The First Book of Calamity Leek by Paula Lichtarowicz

The First Book of Calamity Leek is sad, sweet and funny at the same time.

The story is of Calamity Leek and her sisters Maria Liphook, Sandra Saffron Walden, Dorothy Macclesfield, Annie St Albans, Truly Polperro, Nancy Nunhead, Mary Bootle, Eliza Aberdeen, Evita Thrupp, Millie Gatwick, Odette Pontefract, Pontefract, Fantine Welshpool, Cinderella Galashiels, Adelaide Worthing, Toddler Thurrock, Toddler Pease Pottage, Toddler Gordano, Toddler Gretna Green, Toddler Watford Gap, Toddler South Mimm’s, Baby Sainsbury’s, who all live at St Emily’s Orphanage.

Except the Orphanage is a front. Really the girls are kept inside their “grey stone, red and yellow brick-topped Wall, jewel-toothed and twinkling, belting them into perfect safety,” where they are trained to kill off males, or demonmales as they know them, when they become of age, and where the truth is instilled into them from the Appendix, “for all the answers we need in life”, and of which Calamity Leek has the best knowledge.

An example entry from the Appendix – “Injuns: red-skinned, feather-skirted, whooping demonmale warriors, set to prowl Outside the Wall and tear wandering females into pieces with machetes or arrows.”

You see Mother “was sent down to raise an army, only how was she ever going to raise an army on Earth, when her only beloved daughter got killed off by a demonmale? Well, the best answer she came up with was to rescue other daughters already part-grown Outside and to grow them as her own.”

So that is the sad bit of the story what with the girls being kidnapped and brainwashed, but the little world the sisters inhabit is idyllic in some ways – “I was going to wake up safe in the dorm with the communicator bing-bonging and Aunty singing, ‘Oh what a beautiful morning’ with Evita’s porridge pot set on the table, and our milk bowls around it’ – as they spend life in their walled in country garden in North Wales. 

And it is sweet how all the girls have a great togetherness - “such solidarity in the sisterhood.” But it all comes to an end and Calamity’s world as she knew it is blown apart, which she finds difficult to accept. And with this being “The First Book of Calamity Leek” it throws it open to a sequel.

I enjoyed this book for the world it created and the lead character's voice.

Publication date: 7th Feb 2013

Amazon UK link: The First Book of Calamity Leek

Stinkbomb & Ketchup-Face and the Badness of Badgers by John Dougherty

Stinkbomb and Ketchup-Face live on the peaceful little island of Great Kerfuffle. One day Stinkbomb notices that a tenner has gone missing from his piggy bank. "The badgers have taken your tenner. What are we going to do about it?"

And so the tale begins as brother and sister Stinkbomb and Ketchup-Face try to find the badgers and bring them to justice, along the way meeting the King ("I'll just have to send someone on a mission to drive all badgers from the kingdom. You'll do") and several other characters, including a talking shopping trolley that they rescued from a stream.

The book is being pitched as for fans of the Mr Gum books, and I'd go along with that. It has the same silly, surreal nature, plus it also makes use of repetition, recognition humour. My 7-year-old daughter said it was really funny and deserving of a 5-star rating.

Her favourite character was Malcolm the cat who would always change his mind then change it back before changing it again to his original line of thought before changing it back again etc. She also liked the bit where one chapter ended in the middle of a sentence because "a chapter can finish wherever they like."

Of course a review can't do

Publication Date: 2 Jan 2014

Amazon UK Link: Stinkbomb & Ketchup-Face and the Badness of Badgers

Colour me in! An activity book

I asked my 7-year-old daughter whether she liked this book or not. She said yes, I asked why, she said because it has lots of activities, and it has over 100 puzzles and games in it (although she read that last bit off of the back cover). She said there are dot-to-dots and lots more games that are fun.

One of the first games she did was draw animal halves and join them together. She made a ramster, a cross between a rabbit and a hamster, a dfrog, a cross between a dog and a frog and some others.

Another game had her drawing the poos of a mole, which she was laughing at.

