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The Sword of the Spirit (Spirits 3) by Rob Keeley
There are truths which must be revealed before the battle may commence. You do not yet know the meaning of the sword.
Ooh! Events are moving apace in Rob Keeley's Childish Spirits series. Let me explain... Full review...
Storm Weaver by Matt Griffin
In the sequel to [A Cage of Roots], the four friends are journeying back to the lair from which they have just escaped. Sean, Finny and Benvy think they're trying to save the Goblins and turn them back into girls, but Ayla, who so nearly became a goblin herself, is being drawn by a greater force. As Ayla's powers emerge and grow stronger, she leads her friends on a dangerous quest, deeper into the heart of the fairy kingdom of Fal. Sean, Benvy and Finny just want to go home to Ireland, but with the war that's brewing and Ayla's part in it, they may never be able to go back home again. Full review...
The Thing About Jellyfish by Ali Benjamin
Ali Benjamin describes her accomplished debut novel as a work where despair and wonder come together. When we first meet Suzy she cannot speak after a traumatic incident. Her family is struggling to cope with her silence and she is averse to the therapy of 'Dr Legs'. It is only through her flashback sequences, written in italics, and her passion for a science report that the reader comes to know her and sympathise with her suffering. Suzy is experiencing a cauldron of emotions including grief, guilt, denial and a tumultuous desperation to discover what she perceives to be the truth. It is this zeal which makes her refuse to believe her mother's explanation that sometimes things just happen and fanatically pursue her own best educated guess. Full review...
Pax by Sara Pennypacker
Young readers will be well aware of the horrors of war. It kills people, destroys families and homes, creates waves of desperate refugees and devastates the landscape. But there's one aspect of fighting which, apart from a few notable exceptions, isn't often touched upon – the fate of animals caught up in conflicts. We know a little about horses participating in cavalry charges, and homing pigeons carrying messages, but what about those animals which live in the wild? And worse still, what about all those well-loved pets which can no longer be fed or protected by owners close to starvation themselves? Full review...
Violet and the Smugglers by Harriet Whitehorn and Becka Moor
Violet's godfather has inherited a sailing boat and invites Violet and her family and friends to join him on a sailing adventure in the Mediterranean. How could Violet possibly say no? This turns out not to be quite as relaxing as you may imagine. It is not long before our heroine has suspicions about the captain of another boat and Violet's detective skills are needed again. With the help of her friends, Rose and Art, Violet is determined to solve the mystery. Will she be able to put a stop to a dangerous smuggling ring? Full review...
Shadow of the Yangtze (Ghosts of Shanghai) by Julian Sedgwick
And so we're back with Ruby and Charlie, in war-torn China in the late 1920s. Without giving anything of the first book away, a rescue mission is needed, and the help Ruby has had in the spirit world may well not appear. Charlie knows who would help – the Communists, but for Ruby, even though she was born in China she's definitely an outsider, an alien. With their quarry sailing off upstream amidst a storm of warfare, the friends have to take to the Yangtze waterways in pursuit – but just as in every corner of the mysterious city they're leaving, things quite strange to them will be appearing – shadow warriors, weaponised trains and ghost ships amongst them… Full review...
Sputnik's Guide to Life on Earth by Frank Cottrell Boyce
Sputnik Mellows set himself a mission – to discover whether Earth exists. Now he's found it, he needs to prove it should exist and, to do this, he enlists the help of schoolboy Prez Mellows. Together they need to find ten things that will justify Earth's existence. If they fail to do this by the end of the summer holidays, Earth will be shrunk by Planetary Clearance as part of the pan-galactic decluttering programme. Full review...
The Calling by Philip Caveney
Well-informed young readers will always welcome a new book from the extremely gifted Philip Caveney. This time, he places his poor hero right in the middle of not one but two mysteries. Firstly, why has said hero (we'll call him Ed as he's forgotten his real name) woken up on a train to Edinburgh with barely any money, a bump on the head and no memory whatsoever? And secondly, why does the whole human world freeze for a day right in the middle of the Fringe? The answers, when they come, are as intensely thrilling as they are wildly imaginative. Full review...
Jolly Foul Play by Robin Stevens
In the fourth adventure in the Murder Most Unladylike series, we return to the setting of the first book – Deepdean School for Girls. But things have changed. For the first time a Head Girl has been elected and Elizabeth Hurst didn't get the position based on popularity. Instead, she manipulated and blackmailed her peers and, supported by her five prefects, she's now terrorising the school. Responsible for so much misery, its little wonder everyone wishes Elizabeth dead. But someone has gone one step further – committing a murder and presenting it as an accident. None of the adults even suspect 'foul play' so it's up to Daisy, Hazel and their Detective Society to uncover the truth. Full review...
