A week of reading!

February half term is never my favourite time of year, grey, wet and cold it was this year enhanced by some wonderfully sunny days but more so by a lovely big pile of new children’s books.  Some of the books I have had the pleasure of reading are not to be published for a couple of months yet – one of the benefits of being part of the industry – being able to read in advance.  However I will tell you about them nonetheless as you can then add them to your wants list!

Despite the apparently large selection I am about to share with you here there are still more on my pile and I will find time to get to them all so if, publishers and authors, you are reading this, I will get to your books very soon!

I am regularly asked if I have a favourite author or indeed book and I can honestly say I don’t, not for children’s or for adult literature.  I have favourites whose books I love to return to or make a point of reading when a new one comes out but one single favourite is impossible to choose and so it is with this selection here, there were some I loved but I enjoyed them all.

Starting with books for teens, the ones I have quite literally just read Ann Brashares The Here and Now (Hachette Children’s) is an exciting and quite different time travel romance, it is at once entirely believable and also wonderfully futuristic.  I found myself willing Prenna to make everything right, to fall in love and for it to work for her, she is a brilliant heroine, strong, clever, and feisty, someone to look up to.  Prenna must live by a set of rules in a community driven by fear.  She knows that there is always a second chance.  She knows that there is more-than-meets-the-eye taking place.  A gripping thrilling romantic story this book had me gripped and I know it will you too.

Another thriller, this one contemporary and equally believable is A J Grainer’s Captive (Simon & Schuster).  Robyn Elizabeth Knoylls-Green is 16, the daughter of the prime minister and survivor of an assassination attempt.  This makes her an A-List celebrity and a target.  Kidnapped by a mysterious game, caught in a web of deceit and corruption Robyn must keep reminding herself of the most basic facts including that she is still alive.  But who is the mysterious and melancholy boy in charge of guarding her?  Can she find a way in and a way out, can she unravel the deceit in time?  This is a most intelligent thriller, one which makes you feel you know where it is going only to surprise you again!

The Accident Season by Moira Fowley-Doyle (Penguin Random House) may not be published until July but it is a debut not to be missed. This MUST go on your to-buy list.  Whilst I worked out the twist quite early on there were strands to be followed and understood that kept me reading and meant I got through it all in one sitting!  Intelligent, dark and bewitching this is the story of one family and the mysterious curse that hangs over them.

Now to books for Junior readers and I will start with a sequel, one that I hope is only the second in a new series.  I thought that A Murder Most Unladylike by Robin Stevens (Penguin Random House) was rather like a cross between Famous Five and Agatha Christie!  Arsenic for Tea is the second Wells and Wong Mystery and is equally fun and intriguing  Schoolgirl detectives on the case of a mysterious poisoning, can they solve the mystery before another victim succumbs?  Wonderful fun.

Cathy Cassidy is an author with a strong and loyal following.  Alice in Wonderland is a classic title.  Put the two together and Looking Glass Girl by Cathy Cassidy (Puffin Books) is the modern day Alice, a girl who falls down a hole and finds herself.  A growing-up fantasy with echoes of realism, this is a perfect modern retelling.

A Whisper of Wolves by Kris Humphrey (Stripes) has echoes of Michelle Paver’s Wolf Boy but is a unique story of one girl, her power to understand wolves and the danger she faces when it appears no-one will believe the demons have returned.  This is the first of four stories in a new series of adventure, fantasy and war, family and courage.

On the subject of courage I come to the new novel by Lucy Coats.  Known for her stories of ancient myth this one is no exception.  A young Queen Cleopatra is the heroine of Cleo (Hachette) and with all the glamour of Ancient Egypt, the glory, the wealth and the power we learn of her struggle against monstrous half-sisters and blood-thirsty gods.  A gripping and exciting read.

Well that is it for my half term reading but I would love to know about yours!

Enter Wonderland

Well I was going to continue the new tradition started in January and write about new books for the month, then it was going to be Valentines read but then a lovely pile of Alice in Wonderland books arrive on my desk so I must tell you about these instead!

2015 is the 150th anniversary of the publication of the book and fans old and new are in for a treat.

But first for some history.  It was 1863 when Charles L. Doodgson met Alexander Macmillan, Macmillan fell in love with Alice and agreed to publish the story.  From 1865 to 1900 there were no less than 9 editions of Alice including revised English editions, French, German and Italian translations too!  The two men continued to be friends too.  Now, 150 years later Macmillan are still publishing Alice.  What you may not know is that Alice was commissioned by them, her iconic blue dress, blond hair and band came from them.

For a very special anniversary comes a very special selection of books, from heritage collectible editions to newly imagined works there is a whole new range featuring something, quite literally, for everyone.