The pages are all in red and blue. This is where the title is clever "Colour me in!" It suggests another activity to do on top of the ones suggested in the inside.

Another thing in the book is a little flip book at one of the bottom corners, whilst in the other corner it encourages you to create your own. 

There is plenty to do in here so you can't really complain, although she skips some parts in preference to others.

Publication date: 5 August 2013

Thames and Hudson link: Colour me in! An activity book

Amazon UK link: Colour me in! An activity book

Sketcher by Roland Watson-Grant

"Sketcher" is about a family growing up in a one-room shack in the swamps just outside New O'lins during the 1980s. That family is made up of four boys, a mum from the Caribbean and a white dad who likes to get drunk. Later the dad walks out.

The narrator is the youngest of the boys, Skid. Straight from the opening sentence you get into his voice, his accent and his talkative nature coming out - "Well to begin with lemme tell you my pops is the reason we grew up in that swamp." His brothers are Tony, Doug and Frico. Frico is the sketcher with brilliant drawing skills that win a lot of praise.

Skid he can see all isn't well in the family with its troubles growing up in that swamp. So "I got to thinkin' that the way to get things back in shape in my family, and make them have some respect for people other than Frico Beaumont, was for me to get the city that had been sleeping for years to start movin' into the swamps again."

Now the way he is going to do that is to make use of the Sketcher's skills. "That boy was more than artistic. He had somethin' in his left hand, a strange power to fix things with a pencil." Like "when Frico was four, he sketched a picture of a cat that had a broken leg. And the cat got better and walked away."

But is this just Skid's imagination or is it real? His mother's former life as a hoodoo user until "it was time to stop all that mojo-conjuring" adds kudos to his thoughts as do other incidents. "Skid, your old lady is a witch and your brother is a wizard."

Anyway as Skid and the family grow older he tries to persuade Frico to put his left hand to good use to bring in the city, but Frico is reluctant. That is until Skid hears about a State of Louisiana State Fair Competition, where the first prize is $5,000, with a theme of "New Orleans 2020. A vision of tomorrow."

He convinces Frico to enter and Frico does, although not winning, but "Frico's art entry was really a conjuration." And so Skid just waits. "This place was so low it could only get better, and any day now would be the new beginning."

However things don't go to plan as Skid realises at the end because the Sketcher had other ideas. "The guy's a genius. You can't beat a genius."

The way of speaking, the swamps setting and the hoodoo reminded me of the Disney film The Princess and the Frog, although this is more than a cartoon. Good book with a cast of characters that you grow up with all told in a good voice.

Publication Date: 23 May 2013

Amazon UK link: Sketcher

The Unbelievable Top Secret Diary of Pig by Emer Stamp

“I is Pig. This is my diary.” And so the book begins.

Pig tells the story of his life on the farm. He says “Rolling in mud is fun, fun, fun! Give it a try if you likes.” My nearly-7-year-old said she’d rather stomp in it with her wellies instead.

Pig talks of Farmer who “likes me big. I is going to make myself as big as I can. That way Farmer will love me more.” But Duck shows Pig the error of his ways and Pig has no choice but to run away. Coincidentally the Evil Chickens are building a space rocket. So Pig is in a dilemma. “What would you do if you was me? I don’t want to be eaten by Farmer. I don’t want to shoot off into space and explode in a massive fireball.”

He has no choice and he goes on his space adventure before getting his revenge on Farmer and the Evil Chickens.

A book for children with the story in simple hand-written text (well a pig did write it) and little pictures along the way. It has inspired my daughter now to create a diary of her own, a top secret diary of a cow.

Publication Date: 30 October 2013

Amazon Link: The Unbelievable Top Secret Diary of Pig

Happy Graffiti: Street Art with Heart by Jenny Foulds

This book was born from a website of the same name. The website is a photo blog of “happy graffiti” the author of this book has photographed, or someone else has submitted. This book has some of the best artworks from there.

The foreword talks about how “Happy Graffiti” is the kind of graffiti that grumpy commuters might see from the train station and be cheered up by, and how some of the phrases used are like poetry.

