Welcome to our first monthly book recommendations post! We realised that we read SO many books that we simply don’t have time to fully review, but still want to share with the world. So going forward, we’re hoping to do a post at the start of each month, covering what we read last month. Here’s our books from March 2024!
Continue reading “Monthly Book Recommendations: March 2024”
By Maria Kuzniar, with illustrations by Nakul P. (published by Puffin Books, 2024)
Continue reading “The Girl Who Dreamed in Magic | Book Review”‘The girl will dream magic.’ Her lined face drooped. ‘And she holds the fate of the North in her hands.’
By Julian Sedgwick and Chie Kutsuwada (published by Guppy Books, 2023)
Continue reading “100 Tales from the Tokyo Ghost Café | Book Review”“You think you can decide what is real and what is imaginary, what is alive and what is dead. But who is to decide who is alive and who is merely dreamed into existence? I listen to you lot argue about whether ghosts or fox spirits exist, and you forget to check how real you are.”
Written by Lora Senf, illustrations by Alfredo Cáceres (published by Atheneum Books, 2022)
Continue reading “The Clackity | Happy Halloween! Book Review”In the far corner of the abattoir, on the other side of the back wall below the shaft, the shadows were unnaturally dark. And they shifted and churned. Something was there. Something else was in the abattoir with my aunt.
“Des!” I screamed it. “Get out!”
I couldn’t see her face, but the terror in my aunt’s voice told me everything I needed to know. She didn’t scream at me, or even yell. Instead her voice came out as a wailing sort of moan.
“Baby. Run.”
By Nicola Davies (published by Firefly Press)
The sounds of hard breathing and the scrunch of footfalls enclose them as they run. There are shouts behind, voices yelling orders, more shots. Harlon gives Xeno and Ash a stream of small orders and encouragements to stop them thinking.
In Harlon’s head, her ma’s voice speaks.
When you are in danger, the most dangerous thing is to wish you weren’t. Accept the reality of danger, then you can survive it.
Climb, she tells herself. Get away.
Continue reading “The Song That Sings Us | Book Review for Older Readers”
“For you know what they say… If the wolves come out of the walls, then it’s all over.”
Continue reading “‘The Wolves in the Walls’ | Little Angel Theatre takes on Gaiman and McKean | Play Review”
By Zillah Bethell (published by Usborne Publishing, 2023)
Continue reading “The Song Walker | Book Review”The bottle is removed from my lips. I try calling out for it to be returned, but then a hand – wet with water – runs over my brow, cooling my forehead. It feels so good.
“Wait here,” the voice says. “I will be back soon. A few minutes. Don’t move.”
I hear feet scrunching against the dirt. Running. Away from me. I raise my arms in the air. Please don’t go, I try saying, but nothing comes out of my mouth. Please stay. Don’t leave me alone here.
By Louie Stowell (published by Walker Books, 2022)
Continue reading “Loki: A Bad God’s Guide to Being Good | Book Review”In which case I may as well be honest in these pages. There’s a first time for everything.
My tragedy began with a trick involving the goddess Sif, her long, golden locks, a pair of scissors and an ill-timed nap. I’ll spare you the details, but let’s just say that no one in Asgard can take a joke. Or a haircut.
By Marcus Sedgwick (published by Barrington Stoke, 2023)
Continue reading “Ravencave | Book Review”Eight hundred people, eight hundred families, just like ours, without enough money coming in, with no way of knowing how to survive.
I wonder how many of those eight hundred families are dealing with it by going on holiday and wandering over the empty Yorkshire hills, going to spread their granny’s ashes on the landscape.
A landscape full of ghosts, Mum says, though she hasn’t seen one.
And strangely, it turns out it’s not her who sees a ghost first.
It’s me.
By Manon Steffan Ros (published by Firefly Press, 2022)
Continue reading “The Blue Book of Nebo | Young Adult Book Review”‘The Blue Book of Nebo,’ I smiled, taking the book from her. The pages were blank and wide, like a new day.
‘Eh?’ asked Mam.
‘Like The Black Book of Carmarthen, or The Red Book of Hergest. That’s how they did it in the olden days.’ I’d read about them in a book of Welsh history. ‘Important books that said something about our history. And now is a part of history, isn’t it?’
