#Review of Curious Tales – Hector by D.M. Mullan @DM_Mullan @TinyTreeBooks @BomerHarris @LoveBooksGroup #ChildrensBook #KS1 #KS2 #ReadingForPleasure #STEM #KidsHumour #RhymingStory

Hector
By D.M. Mullan
Illustrated by Kirsteen Harris Jones

Hector is a curious tale by D.M. Mullan and is perfect for primary school aged children 5-6/7 years. It looks like a picture book for younger kids, but the content is so much more and is great for feeding their curious minds. The content is actually more perfect for KS1 plus. This book is exciting for this primary age group. It has humour, inventions, emotions, why we need friends. I’m pretty sure it can be used around some sort of STEM activity. It is also great for just reading for pleasure and tells a story of a modern fable.
I can see it being a hit with many children.
Thanks to Love Books Tours for inviting me and for Tiny Tree Children’s Books for gifting me the book.
Please follow through to the blurb and the rest of my review and also discover more about the author and very successful illustrator after that…

Blurb

If something is missing, and you’re feeling blue, you could learn from Hector, who feels this way too.

This little genius lives in an upside down boat, and he grunts from his hill like a grumpy old goat:

“Hector van Groat needs no one but Hector, because he is a genius, a crazy inventor!”

Book #1 in the D.M. Mullan’s Curious Tales series.

D.M. Mullan’s Curious Tales is a series of peculiar modern fables from author D.M. Mullan and illustrator Kirsteen Harris-Jones.

With a classic rhyming style and wonderfully quirky illustrations, each book centres around a unique little individual and tells their story.

Review

Hector is full of humour and I must say, impressive rhyme. There is a map at the beginning and from that page, it absolutely draws you in as you set sail. It literally invites curiousity and anticipation from that first page!

Hector Van Groat is the main character and he is a boy who is feeling blue. He’s a genius inventor of crazy inventions, so enters his invention room to create something new to cheer himself up. He discovers it just isn’t as fun as he thought it would be, without a friend. He is however a bit big headed, until the end.

Along the way, Hector’s inventions and antics add much humour to this curious tale. The illustrations enhance this a lot.

Hector is a boy who many children will be able to relate to and have fun with. There’s much they will learn and much they can empathise with and laugh at. This is just absolutely sublime and the language that is used also makes it perfect for KS1 plus. It is also much fun for reading for pleasure in the home too. Reading this book aloud is perhaps the most perfect way to treat it. There’s so much more that children can enjoy then, to give them reading pleasure.

This book, as well as being great for reading for pleasure, I am sure could fit somewhere into STEM, in a wider topic as it involves science within the story that can feed their imaginations as to what they perhaps would want to invent. It would also be great to feed into Lego Clubs and can provoke discussions for PSHE too and friendship topics.

About the Author

D.M. Mullan is a world-travelled author from County Derry, Northern Ireland. Now living in Belfast with her family, the author will launch the ‘D.M. Mullan’s Curious Tales’ series in 2021; her first work for children.

About the Illustrator

Kirsteen Harris-Jones is an illustrator with a colourful past. She’s worked at a variety of creative, graphic and animation studios since 1990. Her work has been published by Random House, Egmont, Bloomsbury, Little Tiger, and more.

#Review by Lou – Noah’s Gold by Frank Cottrell-Boyce #MiddleGrade #ChildrensBook – Happy Publication Day! @frankcottrell_b @MacmillanKidsUK

Noah’s Gold
By Frank Cottrell-Boyce

I was excited to see that I had been accepted to review Noah’s Gold. I’ve seen Frank Cottrell-Boyce’s work before in books and on screen and been impressed. Noah’s Gold did not disappoint and middle-grade readers of 9 years plus will have a great adventure in their hands with this book. It is perfect for the home, classrooms, libraries, bookshops. This is the book children who enjoy humour and trepidation, will find hard to put down. I am feel so excited for the children who may pick this book up, as my fingers fly enthusiastically across my laptop as I write the review.
Find out more in my review and the blurb and then check out what other top, very popular children’s authors have to say about it. Then find out more about this exciting author and illustrator and some social media and purchasing links. I thank the publisher – MacMillan Children’s Books for gifting me a book.