The introduction then talks about how graffiti has a bad name and how positive graffiti can bring a smile to people as they go around their daily lives, and how the book is intended to do the same for the reader.

Then it is the photos, plus some artist profiles, although not well known artists such as Banksy. And some of the bits of graffiti do make you smile, which is exactly what the author wanted.

Mission accomplished.

Publication Date: 7 October 2013

Website: Happy Graffiti

Link to Amazon: Happy Graffiti: Street Art With Heart

American Spirit by Dan Kennedy

There are some vile bits in this book. If you don’t like vile bits don’t read this book or the rest of this review.

The book follows 45-year-old Matthew Harris who is “long, lanky, slightly underweight, now hung-over, semi-moneyed, tall, and medium slim, with no evident interest in shaving.”

He is going through a nervous breakdown thanks to his marriage to “unfaithful, unwieldy, retired fashion model wife” falling apart, and also because he was fired from the job he held for eleven years. The book follows him through this time where he “is in the midst of an endless and rudderless journey on rising seas of anxiety and receding tides of currency.” 

(Vile bit) The beginning sees him basically living out of his car, spitting all over it, him going over the incident that made him lose his job where “suddenly taking a leak all over your office is a crime” plus he has a kidney stone which makes blood come out instead of the normal.

The book is written through Matthew’s over-thinking, active and self-destructive mind. This makes him not a nice person. For example, in addition to the above vile things, he goes to a meditation class and thinks, “The instructor has been brought here today to teach me how to relax and not let fear govern my life. I have been brought here today to teach the instructor how to be tense and afraid again.” And his depression makes him “ponder the very real and very urgent shadow of death that seems to come to mind when there’s too much silence.”

He refuses help. “This is what Matthew’s head does every time help comes along… it looks for holes in the argument.” But eventually he comes to realise that he can’t run away from the pain forever and it is time to get his life in order, deal with his kidney stone etc. “Let’s get rid of some of the crutches; let’s ask for help when it is needed; learn to have a little faith that there’s still time, no matter how much was wasted.”

So overall not a book for me, as a happy-go-lucky person, but maybe for others.

Publication date: 28th May 2013

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

The Great Unexpected by Sharon Creech

This book starts off in a surreal manner. First there is a story in the prologue about a man pulling things out of a talking donkey's ear such as a loaf of bread and a sack of gold, then there is the opening chapter with a strange boy falling out of a tree on top of the main character of the book, Naomi Deane, the boy barely speaking except to say once in a while strange things such as "Don't take the gold" and "There isn't any gold".

Because of the imaginative off-the-wall beginning the story really grabs the attention, and I thought it was ideal to read to my nearly 7-year-old daughter.

The story tries to keep the same intriguing style throughout with lots of random bits with you left to try and decipher the bits in-between, but in my opinion the story gets confusing because of this, although by the end all the connections are revealed. However the beginning is still the best part and because of that I expected more of the rest of the book.

The basic story revolves around two girls, Naomi and Lizzie, and the mysterious Finn boy who fell out the tree, based in their small town of Blackbird Tree with its strange cast of characters such as Witch Wiggins, Crazy Cora and one-armed Farley.

Then there are occasional chapters "across the ocean" in Ireland following Sybil and Pilpenny who love the odd murder. The people that live in the two places are related, but the connections only come about at the end of the book. Knowing what I know now I think a 2nd reading of the book would be good so that I can understand the story fully.

Having said all that there are intriguing things in the book like a crooked bridge which has many turns as it crosses a river rather than just following a straight line, and the strange characters, but with all the disconnects the book is a bit weird and confusing.

Publication date: 1 November 2012

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

Ibarajo Road by Harry Allen

"Ibarajo Road" is set in 1984 in Nigeria and is about a person “who kills and trades children”.

The main character is Charlie. He is from a wealthy white family in Nigeria. He attends a fee-paying school that “was custom built to specifications by a company in America to ensure quality.”

