#Review by Lou of The Spectaculars: Battle of the Stars By Jodie Garnish #JodieGarnish @Usborne #Childrensbook #MiddleGrade #kidslit

The Spectaculars: Battle of the Stars
By Jodie Garnish

Review written by Louise Cannon

Enchanting, theatrical, dramatic, The Spectaculars: Battle of the Stars is an entertaining read for middle-grade readers to get lost in and travel with a magical theatre school.

Blurb

Jump onboard the Wondria… The Spectaculars is an enchanting adventure series filled with magic, theatre and danger, perfect for drama lovers. For fans of Nevermoor, The Train to Impossible Places and Carrie Hope Fletcher.

There’s magic in the air as Harper begins her third year as a Spectacular at the Wondria – her magical travelling theatre school.

An immersive theatre show is touring the Hidden Peaks, bewitching everyone with its starry charms. But when the show’s fortune-teller predicts danger in Harper’s future, Harper is suddenly pulled into a terrifying battle of powerful spells and sinister figures.

With her friends, Harper must uncover who is behind it all – because if they can’t, it will be closing night for the whole of the Hidden Peaks…

Review

Immersive theatre shows are amazing and this book reflects this style of theatre to a degree. Hidden Peaks is charming everyone, but there are sinister forces at work after Harper talks to a fortune-teller who predicts her future.

What unfolds is a theatrical world of magic and friendship to pull readers in. The mild trepidation creates a desire to see how this entertaining read where the colliding fantastical world of theatre and magic ends.

#Review By Lou of Zac and Jac by Cathy Jenkins #CathyJenkins @graffeg_books @KellyALacey @lovebookstours #LBTCrew #BookTwitter

Zac and Jac
By Cathy Jenkins

Zac and Jac is a great middle-grade emotive book for fans of football and who like books about newfound friendships alike.

Nine-year-old Jac sees his father as a hero, but when Jac joins a local football team with his best friend Zac, things start to get a bit weird at home. It’s not until a group of professional footballers come into school to talk about racism that Jac realises what his father’s problem could be. After a traumatic turn of events, Jac learns of the difficulties faced by Zac’s grandparents and the Windrush Generation and becomes determined to help to make a change in society, starting with his own family.

Review

Football plays such a big part of many people’s lives and books featuring it enthrals many children. This is where the book is clever as it mixes sport with issues as young people look up to footballers and those children who join local teams. It really highlights the Windrush Generation and the issue of racism.

It shows the gap between younger and older generations and how different people can be viewed. It’s quite a strong book like this, but the positive is that it shows Zac and Jac being of different skin colours being friends and how Jac wants to show that this is a lovely thing and there’s nothing to fear, it’s just friends with something in common at the end of the day.

I feel adults reading this to children will also see that people can come from somewhere different, have different skin colour even etc and still be friends.

#Review By Lou – #CallingAllSwifties #BookReview of Little People, Big Dreams Series – Taylor Swift #KidsLit #ChildrensBook #Swifties #NonFiction #TaylorSwift #Music

Taylor Swift
Part of Little People, Big Dreams Series
By Maria Isabel Sanchez Vegara

Learn about the glittering story of Taylor Swift! The talented singer-songwriter who dreamed of sharing her talent with the world.

Synopsis

The perfect gift for every Swiftie in your life, young and old, this powerful book features captivating illustrations and extra facts at the back, including a biographical timeline with photos of the star and a detailed profile of her life…

Little People, BIG DREAMS is a best-selling biography series for kids that explores the lives of outstanding people, from designers and artists to scientists and activists. All of them achieved incredible things, yet each began life as a child with a dream.

Review

Taylor Swift, she’s one of a few global superstars of the music industry. Many have been to gigs, bought her albums, downloaded her songs. This adds to the memorabilia of her life. This book is fun for fans, especially her child fans to keep as it charts her rise to meteor success, tells a little about her life pre-stardom, which makes it a bit grounded and “real” and gives a timeline of events and songs.
There are nicely placed starry photos of Taylor Swift in action.

It’s a good mix of info and presentation throughout!

All in all, it’s a fun book for young Swifties.

#Review By Lou of Little House By Katya Balen #LittleHouse @katyabalen @BarringtonStoke #MiddleGrade #ChildrensBook

Little House
By Katya Balen

Though-provoking for young readers about the concept of home in the award-winning book – Little House.
The publisher, Barrington Stoke has opened up this book by editing it to be readable for ages 8 plus, instead of 9 plus. Find out more in the blurb and my review below.

Blurb

Carnegie Medal-winning author Katya Balen explores the importance and meaning of home in this thought-provoking new novella.

Juno’s furious about being sent to stay with her grandfather for the summer. She’ll miss all the fun she and her friends had planned for the holidays. She’ll also miss her mum, but it’s her mum’s fault for leaving anyway.

