The Ultimate Book Guide

Cheltenham

2011-10-17T02:02:00.002+01:00

Back home from Cheltenham.

Well, that was fun, as always. An event with Kevin Brooks, Melvin Burgess and Sophie McKenzie to talk about their new teen novels; a discussion with Michael Farr and Raphaël Taylor about Tintin (these two know all there is to know on the subject, and had brought along some great pictures, too); then the wonderful Michael Foreman and Terry Jones (a last-minute addition to my slate) to discuss their latest collaboration, Animal Tales, and significantly I managed an hour on stage resisting the temptation to talk about Life of Brian, which felt like an incredible feat (I didn't even ask Terry to say "He's not the messiah, he's a very naughty boy...", just once, oh go on, just say it once, pleeeease...); and finally a chat with Kevin Crossley-Holland and Katherine Langrish about their latest books, Bracelet of Bones and West of the Moon, respectively.

This last was my favourite, I think - Kevin and Katherine, though they'd not met before this event, clearly really like each other's work, which always helps, and the whole event felt like an actual, proper, interesting, coherent conversation about important things, rather than a sort of hybrid interview to promote a couple of products - we talked about language and about stories and about Vikings and more and more. Brilliant.

I wonder what Chelt '12 will have in store. Looking forward already...

Percy etc..

2011-10-04T19:42:00.003+01:00

What a day - the library has been full of boys bouncing about the new Percy Jackson, bouncing about Rick Riordan having answered some of their questions and bouncing about getting their photos online! There might have been the odd lesson in there too, and the announcement of the teams who'll take part in this year's Kids' Lit Quiz competition AND special cake as it was Frances the chef's birthday and she baked for us, so all in all today was a day well spent.

I'm still in mild shock that Rick Riordan is guesting here - a little bit like having one of the gods reach down from Olympus!

The Son of Neptune - a review

2011-10-04T11:24:00.009+01:00

To celebrate today's publication of The Son of Neptune and author Rick Riordan's visit to our blog, a review:

The Son of Neptune is about Percy Jackson. Percy has had his memory blanked and now can’t remember who he is or where he’s from. In the beginning of the book Percy is being pursued by two Gorgons called Sethno and Euryal, who don’t seem to die – this is because the giants have imprisoned Hades’s linuete keeper, Thanatos - who is also known as Death. Polynepthys is planning to bring a huge army of mythological beasts such as cyclopses, centaurs, dracane and lots of others to Camp Jupiter. Percy and his friends Hazel and Frank, alongside the rest of the legion, have to stop him. Before the fight, Percy, Hazel and Frank are assigned a mission to free Thanatos – can they do it in time?

I think that Rick Riordan is a very funny, creative writer and nothing is better than sitting in bed with one of his books. I’m absolutely sure that there not one of my friends who has not read at least one of his books and loved it. Now I’m already looking forward to the next book when it comes out!

Reviewed by Isaac Lockwood, aged 9

Percy Jackson competition!

2011-10-04T10:45:00.006+01:00

To mark the publication of The Son of Neptune, Rick's publisher Puffin have launched a Hunt for a Half-Blood Hero competition!

So if you want Rick streamed live to your school assembly, visit the competition site and tell them why you should be chosen to join Percy on a new adventure!

D.H.

It's Rick Riordan!

2011-10-04T09:39:00.036+01:00

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We're thrilled that Rick Riordan - bestselling author of the brilliant Percy Jackson series - is joining us on the UBG blog today! It's the final date on his Olympian Week UK blog tour, to celebrate the return of Percy Jackson in his new book The Son of Neptune. Each of the stops on Rick's tour is dedicated to one of seven Olympian gods, and today is ATHENA. So, time for some words of wisdom from Rick himself...

Leonie has gathered seven questions about the Percy Jackson books, which we've put to Rick...

How did you come up with the idea of Percy Jackson? James

It started as a bedtime story for my son. He loved Greek mythology when he was young. Percy Jackson was roughly based on him, since they are both ADHD and dyslexic.

Did you like the movie of Percy Jackson and how much input did you have in the writing? Ayomide

I didn't see it. I just write the books. I didn't have any part in creating the movie.

Will Percy ever change his mind and agree to become immortal? Asher

I doubt it. That was the selfish choice he could've made, but he chose to help all demigods instead. That's what makes him a hero!

Why did you stop writing about Percy and start writing about Leo and Jason? Ayomide

I don't want to try to write the same story over and over again. I like writing about different characters with different adventures. But I certainly didn't stop writing about Percy, as you'll see in The Son of Neptune.

