Difference between revisions of "Book Reviews From The Bookbag"

Humphrey is the classroom hamster of room 26 of Longfellow School. He's good friends with Og the frog, as well as the pupils at the school. We've met Humphrey lots of times before and thoroughly enjoyed his adventures every time. This time round, we're treated to a new series of tiny tales, for newly confident readers. Our first small adventure with Humphrey sees him being entered into a pet show, and trying not to fall foul of Clem, the big, yappy dog. Full review...

The Sexes by Dorothy Parker

Short Stories

From the young woman who examined her handkerchief in minute detail, to the soldier's leave which didn't live up to expectation, through the thoughts of the early hours of the morning to the actress who proved a disappointment to her fan and on to the glorious culmination of the child who should never have been called Lolita we have five wonderful short stories. They're in a book that's no bigger than most short stories but buy it and it could well be the best buy that you make this year. Full review...

The Crime Wave at Blandings by P G Wodehouse

Literary Fiction

There's a crime wave at Blandings Castle and bumbling Lord Emsworth is right at its centre. This is somewhat surprising as Emsworth (or 'Clarence!' to his sister Constance) is really only happy when he's reading his favourite book, Whiffle's 'The Care of the Pig'. It frequently soothes where other restoratives fail. The problem began with an air rifle and an unwanted tutor, but before the afternoon was out most of the inhabitants of Blandings Castle seemed to have shot, been shot at or left. If it hadn't been written by P G Wodehouse it would all be most confusing. Full review...

S.W.I.T.C.H: Spider Stampede by Ali Sparkes and Ross Collins

Meet Josh and Danny. Eight year old twins, both think they are taller than their brother, and both think the other is weird - Danny because Josh loves creepy crawlies, bugs and insects, and Josh because Danny doesn't. But they're about to be joined in equal amounts of terror when a mad scientific experiment turns them into spiders. Full review...

The Warrior Sheep Go West by Christopher Russell and Christine Russell

I like these Warrior Sheep, and the scrapes they get in by following their ancient prophecies and in trying to save their world. Last time they thought a mobile phone was itself a call from the gods, but still did have to save the day. Here they misread a page on the Internet - and if you can't accept Internet-using sheep, your children surely will - and decide to go to America to save their whole species. Full review...

Wheels of Anarchy by Max Pemberton by Paul R Spiring and Hugh Cooke

This mystery-adventure book was written and published around 100 years ago. Will it stand the test of time? The back cover blurb says confidently that this adventure story ... makes James Bond look like a stay at home ... Before you get into the story proper there's quite a lot of information in the introductory pages. Some of it I did find interesting (the page about Max Pemberton and Sherlock Holmes for instance) but some readers may feel a little bogged down before they've even started to read chapter one. Both Pemberton and Holmes belonged to a small, elite criminology society in London. I got the impression that the two co-compilers felt as if they had to justify themselves somehow. I ploughed on ... Full review...

Wild Coast: Travels on South America's Untamed Edge by John Gimlette

Travel

Apart from knowing that it borders Venezuela, Brazil and Suriname, a fact hammered into me in Year 8 Geography, I know very little about Guiana. And while you may think that's understandable, I'm not sure that it is, seeing as I read this book while living just two countries over. The thing is, it's a sort of tiny, forgotten country, isn't it? Over the years it has been involved in border disputes, has come under various nations' rule, and has changed names more often the P Diddy, and even after you take all that into account, I bet you can't think of a single thing there to go and see. Full review...

When Baby Lost Bunny by Julia Jarman and Adrian Reynolds

For Sharing

A little boy goes for a walk with his mum, dad, baby brother and dog. Along the way baby is trying very hard to tell them all something, but they misunderstand him over and over again until, frustrated, he starts to cry. Suddenly his big brother figures out what the problem is and is able to make his baby brother smile again. Full review...