One weekend his parents are away so he organises for his mates to come round for a night out to the Crocodile Bar, a place that “can get very dangerous at night”, where he hopes to pick up some girls for him and his mates. But the night goes disastrously wrong as one of his friends gets slashed with a knife. This incident leads to him being expelled from school. However “there is one option, one way to avoid expulsion. If you can convince me that you have found a worthwhile way to spend your time, something that will reflect well on the school, then you will only be excluded for the rest of the academic year.”

And so begins his voluntary work in Ilakaye Refuge Centre, a refuge for lepers, drug addicts, the homeless, the crippled, abandoned babies, the mentally disturbed, those affected by AIDS, and so on.

Charlie becomes invested in his work and along the way learns more about the relationship between Joseph Obohense, the head manager of Ilakaye, and Michael Danlami, the priest who was a lawyer, who was a charity worker and who is primarily a seller of children. Danlami will also do everything to ruin Joseph and with the right bribes “the authorities are revoking Joseph’s lease. They are demanding that Ilakaye be handed over.”

It is left to Charlie and his friends Guppy and Yejide to ensure justice is done and that the child snatcher does not prevail.

This was a very good book that tugs at the heartstrings and inspires the reader to think about what they could do for those less fortunate than them.

Publication date: 2nd August 2012

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

Practice & Learn French: Ages 9-11 by CGP Books

This is a book and DVD-Rom (to help with pronunciations). The DVD Rom has a nice little pocket at the back of the book to keep it in so it hopefully won't get lost. It also has the 7-9 and 5-7 French modules on it which are relevant to the separate books for that age group. These sections cover simpler versions of what this book covers plus bits about "in my pencil case", "my house" and "where do you live?" As for this book for the 9-11 age group the topics covered are:

- Hello!

- What is your name?

- Numbers

- Colours

- Months

- My family

- Animals

- Clothes

- Food

- What do you like doing?

- What time is it?

- The weather

- In my town

- Masculine and feminine

- Plurals

The book has activities for each as well as an answers section which can be pulled out of the centre so that your child's work can be checked. You may want to take this bit out (and it is easily detachable) before you give the book to your child in case they are tempted to cheat.

This book cannot be used again once done (unless you photocopy the pages). That's ok I suppose seeing as you want your child to progress to the next level anyway, but not so ok if you want another child to also do the same exercises. 

Overall then this is a useful aid to your child's learning, but probably to be used in conjunction with other teaching.

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

The Merrybegot by Julie Hearn

What did people do before they had TVs? The answer is they went witch hunting. This book is set at "the height of the witch craze in England" in the 1640s. The main character is Nell and she becomes the innocent victim of one of these witch hunts, on the verge of being hanged at one point.

The story is in two parts interlinking parts. That of Nell, and the confession of Patience Madden, one of the village minister's daughters. Together they form the story of what happened.

The minister is "a right miserable bogger. A killjoy and a Puritan." So what would he do if one of her unwed daughters got pregnant? He'd cover it up and blame her daughter's period of hiding on a witch, that witch being Nell. But Nell is a merrybegot, "a child sacred to nature", thus has powers on her side to help her survive this victimisation. 

The minister enrols the help of Matthew Hopkins, the Witch-Finder General, a character who existed in real life. The other real life figure that features in the story is Charles II. However it is a fictional world with fairies and piskies featuring so any historians wanting to moan about the accuracy of their cameos should not bother.

The book does well to bring out the way it must have been felt to be the innocent victim of a witch hunt, and how powerless women and girls were when more reputable, in the eyes of society, people accused them and worked the locals up into a frenzy to nail them. 

The story does fizzle out at the end as all the loose ends are tied up after the main story arc has come to a conclusion, but overall a really enjoyable read.

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

It's Lovely When You Smile by Sam McBratney and Charles Fuge

It’s lovely when your child smiles. This is one of my 2-almost-3-year-old’s favourite bedtime stories at the moment.

The story is about Roo the child Kangaroo who is grumpy and his mother is trying to get him to smile. But he doesn’t, not until the end of the story of course.