Packed with mystery, adventure and laughs, Noah’s Gold is the exciting novel from the bestselling, multi-award-winning author of Millions and Cosmic, Frank Cottrell-Boyce. Fully illustrated in black and white throughout by Steven Lenton, this is perfect for readers of 9+.

Being the smallest doesn’t stop you having the biggest ideas.

Eleven-year old Noah sneaks along on his big sister’s geography field trip. Everything goes wrong! Six kids are marooned on an uninhabited island. Their teacher has vanished. They’re hungry. Their phones don’t work and Noah has broken the internet. There’s no way of contacting home . . . Disaster!

Until Noah discovers a treasure map and the gang goes in search of gold.

Review

Noah’s Gold is story-telling at its best! Frank Cottrell-Boyce has produced an absolutely terrific book for middle-grade readers of aged 9 plus, that’s entertaining, attention grabbing from the start, humorous and one fabulous adventure and mystery!

I love that the chapters become letters, this is ingenious! This book will feed right into children’s imaginations as they join a rip-roaring adventure, that starts as a normal school trip, but there’s so many issues with the sat-nav and all starts to go wrong.
Meet Noah, Ryland, Lola, Dario and Ada as they unexpectedly end up on an uninhabited island. Mr Merriman, the teacher, then mysteriously disappears!
The characters wild imaginations take hold of them and their theories are most entertaining. There’s also the issue of there being no phone signal, which would be the stuff of nightmares for children.
There’s some neat references to faeries and Katie Morag and Paddington 2 that come into play, as they work out what to do next, to resolve their mysterious predicament. There’s also commaraderie amongst the class and some team work as they pull together to create and light a fire and more… as they try to survive together. The book may be thought-provoking to children, who may turn their attentions to what they may do if they found themselves in a similar situation. For all that, it’s a sparky tale, full of energy and wit.

There’s also the fun discovery of a treasure map, with clues that are found in the most curious of places as they magically appear as they go on this further adventure to try and find the gold and then to find out where Mr Merriman can be.

The book is the opposite to Lord of the Flies, which has its merits, which are still important for today, Noah’s Gold has humour and also shows children coming together and pulling all their knowledge and resources together in a positive way. It also puts me in mind of a modern Famous Five or Secret Seven in some ways, and has a bit of a nod to Roald Dahl too, which is so wonderful in this riveting adventure.

The book is fully illustrated in black and white pictures that make it all accessible for children who are still into pictures in their books. I was impressed by the artistic nature of the writing too, as tunnels are found, the colours of the text changed. There’s even a recipe for children who like to bake. The book has absolutely everything!

Children can read this themselves and it would also work well in a class situation, being read out loud.

Praise for Noah’s Gold

Brilliantly entertaining & thought provoking . . . I am in total awe.’ David Walliams

‘Proper, sparkly, witty, enticing storytelling . . . It’s perfect.’ Hilary McKay

About The Author

Frank Cottrell-Boyce is an award-winning author and screenwriter. Millions, his debut children’s novel, won the CILIP Carnegie Medal. He is also the author of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang Flies Again, Cosmic, Framed, The Astounding Broccoli Boy and Runaway Robot. His books have been shortlisted for a multitude of prizes, including the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize, the Whitbread Children’s Fiction Award (now the Costa Book Award) and the Roald Dahl Funny Prize. Sputnik’s Guide to Life on Earth was shortlisted for the 2017 CILIP Carnegie Medal and selected for the inaugural WHSmith Tom Fletcher Book Club.