If you could be a god, which one would it be, and what powers would you have? Freddie

I'd love to be Zeus and have the power to throw lightning.

If you could create a new weapon for a god, what would it be and what would it do? Ben

I actually did already. I invented a sword for Hades, as he didn't have a weapon in Greek mythology. His sword acts as a key to the Underworld, and can send souls to Tartarus with a touch.

Which of your books is your favourite and of other authors, which is your favourite book - both adult and kids? Mani

I can't choose a favorite book of my own. It's too much like choosing a favorite son or daughter. I love them all for different reasons. I have many favorite books by other authors. If I had to choose, I'd probably pick The Lord of the Rings.

The Lord of the Rings, eh? Since we've got him here, we also asked Rick to do the usual UBG thing, and let us have 100 words on his favourite book - here's what he said:

The book that had the biggest impact on me as a reader and a writer was J.R.R. Tolkien's The Fellowship of the Ring. When I was about thirteen, Tolkien’s trilogy opened up the world of fantasy for me. My eighth grade teacher, Mrs. Pabst, had done her master’s thesis on Tolkien. She showed me how the trilogy was patterned after Norse mythology. She was also the first person to encourage me to submit stories for publication. The idea of writing a fantasy based on myths never left me, and many years later, this would lead me to write Percy Jackson.

While we're celebrating the publication of The Son of Neptune, you can also read a review by nine-year-old Isaac, and learn about an exciting new competition launched by his publishers.

Huge thanks to Rick for taking time from his busy schedule to stop by, and good luck with the new book - published today!

D.H.

[Photo of Rick (c) Marty Umans]

Lightning Thief

2011-10-03T21:35:00.005+01:00

While we're waiting for tomorrow's exciting visitor, here's a reminder of what Julia Golding wrote about the very first Percy Jackson book for the UBG all those years ago...

The Gods of Olympus are still running the earth even in the twenty-first century. Surprised? So is Percy Jackson. And then he finds out that he is the son of one of them - a very powerful god who shouldn't have had him at all. It explains a lot, like why one of his teachers turned into a harpy and tried to kill him. Packed off to Camp Half-Blood to come to terms with his parentage, Percy finds himself plunged into an adventure that takes him across America and into the Underworld on the trail of the lightning thief.

A great hybrid: road movie meets The Odyssey. And you'll never look at your teachers in the same way again.

D.H.

A very special guest

2011-10-03T21:27:00.003+01:00

Rick Riordan, creator of Percy Jackson, will be visiting the blog tomorrow!

To commemorate the publication of his new book, Heroes of Olympus: The Son of Neptune, Rick is doing a week-long UK blog tour, which will end here on the UBG blog, on Tuesday 4th October - publication day!

He's going to be answering a few questions, and telling us a bit about his own favourite book - so be sure to check back here to find out what he has to say...

D.H.

Cheltenham 2011

2011-09-30T02:23:00.000+01:00

My children's/teen events for Cheltenham have been confirmed.

I'll be talking books for teens with Melvin Burgess, Kevin Brooks and Sophie McKenzie on Sunday October 9th at 2:30pm (Mad, Bad and Dangerous); discussing Tintin with Raphaël Taylor and Michael Farr on Saturday 15th at 5pm (Tintin); and exploring the appeal of Vikings with Kevin Crossley-Holland and Katherine Langrish on Sunday 16th at 5pm (Vikings!).

Really looking forward to them - and hope to see you there!

D.H.

Wonderstruck!

2011-09-30T02:12:00.003+01:00

Ah, a new door-stopper volume from the incomparable Brian Selznick. It's called Wonderstruck and it's gorgeous. (Obviously.) Review to follow in the coming days.

D.H.

UKLA longlists - here they are!

2011-09-26T10:00:00.000+01:00

So, after wading through over three hundred submissions, we met last week to come up with our three longlists for the 2012 UKLA award. And they're announced today! The award is given for books for children and teenagers in which the writing uses language in ways that's particularly powerful/interesting/effective.