You may know that Alice was inspired by a real life friend of the author and took two and half years to write the story but did you know that it is now one of the most iconic of children's books?

There is Alice In Wonderland the Little Folks edition with its big print and glorious illustrations this is a real treat, a miniature edition, a sixth of the length of the original but every bit as charming if not more.  Sir John Tenniel's colour illustrations, all 32, are a delight and bring the story to life and this book feels extra special because it is from an archive original.  John Tenniel's drawings were originally black and white plates later replaced with colour drawings but by 1911 his eyesight was failing and Macmillan commissioned Harry G. Theaker to complete 16 new plates, these gave Alice her iconic look.  Over the years other illustrators have added to the collection of images creating a wonderful library of prints.

The Little Folks edition is complemented by the equally gorgeous The Nursery Alice which was first published by Macmillan in 1890 and was the first colour edition specially adapted for younger readers,a delightfully simple version of the story for the reader to interact with and pictures to truly engage with, another delight complete with copies of original adverts found int he first book. Enchanting and delightful.

The new paperback Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is a charming read, as ever, for those old enough to manage a full book and then for the very youngest reader, not wanting to leave anyone out, Macmillan have produced a very special picture book complete with audio CD which is read by one of the Downton Abbey stars!


Alice in Wonderland Down the Rabbit Hole has the essence of the story simplified into picture book form by Joe Rhatigan and Charles Nurnberg with illustrations by Eric Puybaret.

This is a magical story, a magical version of an enduring classic and another fabulous title from the 150th anniversary collection that would do well to be added to the shelf.  For the very smallest reader the Macmillan imprint Campbell books will include Alice in their Busy series with tabs to pull making Wonderland come to life for its readers.

Anyone wanting to know more about Charles L Dodgson aka Lewis Carroll will not be disappointed either for there will be two titles The Selected Letters of Lewis Carroll: Anniversary Edition is wonderful for enthusiasts and for biography fans a biography by Morton N. Cohen will tick the box.

Need a small gift for family and friends?  Look no further than What Would Alice Do?: Alice's Guide to Life with inspired quotes.

Alice day, Sunday 4th July will be a day of celebrations, there will be events galore and activity packs for libraries, bookshops and schools.  Visit the website www.aliceinwonderland150.com and the Facebook page www.facebook.com/aliceinwonderlandofficialbook

Perhaps the piéce de resistance however is the hardback gift edition, The Complete Alice which you will need to wait until June to get your hands on.  This volume will contain both Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass with some archive material, a foreword by Philip Pullman and illustrations by all the contributors.

In fact the whole collection is a delight, each book different, a new take on the story and a new way to engage with it, so go on, splash out and treat yourself to them all!

Let us know how you plan to celebrate this very special anniversary and send us your pictures too and we will compile a special report to feature them all.

Books to Lift the Spirits

January is such a long month, we had the pleasure of Christmas, the excitment of new year, we have had promises of snow (Surrey has had none) gale force winds, rain and much else besides, we are now all looking for signs of Spring, well I can give you one, my two new hens have both started to lay!  However to help banish those January blues how about some great books to read, get lost in another world and forget this one for a while!

What am I looking forward to in 2015? Plenty!

First there is the brilliant, funny, in fact laugh out loud, Love Bomb by Jenny McLachlan.  If you didn't read Flirty Dancing I want to know why not and demand you go and find a copy to read now after all you need to in order to read Love Bomb. Well I suppose you don't really but it would make sense to!  Love Bomb is brilliant, it tells Betty's story, Betty is one of the group of girls who were once best friends.  Finally Betty is about to have a chance to fall in love but is she ready and what will it feel like?  A great reminder of that hilarious first kiss moment for some readers and a way to break the ice for others.  This is my first recommendation for the year!

On the subject of love and romance there is also Malorie Blackman's latest anthology, Love Hurts (Penguin Books) is in time for Valentines and is in fact more cheering than it sounds but more than that it is filled with brilliant short stories by a group of fantastic writers.

What about a book for young readers?  I adore 15 Things NOT To Do With A Baby by Margaret McAllister and illustrated by Holly Sterling (Frances Lincoln). This is not only perfect for new parents or those children new to being a sibling it is also a fun, funny picture book that everyone will love for its great pictures and warm text.

Oh and not forgetting non fiction titles there is the brilliant Baby Animals colouring book from Buster Books, not only hours of fun colouring in but also learning about lots of different animals, their names and their appearance.  Educational colouring at its best!

So there we are, some of my first suggestions for the year. This weekend I am off to tea with Scholastic then next week it's the Chicken House Big Breakfast so there will be plenty to report after those. Coming up I also have a launch for the 50th anniversary of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Malorie Blackman's Love Hurts, Daisy Hurst's The Girl With a Parrot on Her Head. Phew, its going to be a busy time and that will just be all the reading I'll be doing.