Rollo and Ruff and the Little Fluffy Bird by Mick Inkpen

For Sharing

Somebody has been chewing Rollo's mat...and somebody has taken Rollo's little red ball...and somebody has been leaving wet footprints all over the floor. But who could it be? Mick Inkpen's latest book introduces us to three new characters: Rollo the cat, LFB (as she's referred to in the book, standing for little fluffy bird) and Ruff the rat. Full review...

Three Miles by Robert Dinsdale

Captain Abraham Matthews is so desperate to catch the villainous Albie Crowe and bring the youngster to justice that some people would say he was obsessed. After six months, Matthews has finally tracked down his prey, and captures him just three miles from the police station. But with Albie's boys trying to rescue him, other men without Abraham's moral compass more interested in vengeance than justice, and the Luftwaffe dropping bombs on Leeds, this is set to be the longest three miles of either of their lives... Full review...

A Horrid Factbook: Horrid Henry's Bodies by Francesca Simon and Tony Ross

Children's Non-Fiction

When you eat or chew, did you know that little clumps of earwax fall out of your ears! And in a lifetime you produce enough urine to fill about 450 baths! Do you know how loud the loudest burp was? Or what a bogey is made of? If these are the sort of facts and figures, complete with a handful of Horrid Henry and Tony Ross' illustrations, that would rock your child's world then this is the book for you! Full review...

The Iron Witch by Karen Mahoney

Donna has always been an outcast. The arms she hides underneath long gloves are covered in iron tattoos that give her enhanced strength – strength she has tried to hide. But, despite her best efforts, Donna was involved in an incident at school, an incident that means she's now homeschooled and a social pariah. Full review...

The Scarlet Kimono by Christina Courtenay

It's 1611 and young Hannah's life in Plymouth is anything but exciting. She has a horrid elder sister to deal with, and is jealous of her brother Jacob's career aboard a merchant ship. Realising the life her parents have mapped out for her as wife to a man she loathes is not for her, Hannah decides to take action and control of her own destiny. Soon she runs away from home, disguising herself as a boy and stowing away on one of the ships under her brother's command. Full review...

Saving Max by Antoinette Van Huegten

The one-page Prologue sees us at the scene of the crime. Two teenagers and a lot of blood - one of whom will not survive. Seems like an open-and-shut case - but is it? We then go back in time to a medical consulting room in downtown New York. Hot-shot lawyer and time-pressed, single mum Danielle is trying to understand her severely disabled son. Even allowing for the normal teenage angst and racing hormones, things are not good at home. She knows it. Max knows it. And the medical profession at large, know it. Something needs to be done before things get out of hand. Full review...

1923: A Memoir by Harry Leslie Smith

Autobiography

Harry Leslie Smith was born in 1923. If you're wondering about the title – that's the explanation – and although it's when Harry began his life it's not where his story began. He takes us back some years before to his father's family with its roots in mining and a sideline in running a pub which was to make them comfortable if not wealthy. Harry's father was middle-aged when he got involved with Lillian, a teenage girl. Unsurprisingly his family were not impressed or welcoming when the pair married because a child was on the way. Albert Smith expected that he would inherit the pub when his father died, but it passed to his uncle and so began a life of disappointment for Albert and Lillian. Full review...

The Kissing Game by Aidan Chambers

You don't see that many short story collections in YA circles. But when they do appear, you often wonder why there aren't more of them. And this is absolutely the case with The Kissing Game. Ranging from short pieces of flash fiction to "proper" short stories, each one will incite, surprise and stimulate. Full review...

The Sex Diaries Project by Arianne Cohen

Lifestyle

It's often said 'there's nowt so queer as folk'. Surely this should be qualified as 'there's nowt so queer as folks' sex lives'. Arianne Cohen has made a major online database of testimony from people about their thoughts regarding sex - having it, not having it, having it with whom they're with, having it with those whom they're not with. And in every sense, the results can be exceedingly queer. Full review...

The Demon Trappers: Forsaken by Jana Oliver

You know that old saying, 'never judge a book by its cover', I'm guilty of it. I always fall into the trap – if the cover isn't amazing I pre-judge. And that's exactly what I did when this book landed on my doorstep – I took one look at the broody vamp looking girl on the cover and thought 'emo'. How wrong I was. Full review...

Life by Keith Richards

Entertainment

Nearly forty years ago, Keith Richards was considered the next most likely rock'n'roll star to succumb to drugs. The man has defied all the odds in staying alive, and continuing to do what he has been doing for almost half a century. In the process, he has earned the sometimes grudging, sometimes unqualified respect of those who would once never given him the time of day. Full review...

Getting Started in DSLR Photography by Daniel Lezano

Home and Family

The magazine-style layout of this 'magbook' (an ugly, but apt, term for the format) lends itself particularly well to the subject in hand, not least as the glossy pages beautifully illustrate the effects on the photographs that the publishers are showing. It's published by the team at 'Digital SLR Photography' magazine and it reads like a collection of the most useful articles published therein, particularly for the novice to SLR photography. Full review...

Travelling Matchmaker: Belinda Goes to Bath by M C Beaton

Miss Hannah Pym was a housekeeper until recently but has now received a legacy which lifts her out of the servant classes and enables her to fulfil her long-held wish to travel. It might be winter but Miss Pym is taking the stagecoach to The Bath (as the upper classes call the city) just for the adventure. The company in the stage is joined by an obviously well-bred young woman, Miss Belinda Earle who, accompanied by her companion, is being sent in disgrace to stay with her aunt. Full review...

Brainjack by Brian Falkner

Sam comes to the attention of the CDD (Homeland Security's Cyber Defence Division) when he crashes the entire American internet network because he wants a top spec laptop and one of those super-cool new neural headsets, but doesn't have the money to buy them. Thinking he's been given a hacker network initiation test, Sam then successfully penetrates the White House's security system. It's all the CDD needs to know, and Sam finds himself sprung from federal custody and recruited. Full review...

Scarcity and Frontiers: How Economies Have Developed Through Natural Resource Exploitation by Edward B Barbier

History

Scarcity and Frontiers is an ambitious, fascinating book that examines how the world's economies have developed by exploiting natural resources. Throughout history, states have responded to natural resource scarcity by developing new frontiers, hence the title. The book begins with the development of agriculture along the banks of the Nile and runs right through to the present day, finally questioning whether we are entering a new era of natural resource scarcity. Full review...

The Lake of Dreams by Kim Edwards

The book opens with a lovely and intriguing sentence - 'My name is Lucy Jarrett and before I knew about the girl in the window ... I found myself living in a village near the sea in Japan.' Who could fail to be drawn into a story after reading that, I thought. I was hooked immediately. Edwards gives us a fleeting taste of life in Japan, particularly the importance (almost reverence) of nature and gardens, public and private. This sets the tone for the novel which is captivating and interesting, but put together beautifully, unhurried. Full review...

Long Lankin by Lindsey Barraclough

Long Lankin is a folk ballad about a bogeyman that lives on the edge of society in wild, desolate places and preys upon children. In this story, he lives out in East Anglia in the marshes outside the village of Bryers Guerdon. It's post-war Britain and when Cora's mother suffers a breakdown, she and her younger sister Mimi are sent to stay with their Auntie Ida in the manor house there. They don't know it - Auntie Ida does, though - but Long Lankin is attracted to young children. Full review...

Coconut Unlimited by Nikesh Shukla

It is the early 1990's and Amit, Anand and Nishant are three young Asian boys in an all white private school. As such they are considered massively uncool by default. Too bad then that their Asian peers in the North London Gujarati enclave known as Harrow think that they are a bunch of stuck up toffs. Soft. Weak. No street cred whatsoever. Worst of all they are labelled as 'Coconuts' (brown on the outside, white on the inside). There's only one thing for it - start a hip-hop band. The fact that they don't have any songs, talent or initially any idea what hip-hop actually sounds like isn't really a problem. As everyone knows, forming a band makes you 'pretty cool' and after that the girls simply fall at your feet. Full review...