The pictures are quality throughout and always contain Roo and his mum, plus a duck, mouse, and a bee who just like following them around.

My daughter likes to pretend she doesn’t want to smile throughout too, until the end when she does her fake smile – screwing up her eyes and lips to make a smile. It is very funny.

Then she will read the story on her own, mixing her own words with the bits she can remember from the book.

It’s enough to make you smile. 

I got this book through Amazon Vine. It is listed on Amazon UK HERE.

Snow White in New York by Fiona French

I didn't think this book was all that. My daughter did though, and perhaps that is what matters. Her star rating would be higher than mine.

The book transposes the Snow White story to New York in the 1920s. The mirror becomes a newspaper, the apple a cherry in a cocktail, the dwarfs become jazz-men and the Prince a reporter. So not exactly fairy tale.

Also the tale is really condensed. The jazz-men hardly appear at all. Snow White gets poisoned and then suddenly on the next page the story of her death is in the newspapers.

This book won the Kate Greenaway Medal in 1986. That medal is for distinguished illustration in a book for children. The illustrations are okay, in the Art Deco style popular in the 20s, but the story isn't.

People are always trying to bring a fresh angle to well-known fairy tales such as this. A much better attempt at this is Cinderella's Secret Diary by Faye Hanson.

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

Leading Teams: Tools and Techniques for Successful Team Leadership from the Sports World by Paolo Guenzi and Dino Ruta

This was an interesting book. This would surely be a 5 out of 5 rating for someone who is passionate both about sports and leadership. For me though my passion is more on the sports side so for the parts with no mention of sport, for example the whole of chapter 2, my enjoyment was less, but still overall I liked this and learnt from it, having never read any leadership material before.

The chapters:

1. Why Sport and Management?

2. Management Models of Team Leadership

3. A New Team Leadership Model

4. The Team Leader as Manager

5. The Team Leader as Coach

6. Team Leadership: A Word from the Coaches

The main things I learnt are that “to transfer ideas from sports to business and vice versa, first we need to clarify the key similarities and dissimilarities between the two,” and just general leadership stuff I didn’t think about before, such as how a leader should do their best to reduce uncertainty for their followers.

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

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson and read by Luke Evans

Treasure Island is a classic story. This is an abridged version of it, and lasts for 1 hour 5 minutes. I play it at night for my 6-year-old daughter as she goes to sleep. Here is her summary of her beginning of the story:

• The person says "15 men on a dead man's chest, yo ho ho and a bottle of rum".
• Someone comes in and wants some rum. Jim goes to get it and he sits down at the table and motions Jim to come near. Then he says, "is your table for my mate Bill?" Jim said he did not know his mate Bill, but he was the captain.
• The captain strode in, opening the door without looking to the left or right.
• The captain turned around with the look of a man who's seen a ghost.
• Then the captain says "Black Dog."
• Jim left them together and went to get some rum.

Her favourite bit of the whole story is the blind beggar part.

After a few listens she liked this, but not as much as her previous favourites from the series, Bill Nighy Reads The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and Dominic Cooper Reads Oliver Twist.

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

Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens and read by Dominic Cooper

Oliver Twist is a classic story. This is an abridged version of it, and lasts for 1 hour 10 minutes. I play it at night for my 6-year-old daughter as she goes to sleep. Here is her summary of the beginning of the story:

• Oliver's mum rose up from the hospital bed and put her lips on Oliver's forehead and died. Then the hospital person said, "she was a nice looking girl, where did she come from?" and a nurse said, "she came here last night, found lying in the street."
• Then Oliver was taken to a workhouse.
• Then the boys winked at Oliver while his next neighbour nudged him. He was desperate with hunger.
• "Please sir, I want some more."
• The man was a fat healthy man, but he turned pale.
• Then he made about £5 by selling Oliver.

