Category Archives: Book review

Book Review: The Perfect Shelter

Title: The Perfect Shelter

Written by: Clare Helen Welsh

Illustrated by: Åsa Gilland

Published by: Little Tiger Press

Title: The Perfect Shelter by Clare Helen Welsh and Åsa Gilland

A heart-warming picture book about the love between two sisters. Together they build a shelter in the woods but the younger sister soon realises something is wrong, her elder sister is unwell. We see the young girl’s confusion and sadness paralleled by the deterioration of the shelter they built. Her sister’s condition becomes worse and she is taken to hospital for an operation. We see the patient begin to rebuild her life as her health improves symbolised by the building of another shelter in her hospital room with the help of a nurse.

Throughout the book the word Cancer is not mentioned. The reader can see the clues in the headwear that appears in the illustrations, of the nature of the illness. This ‘show not tell’ technique highlights how the young sibling does not understand what is wrong with her sister.

Åsa Gilland’s illustrations also successfully portray the passing of time as we are taken through the seasons with autumnal colours, seeds and berries and the arrival of the wind and rain to the deep winter hues when her sister begins to get stronger in the hospital after her operation.

This book would be perfect for PSHE sessions for instigating discussions on family illness and the complicated emotions felt by the family. There is an overall feeling of hope and expectation that the elder sister will beat her illness.

Book Review: The Invisible

Title: The Invisible

Written and Illustrated by: Tom Percival

Published by: Simon and Schuster

I loved The Invisible by Tom Percival and it has left a lasting impression on me. It is about a girl named Isabel whose family are very poor and their home was so cold there was ice on her bedposts. Even so she is happy and her happiness is reflected in Tom’s illustrations with the green blanket and green jumper of love to keep her warm. She was happy, that is until she had to move to a new neighbourhood, where the colours fade to bleak greys and blues to reflect her sadness and loneliness. Nobody talks to her and nobody notices her. She has no friends.

Isabel feels invisible and Tom shows this with her image gradually turning translucent, highlighting the realities of poverty on people’s lives and self-esteem. The more she goes unseen the more she sees the other invisible people who live in her new neighbourhood, such as the old lady planting flowers in empty paint pots, the man feeding the birds in the park and the boy helping to mend someone’s bike. She realises they all make a difference in their own quiet way.

Isabel decides to help them and through her example the whole community soon joins together to make their world a brighter place as shown the last spread, which is portrays a vibrant, colourful community full of joy and hope.

This beautiful picture book has a strong theme of acceptance and belonging. I am sure young children will grasp the message that life isn’t easy but we are all important and can help change things for the better as it is the little things that make people’s lives brighter.

At the end of the book Toms tells the readers a little of own childhood growing up in poverty, having no electricity and drinking water from a nearby spring. He explains he understands what it is like to be poor and the importance of belonging. This book would make a great edition to a class book corner, especially in these uncertain times of rising fuel, heating and food prices. Tom tells us there are over four million children living in poverty in the UK and I believe this is only going to get worse.

The ideal book for reading aloud at story times. I would recommend this book to all.

Book Review: Meet the Oceans

Title: Meet the Oceans

Written by: Caryl Hart

Illustrated by: Bethan Woollvin

Published by: Bloomsbury

This creative non-fiction picture book is the sequel to Caryl Hart’s highly-acclaimed, Meet the Planets, also published by Bloomsbury. Written successfully in rhyme, we follow a young girl and her dog on an incredible underwater voyage in a submarine to explore the many seas and oceans of the world to learn about the multitude of diverse habitats and sea-life they can discover there.

We start our ‘epic adventure’ in the world’s smallest ocean, the Arctic Ocean, where we are introduced to beluga whales and narwhals. We travel on to the breezy Atlantic, then to the Caribbean Sea, the Pacific and the busy South China Sea. Then we journey on to the Coral Sea and the Great Barrier Reef, the colourful Indian Ocean, the cold Southern Ocean to see the penguins and end at the beautiful warm waters of the Mediterranean Sea. At the back of the book is a map of the world for the children to study the route they travelled and compare each sea and ocean’s location to the five continents.