Then Juno discovers a long-forgotten little family in her grandfather’s attic. As she works to carefully craft a new home for them, can she learn to forgive her mum and understand her reasons for going away?

For ages 9+ / Edited to a reading age of 8

Review

Little House has big concepts about staying for a summer with grandparents, developing an understanding about why certain things happen in families and forgiveness.

Juno finds it daunting and is a bit angst-ridden about staying with her grandfather. His house is creaky and she doesn’t like the dark, and yet it is he who is available to take care of her in the holidays whilst her mum is called away to resolve a work disaster. She is also worried about her mum having to go abroad to do this.

In time, Juno settles. She discovers a rather dishevelled dolls house in her grandfather’s home and suddenly the two of them have a project on their hands to fix, what was once her mum’s toy.

As Juno becomes a “fixer-upper” with the dolls house, her mum in some sense is one too as she tries to aid people who are refugees due to war, rebuild their lives.

Little House is a big themed book that is compelling and thought-provoking with a bit of fun, written in a way that children can get caught up in the adventure of it all and understand what they are reading.

#Review of The Outerlands By Eddie Farrington If you like #BenMiller try #TheOuterlands #MiddleGrade #Kidslit #ChildrensBook

The Outerlands
By Eddie Farrington

The Outerlands would suit middle-grade readers who enjoy books by Ben Miller. Thanks to Eddie Farrington, I have had the opportunity to write a review of this adventurous/fantastical book.

Blurb

Moo doesn’t believe she’s a hero. She doesn’t believe in much anymore, not since mum mysteriously disappeared.

She just wants to be left alone to play Sword Quest on her computer, but when her little brother gets himself kidnapped by the Tooth Fairy and her army of Midnight Fairies, Moo finds herself thrust into a dangerous adventure of her own.

Could her mum and little brother’s disappearances be linked? What in the world is the Tooth Fairy doing with all those teeth anyway? And why is the only person willing to help Moo navigate her way through the magical lands of the Outerlands insisting he is the eighth brother of a very famous seven?

A perilous adventure with earthquakes, a power crazed King, pirates, dragons and even mountains that throw rocks at people awaits, and at the heart of it all is Moo’s desperate search to believe again.

Because with belief Moo has the power to save a world, without it, she will help to destroy it.

Review

Adventurous and mysterious, The Outerlands tells a compelling story with mythical creatures and magical lands, this aside, there is an earthly, grounded element as well and the two are intelligently weaved together.

Moo is a character you can really get into to follow on her adventure. She is the hero of the piece, not that she would see it like that, it isn’t how she views herself. Life is insurmountably hard. Her mum has gone mysteriously missing and her brother gets kidnapped by a tooth-fairy, very quickly it’s easy to really feel for her. The adventure itself is all encompassing and becomes quite the page-turner as you want to know what happens next and where the world she finds herself in leads her.

Moo has quite a lot of pressure on her shoulders. She has to learn to believe as she comes across different creatures or everything will be destroyed. At its core, it’s a powerful message to give children and the parents/teachers who read the book to children, to be a child and allow imagination to grow in whatever direction or essentially childhood diminishes quickly.

The world-building of the fantasy/adventure/mystery book makes this rather fun and will take children’s imaginations to far off lands to meet a host of different characters, even the mountains are a character in themselves.

I recommend this adventurous read!

#Review By Lou of Felix’s Favourite Day By Fiona Lowry @FionaLowry9 #PictureBook for 3-5 years #ChildrensBook #KidsLit @RandomTTours #FelixsFavouriteDay

Felix’s Favourite Day
By Fiona Lowry

Today I am part of starting off the Random T. Tours blog tour with a review of a lovely award winning picture book for 3-5 year olds. Discover the cover, blurb and review below.

Blurb

A fun and colourful picture book of positive thinking to show that your dreams come true.
Perfect growth mindset book for ages 3-5yrs

Winner of The Golden Wizard Book Award 2022.
Winner of American Writing Awards 2023 Children’s Book International,

Felix loves animals and dreams of being a vet when he is older. The only problem is, he doesn’t have his own pet to look after yet.
After begging, badgering and bothering his parents, Felix is finally taken to the local animal shelter for what his parents hope will be a sensibly chosen cat or dog…Felix may have other ideas!

Review

Felix very dearly wants a pet and has ambitions to become a vet when he grows up. Young readers are taken through his desires for a pet through a lovely rhyming story and brightly coloured, attractive pictures of the different animals he looks at and considers.

The book is playful and fun as well as easily accessible with its linkage of words to pictures and varying fonts. It’s an eye-catchingly attractive book that has a great storyline that is short enough to hold the attention for 3-5 year olds and has humour they’ll appreciate. It’s a book that is just easy to want to turn page after page until the end.

It’s great for a bedtime story or one if you’re considering a pet for the home and it’s also great for nursery settings too. Everyone can have fun with it, including the adults reading it aloud to children or children taking a peek on their own or with a friend.