Then her summary of the middle:

• Then when it was morning he decided to run away to London. It took him seven days and seven nights.
• The eighth day Oliver sat on a cold door step. Then a boy who passed him returned and said, "what's your out."
• Then Oliver said, "I've been walking for seven days and seven nights and I'm cold and hungry."
• The boy had manners like a man.
• Then the boy said, "You need grub, and you shall have it."
• Soon, Oliver learnt his new friend was Jack.
• Then Jack said, "I know a man who will give you money for nothing, and never ask for the change." Soon they walked to a shop, or a house that was owned by Fagin.
• Then Fagin asked if Oliver could pick a handkerchief out of his pocket without him feeling it like the other boys could.
• Then Fagin closed his eyes. And then Oliver took the handkerchief without Fagin feeling it and Fagin said, "Did you take it out? Did you take it out?"
• Then Oliver said, "It's here sir," in his hand.
• Then Fagin give Oliver a shilling. Then Oliver went to bed with Jack and the other boys.

After a few listens she liked this, and said it is better than her previous favourite from the series, Bill Nighy Reads The Wonderful Wizard of Oz because she likes the characters like Mr Brownlow and Bill Sykes, and she likes the voices of the characters, like when Fagin says, "Where is Oliver?"

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

The Kids Only Cookbook by Sue Quinn

I got this for my almost 7-year-old daughter. She did some cookery classes at an after-school club and this is a continuation of that. She read the intro to me. It says "the book is aimed at children aged 8-12, but those younger and older than this will also have lots to enjoy". So she falls into the "lots to enjoy" category.

There are some easy recipes mixed with some harder ones. We've just started with some easy ones like the jam-wich, which is a sandwich with butter and jam which is cut into shapes using a cookie cutter. She read the instructions out then did it with some supervision, and now she makes this on her own. We are moving on now to harder recipes using the difficulty star rating so that we can choose appropriately easy recipes. 

The pictures and layout of the pages are nice and colourful and she likes the title "Kids-Only" which makes the book feel like it really belongs to her and her alone. I can see her using this book over the next few years to make her first steps cooking her own things, before we can pass the book to her younger sister. 

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

What can you spot in Winnie's world? by Valerie Thomas and Korky Paul

Korky Paul is a great artist and his pictures in the normal Winnie the Witch books are great as their funny details really add to the enjoyment of the stories. However here the double spread pictures don't work as well. First there are only 12 of them. Second, they are not that detailed as to make finding the items mentioned difficult to find. The busy picture on the front is misleading as most of the images aren't as busy as that, and that isn't even one of the 12 images anyway so you aren't asked to find any items within it. Lastly once the items have been found by your child the first time then they will easily be able to find them again, putting the claim on the front "endless hours of happy hunting" to shame.

When getting this I thought it would be like the Where's Wally series but it isn't a patch on those in my opinion.

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

Mulberry and the Summer Show by Che Golden

This book follows Sam through her fledgling riding career from "her first proper lesson" through to riding in the Summer Show. At first she struggles trying to control a temperamental pony Oscar, and is picked on by Cecilia Jones, the biggest bully on the yard. But then she discovers she can talk with the horses and ponies and they tell her that "if you really want to get your own back on Cecilia Jones, then you have got to do something she can't, do well on a pony she can't ride." 

That pony is Mulberry. "She's the pony Miss Mildew has had to retire from the riding school for injuring so many riders," thanks to her moves - the world famous sliding stop, the stop and spin, the jack knife and the wall of death. Cecilia Jones was never able to ride her.

So Sam agrees to this much to the astonishment of Miss Mildew who runs the school, and Sam's mum and big sister. But Sam knows she has the ability to speak with Mulberry which she hopes will help her. Except Mulberry isn't speaking, and there are only eight weeks to go.

I read this to my 6-year-old daughter over a few bedtimes and she enjoyed it, even though she has never rode a horse. She also enjoyed the free stickers which she is sticking in her room up on the walls.