Hamish Macbeth: Death of a Sweep by M C Beaton

Crime

Back in the mid-1990s, despite the encroachment of satellite and cable, Sunday evenings still seemed to be a time to sit down to watch the Beeb or ITV with the family for a dose of gentle viewing. "Drama" is too strong a word for the programmes that aired in that prime time slot (somewhere between 7pm and 9pm). Technically, they were dramas – but they were laced with humour, protected from over-exposure to violence or sex or the truly dark underbelly of the stories they actually told. Full review...

Solar by Ian McEwan

Literary Fiction

Ian McEwan's Michael Beard is possibly the most ignoble Nobel prize winner there has ever been. He's gloriously obnoxious and hateful in almost every way. Since winning his Nobel prize he has rested on his Nobel laurels and has traded on his reputation rather than his achievements in his specialist area of physics. When this book starts, he's on his fifth wife having managed to wreck all previous marriages by his compulsive infidelity. He's short, balding, ageing, obese, bigoted, and something of an opportunist, particularly if it means he can be lazy and get away with something. In short, which he is, he's morally vacant. But what makes Beard an effective creation, and what carries us along with him despite his obnoxiousness, is that he knows all these things about himself. He's rather like Shakespeare's Richard III - he's honest with the reader and himself about what he is doing. Sure he would like to change, but talking about it isn't doing it, is it? Full review...

Love is on the Air by Jane Moore

'Love is on the Air' is all about trying to find the perfect relationship. Cam knows that things are not right with her boyfriend Dean but after six years together, she is afraid to do anything about it. They are behaving like an old married couple and they are not even married. Therefore, when she goes on holiday with friends Saira and Ella, she is somewhat vulnerable and so it is no surprise that she is attracted to fun loving single dad Tom. After a few drinks one thing leads to another but the next day Cam is racked with guilt. She resolves to forget about Tom and to make more effort in her relationship with Dean. Full review...

Across Many Mountains: Three Daughters of Tibet by Yangzom Brauen and Katy Darbyshire

Biography

Fleeing your home can never be easy but when you are six, your only shoes are roughly hand-sewn and stuffed with hay, and your route is over the world's highest mountain range then it must be particularly challenging. This was the journey that Yangzom Brauen's mother took with her parents when they fled Tibet after the Chinese invasion of 1959. They were leaving behind all that they knew and travelling to India in the hope that they could find sanctuary in the country where the Dalai Lama was in exile. 'Across Many Mountains' is their story. Full review...

Mr Bishop and the Actress by Janet Mullany

Strait-laced Harry Bishop has just started his new job as steward in Lord Shad's ramshackle household when he is sent off to London to sort out Shad's errant relation Charlie and his debts. Here he meets actress Sophie Wallace, Charlie's mistress, who now finds herself set adrift from her protector with only a few dresses and a rather ostentatious bed to her name. Full review...

Kama Sutra by Vatsyayana

Lifestyle

Kama Sutra, then... What could I possibly say to introduce it that you don't already know or think you know?

For all that Kama Sutra is, it's no longer a guide to the art of pleasure. It's a fascinating historical document, and undoubtedly influential, but it's very much of its time and of its society. Try to follow all its suggestions and at best you'd never get laid again; at worst, you'll be up on a rape charge within a week. (After sending the nurse's daughter away, he takes the girl's maidenhead while she is alone, asleep and out of her senses...) Full review...

The Story of Us by Felicity Everett

Back in 1982 there were five girls sharing a house in Brighton. Their course works takes second place to demos, parties and no-strings sex for Stella, Bridget, Vinnie, Maxine and Nell but it's against the background of Greenham Common and the miners' strike that the girls realise that life is not quite as straight forward as they imagined. They will forge friendships in Albacore Street which might occasionally be stretched to the limit, but they'll never be completely forgotten. Having met them back in the eighties we meet them again two decades later when they're struggling to cope with all that life throws at them. Full review...