Frank is a judge for the 500 Words competition and the BBC’s One Show As You Write It competition. Along with Danny Boyle, he devised the Opening Ceremony for the London 2012 Olympics. He has written for the hit TV series Dr Who and was the screenwriter for the hit film Goodbye Christopher Robin. @frankcottrell_b

Steven Lenton is a multi-award-winning illustrator, originally from Cheshire, now working from his studios in Brighton and London with his dog, Big Eared Bob. He has illustrated many children’s books including Head Kid and The Taylor Turbochaser by David Baddiel, The Hundred And One Dalmatians adapted by Peter Bently, the Shifty McGifty and Slippery Sam series by Tracey Corderoy and the Sainsbury’s Prize-winning The Nothing To See Here Hotel series written by Steven Butler. He has illustrated two World Book Day titles and regularly appears at literary festivals and live events across the UK. Steven has his own Draw-along YouTube channel, showing how to draw a range of his characters. He has also written his own picture book Princess Daisy and the Dragon and the Nincompoop Knights’ and his new young fiction series Genie and Teeny. For more info visit stevenlenton.com

Purchase Links

Amazon Waterstones Bookshop.org

#Review By Lou Coming To England – 25th Anniversary Edition by Floella Benjamin @FloellaBenjamin @MacmillanKidsUK #ChildrensBook #Memoir #NonFiction

Coming To England
By Floella Benjamin
Illustrated by Joelle Avelino

Review written by Louise (Lou) @Lou_Bookmarks

Floella Benjamin, I am sure a lot of people will have heard of her. I certainly remember her in Playschool, probably nearer the end of that series. Hers is perhaps the main name I remember as she captivated my childlike imagination. Now she is made a Dame and has been in parliament and done more good, so to have the opportunity to review her book is just astounding and a big honour! This isn’t just an exciting book, because I’m picky about contents of books, no matter who is writing it), and this is one excellent book that is informative and has a lot of colour and life to it that makes it absolutely fascinating to read about travelling between Trinidad and England.
Coming to England is great for Middle-Grade readers and is being re-released. She first wrote it over 20 years ago and then it was published again in 2016 and now on 15th April, it is ready for this new generation of children to enjoy and is a very special 25th Anniversary Edition you can buy now.
It’s perfect for bookcases everywhere and in classrooms. Teachers and children’s group leaders could easily find creative ways of using this book, there’s so much scope to be inspired from it to teach children of Trinidad through the memoir, the carnival, the food. There’s also a lot of discussion about different topics that come through in the book too. It is as relevant then as it is for today’s generation. Coming To England is Timeless!

As I write this and my full review, I find my fingers flying across the keyboard in excitement in what I found within the book, which is a memoir that is incredibly well-written for children and is as relevant today as it was in yesteryear.

Thanks to Macmillan Children’s Books/Pan Macmillan for gifting me Coming To England.

Find out more about this special 25th Anniversary Edition of Coming To England in the blurb and my full review and buy links.

Blurb

This 25th anniversary edition of Floella Benjamin’s classic memoir, Coming to England, includes a foreword by the author and some additional historical information. It is beautifully illustrated by Michael Frith.

Floella Benjamin was just a young girl when she, her sister and two brothers arrived in England in 1960 to join their parents, whom they had not seen for fifteen months. They had left the island paradise of Trinidad to make a new home in London – part of a whole generation of West Indians who were encouraged to move to Britain and help rebuild the country after the Second World War.

Reunited with her mother, Floella was too overwhelmed at first to care about the cold weather and the noise and dirt from the traffic. But, as her new life began, she was shocked and distressed by the rejection she experienced. She soon realized that the only way to survive was to work twice as hard and be twice as good as anyone else.

This inspirational story is a powerful reminder that courage and determination can overcome adversity.

Review

With a brilliantly coherent foreward, that is a Must Read, (I say because I know that some people skip over these parts and miss a great deal), it gives an insight for what’s to come, with some of the history and circumstances laid out. The entire book is hugely interesting and many children will be able to relate to so many aspects themselves or learn so much from it and will (hopefully) see that moving can be challenging, especially to a different country and what can be faced and also how challenges can be overcome. They will also (hopefully) learn that humans, whatever their race etc don’t need to be mean to each other (putting it politely) and learn tolerance and also learn something about the Windrush Generation. It is a book that may inspire and is written in such a way that children will be able to get into easily and understand immediately and may prompt curiosity and questions and thoughts. Floella Benjamin, with her new foreward proves she’s still got it when it comes to children and young people, to reach out to them and their level.

