gift of Dark Hollow, are told by an old rabbit who has been a Bard all his life - a teller of stories and legends from the rabbit world. The Bard has an apprentice, Rue, desperately eager to learn his trade. He hangs on every word spoken by the Bard as they travel together to a festival. Rue is hungry to learn the art of story-telling, but also wants to know all about Podkin One Ear, and what better way to do this than to hear from the Master himself. The tale he tells Rue (and us) is a gripping and scary one, featuring Podkin and his friends in their ongoing battle to overturn the ruthless Gorm, and their cruel leader, Scramashank. Full review...

Clumpety Bump by Phil Allcock and Richard Watson

4star.jpg For Sharing

Clumpety Bump likes apples. Nothing wrong with that, after all: they're tasty and full of goodness. But you don't get delicious, juicy treats like that unless you deserve them, and naughty Clumpety is a bit too keen on saying I can't be bothered when his friend Wally asks for help. So, after several disasters, Wally decides he'd be better off leaving Clumpety at home and using his tractor instead. Unfortunately, things don't turn out too well, and our two heroes learn that if you want to be properly happy, other people need to be happy too. Selfishness just makes everyone sad. Full review...

A Bientot... by Roger Moore

4star.jpg Autobiography

The news of the death of Sir Roger Moore in May 2017 came as a great shock: he was one of those people you knew would go on for ever. There was just one small glimmer of light in the sadness - the news that a matter of days before his death he'd delivered the finished manuscript of his book, À bientôt…, to his publishers. Just a few months later a copy landed on my desk and I didn't even bother to look as though I could resist reading it straight away. Full review...

Lockwood and Co: The Empty Grave by Jonathan Stroud

5star.jpg Confident Readers

In a world that takes the best and worst of Victorian times (atmospheric fogs, candles, mudlarks who scavenge along the banks of the Thames for treasures) and the modern day (leggings, skinny jeans, cabs and concrete underpasses) absolutely anything can happen – and it does. For fifty years ghosts of all kinds have infested Britain, and as only children and young people can see them, theirs is the task of protecting the adults and ridding the country of the menaces, one by painful one. Lucy, George, Holly and Lockwood are the members of the smallest and most ramshackle independent agency, but their constant success (and survival despite forever lengthening odds) is a thorn in the flesh of the elite Fittes Agency, which has acquired almost total control over the whole ghost-bashing business. Full review...

Winter Tales by Kenneth Steven

4star.jpg Short Stories

Upon opening this book you are presented with an eclectic collection of twelve short stories centred around a common theme of Winter. You are taken around the world as you read stories set in a variety of places from Helsinki to New York, Germany to Russia. Kenneth Steven cleverly utilises a key component of short stories - that you can read each story in one sitting - to his advantage as he gives each story an individual focal subject, such as bullying, ensuring that you are reading a distinct story every time you open the book. Full review...

Lawless and the House of Electricity by William Sutton

5star.jpg Crime (Historical)

Campbell Lawless is back, this time tasked with solving a series of terrorist attacks across the nation. Is it the work of the French, as police and public are being led to believe, or someone closer to home? Who can be trusted and what does Roxbury, an innovative inventor previously disgraced, have to do with the bombs used to cause chaos across the country? Employing the services of Molly, the effervescent ragamuffin from his previous adventures, he sets in motion a campaign of subterfuge which uncovers long held secrets, skulduggery and the desperate yearnings beneath Roxbury's constant invention. Full review...

The Cossack by K J Lawrence

5star.jpg Thrillers

Daniel Brooking is not what you'd think of as hero material: he's a photographer of some merit and in his fifties he has a settled life. It was the disappearance of his assistant, Ivan Shevchenko, which disrupted everything. It wasn't unknown for him to disappear occasionally, but missing an exhibition was a first for him. He'd been distracted for a few days - and then there were the strange papers which arrived, to be kept safe. The authorities, in the form of a shadowy senior member of the security services, confirmed the view that Ivan was probably dead, because of some supposed connections with organised crime and drug dealing. Full review...