The longlists (one for each age range covered by the award) are as follows:

Longlist for 3-6 category
A Splendid Friend, Indeed (Suzanne Bloom)
Mine (Rachel Bright)
When Titus Took the Train (Anne Cottringer)
A Place to Call Home (Alexis Deacon)
I Want a Mini Tiger (Joyce Dunbar)
Just Because (Rebecca Elliott)
Eddie's Toolbox (Sarah Garland)
Wolf Won't Bite (Emily Gravett)
A Bit Lost (Chris Haughton)
Rollo and Ruff and the Little Fluffy Bird (Mick Inkpen)
Up and Down (Oliver Jeffers)
The Boy Who Cried Ninja (Alex Latimer)
Little Red Hood (Marjolaine Leray, tr. Sarah Ardizzone)
Marshall Armstrong Is New to Our School (David Mackintosh)
One Two That's My Shoe (Alison Murray)
Iris and Isaac (Catherine Rayner)
Busy Boats (Susan Steggall)
Chill (Carol Thompson)
Mole's Sunrise (Jeanne Willis)
Scruffy Bear and the Six White Mice (Chris Wormell)
Frank and Teddy Make Friends (Louise Yates)

Longlist for 7-11 category
Farther (Grahame Baker-Smith)
Noah Barleywater Runs Away (John Boyne)
A Girl Called Dog (Nicola Davies)
The Memory Cage (Ruth Eastham)
Small Change for Stewart (Lissa Evans)
Grace (Morris Gleitzman)
Three By the Sea (Mini Grey)
The Young Chieftain (Ken Howard)
One Dog and His Boy (Eva Ibbotson)
Animal Tales (Terry Jones)
Sky Hawk (Gill Lewis)
Moon Pie (Simon Mason)
Caddy's World (Hilary McKay)
Scrivener's Moon (Philip Reeve)
The Girl Savage (Katherine Rundell)
Nobody's Horse (Jane Smiley)
When You Reach Me (Rebecca Stead)

Longlist for 12-16 category
My Name Is Mina (David Almond)
Long Lankin (Lindsey Barraclough)
Flip (Martyn Bedford)
Buried Thunder (Tim Bowler)
iBoy (Kevin Brooks)
Tyme's End (B.R. Collins)
Bracelet of Bones (Kevin Crossley-Holland)
The 10pm Question (Kate de Goldi)
Annexed (Sharon Dogar)
You Against Me (Jenny Downham)
Being Billy (Phil Earle)
Quarry (Ally Kennen)
Everybody Jam (Ali Lewis)
Pull Out All the Stops (Geraldine McCaughrean)
Trash (Andy Mulligan)
A Monster Calls (Patrick Ness)
Half Brother (Kenneth Oppel)
Bruised (Siobhan Parkinson)
My Sister Lives on the Mantlepiece (Annabel Pitcher)
The Dead of Winter (Chris Priestley)
White Crow (Marcus Sedgwick)
The Last Summer of the Death Warriors (Francisco X. Stork)

We're all really happy with our choices. Do give them a try!

D.H.

(P.S. You'll have to wait till the New Year for the shortlists, I'm afraid...)

UKLA longlist

2011-09-19T22:04:00.003+01:00

This post is not to tell you what's on the UKLA longlist, because I can't do that. It's only to tell you that we do now have a longlist (chosen today), and that it's great, and that you'll know what it is on the 26th. Which isn't very interesting information for you, I grant you, and is really just a bit of a tease, but *I'm* very pleased with it so wanted to say something. So there.

Details this time next week.

D.H.

A very general update...

2011-09-13T01:37:00.006+01:00

Even though we're not currently at work on an edition of The Ultimate Book Guide, there's been plenty of children's books activity in my summer, some of which I've mentioned here already and some not. But here's a little run-down...

In mid-May, Leonie and I were in Qatar, running a two-day workshop for local teachers and teacher-trainers on 'Getting Children Reading'. Also in May we concluded our Books of the Week series with our 100th recommendation, for Hilary McKay's delightful Caddy's World, and I wrote a couple of YA reviews for the Indy.
June then began with the Hay festival (I chaired an event with Jason Wallace, Jim Carrington and Irfan Master); and the following day saw the start of the Pop Up schools programme, which ran right through the month (I'm proud to be on the board of Pop Up, and it was lovely to see it become a reality after all the planning!), culminating in the Pop Up public festival in Coram's Fields in July. Which was wonderful. (Plans afoot for the next already...)
Then there was August with Edinburgh, and early September in which I - sort of by accident - wrote my first picture book... Of which I'm rather proud. But more of that in another post...
And throughout the summer, I've also been working on a number of ideas for promoting more translated children's books in the UK; and reading reading reading for the UKLA award (over three hundred books submitted! Help! Drowning!...) - I'm on the selection panel and we meet to longlist on Monday 19th; I've been going through about seventy abstracts sent in by people who want to speak at our IBBY congress next year; and meantime attempting to make progress on the rather massive undertaking which is my new Oxford Companion to Children's Literature.

