#Review By Lou of Miss Cat By Jean-Luc Fromental and Joelle Jolivet @thamesandhudson #GraphicNovel #MissCat #MiddleGrade #ReadingForPleasure #BlogTour @RandomTTours

Miss Cat (Graphic Novel)
By Jean-Luc Fromental and Joelle Jolivet

Graphic Novels have been on a rise and rise for years, with certain series now being firm favourites of children and teens alike. They, especially encourage reading for those who don’t think that’s for them and are termed “reluctant readers” and show a different type of book to add to the pile of the more exuberant, proficient readers.
Miss Cat is a great mystery for the young middle-grade readers.
Discover the blurb and my review of the first in a brand new series in this genre below.
Thanks to the publisher and authors, I also have a couple of pages and the cover to show you. You’ll see them as you go down this blog post.

Synopsis

The first book in an irresistible new graphic novel series for young readers, featuring a cool detective dressed in her cat-ear hoodie.
Meet Miss Cat, a private eye with ears on her hat and a nose for mystery!
Mr Titula, a sad old man, comes to see Miss Cat at the old dairy shop she uses as an
office. Someone has kidnapped his canary, Harry, his pride and joy! He begs the young detective to find him.
So, Miss Cat sets on the trail of Harry and a strange couple, the sultry Doris and the aggressive Jean-Pøl, a talking dog.
What could they be trying to hide? And could the senile Titula and the dashing Titus the Magnificent, a magician with extraordinary powers, be the same person?
Miss Cat, who thinks she’s a cat and hides underneath a large hoodie with cat ears, is a perfect new heroine to encourage children to read. With a Scandi-noir mood, Joëlle Jolivet’s dynamic illustrations and Jean-Luc Fromental’s thrilling plot and irresistible dialogues whisk young readers through Miss Cat’s crime-solving adventures!

Review

Miss Cat is quite the private eye, all clad in her cat-like hoodie. It’s a story that entertains and is quite the magical page-turner, with short chapters for 7-10 year olds, with its intriguing characters. There’s Miss Cat, a human who has set-up a detective agency and wears a cat-like outfit. She has dealings with Olaf the talking octopus, a member of the Octopus 6, Wolfgang who’s a talking dog and Maximus and Doris who are humans.

The book is entertaining with its mystery of a talking canary being bird-napped, magic and humour. You get a really good feel for the captivating characters in what’s great story-telling. What do the digits mean? Why are they so important to some of the characters? There’s goodies and baddies and a whole lot of fun for readers.

All is well-illustrated in a fun way, original way, that builds a good amount of atmosphere in what becomes a good page-turner.
It will leave children wanting more…

It would sit well with anyone’s collection of graphic novels, from schools to libraries to personal collections.
This is certainly one for children to look out for.
I’d certainly review more, given the opportunity.
The second will be ‘The Gnome’s Nightmare’.

#Review By Lou of Miss Cat By Jean-Luc Fromental and Joelle Jolivet @thamesandhudson #GraphicNovel #MissCat #MiddleGrade #ReadingForPleasure #BlogTour @RandomTTours

Miss Cat (Graphic Novel)
By Jean-Luc Fromental and Joelle Jolivet

Synopsis

Review

All is well-illustrated in a fun way, original way, that builds a good amount of atmosphere in what becomes a good page-turner.
It will leave children wanting more…

#Review By Lou of Podcast – From The Library With Love by Kate Thompson @katethompson380 @RandomTTours #Podcast

Podcast Review~
From The Library With Love
for people who’s lives have been changed by reading
By Kate Thompson

I am on the blog tour with a review of the podcast – From The Library With Love by Kate Thompson, author of successful book – The Little Wartime Library.
A fascinating podcast and I am reviewing one of the episodes. I have a list of episodes already up and those to come and the link to where you can listen to the podcast from the author at the end of my review.

Review

Pique your interest and take time, whether your out and about or relaxing in the warmth to pique your interest in the podcast – From The Library With Love. There’s more than meets the eye in this fascinating, original podcast. It will take you to places not considered when it comes to libraries, even underground. You will meet people with such interesting stories that are deeper than you may expect.

Kate Thompson wrote the highly popular book – The Little Wartime Library. She now has a podcast you can listen to called “From The Library With Love”. I have chosen for the blog tour to review the episode – Discover The Hidden History.
I was at this event, so it’s lovely to have the opportunity to revisit an amazing time.

Kate launched The Little Wartime Library in Bethnal Green Library 100 years after it first opened. She talks to Siddy Holloway, presenter of Secrets of the London Underground and runs Hidden London, taking people into disused tube lines, secret bunkers. Original Eastender Ray Lechmere who used to shelter down the tube when he was a kid as bombs dropped overhead.
She revisits this time and from the comfort of your home, you are invited to listen about a subterranean community.

Kate talks about how she explored Clapham South underground tunnels on the tour. She brings it to life and you can really feel the atmosphere and immerses the listener. She also talks about the inspiration for her book and who inspired it. She interviewed many people, but there is one in-particular that really brings authenticity to her writing about Bethnal Green and it’s community that went underground during the Blitz and so much happening before the welfare state.