Little Bits of Sky by S E Durrant
I've put this story together from the diaries I kept when Zac and I were children. I wrote them in the hope that life would get better for the small unloved girl that was me, and my even smaller unloved brother. And if life didn't get better or at least more interesting I was going to make it up - to put witches and castles and rides in fast cars. But I didn't need to. Life got exciting all by itself... Full review...
Star Wars The Force Awakens Illustrated Storybook by Elizabeth Schaefer and Brian Rood
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away… Well, ours, last year, really… A film came along that seriously impressed lots of mature audience members who had very valid reasons to doubt it, and that made goggle-eyed popcorn munchers of a lot of youngsters. It had rollicking spacecraft dog-fights, it had emotional revisits for well-loved characters, and had a sting in its tail that lasted at least a couple of days before being leaked to the wider world. I know there is a DVD and Blu-Ray of it coming within days of me writing this, but I can only assume the reason the junior books about the film are being released now and not in time with its cinematic release is down to the chatter of the young and their rampant ability to say what they shouldn't – which includes what happens about eighteen pages before the end of the story here. Full review...
Star Wars The Force Awakens Novel by Michael Kogge
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away… Actually, it was any place on this planet you care to mention. Adults took their children along to see a proper time machine – one that would take the parents back to a future-seeming science fantasy action film, and would transport children to an ideal place where derring-do did, where spacecraft never bothered with taking fourteen parsecs to do the Kessel Run when they could do it in twelve, and where high-octane action was to be had. The time machine was called The Force Awakens, the seventh film in the enduring series. But when they got home there were no books suitable for the young readers to use to engage with what they'd just seen. The Alan Dean Foster adaptation of the script was for adults – it was a lot longer and more wordy than they were used to. They had to wait months for a book telling the story their way. But now it’s arrived. Full review...
The Boy and the Globe by Tony Bradman and Tom Morgan-Jones
This lively and enjoyable story is set in early seventeenth century London where young orphan Toby Cuffe is living on the streets where life is hard. In order to survive, the resourceful Toby joins the gang of boys who work for Moll Cut-Purse as thieves. Moll sends Toby to the Globe Theatre to do some pickpocketing where Toby becomes so engrossed in the play being performed that he forgets about his own safety. Caught by the theatre's owners Toby meets the writer of the play he has just seen performed, the famous playwright William Shakespeare. Then our young hero is given an opportunity that he had not expected. Toby is full of enthusiasm for the theatre and rekindles the Bard's enthusiasm too so that together they team up to save the threatened theatre. Full review...
The Genius Factor: How to Capture an Invisible Cat by Paul Tobin
Delphine is quite a normal 6th grader, if with a few eccentric traits. She has dozens of friends, argues with her siblings, misbehaves in class but not too much, disobeys her parents but not too seriously, and earns extra pocket money by dog-walking. She spends this money on cake. Mostly. Nate is not like Delphine. He has no friends and mostly goes under the radar of 6th grade society. But Delphine has noticed him and for good reason: Nate is a genius. He's so clever that he's even been studied by foreign academics. Not that this gains him much currency with his peers. Full review...
A Seven-Letter Word by Kim Slater
Finlay has got more than one PROBLEM. He lives alone with his father, who chain-smokes in between trips out to do odd jobs for people, and seems to have reduced his worth to just one recipe since his wife, Finlay's mother, vanished two years ago. Things are still bitter with him – he says she might as well be dead – but the issue manifests itself badly with Finlay, and he has grown into suffering quite a severe STUTTER, which leads to no end of TEASING at school. His one way out, it seems, is for a change an eight-letter word, SCRABBLE – he can hide away from the mismanagement of words that his speaking implies he has over a set of tiles and can play a decent game. But what happens when he is contacted online by a mysterious Alex – is this possibly a way to combine his love of the word game with his quest for the truth about his mother's ABSENCE? Full review...
The Story of a Seagull and the Cat Who Taught Her to Fly by Luis Sepulveda, Satoshi Kitamura and Margaret Sayers Peden (translator)
In the world of this book, danger brings people together, but adversity brings them together even more firmly. On the one hand we have Zorba, the big fat black cat, who was once swallowed by a pelican as a kitten, and now has been abandoned – well, temporarily, as his human child owner is away for a long time. But we also have a seagull, busy fishing when the alarm rings out and therefore left alone to be swamped by an oil slick. Trying to take her last flight, she crashlands on Zorba's balcony, and promptly delivers an egg – and with her dying breath procures the promise of the cat to look after the hatchling until Zorba can teach it to fly. But surely a lesson in flight from a cat is beyond even the binds of adversity? Full review...
Eeyore Loses a Tail (Winnie the Pooh Classics) by A A Milne and E H Shepard
Eeyore, the Old Grey Donkey stood in the thistly corner of the forest and thought about things. He was quite a philosopher in his own way, but his most profound thought occured when Winnie-the-Pooh came along and enquired as to how he was.
Not very how, he said. I don't seem to have felt at all how for a long time. Full review...
Nancy Parker's Diary of Detection by Julia Lee
Nancy is a bit of a dreamer. At fourteen years old she's happy to leave school (although she never quite mastered the fine art of spelling) and finds herself as a lowly housemaid to the very modern Mrs Bryce– a far cry from her plan to star in the movies, solve mysteries or even, if the worst comes to the worst, work in a shop that sells interesting things. Full review...
The Home-Made Cat Cafe (Poppy's Place) by Katrina Charman
Eleven year old Isla is cat crazy. She longs for a pet cat but her mum works as a veterinary nurse and has no desire to bring her work home with her. Luck, however, is on Isla's side when they find the cat sanctuary is full and Mum reluctantly agrees that unwanted cat – Poppy – can stay with them on a temporary basis. Only it turns out to be a little less than temporary and Poppy is soon joined by Roo, Benny and a litter of kittens. Isla's thrilled but she's going to have to do some quick thinking if she's going to persuade mum to let the cats stay. Full review...
Perijee & Me by Ross Montgomery
Forced to live on Middle Island with just her parents for company, Caitlin is lonely. The closest she's got to a friend is the grumpy fisherman, Frank, who takes her to school each day in his boat. But everything changes when Catlin finds a wriggling prawn on the beach and decides to keep it as a pet. Only it's not a prawn. It's soon the size and shape of a frog. By the next day it's the size and shape of a person and it keeps growing. And growing. What is it? Caitlin doesn't care – he's the friend she's always wanted. Full review...
Kensuke's Kingdom by Michael Morpurgo and Michael Foreman
It was on September 10, 1987 that Michael's life changed greatly. It had once before then, when his parents get a letter, and will definitely change at least once after then. But it is the middle change that perhaps most takes Michael out of his comfort zone – the lad keen to play football, even on the boggiest of pitches, the lad with his loving parents and with his love for Stella Artois (worry not, that's the dog) is suddenly taken and turned on his head, becoming a different child in a much different life. Full review...
Animal Rescue: The Unwanted Puppy by Tina Nolan
Animal Magic is one of those places which just shouldn't be needed. It's an animal rescue centre and they take in abandoned, lost and neglected animals, nurse them back to health and then find good homes for them. It's run by Mark and Heidi Harrison (Heidi's a vet) along with their two children, Karl and Eva, who live at the rescue centre along with their parents. The centre has two rules - they never put any animal to sleep who has a chance of regaining health - and Karl and Eva are not to get the idea that they can keep any of the animals on a permanent basis. If they did the house would be overrun! Full review...
The Secret Life of Daisy Fitzjohn by Tania Unsworth
Daisy Fitzjohn lives with her mother in the crumbling but grand Brightwood Hall. The house is full of antiques and treasures and hoardings - because Daisy's mother does like to hoard - and Daisy is rarely at a loss for something to look at or investigate. Which is just as well, because Daisy has never gone outside the house and its grounds. We understand why Daisy's mother keeps her secluded - she's terrified of loss because of a family tragedy in her own childhood. Despite this, Daisy has a loving relationship with her mum and makes up for the isolation by developing friendships: with her pet rat, with the peacocks and rabbits in the gardens, and also with paintings and topiary and other creatures of her imagination, all in the knowledge that she's being kept safe from The Crazy that once ran in her family. Full review...
Knights of the Borrowed Dark by Dave Rudden
Denizen Hardwick has spent the last eleven years – since he was two – at Crosscaper orphanage. He knows nothing about his family and is, therefore, surprised when he's suddenly summoned to visit an Aunt he didn't know he had. This is, however, only the first of many surprises. Before he even arrives at his Aunt's house, Denizen's world is abruptly turned upside down as he's introduced to a hidden world of shadows and an unseen enemy in the form of the Tenebrae. He soon discovers he has hidden powers but is he prepared for the cost of using them? Is he prepared to join the Knights of the Borrowed Dark? Does he really have a choice? Full review...
We Are Giants by Amber Lee Dodd
Nine year old Sydney Goodrow is small for her age and she wants to stay that way. Her mum is only 124cm tall and her dad, when he was alive, wasn't much taller. Despite the challenges it can cause, Sydney knows that being little is special and that's why she tries hard with her regular 'shrinking exercises'. However, despite her best efforts, she can't help growing taller and growing up. Full review...