Interveiws with John Burningham on Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Lisa Williamson on The Art of Being Normal are promised too so watch this space...!

Celebrate! Its National Non Fiction November

Educational, fun, inspiring, creative.

When  I think of non fiction books these are the words that come to mind.  Why? because it is all these things and more that non fiction books pack into their pages.

There are non fiction books for every age and every taste, even for those who claim not to love reading,I bet they love facts and they need to read in order to find these so put them in front of a non fiction book, see their faces light up and help them to realize that in fact reading is great fun, it just doesn't have to be make believe, it can be very real!

National Non Fiction month is a great opportunity to celebrate the diversity of the world around us, to learn a new fact, a new language or even a new skill.  

For me craft books are the real draw, for others it could be science, nature or even art.  In my school library it is university guides and obscure topics being researched for A Level independent study that are currently popular.

What is the topical non fiction November book where you are?

In Armadillo we make sure always to review a selection of titles for younger and older readers, it is important to remember them all and to remember that they are not just for homework they are for pleasure too.

My non-fiction book for November has to be the brilliant Yo Er San: My First Chinese Nursery Rhymes selected by Jie Mu and illustrated by Patrice Aggs (Frances Lincoln) which has taught me my very first words of Chinese thanks to the accompanying CD - I cannot fathom the text but I love the gentle illustrations.

Then of course there is also the stunning pop-up panorama of New York bought to us by Jenny Maziels and paper engineer Richard Ferguson (Walker Books).  This amazing book captures the glamour and scale of New York with its 3-D skyline and fascinating accompanying facts.  I love it!

So there we have it, a very brief look at some non fiction to help celebrate National Non Fiction November.

I hope you have found something to surprise you this month, something to love, something to learn and a new love of all books to keep you going until the same time next year!

Three ~ Not of A Kind!

Armadillo reviewer and avid reader Bridget Carrington gives us a taste of three very different but equally excellent titles for the week ahead...

Swarm: Operation Sting

It’s a race against time for SWARM to locate and retrieve a dangerous weapon before the thieves crack the encryption code protecting it… but just who are SWARM? The clue’s in the title of this new series by Simon Cheshire – they’re robotic insects used by the Secret Intelligence Agency to outwit villains. They may be robots, but they can squabble and moan just like us, but when things become serious they maximise their individual talents (or talons…) and act together to support each other. Packed with detail, easy-to-read, and accompanied by trading cards detailing the skills of each member of SWARM, this is a highly enticing series, particularly for boys who prefer games to books. Fans of Saxby Smart and Jeremy Brown stories will recognise the style, which Cheshire describes as ‘action packed comedy’, and look forward eagerly to the forthcoming titles in the series.

The Kingdom of Beautiful Colours

A collection of seven folk tales by Isabel Wyatt, a twentieth-century teacher, storyteller and collector of stories, which she retold in numerous books to resonate with the Rudolf Steiner philosophy in Waldorf schooling. Steiner’s views on education are a million miles from those of Michael Gove (for a start Steiner’s ideas reflected his observation of how children learn, and what makes a rounded human being…), and Wyatt’s stories add much to this enrichment, filled with a corresponding morality, wonder and beauty. This is just one of the new inexpensive Floris republications of Wyatt’s stories, and I would urge readers to seek out the other six volumes.

Scarlet Ibis

Gill Lewis is a vet, and her three earlier novels have resulted from her passion about practical conservation. She doesn’t just concentrate on the animals though, she is equally concerned about the humans who must interact with the animals, and in her latest book she looks at what the natural world can do for vulnerable humans. Scarlet looks after her severely depressed mother, and her autistic-spectrum brother Red, and she’s desperate to evade the intervention of their social worker. Red’s deeply focussed life revolves around his collection of bird feathers, and the baby pigeon on his windowsill.  When the family gets split up following a fire in their flat Scarlet has a plan to prevent her brother being taken into care, a plan which has a far-reaching effect. In this powerful novel infused with respect and empathy, Lewis highlights the plight of those who are old, homeless, mentally ill or just different from us, people who at best we often fail to understand and help, and at worst deride and bully. 

We'd love to know what you think after you have read any or all of these books so do leave us your comments ...

Back for Good (the good of books)

Dear all,
Faithful followers I know you have missed this Blog and I have missed making my contributions to it but I do hope in the interim you have been enjoying the magazine.

I have not been idle these last few months and this may be part of the reason that you have not seen me here, but I have plenty of posts to contribute and will be updating this Blog every Wednesday from now on, so please, as they say, watch this space, come back into the fold and enjoy some great Blogs on some even greater books!