Each illustration by Bethan Woollvin has its own colour palette. I particularly like the way Bethan has bought each of the seas and oceans to life by giving them faces. Together with Caryl’s text they create a different endearing, watery character for each spread.

Meet the Oceans is both exciting and educational. It supports KS1 topics on the environment and meets the requirements of the Geography curriculum attainment target of locational knowledge to name and locate five oceans, whilst introducing some basic geographical vocabulary in a fun way. It also provides opportunities for discussion on conservation by highlighting the plastic pollution littering the Pacific.

This book is sure to become a timeless classic. It is full of interesting, well-researched facts that will sit nicely alongside Moth: an evolution story and Fox: a circle of life story both by Isabel Thomas and Daniel Egnéus.

Overall a truly breath-taking experience that will capture any child’s imagination and inspire them to find out more.

Book Review: The Time Traveller and the Tiger

Title: The Time Traveller and the Tiger

Written by: Tania Unsworth

Illustrated by: Helen Crawford-White and Laura Brett

Published by: Zephyr

The Time Traveller and the Tiger is a remarkable book about a young girl called Elsie who aspires to be a writer. She goes to stay with her Uncle John where she discovers a tiger skin in the spare room and an exotic flower in the greenhouse..

This book is different from other books in that it is cleverly written from several points of view. The first chapter is from John’s point of view of the inciting incident that sets the story in motion – when he killed the tiger which he regrets. The story continues from the future in Elsie’s point of view until she is transported back in time to 1940 India where Great Uncle John is a boy again. From that point the story is mainly Elsie’s point of view, with intermittent chapters from Mandeep’s and the tiger’s point of view, really getting into the tiger’s head with dramatic effect and in a humorous twist from Sowerby, the antagonist’s point of view and his untimely death. I enjoyed the different points of view and gaining a deeper understanding of the character’s motivations and emotional state.

I was captivated by Great Uncle’s John’s regretful decision to shoot the tiger and carried along with Elsie’s goal to prevent him making the same mistake again, changing both their futures and ultimately saving his brother’s life. Tania’s writing flows easily from scene to scene with realistic dialogue and amusing exchanges. She creates a stunning, colourful world set in India with her vivid and evocative descriptions of the animals and vegetation. These are enhanced by the truly breath taking charcoal illustrations of the Tiger scattered throughout the pages.

The Time Traveller and the Tiger touches on issues of sexism and racism as the attitudes and opinions of the time are perceptively portrayed and expertly balanced by Elsie’s views and feelings of these dated and bigoted opinions.

The timeless message of preserving our wildlife rings loud and true from every page as the plot highlights the plight of the tiger and other endangered species and gives young reader’s options at the end of the book how they can help protect their planet from such species dying out altogether. The timeless message of preserving our wildlife rings loud and true from every page.

This book was previously reviewed for Armadillo Magazine.

Book Review: The Wild Way Home

Title: The Wild Way Home

Written by: Sophie Kirtley

Illustrated by: Ben Mantle

Published by: Bloomsbury

The Wild Way Home is a unique book where the gender of protagonist, twelve-year old Charlie Merriam, is not revealed and is left up to the reader. The story works well with Charlie as a boy just as it does if she is a girl and to be honest I did not think her gender was relevant. However, my preference by the end of the book was to think of Charlie as a girl in that when she is whisked through time to the Stone Age and discovers Harby, he is searching for his baby sister. In contrast Charlie is running away from her baby brother.

Charlie has always wanted a baby brother but when Dara is born on her birthday and the doctors discover he has a heart defect, she is unable to deal with emotional turmoil of her brother’s life-threatening condition and sharing her special day. Her response is to run from her problems and hide in the forest where she loves to play with her friends. A place where she normally feels safe.