Together, the panel evokes all the senses and truly immerses the listener in the historical research and the interview with the original Eastender, who talks about how it really was going underground. It’s very moving and will give a greater understanding to what the Blitz was really like for those who didn’t live through it. It’s highly insightful, invaluable for it to be captured in a podcast.

It is an inspiring podcast about how people were “library educated” and for them giving a place to escape to. She evokes a lot of emotion at a time when libraries are closing. I find it amazing this one is still open and busy and not taken for granted, unlike so many others have been.

Hear from John Drury about a great tube disaster and how people behaved. It’s a disaster that’s been researched afresh about what actually happened. He also talks about communities today and back in the Blitz and people’s behaviours.

Robert Jones talks about Reading For Victory. A real campaign by librarians and is featured in the book. Interestingly, we today, benefit from this time. Some publishers had certain attitudes, you may be surprised by for this time.

She reads out her Love Letter to Libraries that tells a lot of truths that people don’t think about when you first walk into a library. Librarians, like me, were interviewed and she has added this, most humbly into this letter that features in her book. It’s insightful and emotional and tells some home-truths about what a library truly is, it may be more than you think…

The podcast, like the book, truly champions libraries, reading, listening to books that warms the heart. It’s a podcast that everyone would find well-worth listening to as there is lots to be gained from it in many ways.

Interviews up already:

📚 100-year-old Bletchley Park Codebreaker Betty Webb on keeping her wartime secrets.

📚 Bestselling author of The Beekeeper of Aleppo, Christy Lefteri on the importance of writing what you feel.

📚 New York Times bestselling author Madeline Martin on underground libraries and clandestine book clubs.

🎙October 2nd – 8th is Libraries Week. I’ll be releasing an episode every day with some incredible librarians, including the librarian who has kept everything she has ever found in a returned library book.

🎙November. ‘I was born in a concentration camp’ A powerful interview with 78-year-old Eva Clarke, who told me ‘‘You don’t know what you can withstand until you are put to the test.’

TO COME…

🎙December marks the 85th anniversary of the Kindertransport scheme, 97-year-old Gabriele Keeaghan bravely shares the harrowing moment she was forced to leave behind her family and flee Nazi occupied Vienna.

🎙National Letter Writing Day, I met the woman who collects forgotten letters from flea markets and told me, ‘Letters capture the essence of what it is to be living through history. In attics, and drawers and shoe boxes under beds there are hundreds of stories waiting to be told.’

Link to Podcast: From The Library With Love

#Article By Lou – Celebrating Actors and Authors Series -Clive Mantle @MantleClive #CliveMantle #WishYouWereDead #Grace #Casualty #FreddieMaloneSeries #TV #Theatre #Books #Reviews #Article #EduTwitter #SchoolReading #ChildrensBooks #Books #Audiobooks #paperback #ThePeoplesBookPrizeWinnerAward #CelebratingAuthorsAndActorsSeries

My blog will be 5 years old in September. For those just joining this series of blog posts, I am celebrating certain authors and actors between now and September, when my blog turns 5. This time, I am celebrating actor and author – Clive Mantle. Discover some of his works below on tv, screen and stage, as well as about his children’s books (suitable for 9/10 years upwards). He is a People’s Book Prize Winner!

Clive Mantle is known for acting on tv and theatre for many years as well as writing children’s books. He is probably best known for being Little John in Robin of Sherwood, Mike Barratt in Casualty, Simon Horton in The Vicar of Dibley. He has also starred in Doctors, Midsummer Murders, Still Open All Hours, Heartbeat, Birds of a Feather and more…
He also appeared on The Chase spin-off – Beat The Chasers and won a phenomenal amount of money for his choice of charity, showing he has a wide range of knowledge he can quickly recall.
He has also voiced Thomas the Tank Engine, many audiobooks and video games as well as attend comic-cons.

On stage, he is currently on tour in the UK until at least 25th July with the play Wish You Were Dead, based on the book of the same name, by Peter James. Tickets are still available now! I highly recommend this Grace mystery that also has another former Casualty actor – George Rainsford as Roy Grace and Giovanna Fletcher. It is a compelling, eerie crime thriller, with terrific acting. It takes place with Grace on holiday. It’s supposed to be time away from the job, but things change and he and all who are with him are in mortal danger. George Rainsford and Clive Mantle, in-particular, own the stage, entrancing the audience in a twisty thriller.

Did you know he is a kind and very clever gentleman, who is an avid reader, who has a passion for Mount Everest and also writes amazing children’s books?
There are 3 in the Freddie Malone series so far. I bought, read and reviewed them some time ago. They are more than worthy of being read by children and to being in school libraries and on reading lists. Each fast-paced, action-packed adventure books tells a story featuring Freddie Malone. They include some time-travel from the UK to different parts of the world (they include maps). They also deal with issues ant school.
Each book then has a couple of pages or so of factual information about what you’ve just read. They are compelling and memorable for children, who will also learn something new as well as being entertained.

He was inspired to write the Freddie Malone adventures during a trek to the Everest Base Camp for the charity Hope and Homes for Children. Discover a bit about these books below:

The Treasure At The Top Of The World is book 1 in A Freddie Malone Adventure. There are 3 in total, follow down for the rest.

This first one takes place on Freddie Malone’s birthday. He gets a mirror, which happens to have magical properties. This is useful for escaping the school bullies he endures each day. He inadvertently ends up in Nepal, meets a Sherpa around Mount Everest and sees a Bazaar (of which there is a photo of in the book).

It is an excellent introduction to Freddie and his friends, as well as his foes. It deals with many issues children face today, as well as being entertaining throughout on a grand adventure.

Find out more about the actor and book, including the blurb in the link:

The Treasure At The Top of the World

A Jewel In The Sands of Time takes Freddie back through the mirror, now he has a taste for exploration. He lands in Egypt and meets a Collector, studying a mysterious gemstone. The Collector wants to turn back time to steal a priceless artifact and a precious, legendary elixir to prolong his life.

Freddie goes back in time to meet Tutankhamun and learns how he became King at a young age and he discovers more about The Valley of the Kings.

Back home, he is reunited with his friends, but still, the school bullies are around too.

It is another action-packed adventure with lots to get your teeth stuck into.

Find out more and the blurb in the link:

A Jewel In The Sands of Time

In The City of Fortune and Flames takes Freddie to London and to the time of The Great Fire of London. Prior to this, there is the mystery as to why the map, so directionally and pertinently, took him to meet Pepys, and also why he got to know something of King Charles II and the plague on Drury Lane.

It is another fascinating, Must Read book, full of adventure, excitement and jeopardy.

Find out more in the link, including the blurb.

In The City of Fortune and Flames

#BookReview By Lou of #MiddleGrade #ChildrensBook Libby and The Highland Heist By Jo Clarke Illustrated By Becka Moor @bookloverJo @FireflyPress #Kidslit #Mystery #Adventure #ScottishCastle

Libby and The Highland Heist
By Jo Clarke
Illustrated By Becka Moore

Libby and The Highland Heist is a middle-grade book for ages 8-12, set in the Highlands of Scotland and its capital city – Edinburgh. Thanks to Firefly Press, I have been able to write a review on my blog. First, steal yourselves down to the blurb and then my review below.

Blurb

After a tumultuous term in Paris, Libby and Connie are looking forward to a quiet holiday at Connie’s family home. But before long they find themselves caught up in another mystery, this time set against the dramatic backdrop of the Highlands and Edinburgh.

Review

Not having read and reviewed the first in the series, I don’t think it matters too much if children jump in on this second in the series or read from the start. Middle-grade readers will soon get to know Libby and Connie and how they travel on adventures.

It’s mysteriously atmospheric with a Scottish castle that holds secret passageways and priceless paintings, that are stolen, which in-turn gives the two very good friends a mystery to solve. The book is full of friendship, puzzle-solving and mystery.

There’s plenty of entertainment for young armchair detectives to let their imaginations go wild within, aided by mystical illustrations and the fun cover.

About the Author

Jo Clarke is an award-winning book blogger and primary school librarian. Her blog, BookloverJo, enables her to indulge her love of reading children’s books. She is actively involved in the children’s book community and has been a judge for both the British Book Awards and Alligator’s Mouth Book Awards.

Growing up she liked nothing better than reading mystery and boarding school stories by torchlight, when she should have been fast asleep.

She lives in Hampshire with her husband, two daughters and three cats.

Becka has been illustrating children’s books since 2012 and has over 60 books published. She has a real passion for design, and reading as many books as she can get her greedy hands on.

She lived in Wales for a time studying Illustration for Children’s Publishing at Glyndwr University, before returning to Manchester where she currently lives with her partner and two cats.

#QuickReview By Lou of Best Buddies by Lynn Plourde Illustrated By Arthur Lin @LynnPlourde #ArthurLin #BestBuddies @RaintreePub #FriendshipStory #DownsSyndrome #Dogs

Best Buddies
by Lynn Plourde
Illustrated By Arthur Lin

Best Buddies is a picture book that tells a story of a boy with downs syndrome, the bond with his dog and starting school. Find out more in the blurb and my review below. Thanks firstly to Raintree Publishers for a review copy.

Best Buddies introduces a boy-and-dog duo who are BEST FRIENDS and who do EVERYTHING together! So how will they manage being apart when the boy heads to school for the first time? Find out how a clever boy with Down’s syndrome and his loyal pet find the perfect way to feel close even when they can’t be together. A sweet, inspiring story that will ease concerns about the first day of school and other big changes for kids.

Review

Boy and dog have a special bond and don’t ever want to apart from each other. The time comes for the boy to start school and it’s tough because it means leaving the dog behind. They literally do everything together. All is not lost though as slowly but surely they both find ways of coping and getting used to a new routine. By the end, the boy and his dog discover having to part for awhile isn’t all bad. The loyalty remains and they will reunite after school.

It’s a sweet story with fun illustrations and one that can be red for the joy of it and also to prepare for starting school, either in a new term, after a holiday or if you suddenly get a new pet and child and pet have bonded.