Readers get to know a little of Dame Floella Benjamin’s brothers and sister – Ellington, Sandra and Lester whose mother they call Marmie, in affectionate terms, who met Dardie aged 19, all of which I think is just lovely. The memoir starts with Life in Trinidad and it feels quite uplifiting in some ways and warm. There is much enjoyment for children to get their teeth into and so much knowledge to be gained about food and other parts of the culture. No matter where you’re from, whatever your culture, it shows that some things are the same the world over, such as baking. This is one of the beauties of this book, it starts off showing that there are similarities in life, after all, who doesn’t at the very least, like cake or ice cream? It has such a positive feel to it for children to read about that is heartwarming as it will make it easy then for children to warm to it. Then there’s school life, so some of this will be familiar to children too, although there are some changes, but this is where it’s interesting for children, and it was for me growing up too, as I grew up without the fear of the belt, whipping down on me, but in the 60’s, 70’s this seemed more like the norm.

There is the fun and spectacle at the carnival and there are some great illustrations of this, as there are throughout the book. Between that and church life, children will be able to see the British (and other countries) influences.

The reasons of creativity as to why people were moving out of Trinidad to England are fascinating and England seemed perfect for creating styles of music, such as Jazz etc that weren’t so popular in Trinidad. The memoir takes readers on a real journey of life and even to the crossing of the sea, which is great, I was glad this wasn’t missed out as it seems so pivitol and adds more to the story, instead of just landing in England without this part and I think children will be able to also feel the excitement (as I do, thinking of this book as a child might), for the family to make it across the sea safely. The atmosphere really comes through and carries the story across those waves and onto the train when the ship meets the land. The book is truthful and shows those natural anxieties during the trip.

There’s a stark turning point of the book when the family reaches England, with the changes in colour and increased traffic and the way people behaved towards them, which is far from pleasant and children will either be able to relate to or sympathise with and recognise this, it also shows resilience and how people lived in certain areas and what was endured. The book however, has another turning point that will give hope and brightness and also enters the family’s grown-up lives so readers can read about what happened next. There is also a bit about The Windrush Generation in general which children can learn much from in just a few pages. So, yes, unfortunately due to the world views at the time etc, she, like lots of others within the Windrush generation had to work twice as hard, but it is not all as harshly written as that sit-up and take notice blurb, it does have some lightness, It is detailed but refrains from overly complicating things. It’s a book for today’s generation and generations to come with its timeless themes and it is properly interesting and is a surprising page-turner, not least because who doesn’t care about Dame Floella Benjamin? But you care about her, her family and the whole windrush generation and hopefully everyone will see everyone as just being human and bring some humanity, no matter how small it is and just some peace and live and work together and see differences, but also similarities and find ways to not segregate or anything like that. This book could provide some hope for the future as adults may well read this with their children too, no matter where they come from, what their race is. It is relevant for everyone. It is about one family but is further-reaching than that…

Buy Links

Waterstones

WHSmith

Scholastic

#BookReview of #ChildrensBook – Chocolate Cake For Breakfast by J.L. Humphreys @Jlhumphreys59

Chocolate Cake For Breakfast
By J.L. Humphreys

Who wants chocolate cake for breakfast? I’m sure a lot of hands will whoosh up. Find out if the girl in the story actually has it or not. Discover where her imagination takes her in this short fun story that has animals, food and the alphabet within it. It’s suitable for pre-school to 5/6 year olds. Find out more in the blurb and my full review.
Thanks to J.L Humphreys for inviting me to review and for providing the book.

Blurb

Do you know a child that struggles with reading and learning the alphabet? Do you wish your child would sit with you and enjoy reading? Learning to read starts early and you can instill a love for reading now! Chocolate Cake for Breakfast introduces children to the alphabet through the wild imagination of a little girl envisioning herself as different animals eating tasty treats. Your child will have fun and laugh out loud at the silly animals while learning the alphabet.