So: busy-busy. But that's all in the past; so what's next on the blog for this month coming up?

Well, we'll have the announcement of the UKLA longlist, just as soon as we've made our final selection; I'll be reviewing Wonderstruck, the beautiful new book from Brian Selznick, author of The Invention of Hugo Cabret (a particular favourite of mine); and I'll be telling you all about that surprising new picture book I've been working on (publishing in the New Year). And then going into October there will be some lovely events at Cheltenham, as usual.

But before all that, we're going to be announcing a very exciting special guest who's going to be visiting us on this blog in just a couple of weeks... Watch this space...

D.H.

Teen writing competition

2011-08-31T01:27:00.001+01:00

Delighted to announce that today we launch the third edition of Right Words, the writing competition for 14 to 16 year olds in the UK. It's something I started a few years ago with the Human Rights Watch London Network, and this time we're running it in association with the Readers and Writers programme at English PEN, too. The theme is 'freedom of expression'. The competition will run into January (we're running free workshops in schools throughout the period), and then the best bits of work in each of the categories (story, poem, essay, song/rap) will be chosen by our amazing panel of judges (Tim Minchin!) and we'll publish those pieces in an anthology in the spring. I'll keep you up to date with it all on this blog, of course.

You'll find all the information here - do encourage any teenagers you know to enter, teachers you know to use our resources with their classes, etc., and of course drop me a note to ask if you'd like to know any more. It's a good thing.

D.H.

Neil Gaiman event

2011-08-20T01:13:00.000+01:00

Loved doing the event with Neil Gaiman on Tuesday! He arrived just in time for the event and afterwards was whisked off to a three-hour signing queue, so I didn't get a chance to have any kind of chat with him off-stage at any point, but I had him all to myself for an hour on stage (just the two of us, and five hundred other people in the tent eavesdropping) and he was just great. And The Graveyard Book is still one of my very favourites ever. Read it if you haven't already.

The festival haven't put up the audio/video of the event - tho' they might? - but in the meantime the Guardian have helpfully published some of the highlights here. Fortunately, the Milk, eh? Brilliant.

D.H.

Edinburgh 2011!

2011-08-15T01:02:00.003+01:00

If it's August, it must be...

Yes, time for the Edinburgh International Book Festival again. And great programme, as usual.

I'm there for the day tomorrow, to introduce the lovely Geraldine McCaughrean, and then to chair two events - one with Tim Bowler and Mike Lancaster, and the next with the amazing amazing Neil Gaiman. I know Geraldine and Tim, and I've met Mike before, too - and tho' I've never met Mr Gaiman I think he's amazing amazing amazing (might have mentioned) so I imagine it's going to be a lovely day.

Then going up again next week, to introduce Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell, introduce Charlie Higson, and interview Ali Lewis (Saturday 27th); introduce Steve Cole, introduce Anne Fine and chair a discussion on Partition between Jamila Gavin and Irfan Master (Sunday 28th); and finally interview David Almond about his extraordinary new teen/adult novel, The True Tale of the Monster Billy Dean (Monday 29th).

Fun!

Come say hello if you're around.

D.H.

Eight Keys by Suzanne LaFleur

2011-08-02T08:50:00.004+01:00

At the beginning of this story Elise is eleven and still a child. An orphan, she lives with her aunt and uncle in the country and plays with the best friend, Franklin, inventing epic stories where they fight evil. But Elise is about to move up to her next school, and from the day she starts there things change. Her world has always been safe and secure, without doubt or thought for anything much more than what to do today - people have always been kind and Franklin has always been the perfect companion...

The steep learning-curve that Elise runs through is painful. Suddenly she's at sea with everything from her friend, to her enemy and her home. Bullied at school, failing academically and struggling with seeing the world from a more teenage perspective, she suddenly starts to find a series of keys; keys that fit doors on the upper floor of barn behind her house - a place she has always been forbidden to go.

Elise's struggles with friendships - and with finding out who she is becoming - are very real. Even though this book is quite slight it packs a real emotional punch as the reader learns, along with Elise, about her story and the love her parents had for her.

There is nothing here that makes it a teen book, but if I was going to choose an ideal recipient I'd pick a girl, about the same age as Elise. