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Showing posts from August, 2020

Pet - Akwaeke Emezi

There are no monsters anymore, or so the children in the city of Lucille have been taught. Jam and her best friend, Redemption, have grown up with this lesson all their lives. But when Jam meets Pet she begins to question what she's been told. Pet has come to hunt the evil lurking in Redemption's house... But how do you save the world from monsters when no-one will admit they exist?  I'd heard great things about Pet before finally picking it up in my local bookshop last week. I love the anticipation that strikes when reading a book that has been so widely discussed and reviewed, the worry of whether it will live up to expectation, the excitement of reading something that everyone is talking about. Pet was very different from my expectation, deeper, more involved than I thought it initially sounded, but a story with many messages woven inside it and a very worthy YA read. Jam lives in the city of Lucille, a place where the monsters have been banished and the angels mainta

The Beast and the Bethany - Jack Meggitt-Phillips

Ebenezer Tweezer is a youthful 511-year-old. He keeps a beast in the attic of his mansion, who he feeds all manner of things (including performing monkeys, his pet cat and the occasional cactus) and in return the beast vomits out presents for Ebenezer, as well as potions which keep him young and beautiful. But the beast grows ever greedier, and soon only a nice, juicy child will do. So when Ebenezer encounters orphan Bethany, it seems like (everlasting) life will go on as normal. But Bethany is not your average orphan . . . When the synopsis of this book flew into my inbox I already knew it was going to be a good one. With a main character called Ebeneezer Tweezer this book was never going to disappoint and I'm excited to be part of The Write Reads blog tour for it.  The Beast and the Bethany  is the perfect grizzly tale. A cross between The Nightmare Before Christmas and the  Mr Gum books   with brilliant humour and silliness galore, as well as the sense of impending doom which th

D-Day Dog - Tom Palmer

  Jack can't wait for the school trip to the D-Day landing beaches. It's his chance to learn more about the war heroes he has always admired - brave men like his dad, who is a Reserve soldier. But when his dad is called up to action and things at home spiral out of control, everything Jack believes about the war is thrown into question. Finding comfort only in the presence of his loyal dog, Finn, Jack is drawn to the heart-wrenching true story of one particular D-Day paratrooper. On 6 June 1944, Emile Corteil parachuted into France with his dog, Glen - and Jack is determined to discover their fate... D-Day Dog is a book which had been on my radar for quite a while after reading Tom Palmer's first war novel, Armistice Runner last year. However, it wasn't until a colleague recommended it to me that I finally decided to pick it up off the bookshelf and get stuck in.  Jack is in Year 6 and loves the war, he is fascinated by the facts, considers the soldiers who fight heroes

Little Badman and the Time-Travelling Teacher of Doom - Humza Arshad and Henry White

  'You've probably heard of me, right? Little Badman. No? Oh. Well . . . doesn't Matter.  You will do one day. I'm gonna be big.   I'm Humza Khan, the greatest eleven-year-old rapper Eggington ever had. I've also faced deadly alien slugs, killer aunties and double maths.  But now, I (and my best friend Umer I guess) face something even scarier - my dad! He's pretty fed up with us being naughty, so he's sending us away . . . to school. But this is not ordinary school. This is a special summer school in Pakistan, and man something weird is going on - someone has been messing with time! I may have to save the world again . . . Little Badman and the Time-Travelling Teacher of Doom is the second instalment of the Little Badman  series, all revolving around eleven-year-old Humza Khan, a wannabe rapper from Eggington who loves to play practical jokes on everyone. After saving the world once already, Humza is determined that he will now be a successful spy worki

July Round Up

July has absolutely flown past and I'm not sure whether that's because it saw the official start of my summer holidays or because Coronavirus is still lurking and life still doesn't feel normal yet in any shape or form... I managed to read a good pile of books in July, many of which were from my July TBR pile which you can read more about here . In fact, I managed to read all my TBR pile except one, and still managed to fit a few others in too! This was one book I mentioned in my July TBR post and I'm glad that I finally got it finished. I absolutely loved it and raced through it at break-neck speed. I spent most of my time reading through tears and by the final few chapters was completely inconsolable. It's such a cleverly written exploration of grief and illness and it was even better than I expected - I just wish I'd read it sooner.  Kidnap on the California Comet  comes out on September 3rd and I am so excited to pick up a physical copy in a bookshop to add