To begin ... an explosion for an explosive day ... (contributed by Simon Barrett)

Itchingham Lofte: the explosive adventures of an element hunter

Itchingham Lofte is an element hunter.  He collects the elements on the periodic table, possessing a totally obsessive and near encyclopedic knowledge of them.  Impossibly Itch finds a new element, number 126.  It is hot, radioactively hot.  Suddenly Itch attracts a lot of unwelcomed attention.

So far there are three adventures in the element hunter series: Itch, Itch Rocks and Itch Craft.  It seems impossible that the story can continue and the stakes can get any higher.  Bruised, battered and near to death on more than one occasion, Itch and his cousin Jack, manage to keep outwitting rogue corporations and corrupt governments.  As Kirsten, an assigned M15 operative says, ‘I’m glad the kid is on our side’.  Inevitably his family and friends get dragged into a spiraling deadly situation, fuelled by Itch’s commitment to do the right thing and his enemies desire for revenge.

Itch’s nemesis is his old science teacher Dr Flowerdew.  Flowerdew’s menace extends out of the classroom and goes global as he uses his contacts and money in the oil business to try and steal element 126 and in villainous Bond-style exact a suitable death upon Itch and his friends.  In turn Itch must use his knowledge of science to escape and finally bring Flowerdew down.  Flowerdew however is ruthless and simply refuses to die.

Above all Simon Mayo is a terrific storyteller.  The adventures are impossible to put down as each chapter spurns you into reading the next.  Each book is packed with action as Itch travels around the world hounded by the mafia, corporate goons, government secret agents and outlaws.  There is suspense and hints surreptitiously placed in the book, teasing the reader to pre-empt what will happen next.  Itch, his family and friends are great characters, showing great grit and courage.  Sadly not all of them will survive.

Moreover the books have a really cool marketing concept.  If you download the app and point your device to the front cover of each book, the front cover comes to life and starts a book trailer.

The element hunter adventures have been the hit books of the summer for me.  I’m glad I could review the books after the final adventure, Itch Craft, had been released as I don’t think I would have had the patience to wait for them to be published.  If you haven’t done so already, start reading about the discovery of Lofteium, element 126.

Making May Magnificent - Brilliant Books

Over the last year there have been a number of celebrations, celebrations of book birthdays and anniversaries and in 2014 this is set to continue, as we started the year there were anniversaries for a number of books, some quite young, some much older.  Now that we have come to May it is time to celebrate 75 years of T.S. Eliot’s Mcavity The Mystery Cat (Faber and Faber)! Mcavity is probably one of the most famous of criminal cats and he has obviously been lucky enough to have more than 9 lives, being such a grand old age, which means that a new young audience of readers can enjoy his escapades as he is brought to life again with delightful illustrations by Arthur Robins. Mcavity can usually be found in T S Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats but he has been given new life in his own picture book.  This is the perfect combination of pictures and poetry, the second charming picture book from the new Faber and Faber list.  It is as clever a creation as it was when T S Eliot first imagined his trickster cat and it is truly a delight.  This cat will have children and adults giggling, learning at the youngest age how enjoyable poetry can be and pouring over the glorious detail in each and every picture, not wanting to turn the page until they have drunk in every little detail – and there are plenty to see. Baffling, funny, rhyming – a delight for a new generation of Mcavity fans.

 

Whilst we celebrate the anniversary of Mcavity we should also take some time to remember those authors who are sadly no longer with us but whose books continue to inspire, enthral and touch us with their beauty.  One such book that has inspired and touched me this bank holiday weekend is Jim’s Lion by Russell Hoban and illustrated by Alexis Deacon (Walker Books).  Telling in graphic and prose the story of a little boy needing a life-saving operation and the power of dreams this is a modern fable with a dark magic that has been stunningly captured by Deacon and his pen.  I was moved by the power of the pictures and comforted by the words.  This is a winning combination of writing and drawing that is evocative and important, for children and adults alike.  This is a book to comfort those in pain and fear but to also help us all understand the importance of letting a little magic into our lives.

Then finally for today at least, there was The Duck and the Darklings by Glenda Millard and Stephen Michael King (Allen & Uwin) another book with a dark heart but a light touch and an important fable to tell us all.  This is the story of a sorry and dark underground land where light is but a distant memory until a wounded duck brings hope and solace.  Mended and well she finds her wings and prepares to fly the nest but with her go the people of Dark, whose hearts she has touched and for whom she has a quite beautiful surprise.  Cleverly crafted, perfect for newly independent readers and as a moral tale this is a book to return to again and again, reiterating its message and enjoying its beauty.