Monthly Recap - December 2012

I did a few book reviews in December. These were for these books:

• Catastrophically Consequential by Stephen C. Bird
• Kate Winslet reads Mr Gum and the Biscuit Billionaire
• Kate Winslet reads Mr Gum and the Goblins
• Geekhood: Close Encounters of the Girl Kind by Andy Robb
• Bedtime Little Ones! by Claire Freedman
• The Odds by Adam Perrott
• Stormdancer: The Lotus War Book 1 by Jay Kristoff
• Cinderella's Secret Diary by Faye Hanson
• Bond on Bond by Roger Moore

And a couple of book that are on my reading list for 2013:

Bond on Bond by Roger Moore

Who better to provide an insight into James Bond, and we are talking about the movie James Bond in particular, than one of the actors to have played James Bond? Well maybe all six of them but instead you'll have to make do with just Roger Moore's version of the story. Obviously that means that his films have the best coverage (and Daniel Craig's probably the least), with some good anecdotes in amongst the facts. It also means that you'll have to make do with Roger Moore's writing style, which is a little bit like his James Bond style of being light-hearted and jocular, but fine by me.

There are a number of chapters here, some better than the others. Obviously things like the villains, the girls, the cars etc are covered. The gadgets chapter wasn't necessarily the most interesting with bits being like reading a technical manual, but the chapters on the people, like the girls, or the insights into the filming schedule were much more entertaining. However, Moore being the gentleman, does keep some of the leading lady anecdotes anonymous.

There are glossy pictures throughout to accompany all the text and at the end you have pictures of all the posters from the films (up to Quantum of Solace) with the details of the films such as budget and takings.

Of course if you are an avid collector of Bond stuff you may have seen much of this before but for me it was a good Christmas present to read and look at.

This book is listed on Amazon UK HERE.

Cinderella's Secret Diary by Faye Hanson

Everyone is familiar with the Cinderella story. Plus there are so many versions of it in book form. So how do you put a fresh spin on it? Well, this secret diary is that fresh approach.

My 6-year-old daughter loves this book. She loved it before we even read it. This is because it is like a scrapbook throughout with Cinderella putting in a lot of keepsakes of her time being treated like a slave by her stepmother and ugly stepsisters, and among the keepsakes are some that you can remove - Cinderella's invite to the ball, a paper tiara and a paper folding make-up mirror. It looks beautiful. Also the opening page is clever in that it says "This book belongs to..." with the ... being filled in with Cinderella and she likes that.

Then we read the story which is very well done, although the entries are not the longest. It comes across how quickly things happen between Cinderella's dad and the stepmother, how quickly things change for her, how much work the ugly sisters and the step mother are making Cinderella do and the hardship she is suffering. Then there are extended entries covering the day of the ball and the events after happen so quickly to give us the happy ending.

Perhaps it is a little short but fairy tales are, and this is so well presented, and little girls love secret things don't they, so what's not to like?

A little snippet of the artwork inside

This book is listed on Amazon UK HERE.

Stormdancer: The Lotus War (Book 1) by Jay Kristoff

UK edition

US edition

In this fantasy world Stormdancers are warriors of old who according to legend rode into battle on thunder-tigers, or griffons. But those days are gone and thunder-tigers are now thought to be a myth. However that is until a shogun sends his chief hunter Masaru out on a mission to catch one. For Masaru this represents a change from his normal life of drinking and smoking as he drowns away the bad memories - he would be out hunting but the animals are pretty much gone because of the way the country is run on the blood lotus plant, a plant that pollutes the land but is useful to the shogun for the steampunk machinery in the book, and the stormtrooper like guildsmen it runs, as well as providing the weed that the populace smoke.

So Masaru goes on the mission with his 16-year-old daughter Yukiko, and others, in a sky-ship and they capture one, but because it is a thunder-tiger they had to go into a storm to get it and the storm sets fire to their hydrogen-filled ship. Yukiko though stays with the thunder-tiger and releases him from his cage, as well as befriending him as they spend time together on land as he is grounded thanks to the cuts to his wings that were inflicted in capturing him. She does this through her power that allows her to get into the mind of animals, a power that would lead to her death if the guild knew.

