Today I am really pleased to feature a book which I think really is super in many ways and this book is Electrigirl by Jo Cotterill and Cathy Brett. We are always after engaging middle grade fiction; well, you don’t get much more engaging than that! When mobile phone company CyberSky set up new offices …
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FABULOUS FIVE: Jonny Lambert presents five fabulous animal books
I am delighted that the blog tour for Jonny Lambert’s Little Why is stopping here today and that Jonny was kind enough to take part in our latest Fabulous Five feature. Little Why (Little Tiger Press) tells the story of a baby elephant who gets easily distracted while on the journey to the water source with the …
Finding Winnie
Lindsay Mattick (text) & Sophie Blackall (illustrations) (Orchard books) Finding Winnie won the prestigious Caldecott Medal in the USA a few weeks ago. I’ll admit I have had the book for a while and had put it aside, but the win prompted me to look at it again, and it was a delightful surprise. We all …
National Non-Fiction November: a Guest Blog by Richard Wilkinson
November is the month when the Federation of Children’s Book Groups celebrates non-fiction. To celebrate, I am focusing on Big Picture Press’ superb large format Welcome to the Museum series. The series comprises at the moment of three books, Animalium, Historium and Story of Life. In the new age of the highly illustrated non-fiction book, these …
Clare and her Captain
Michael Morpurgo (text) & Catherine Rayner (artwork) (Barrington Stoke) Young Clare and her parents spend the summer in Devon every year, staying at Aunty Dora’s house. Trying to escape her parents’ squabbling and her great aunt’s nagging, Clare wanders off and comes across a lost lamb which she returns to its home, a farm which looks …
FRENCH FRIDAY FABULOUS FIVE! Marianne Dubuc presents Five Fabulous Books About Friendship
Today I am thrilled to welcome Marianne Dubuc for a French Friday/Fabulous Five mash-up, so to speak. Marianne is from Québec and is the author and illustrator of the internationally acclaimed The Lion and the Bird, published by Book Island and translated from French by translator extraordinaire Sarah Ardizzone. The Lion and the Bird tells the story of an unlikely …
The Crossover
Kwame Alexander (Andersen Press) Josh and his twin brother Jordan are basketball fanatics. At twelve, they are already the star players of their school, with a bright future ahead of them. The game is in their blood, and their passion is fueled by their father, himself an ex-professional player known as “Da Man”. But when …
BLOG TOUR: Poppy Pym and the Pharaoh’s Curse
Poppy Pym and the Pharaoh’s Curse (Scholastic) is Laura Wood’s début children’s novel, for which she won the inaugural Montegrappa Scholastic Prize for New Children’s Writing in 2014. It tells the story of a little girl, Poppy, who was brought up in a circus after being abandoned there as a baby. But as she grows older, her …
The Day the Crayons Came Home
Drew Daywalt (text) & Oliver Jeffers (artwork) (HarperCollins Children’s Books) The crayons from The Day the Crayons Quit (winner of the 2014 Red House Children’s Book Award) have had a change of heart and after their wild (or not so wild) adventures, they are desperate to get back to Duncan, despite his rather indifferent behaviour towards …
Goodbye Stranger
Rebecca Stead (Andersen Press) At age 8, Bridge was involved in a serious accident where she nearly died. Now she often feels a bit of an oddball, and despite sticking together through thick and thin, promising never to fight, she and her friends Tab and Emily are finding it harder and harder to keep that …