Written in the first person we get a deep insight into Charlie’s feelings and wave of mixed emotions at the hospital and on her adventures in the forest that used to be so familiar but has (like her family life) suddenly changed into a ‘wild’ almost unrecognisable landscape. Sophie Kirtley paints vivid descriptions of a Stone Age environment, complete with cave paintings, wolves, spirit songs, primitive tools and a strange new language.

Charlie discovers it is alright to be afraid of change and it is ok to worry about things that happen, which they are unable to control.

“Things happen, bad things sometimes and sometimes people get a bit broken…”

The story emphasises how things are easier when you don’t try to deal with them alone. In this way, The Wild Way Home carries a message of hope that together with love and support from friends and family we can get through the bad times.

A great book for PSHE sessions for discussing the different ways people react and cope with scary situations and ways we can safely manage circumstance that make them anxious.

Book Review: Nina’s Amazing Gift

Title: Nina’s Amazing Gift

Written by: Maya Lunde

Illustrated by: Hans Torgen Sandnes

Published by: Wacky Bee Books

Nina’s Amazing Gift by Maya Lunde and Hans Torgen Sandnes

The Wacky Bee Buzzy Reads series were launched in 2020. They are a quick read books ideal for children to read independently.

Nina’s Amazing Gift is about a young girl whose best friend, Choco has moved away. Nina is convinced her life will never be happy again. Then a mysterious envelope arrive from Choco. It contains five strange brown beans. Meanwhile, Raymond and Nigella and their sous chefs arrive in town for a cooking competition. Nina watches the contest from high up in the branches of the cherry tree she used to climb with Choco in the town square. She has the beans Choco sent to her in her pocket. Unknown to Nina the beans are cocoa beans.

It is hard to imagine a world where people have never tasted pizza, pancakes, chips and spaghetti. When the contestants start cooking these ‘new’ foods the judges get extremely excited. Maya Lunde weaves a hilarious creative tale of how Nina discovered chocolate, which she names after her best friends and becoming a late entry into the cooking competition.

At the back of the book there are some interesting true facts about chocolate and it is revealed the original illustrations by Hans Torgen Sandnes that have been reproduced throughout Nina’s Amazing Gift were actually made with chocolate. They are currently stored in a cold basement at a secret location, safe in plastic folders. After reading this amazing fact I had to go back and study each illustration in depth to absorb the fantastic detail and use of colour. Ingenious!

There is also a recipe for chocolate brownies at the back of the book, which could be undertaken at home or as a food technology session within school.

Book Review: October October

Title: October October

Written by: Katya Balen

Illustrated by: Angela Harding

Published by: Bloomsbury

A captivating story about a young girl coming to terms with dramatic changes to her lifestyle. Katya Balen weaves an intriguing tale of family relationships and building friendships, which tugs at the heart strings and is unforgettable.

October has been bought up by her father in the forest. She helps her father coppice the trees and views herself as part of the ‘circle of life’. She finds an abandoned baby owl, names it ‘Stig’ and takes care of it. On her eleventh birthday her estranged mother comes to see her and October climes the tallest tree in the forest to hide. Her dad follows her and falls. He is taken to the hospital and to October’s horror she has to go live with her mother in London and Stig has to go to a bird sanctuary.

Katya is an expert at creating vivid, lyrical descriptions to evoke all of the reader’s senses. I particularly enjoyed the way she uses the shape of word, the space and position of the words on the page to emphasise dramatic moments, such as when dad falls from the tree. Also, how poetry is mixed with prose to compare October’s life in the forest to life in London.

Throughout the book all conversations are echoed in October’s thoughts but we never see the actual physical speech on the page, which underscores October’s social deficiencies. It is evident that October’s communication skills are limited and she take everything very literally as she has lived her whole life alone with her father who could understand her but has never had to communicate with others.

The black and White illustrations of the owl scattered on the corner of the pages by Angela Harding depict Stig the Owl at different stages of its lifecycle. They are a beautiful additions that add depth to the story mirroring the text how life goes on and things change as they get older. We see October grow, adapt and change and learn to merge old elements of her life with the new.

