View source for Tilly and the Bookwanderers by Anna James

{{infobox1
|title= Tilly and the Bookwanderers
|author= Anna James
|reviewer= Linda Lawlor
|genre=Confident Readers
|summary= Book characters that come to life, heartless villains and all the crazy adventures people have ever imagined – a race-along thrill of a story.
|rating=5
|buy=Yes
|borrow=Yes
|pages=400
|publisher=Harper Collins Children's Books
|date=September 2018
|isbn=9780008229863
|cover=0008229864
|aznuk=0008229864
|aznus=0008229864
}}
To live above a bookshop – what could be better? Well, how about a bookshop with its own café, run by a brilliant chef who loves you to sample his cakes? Bliss! Of course, Tilly's life isn't perfect. Her mum went missing, she never knew her dad, and her best friend has joined a cooler group at school. But still, her grandparents and Jack the chef are kind and caring, she loves nothing more than to curl up and read, and as the book progresses she finds a new best friend – a real one.
 
Have you ever been so deeply involved in a story that you can almost imagine yourself right there in the book? Do you find yourself imagining what the characters would think if they saw your world? Well, Tilly no longer needs to think like that! Her favourite fictional characters wander into her bookshop at will, and before long she's joined them in their worlds, going to school with one, and enjoying (if that's the word!) a certain tea party with another. But Tilly's power has consequences, and not everyone is happy about her newly-discovered abilities. It's not just about going ''into'' books – there's the difficult challenge of getting out again unharmed.
 
Tilly is not quite alone. She gradually becomes friends with the boy across the road, and she draws him into the whole adventure too. And one of the best things about this book is that Oskar isn't just some passive tag-along companion: he has opinions and ideas and takes a full part in proceedings despite his dyslexia. Hurray for sidekicks!  
 
If you think about stories where young people travel in and out of a crazy alternate world, then the ones which will spring most readily to mind are the adventures of Alice. What with anniversaries and the like there are loads of editions out there, but Bookbag has selected a couple of the more recent ones - [[Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, Mark Burstein (editor) and Salvador Dali]] and [[Alice Through the Looking-glass by Lewis Carroll and Tony Ross]] for particular notice. Not the traditional illustrations, but an interestingly modern take on the themes. And if you like your reading spiced with a touch of magic, try [[The Company of Eight by Harriet Whitehorn]], about acrobats, pirates and a mysterious company of women. Or how about [[Begone The Raggedy Witches: The Wild Magic Trilogy by Celine Kiernan]], about another family with a magical destiny and some very creepy villains. By the way, if the adults in your life insist on keeping you waiting while they finish this book (and they will – it's very good) nudge them towards Jasper Fforde. Bookbag enjoyed [[Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde|Shades of Grey]] about a world where people can only see one colour, but he also wrote a truly wonderful series about a literary detective called Thursday Next and her adventures inside books. Tell them to start with ''The Eyre Affair'': they'll soon be searching for the others, and it'll keep their hands off your book pile for ages.
 
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