Review

This book is fun and educational as it goes through the letters of the alphabet. Imagine having delicious chocolate cake, right in front of you and your mum telling you not to have any!!! This is what happens to the girl in this story. She then shows her wild imagination as she thinks of different animals and what she would eat if she could turn into them. Each animal and food is in alphabetical order in the story, which is made up of short, sharp, rhyming sentences, most, accompanied by pictures. With the letters of the alphabet also in bold at the top of each page, it will make for a fun way for children to learn it, alongside a humorous story.

About the Author

J.L. Humphreys is the author of the picture books, Pumpkin’s Kitties, Super Sweet Pea, and Chocolate Cake for Breakfast. Humphreys is delighted that she has a job that allows her to teach children to use their imagination and dream big.

Humphreys lives in California with her husband, daughters, dog, and cat. Besides writing, reading, and teaching she is enthusiastic about the outdoors. She enjoys vacationing with her family, swimming, and getting her hands dirty. Her favorite ice-cream is mint-n-chip, her favorite color is blue, and her favorite animal is an elephant.
You can follow J.L. Humphreys on twitter @Jlhumphreys59

#BookReview by Lou of My Sister Is A Monster, My Brother Is A Monster by Natalie Reeves Billing @BillingReeves @RandomTTours #MonstrousMe #ChildrensBook

My Sister Is A Monster, My Brother Is A Monster
by Natalie Reeves Billing
Rated: 5 stars *****

I am absolutely delighted to be sharing with you the next installment of this wonderful series. Each book is complete within themselves and are worth collecting them all for the complete family of them. It is a split-perspective story, so you see both the sister and brother’s point of view. First one and then flip the book over to see the next, in whatever order you like, so it’s a bit like 2 stories for the price of 1 and with all the same excellent characters in both. It’s fun and it encourages a sense of self and empathy. Find out more about the author, the blurb and my full review of this excellent book as you meander down the page. Discover a link to activities that accompany the book after my review.
Thanks to Random Things Tours for inviting me to review. Thanks to the author Natalie Reeves Billing for sending me the book.

About the Author

Natalie Reeves Billing is a Liverpool lass with a dark sense of humour, which often spills onto the page. She loves to write spooky, fantastical stories for young audiences, and dabbles in poetry, contemporary fiction.
Natalie spent most of her early career in the music industry as a performer and professional songwriter. This lead, almost inevitably, to storytelling.

Natalie is an Arvon Foundation friend and is a student of the Golden Egg Academy. She is mentored under the Lloyds Bank SSE program, with her Bubs Literacy project. She is published in several anthologies with her poetry and flash fiction, including the Writing on the Wall, Read Now, Write Now, and is involved in several collaborations with fellow writers across poetry, song, and scriptwriting.
Her new book, My Mummy is a Monster (part of the Monstrous Me collection) will be available in March 2020 and Carry Love in June 2020
Connect with Natalie on Twitter @BillingReeves.

Blurb

Two Books in 1! The Monstrous Me Collection are split perspective books looking at situations from other points of view, helping children develop a sense of balance, roundedness and wellbeing. Readers can literally and figuratively, turn the story on its head, and look at the very same situations from different angles. In this book, a brother and sister are convinced the other is a monster. But, are they really? When we look at the story from the other side, we see a very different story.

Review

This is again, another terrific book that flips 2-ways to tell 2 stories. This time it focuses on the brother and the sister. It, like other books in this collection, has interactive elements of trying to find the Monstrometer as you go along. It adds an extra layer of fun and it is great that there are activities on her Lollipop Lodge website, which you can find just after the review.
Half the book is My Brother Is A Monster and then you flip it over to find My Sister is a Monster, or indeed, vice-versa, which is also fun and quite different.
The story starts at breakfast time, moving onto school and back home again before heading to bed. It tells of how the brother has the worst eating habits, bully’s his sister at school and then at home, won’t let her play with his toys and messes up the rules and the house. Then at the end, it demonstrates how he does love his sister really and does something courageous for her.
On the flipside, her brother sees his sister as being a monster as she is fussy at breakfast and has rules and then come school, won’t join in any games she thinks she will lose. At home she won’t leave her brother alone and tidies up rather prematurely. After all that, she then gives her brother a lovely homemade gift and shows she does love him after all.