October October the ideal book for prompting discussion about our environment, friendship and identity. Also, a great book for both adult and children’s book groups.

This book was previously reviewed for Armadillo Magazine.

Book Review: The Space Train

Title: The Space Train

Written by: Maudie Powell-Tuck

Illustrated by: Karl James Mountford

Published by: Little Tiger Press

The Space Train by Maudie Powell-Tuck and Karl James Mountford

A great book for sparking the imagination and fostering a sense of curiosity about space. Jakob lives on the edge of the galaxy on a space station. One day he finds a broken down, old space train and with the help of his Granny and a robot chicken called Derek, sets about fixing it so they can explore the universe. Toolbot, the grumpy robot, adds a touch of comedy with his lazy, reluctant to help attitude.

The illustrations are full-spread bright red and oranges with fascinating detail to give the picture book a futuristic feel. It is advertised as having lift-the-flap technology and peep through holes to reveal the workings of the space train but unfortunately my copy did not have these features. I suspect they are only in the hardback.

Scattered throughout the book is a column to the right of the double page spread which is Jakob’s log where he explains interesting facts about eh space station, his hopes for what he might discover when the space train is fixed and tells the reader a little about the new worlds and moons he visits in the space train. Although, we do not actually see them visiting these worlds in the story.

This would be the perfect gift for highlighting the adventures children can have with their grandparents and I particularly like the way if is Granny who is helping him with the fixing.

Book Review: The Secret Garden

Title: The Secret Garden

Retold by: Claire Freedman

Illustrated by: Shaw Davidson

Published by: Puffin Classics

The Secret garden by Claire Freedman and Shaw Davidson

Claire Freedman’s adapted version of The Secret Garden by Francis Hodgson Burnett has been illustrated by Shaw Davidson to produce the perfect picture book for older children. Launched in 2020 to coincide with the release of the new movie.

Follow Mary Lennox from India to Yorkshire, England, and watch her change from a sullen, over-privileged girl who has never tied her own shoes, to a happy, caring young woman. In her adventures, Mary meets Dickon’s, a young boy who can talk with animals. Together they discover the garden hidden behind the mysterious locked door and help her sick cousin, Colin, to recover. Guided by a remarkable red robin, Mary grows simultaneously with the amazing secret garden.

For over a century children, young adults, and adults of all ages have been touched by this masterpiece now it can be enjoyed in this fabulous picture book by KS1 and KS2 too. Claire Freedman and Shaw Davidson encapsulate Mary’s, Dickon’s and Colin’s characters impeccably keeping them true to the originals. This picture book brings the old 1911 classic alive by giving it a new energy. You can really see the garden blooming back to life in this magical adventure.

KS2 children will enjoy reading this book alone and it is ideal for reading aloud to KS1 during story time.

Book Review: The World Made a Rainbow

Title: The World Made a Rainbow

Written by: Michelle Robinson

Illustrated by: Emily Hamilton

Published by: Bloomsbury

MY first post of 2021 just has to be one with a message of hope so I have chosen The World Made a Rainbow by Michelle Robinson and Emily Hamilton. This up-to-the moment picture book published by Bloomsbury, which gives young children a chance to reminisce and discuss their lockdown experiences and any fears they may have about Covid. This book is ideal for reading at home and in the classroom or for children to explore by themselves in the book corner.

The story encompasses the joy of being at home and the dark times of never knowing when the crisis will end. It carries a message of hope from the start with the line: “All rainstorms must end, and this rainstorm must too.” The text is written in rhyme throughout so when read aloud gives the plot a lyrical feel all children will love.

The thing that immediately struck me about this book were Emily Hamilton’s bold illustrations on the light background. Each colour of the rainbow triggers a memory about her family, or lockdown life and how everyone worked together to make the best of it. Children will love to explore the pictures making up their own stories without necessarily reading the words. In this way this picture book works on many levels and is a book children will want to go back to again and again.