Together they get to learn the real story of their country and the real tale of their leader. They then set about trying to assassinate him.

So that is the plot. There is also a love-interest between lead-character Yukiko and one of the shogun's guards, but that wasn't all too convincing to be honest. Yukiko had moments thinking about the green-eyed guard who she only glanced at one-time near the beginning of the book, and based on this one glance it seems a bit of an unlikely happening. Obviously they meet later. Also unconvincing was the fear that Yukiko felt when caught by a renegade group of anti-shogun countrymen she meets in the wilds of the mountainous north when they do nothing really to make her fear them.

And one other gripe I had with the book was that the map at the beginning of capital city Kigen had a hexagonal building for the chapterhouse when throughout the text it was always referred to as having 5-sides.

Also the book does take a few pages to get into. Not only is the book set in a fantasy world you need to learn, it is also a Japanese style world. There is a glossary at the end of the book which can help with this, which I only found out at the end, and the world is worth getting into because the story is good.

The book is designed well with the maps at the beginning, the clan logos that are atop the chapters, the way the text indicates the thunder-tiger talking to the girl and so on. The story is a well-written story and has been set up for future adventures to occur in this world, although this book is perfectly good as a stand-alone with a satisfying ending.

I may well check out future novels in the series.

Found this fantastic art at: http://genzoman.deviantart.com/art/Stormdancer-284860432

And the video trailer:

This book is listed on Amazon UK HERE.

The Odds by Adam Perott

At first I thought this book would be a bit like The Borrowers, with small people going around "misplacing" things. It is actually about a family of Meddlers (or Pranksters) called the Odds, and Meddlers are "about as tall as a medium-sized garden gate".

At first the Odds played tricks on each other before they going off on their separate ways to play individual pranks individually, e.g. the children Edgar and Elsie playing tricks at their school, before reconvening. That is the first half of the book and it felt a lot like Monty Python and the Holy Grail in its structure up to here without much of a plot and just things happening very separately. Then the second half had them come back together because Mr Odd had discovered that the Plopwells of Snootypants Manor were plotting to bulldoze the Odds street to replace it with a supermarket. This meant that instead of pranking separately and against each other they would need to work (or prank) together to get the Plopwells to stop, but whatever pranks they pulled just didn't seem to work. Things then come to a head in the chapter "To prank the unprankable foe".

There are drawings throughout the book to accompany the text, a map of the town Trott at the beginning, and a multiple-choice set of questions at the end to determine how much of a meddler you are. I read it with my 6-year-old daughter. Her favourite bits were the map, the questionnaire, and some of the bits that made her chuckle in the story, but overall she wasn't too interested which makes me think that with all the pranking going on this book would be better suited for boys.

(I got this book through Amazon Vine. It is listed here.)

The Odds will return in "The Odds Strike Back!"

Bedtime Little Ones! by Claire Freedman and Gail Yerrill

This is a well drawn rhyming book written for bedtimes. However with sparkly bits on every page this distracts little ones from sleeping as they try to feel them instead of drifting off to sleep. Or maybe this is the point because the story is about some animals going to sleep whilst some others struggle to keep awake.

Anyway a rhyming tale, taking perhaps 2-3 minutes to read, about animals going off to sleep. Whether it is better than all the other many books out there with the same theme I wouldn't be able to say.

(I got this book through Amazon Vine. It is listed here.)

Geekhood: Close Encounters of the Girl Kind by Andy Robb

Geekhood is essentially about finding out that it is best to be yourself, even if you are a geek in which case embrace your inner-geek.

Archie is the 14-year-old hero of the story. He terms himself a geek, and he has issues. His inner monologue is constantly talking to him, mainly to belittle him. Later he comes into contact with a girl, and for a geek he builds this up into something big, even trying to change himself for her by honing his psychic self. And through this and the impact it seems to be having on him and his life he realises, perhaps, that it is better just to be yourself.

The book contains humour, mainly through the teasing of Archie's inner monologue and the banter from his close band of geeky friends. I wouldn't say Archie comes across as a geek in the traditional glasses and inability to communicate sense though, but then you can define geek as whatever you want probably (there is a good opinion put forward in the book on this).