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

Practice & Learn: Mental Maths (Ages 5-7) by CGP Books

I got this for my 6-year-old who is in Year 2 of school (age 6-7). Whilst working through this it is quite clear that this is the sort of stuff she is learning at school which is good as it means the book is focusing on the correct topics for the age group it says it is catering for, these topics being:

- Adding

- Subtracting

- Number Facts to 10

- Number Facts to 20

- Counting by 1 and 10

- Bigger numbers

- Doubling and Halving

- Multiplying/Dividing by 2

- Multiplying/Dividing by 5

- Multiplying/Dividing by 10

- Two/Five/Ten Times Table

- Problem Solving

The book has an answers section which can be pulled out of the centre so the answers can be checked. This will be useful for parents to check their child's work, but do take it out before you give the book to your child in case they are tempted to cheat (although at this age that is probably not a consideration).

This book is similar to other learning tools that are out there such as the website Mathletics. There are differences though - this book cannot be used again once done. That's ok I suppose seeing as you want your child to progress to the next level anyway, but not so ok if you want another child to also do the same exercises. On the other hand this book does have some exercises which are not available on the likes of Mathletics, like the Race to the Beehive board game at the end.

Overall then: a useful aid to your child's learning, but to be used in conjunction with other teaching.

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

Quantum Drop by Saci Lloyd

This is “kind of a story” that follows Anthony Griffin, a fake name so as to protect his identity, who is the boy next door.

Anthony lives in a world where you might “punch something into your deck,” or people might be “plugged into the Drop” via a visor, or you might push “a hologram chip across the table” instead of a business card.

He lives in the Debtbelt where “once your credit’s gone there’s no way back. You’re toast.” This is because of the Betta. “Short-selling, junking, gold farming, black boxing, risk-rolling – the Betta got a finger in every pie.” Basically “you’ve got to keep sweet with the Betta because they are the power.”

Except Anthony’s girlfriend didn’t keep sweet with them and has ended up dead because of them, and it is eating up at Anthony as he tries to discover what happened, all at the expense of his own future, like his exams which he walks out on. And all he’s got to go on is a voice.

So that is the story right there. And the book is Anthony’s narrative of the story. It took me a while to get into it because of his voice with all it's chattiness – “I mean, why do you think, not for even one second, do I ever, ever shut up?” – leading to diversions about brains evolving from animals etc. But the story is none-the-less gripping once it gets going. 

Older teens should enjoy.

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

The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling and read by Alistair McGowan

The Jungle Book is a famous story. This is an abridged version of it, and lasts for 1 hour. I play it at night for my 6-year-old daughter as she goes to sleep. Here are some of things she recalls from the story:

• At the start the wolves found a baby and called him Mowgli.
• Shere Khan wanted to eat him and they said no, but Shere Khan said "I will have him in the end."
• The mother wolf told Mowgli that Shere Khan was coming again to catch him so he had to go to the bushes every day to hide, and when Shere Khan did come the wolves attacked him until he was dead.
• Mowgli had his two friends, Bagheera and Baloo.

She also told me how Mowgli went to the monkey city.

After a few listens she liked this, but from this series she prefers Bill Nighy Reads The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Famous Fiction) which "is a little bit more interesting".

(I got this Audio CD through Amazon Vine. It is available to buy HERE.)

Knight Crusader by Ronald Welch

“Knight Crusader” was originally published in 1954 but has been re-published due to popular demand. It is aimed at 14+ year-olds and this is because of the bloodthirstiness of it, although the book is by no means gory, and nothing that the modern child has not seen already in a video game (the original Assassin’s Creed game being set at the same time as this novel) or movie.

The book takes place at the time of the Third Crusade and features figures such as Richard the Lionheart. It follows Philip d’Aubigny on his journey from “excitable, impulsive, scatter-brained young squire” through to becoming “one of the greatest barons in Outremer,” and finally his coming to Great Britain after longing to after hearing great things of the “green country” where "the trees are everywhere, heavy with leaf, and the valleys are deep and moist."

Outremer is the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem and the Christians and the Turks are fighting for it. It is where Philip is from, being the son of a great knight Sir Hugo. Philip as a 17-year-old becomes a knight himself after proving himself in a duel. Then he is straight into proper battle as “Outremer was in deadly peril; at any moment invasion and total destruction might descend upon the Christian states.”