Doctor Who: Now We Are Six Hundred: A Collection of Time Lord Verse (Dr Who) by James Goss and Russell T Davies

4.5star.jpg Children's Rhymes and Verse

Consider the Doctor. Just how many birthday and Christmas gifts must he have to hand out each year, were he to keep in touch with even half of his companions? He would certainly need a few novelty gifts for some of them, say, for example, whimsical books of verse that pithily encapsulate the life of a Time Lord and that of some of his friends and enemies. As luck would have it, he has the space in his TARDIS to stock up in advance, so my advice to him – sorry, her – would be to pop along to his local Earth-based book emporium and get himself ready. And if you're working on a shorter timescale, with a shorter lifespan, and thinking perhaps just one gift season ahead, well my advice is pretty much the same. Full review...

The Extraordinary Colours of Auden Dare by Zillah Bethell

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

Auden has a condition called achromatopsia, which means that he can't see colours. He likes to pretend that it doesn't matter but it does. And the older Auden gets, the more it seems to matter. Mind you, so does everything else... ... because Auden lives in a near-future Britain in a world where climate change has taken root. It never rains any more. Britain, an island with plenty of coastline, is doing better than many countries thanks to its desalination plants. But water is still rationed and the Water Authority Board is now a quasi-government as the most important and powerful body in the land. Water wars have broken out worldwide and Auden's father is away fighting. Full review...

Basic Witches by J Saxena and J Zimmerman

4star.jpg Spirituality and Religion

Before I started this book I was expecting to be thrown into the world of magic and would know how to levitate by the end of the first chapter. Unsurprisingly, I was wrong. However, what I was met by was a book that explores the origins of witchcraft, teaches you how to dress and act like a witch and contains spells ranging from accepting compliments to conjuring up a relaxing Netflix binge. Full review...

The History of Bees by Maja Lunde and Diane Oatley (translator)

4star.jpg General Fiction

Bees are a handy symbol of the planet's environmental degradation, as you'll know if you've read anything by Dave Goulson – whose endorsement is featured proudly on the cover of this U.K. release of Norwegian children's writer Maja Lunde's first novel for adults. The creatures also provide subtle links between the book's three story lines. Full review...

Greta Zargo and the Death Robots from Outer Space by A F Harrold

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

No one knew that only three things stood in the way of the complete and utter destruction of the Earth: one elderly parrot, one eleven-year-old spelling mistake and one intrepid young newspaper-reporter-cum-schoolgirl in search of a Big Scoop.

Oh my word! What a prospect! Let me break it down for you. The parrot has only ever learned to speak one sentence. The spelling mistake is between great and Greta. Both these things point the alien danger to Earth, a silvery robot, in the direction of Greta Zargo, who is the wannabe reporter. Full review...

A Jigsaw of Fire and Stars by Yaba Badoe

4star.jpg Literary Fiction

Sante was a baby when she was washed ashore in a sea-chest laden with treasure. It seems she is the sole survivor of the tragic sinking of a ship carrying migrants and refugees. Her people. Fourteen years on she's a member of Mama Rose's unique and dazzling circus. But, from their watery grave, the unquiet dead are calling Sante to avenge them. A bamboo flute. A golden bangle. A ripening mango which must not fall... if Sante is to tell their story and her own. Full review...

The Invisible Life of Euridice Gusmao by Martha Batalha and Eric M B Becker (translator)

4.5star.jpg Literary Fiction

On the surface, young housewife Euridice Gusmao has it all. A nice-enough, parent-pleasing husband with a steady banking job, two young children upon whom to dote, an immaculate home complete with maid. That's all anyone could ever want, isn't it? Not Euridice. She has an inexplicable ache inside her for something more, like many of us. Yet each of her pet projects, from a desire to publish a recipe book to starting a cottage sewing industry in her living room, are met with scorn from her stern husband Antenor. He wants a wife who doesn't draw attention to herself, whose only domains are her house and her family. Full review...

The Murderer's Ape by Jakob Wegelius and Peter Graves (translator)

4.5star.jpg Confident Readers

Sally Jones is in clover as a mechanic on a cargo ship – when, that is, there is cargo to actually ship. Having needed emergency repairs, the two-strong crew of her and the Chief are idling in Lisbon, and are given a mysterious and mysteriously overpaid job – a job that shouldn't go wrong, but does. Unfortunately for the Chief, taking even the first step at writing the wrong sees him arrested for murder. Sally Jones is forced into hiding, which she manages to do with a lovely, kind woman with a hidden talent for singing, and her landlord, who makes and repairs accordions and other musical instruments. Life with them seems to be a new form of clover, then, but hints of that past nastiness keep coming back to haunt Sally Jones, especially when there's a suggestion that the alleged murder victim might still be alive…

Oh, and did I say that Sally Jones is actually a gorilla? Full review...

Stranger by David Bergen

4star.jpg Literary Fiction

Stranger tells the story of Íso, a young Guatemalan woman, and her affair with an American doctor. When an accident forces him to return to the States, she is left pregnant and lonely. Her anguish becomes even more profound when her daughter is abducted, and taken to live with the doctor and his wife. What followed - tales of the journey Íso embarked upon in the hope of finding her baby - was an amazing story of the lengths a mother will go to in order to save her child. Full review...

Owls: A Guide to Every Species by Marianne Taylor

5star.jpg Reference

I feel like I am being watched. A huge pair of piercing orange eyes are staring right at me, locking me into their gaze. In contrast with the hardness of the deep-amber eyes, soft grey feathers fan out into the surrounding area, intricate, detailed and beautiful. An enigma; harsh and gentle at the same time, the owl is beckoning the reader to turn the pages and take a closer look inside... Full review...

The Gritterman by Orlando Weeks

5star.jpg Graphic Novels

There's a man who has an ice cream van. In summer, what there is of summer, he uses it to sell ice creams, That's not his vocation though, but it does keep him going whilst he waits for winter, when the van becomes a Gritting Van and our narrator becomes a Gritterman. The fibreglass 99s on the roof light up and rotate, playing a tune, whether the van's gritting or selling ice creams. Tonight - Christmas Eve - will be the van's last trip. The council has sent the letter about his services no longer being required. Global warming. Dying profession, they say. There's even a tarmac now that can de-ice itself, but the Gritterman isn't sure that he wants to live in a world where the B2116 doesn't need gritting. Full review...

They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera

4star.jpg Teens

No matter how we choose to live, we both die at the end

The year is 2017, the place is America, but this is not a place we recognise. A company called Death-Cast know the exact date of everyone's death and make it their mission to inform Deckers that they will be dead within the next twenty-four hours. Many have tried to cheat death, all have failed. Full review...

False Lights by K J Whittaker

4.5star.jpg Historical Fiction

Cornwall, 1817.

What if your worst mistake changed the course of history? Napoleon has crushed the Duke of Wellington at the Battle of Waterloo, and his ex-wife Josephine presides over French-occupied England. Cornwall erupts into open rebellion, and young heiress Hester escapes with Crow, Wellington's former intelligence officer, a half-French aristocrat haunted by his part in the catastrophic defeat. Together, they become embroiled in a web of treachery and espionage as plans are laid to free Wellington from secret captivity in the Scilly Isles and lead an uprising against the French occupation. In a country rife with traitors, Hester and Crow know it is impossible to play such a game as this for long... Full review...

Walt Disney's Cinderella: Illustrated by Mary Blair (Walt Disney Classics) by Cynthia Ryland and Mary Blair

4star.jpg Emerging Readers

I'm sure almost all my readers are au fait with the story of Cinderella, and of how she went from the gutter to the stars in one romantic swoop. It's only a good thing the relevant people didn't have foot fetishes or phobias, for then the tale would have been utterly different. Disney made it slightly different, of course, when they made the animated classic based on the legend, and this book, complete with art from the time the film was being made, is evidence of just how the look and the emotion of the piece were intended to be. Full review...

Walt Disney's Alice in Wonderland: Illustrated by Mary Blair (Walt Disney Classics) by Jon Scieszka and Mary Blair

4.5star.jpg Emerging Readers

I'll take is as read you have some knowledge of the story of Alice in Wonderland – certainly when she got to be 150 years old a couple of years back there were no end of editions of her story. And as you know, 150 years is a heck of a lot of unbirthdays. But her story got to be slightly different, and if anything only more loved, courtesy of the Disney cartoon, and the fact that this book features artwork that was generated during the production of that film is the unique selling point. Full review...