The book is well-rounded and encourages empathy and understanding as children will be able to see through the eyes of both characters and work out how things really are and what is percieved. I has wonderful humour, rhythm and illustrations throughout will easily engage children.
This is a book that is part of a great collection that will be sure to delight children throughout at home and in the classroom. It can be used for both reading for pleasure and in a nursery and young classroom school setting, such as Reception or Primary 1, for fun and for stimulating conversation.

Link to Activities

www.lollipoplodge.com

#Bookreview by Lou of #ChildrensBook for 5-7 year olds What The World Needs Now: Bees by Cheryl Rosebush @cherylrosebush @freshly_press @lovebooksgroup #lovebookstours

What The World Needs Now: Bees
By Cheryl Rosebush
Illustrated by Zuzana Svobodova
Rated: 5 stars *****

First, I took part in the cover reveal. Now I have even more for you. I am starting off the blog to a review of this wonderful book for 5-7 year olds. It’s a sweet, well illustrated story mixed with facts in various ways that will both entertain and add to children’s knowledge.
Thanks to Freshly Press for supplying me with a copy of the book and to Love Books Group for inviting me to review.
Find out more in the blurb and review and discover more about this intrepid author below.

Blurb

Inside the sprawling forests of Ontario, Canada lives a friendly black bear named Melly. One of Melly’s favourite things to do is EAT! And many of the delicious fruits she snacks on wouldn’t grow without the help of some very important little forest creatures.

What the World Needs Now: Bees! explores the vital role busy, busy bees play in helping plants to grow the food people and animals love to eat.

Review

Bees… We all know how important bees are to the environment and to the human and animal race. This bright and very cute book tells a story as to why in a way that children can follow… Children can follow the black bear – Melly, who is in Ontario, Canada. It is however quite a universal, environmental story.
It is fun and cute to explore with Melly through the forest to the berries she eats onto the flowers she plays in to the friends she meets. Throughout it also tells the story of the busy bees and how they help pollinate flowers and food and why that is important. Children can also learn in little segments, away from the main story, in neat fact boxes, about the bear too. There is minor trepidation when chemical pesticides are used, until natural sprays are used instead. It’s an absolutely great story that is pitched very well for 5-7 year olds. They get a cute story, plus facts along the way and at the back there is a great page about bees from around the world and other wildlife species that can be found in Ontario, Canada.

About the Author

I was born and raised in Southern Ontario, Canada in the cities of Burlington and St. Catharines. Long before the internet and mobile phones (now I’m aging myself!), my childhood was spent in forests and parks, on bike rides, and playing hide and seek until the streetlights came on. My family did comical Griswold-style road trips in wood-paneled station wagons. We spent summers swimming in friends’ backyards. These are my very fortunate roots.

I knew from an early age that my destiny would take me far from Southern Ontario. I graduated high school and moved to Montreal to study international politics at McGill University. The subject fascinated me, but as graduation approached, I realized I didn’t know what I wanted to do with a degree in international politics. I didn’t want to become a lawyer. I didn’t want to become a politician or civil servant. The media industry, on the other hand, intrigued me.

The West Coast of Canada also intrigued me. So, after graduating McGill, I packed up again, moved to Vancouver and took the first media job I could get at a local Top 40 radio station (Z.95.3) in Vancouver. Best job. Great bosses. I learned so much. But after a couple of years there, the winds of change came calling again.

September 11, 2001. In a heartbeat, Z95.3 went from playing Britney Spears to reporting up-to-the-minute information on the local, national and international fallout of the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. In that moment, I knew I had found my calling. I wanted to do something that was needed on a good day, and needed even more on a bad day. I wanted to become a full-time journalist.

So, I packed my bags again (a running theme in my life), and moved to Ottawa, Ontario to do my Masters of Journalism. Another incredible two years culminated in me getting a research internship with the Canadian Broadcast Corporation (CBC) in London, England. That position helped me land back in Montreal for a second chapter there as local news reporter for the CBC. While I was there, I wore just about every hat you could in CBC’s radio and TV newsrooms. Depending on the day, I was a researcher, producer, reporter, or online writer. I even filled in for the weather reports every once in a while.