That battle he partakes in is the battle of Hattin and it is interesting to read the tactics involved and see how they played out during battle, plus the point when the realisation dawns on the Christians that they will lose. 

Being on the losing side Philip is taken as a slave and that ends part 1 of the book. Part 2 has his escape from Damascus and his allegiance to King Richard of England as he takes part in the successful battle of Arsuf. And Part 3 sees his coming to England to inherit the fief of Llanstephan, although he must first oust the current occupant De Braose who will not give it up without a fight.

All-all-all then a book that is interesting for its military tactics, and its historical content as it is based on real life events of the time, the author being well-versed through his career as a history teacher.  

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

Z-squared by Sherrie Cronin

This is a book that I won in a Goodreads First Reads contest.

Z-squared, or zee-squared as this is an American book, is an ambitious novel. It contains the making of time-machines, Maya history, American Civil War history, telepathy, racial hatred, a potted history of American immigration policies and a treasure hunt for ancient artifacts. 

The first thing I noticed about this book is that it is volume three of six. However having read it, and not the previous two books in the series, I would say that it is perfectly stand-alone. It does mention the previous two (x to the power of 0 and y to the power of 1) but there is no need to have read them.

The second thing I noticed is that this started as an eBook and the eBook version has some clickable links to help with the atmosphere of the novel, whereas this one has the links in the annex so that you can have the same experience if you wish, although you would need to cross reference to make sure you picked them up in the correct places, and if the URLs change then tough. Plus these are not necessary for the story, just to add to ambiance.

As for the story it starts off on several strands, each one bursting with action from the get go which really helps you get into the novel straight away. Then the story settles as the strands come together with the main strand being a treasure hunt, and the secondary strand being the stirring up of racial tensions in a school where the main character of the book Alex Zeitman works.

The book flits through time with sections from 1696-1697, 1981, 1993, the main part from 2010-2011 and even a bit from the future at the end so that you know what happens to the main characters.

The 1696-1697 part details how three Mayan boxes were to be protected from generation to generation to keep the greatest of treasure from being discovered until the time was right. Only when all three boxes have been reunited will it be clear what the secret they bear was. That is the basis of the treasure hunt that Alex gets involved in.

The other part of Alex’s story includes the setting up of his school club zee-squared, “a club about considering multiple timelines and their ramifications,” i.e. about doing your bit to make the future timeline better. This is in part in response to a growing movement in the school, a school based in Texas in the south, led by Ms. Johnson and endorsed by the principal, towards the return of white supremacy. This culminates in a re-enactment of the Battle of Cedar Creek, a key battle in the loss of the South in the American Civil War, and how if things had been done differently at that battle then things could now be for the better. Of course Alex sees to it that this movement is put in its place and involves his psychics’ students and their “time machines” to make it so.

The novel is ambitious but is pulled off.

(This book is available on Amazon HERE.)

Nitty Winnie by Laura Owen and Korky Paul

This is an excellent book, even if a little short.

There are four all-new Winnie the Witch stories in here:

• Winnie's Wet Weekend
• Jurassic Winnie
• A Wedding for Winnie
• Nitty Winnie

The first story sees Winnie having a flooded house so she escapes to a beach where she builds a sandcastle and magics herself to live in it. The second story sees Winnie magic her way back to when dinosaurs were around. The third sees Winnie marry off her sister, and the fourth sees Winnie get nits.

All the stories interestingly start with sounds ("Plip! Plop!", "Snip-snap!", "Bing-bong!" and "La-di-tiddly-doo-daa!") and there is a real quirky use of language throughout. Like the alarm clock being called the alarm croc, or Winnie exclaiming "flying fish fingers" or "you look as lovely as a little lamb licking a lolly."

There are also lots of busy, interesting pictures to accompany the text which are just as quirky. However the book is just about 45 minutes in length, but this is probably more to do with the age group this is aimed at (newly confident readers).  

The whole package is perfect for youngsters who have a sense of humour.

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