Secret of the Sands by Sara Sheridan

It's the summer of the year 1883. William Wilberforce, hero of the anti-slavery movement is enjoying a gentleman's life in London. But, far away in Abyssinia, things are far from rosy for the local people. The situation facing them is ugly and very dangerous - slavers (what a horrible word) are in the area and with the stark sentence 'It takes only seven minutes to capture almost everyone' we get the picture, loud and clear. Sheridan wastes no time in giving her readers the heart-wrenching details: the elderly are separated and treated with very little dignity (they're almost worthless, not worth the bother of transportation), the fit and healthy are singled out and lastly, the young are segregated. They are 'prized' most of all. And into this latter category falls a pretty 17 year old girl called Zena. She is spirited. She will not show any fear. She thinks for a split second of running but is intelligent enough to know that she'd be beaten severely for her sheer insubordination and probably even killed on the spot. But behind her expressive eyes she is thinking and plotting ... Full review...

Big Big Secrets by Robert Arley and Marisa Lewis

When Jake's science experiment goes wrong he isn't faced with a room full of bad-smelling chemicals and a D grade as most students would be - instead he discovers that he has shrunk his teacher to the size of a Barbie doll! His friend, Annie, gets roped in to help him take care of his newly miniaturised teacher, keeping it a secret and trying, desperately, to find a way to reverse the process... Full review...

Mole's Babies by David Bedford and Rosalind Beardshaw

For Sharing

Morris the mole is about to become a first time dad. Excited and eager to be a good parent he goes looking around the farmyard to see the best way to make his babies happy. He tries to hop like a bunny, splash like a duck, and flap like a bird, but each attempt fails and Morris becomes worried about how he will ever manage to make his little babies happy. Full review...

Rose and the Silver Ghost by Holly Webb

This is the fourth volume in the Rose series, and its blend of magic, peril and excitement has proved a winning formula. Rose herself is a delightful character, combining the down-to-earth, practical qualities one would hope for in a housemaid with growing magical powers and a mysterious past. In this story, she discovers there may be a way to find out what happened to her mother a decade before, but her path is, as usual, fraught with danger and thrills. Full review...

Private: The Book of Spells by Kate Brian

Following in her older sister's footsteps after May's return from the exclusive Billings School for Girls to marry the handsome George Thackery III, Eliza Williams is expecting that everyone at the school will remember her sister with affection. But Theresa Billings – as powerful as her name suggests – clearly wasn't a great friend of May's, and Eliza must navigate the rivalries and friendships of school as she tries to settle in. Then the girls find a spell book, and bond over frivolous magic as they help each other and embarrass people they dislike. What could possibly go wrong? Full review...

Entangled by Cat Clarke

The story starts on day three of Grace's imprisonment by a kidnapper. She's been given pen and paper to explain her recent actions, including falling in love with her boyfriend Nat, the ups and downs of her friendship with Sal, her self-harming, and her attempted suicide. As we learn more and more about Grace's life, the one thing we're never quite sure of is where the mysterious Ethan, her kidnapper, fits into things… Full review...

Furnace: Execution by Alexander Gordon Smith

And so to the end. Alex and his closest friends have escaped the Furnace Penitentiary, that mile-deep hell-hole cum nightmare scientific experiment writ large. He's arisen to find the country in tatters, as the nasty creatures born there are in charge and decimating the population. There is only one thing to do - kill the man responsible. And Alex, eight feet tall, with an obsidian blade for an arm and muscles upon his muscles, will still face his hardest battle yet. Full review...

Tyranny by Lesley Fairfield

As Tyranny shakes her - I TOLD you not to eat! You are TOO fat! - Anna thinks back. She used to take joy in life. She used to dream of a bright future - a career, boyfriends, children - but it all went wrong when she hit puberty. She wasn't keen on on the curves of her new, more womanly body. When she looked in the mirror, she didn't see an hourglass figure developing; she saw fat and flab. Deaf to the warnings of her parents and her boyfriend, she listened to Tyranny and entered into the desperate, downward cycle of anorexia. Full review...

Breaking Bamboo by Tim Murgatroyd