I enjoyed the book and it made me chuckle in places. It would probably suit young men from 13-years up. 

http://www.geekhood.co.uk/

(I got this book through Amazon Vine. It is listed here.)

Kate Winslet reads Mr Gum and the Goblins

This is a review for the audio CD of "Mr Gum and the Goblins". The story is split over two CDs with running time of 1hr20. I put them on for my nearly 6-year-old daughter who loves them. Here are her quotes:

"It was super."

Why?

"Because we heard about granny and I liked it when she takes a sip of cherry, and she talks to Danny who lives in Australia on the phone and asks is it great to be old, and Danny says yes."

What else?

"Polly found the 200 people who ran away in September, and they were goblins. Mr. Gum and Billy Williams spied on them and they pretended to be the the Goblin King and the Burger Wizard because they wanted to make Polly's favourite town into Goblin City."

Anything else?

"At the end Polly said it was a big, piggy feast."

So you can see the sort of ideas that are in the book, and how it is good for children's imagination.

(I got this book through Amazon Vine. It is listed here.)

Kate Winslet reads Mr Gum and the Biscuit Billionaire

This is a review for the audio CD of "You're a Bad Man, Mr Gum." The story is split over two CDs with running time of 1hr20. I put them on for my nearly 6-year-old daughter who loves them. Here are her quotes:

"It was great. I love it. It was super."

Why?

"Because when the man in the moon tried to eat the shooting star he nearly ate it, but he missed."

What else?

"When everyone celebrated the festival of leaves because it was the first day of autumn."

Anything else?

"The pretty ladies dancing were silly because the teacher was telling them to dance silly."

(I got this book through Amazon Vine. It is listed here.)

Catastrophically Consequential by Stephen C. Bird

I won this book in a Goodreads First Reads contest.

This is not a book with a plot. Rather each chapter is a little story. And the experimental nature of them totally ruined them for me.

The first chapter was fine, a story about a guy having flashbacks, although it could have been fleshed out a bit.

Then the second chapter is where things start to go wrong as it contains wacky character names, and over-the-top place names, that they take over the story ruining it in my opinion, but that is nothing compared to the next two chapters which are written in an accent that I couldn’t work out decisively, and that made these chapters near unreadable.

The fifth chapter reverses the trend and gives a little story with inspired character names, Mannequin Streetwalker, inspired presumably from a similarly named Star Wars character, but whose nature very much matches her name. But again the story could have been fleshed out.

And then the remaining nine chapters descend into stream-of-consciousness nonsense with wacky place and character names remaining. It was a bore to follow, and even then I didn't.

Not even the cover is good.

(This book is available on Amazon here.)

Monthly Recap - November 2012

I reviewed 13 books during the November month of 2012. Links to those reviews are below:

• Monstrous Maud: Big Fright by A. B. Saddlewick
• Belle & Boo and the Birthday Surprise by Mandy Sutcliffe
• Humphrey's Farm Adventure by Sally Hunter
• The World in Infographics: Planet Earth by Jon Richards and Ed Simkins
• Grimm Tales for Young and Old by Philip Pullman
• Monstrous Maud: Freaky Sleepover by A. B. Saddlewick
• This is Life by Dan Rhodes
• The Improbable Party on Purple Plum Lane by Margaret J. McMaster
• The Little Mermaid, Book and CD by Disney
• Struck by Jennifer Bosworth
• Kate Winslet reads You're a Bad Man Mr Gum!
• Secret Kingdom: Christmas Castle by Rosie Banks
• Pull Yourself Together by Thomas Glavinic

And here is what I have on my "to-read" list:

Pull Yourself Together by Thomas Glavinic

This book pretty much takes you inside lead character Charlie's head, as he meanders through his life as an overweight, newly-bespectacled, music-humming Austrian student-cum-taxi-driver, who is 87% wimp.

The humour is here. Charlie reminded me of Adrian Mole in parts with some of his wry observations about life as he muses about things. However Charlie's thoughts are more adult as he spends a lot of his time fantasising about the (normally unattainable) women around him (you can see him on the cover chasing a woman). That is until he starts inadvertently killing people which does make his thoughts change to other, more important things.

The narrative is split up a bit with little "note to self" reminders that Charlie puts there if he thinks he has discovered an important tip picked up from his latest deed or thought process or lifestyle magazine. These don't get in the way of the story though. Rather they are there to add another bit of humour.

Then at the very end he has a bit of good fortune to end the book.

Overall then, if you want a book providing an amusing, introverted look at life from a young man's point-of-view then get this.

(I got this book through Amazon Vine. It is listed here.)

Secret Kingdom: Christmas Castle by Rosie Banks

If you are familiar with the Secret Kingdom books then you'll know what to expect here. As usual all the things that little girls love are shoe-horned into here - friends, fairies, cute talking animals and plenty of magic. My daughter particularly liked Trixie the Pixie's magic ring. And also included this time on top of that are all the things that girls love about Christmas - food, presents, sparkly tinsel...

Unlike the other books this one is split into two. The first half concerns Christmas Eve and the three girls (Jasmine, Summer and Ellie) go to a new place in Secret Kingdom called Christmas Castle that they've never seen before. The reason they've never seen it before is because it is only there at Christmas time, but at Christmas time all the Secret Kingdom residents celebrate there. However Queen Malice seals up the Castle so that they won't be celebrating after all. It is up to the three girls to save the day again.

Then the second half is a story about Christmas day itself. The girls return to Secret Kingdom but disaster has struck because Queen Malice has interfered again and now Santa has gone missing.

Overall I didn't think this book was as good as the other Secret Kingdom book we read, Enchanted Palace, particularly the first of the two stories, but little girls will still love it.

(I got this book through Amazon Vine. It is listed here.)

Kate Winslet reads You're a Bad Man Mr Gum!

This is a review for the audio CD of "You're a Bad Man, Mr Gum." The story is split over two CDs with running time of 1hr15.

My nearly-6-year-old daughter has been listening to this and she loves it. She says it is very funny, and indeed the parts I have listened to of it back this up, and Kate Winslet does a good job of bringing this out (haven't heard the ones by the author himself so can't compare, and again have only heard parts of this CD).

My daughter likes the bits featuring Mrs Lovely, a character who is always lovely even to bad people like Mr Gum. The fact that the characters stick with her means the author must be doing something right. Have a couple of other audio books in the series which hopefully go down as well as this one.

(I got this audio book through Amazon Vine. It is listed here.)

Struck by Jennifer Bosworth

The end of the world is coming and Mia Price is involved. She knows not how though.

This book picks up Mia's life from after a devastating earthquake that has hit LA. Another devastating event (the end of the world?) is also on the horizon. And everyone wants a bit of Mia. She has great power coming from being struck by lightning several times. The seekers are after her, as are the followers of a prophet, as is a handsome young devil called Jeremy to provide the love interest. She is oblivious to her power and role to play.

Bit by bit the picture unfolds as Mia discovers what is going on and how she can stop the end of the world. The novel builds and the storm comes to end the novel. But will the world be saved?

A striking novel (if you forgive the pun) with a plot that builds and builds. Well worth reading.

(I go this book through Amazon Vine. It is listed here.)

The Little Mermaid, Book and CD by Disney

My daughter said this book and CD was great. I asked why and she said it was because she loves the story.

If you've seen the film then you know what to expect here. I let my nearly 6-year-old daughter listen to the CD whilst reading the book. The CD runs for just under 15-minutes. This is one track that contains all the story and has chimes ringing for when the page in the book needs to be turned.

And the voices of the characters are like the ones in the film. The only bit that didn't work well was that Prince Eric falls in love with Ariel's singing in the story, but the actual singing is missing from the CD.

The book is well laid out with nice full page pictures running throughout.

The CD itself fits into the front cover of the book with a plastic covering holding it in, and the book is hardcover too. This means it isn't as flimsy as some other books that come with CDs where the CD holder gets ripped out by little hands.

Most of all I think this book is ideal for girls who are familiar with the Little Mermaid film and are learning to read, so that they can give their parents some quiet time as they go off somewhere to listen to the CD and read the book.

Might have to get some of the other ones in the series too.

(I got this book through Amazon Vine. It is listed here.)

The Improbable Party on Purple Plum Lane by Margaret J. McMaster

This is a short book that I won in a Goodreads First Reads contest. I read it with my nearly-6-year-old over a couple of bedtimes. 

The opening line is a bit corny: “On a dark and stormy night…". After that you are straight into the story though which gets going immediately, not even introducing the characters, so there is an assumption you've read the previous books in the series. However given it is a short book you’d expect it to get on with things quickly like that anyway and you can pick up pretty soon who is who, like that Petey is a parrot for example. This is also helped by the occasional full colour picture which shows the characters to which the text relates.

The story is about Stewart, the narrator, going to Mrs. Chairbottom’s house for a supposed Halloween party. And it is, in a certain sense.

The book is a little American with words like mom and cellphone, and is in the present tense, but my daughter enjoyed it. The way the book is written is good because it creates suspense with plenty of “dun, dun, dunnnnn” moments that my daughter could easily recognise, especially in the first-half. The book is short and is probably best for children just getting into reading a little bit longer books, but not too long.

This book is listed on Amazon UK HERE.

This is Life by Dan Rhodes

This novel is set in Paris and follows lead character Aurélie who is a student doing an art project. She decides to throw a stone in a public place to hit a random person to spend a week with for her art project - it hits a baby. After a bit of explaining herself remarkably she is given the baby to look after for a whole unsupervised week. And the book follows that week where her world changes, as does that of the characters around her.

Also at this time an artist is in town presenting his remarkable work of art "Life".

So that is the plot but what the book really is about the characters, and the romance. The characters are well-formed. Some traits may be there for comic affect but that is fine by me. The book is pretty light-hearted throughout bar one moment with a gun. And there is a fair amount of romance in the novel too.

Thoroughly recommended.

(I got this book through Amazon Vine. It is listed HERE.)

Monstrous Maud: Freaky Sleepover by A. B. Saddlewick

This is another of the Monstrous Maud books. It starts with a recap of the situation so having not read any of the preceding books in the series will be fine. Only after this does the story begin – a romp about Maud and her twin sister Milly having a sleepover with their schoolmates over the same night. Only thing is Maud’s school is exclusively for monsters (well, apart from her of course). Add into the mix the fact that Maud is looking after her school janitor’s pet, a hamster – or a vampster as she is soon to find out once it starts to cause havoc before escaping leading Maud and her friends on a frantic rescue mission that takes up most of the book - and you get a freaky sleepover indeed.

I read this book to my nearly-6-year-old and she listened intently. She liked it, particularly the way the innocent looking hamster changed into a vampster with its eyes changing colour and its wings popping out.

Overall a fast-paced and enjoyable book.

(I got this book through Amazon Vine. It is listed here.)

Grimm Tales: For Young and Old by Philip Pullman

Who'd have thought I'd be reading fairy tales as an adult.

Here Philip Pullman has re-written 50 Grimm Tales. He has written an interesting introduction detailing how the traditional fairy tale differs from novel telling. Also after he has told each tale he writes a little bit of analysis to accompany it. Some tales will be familiar (at least in part), e.g. Rapunzel and Cinderella, whilst others will be less so. There are recurring themes, e.g. evil women, whether they be stepmothers or witches; the main character being an ex-soldier, or a miller, or a poor person, or a guy called Hans; princesses and kings wanting to marry pretty young things, and so on.

Some of the tales are quite gruesome with gallows, deaths, incest all being present. Therefore I don't know if every tale in here is suitable for young as suggested in the "young and old" bit in the title.

Also I can't really judge how this compares to other collections of the Brothers Grimm stories, or fairy tales in general, but as a standalone it is perfectly good and I enjoyed reading it.

(I got this book through Amazon Vine. It is listed here.)

The World in Infographics: Planet Earth by Jon Richards and Ed Simkins

This book is short. It contains a few pictures in it (or infographics if you want to spice up your product) covering the following:

• Inside the Earth
• On the move (about plates)
• Restless Earth (about earthquakes)
• The Rock Cycle (about rocks and not the Rolling Stones, or at least not the musical one)
• Violent Volcanoes
• Towering Peaks (about mountains)
• Habitats
• The Air we Breathe
• Water Cycle
• Water World
• The Oceans
• Raging Rivers
• Changing Earth (about climate change)

I went through it with my daughter in a couple of minutes. She was interested in talking about where countries are in the world which this book doesn’t cover at all so I just had to point to where they roughly were. 

We weren’t impressed by the fancy (computer-generated?) images in here. They look like the sort of stuff you might find on interactive websites (like the ones mentioned under websites near the end). There they’d hold the interest a bit more as you clicked through them going to where your interests took you, and seeing things happening as you do (e.g. tectonic plates coming together). Here, you flick through the book, if anything catches your eye you may read it in a second or two, but if not then it’s to the next page and suddenly you reach the end of the book.

If you want info with pictures in book-form then go for a pictorial encyclopedia. Alternatively use Wikipedia.

(I got this book to review through Amazon Vine. It is listed here.)

Humphrey's Farm Adventure by Sally Hunter

This book is not the best in my eyes. It is a picture book but the pictures are muted. Maybe if they had bold, black outlines they'd stand out a bit, but as they are they are a little wishy-washy. 

The story is not much either. Basically Humphrey goes to a farm with another elephant, Tilly, and feeds the animals. Then he washes his hands. And that is the story. All a bit babyish I think. If you want to hold a child's attention then you need to do more than that. So I think this book is aimed at kids who are just learning to speak, or get to know farm animals. But I don't see it being read multiple times before they get bored.

(I got this book through Amazon Vine. It is listed here.)

Belle & Boo and the Birthday Surprise by Mandy Sutcliffe

This is a 32-page picture book yet across those 32 pages the author is able to express so much. She is able to bring across how the two title characters love each other very much.

The story is good too. Belle is preparing a birthday surprise for a surprise birthday recipient. She gets Boo to help and they help each other to make cards and cake and all that jazz, before Boo starts floating away thanks to a birthday balloon. Belle then reveals that the surprise was that it was Boo's birthday as she tries to rescue him as he floats up high.

The pictures are good too with nice clean lines and the girl and rabbit drawn to look realistic, and the pictures being set up nicely from an artistic point of view. 

So for a picture book it is worth checking out, and maybe some of the other books in the series too if they meet the same high standards of this one.

(I got this book for free to review through Amazon Vine. It is listed here.)

Monstrous Maud: Big Fright by A. B. Saddlewick

I read this book to my nearly-6-year-old daughter over several nights. The story starts with Maud Montague getting in trouble at school because of her pet rat Quentin. This leads to her being transferred to Rotwood, a school located deep in a forest. She arrives there and finds that it is a school for monsters, but rather than being scared she loves it. Unfortunately her teacher has worked out that she is a human (and not a monster as Maud has told everyone, a monster of the “tutu” variety she says when asked to reveal the type of monster she is) and he wants her to leave the strictly monster-only school. However he agrees she can stay if she gives him a fright before the end of the week.

This leads to Maud doing various things to try and scare him.

My daughter liked this book. There were funny bits, like Maud’s failed attempts to scare her teacher, and the way she called her monster-type a “tutu”. There were suspenseful bits too, like how the revered head of Rotwood was mentioned throughout the book, and then Maud was summoned and the head was finally revealed.

My own gripe with the book was that the first couple of introductory chapters at the old school were not as interesting as the rest of the book. Once Maud started attending the Rotwood the story took off. 

We’ll be reading another of the Monstrous Maud books shortly.

(I got this book for free to review through Amazon Vine. It is listed here.)

Monthly Recap - October 2012

I reviewed 16 books during October 2012. Reviews are below:

• The Prankster by James Polster
• Wanted: The Perfect Pet by Fiona Roberton
• The Stick Man Activity Book by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler
• A is for Angelica by Iain Broome
• 365 Stories for Girls by Disney
• Enchanted Palace (Secret Kingdom) by Rosie Banks
• Fool by Frederick G. Dillen
• Animal Counting by Petr Horacek
• Muddle and Win by John Dickinson
• Play Jokes with Cheeky Monkey
• My Big Photo Book by Pascale Estellon
• What in God's Name by Simon Rich
• Ellie's Magic Wish by Alice King and Kate Daubney
• Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Book and CD by Disney
• The Highway Rat by Julia Donaldson and Axel Scheffler
• Caroline: A Mystery by Cornelius Medvei

And here is what I have on my "to-read" list: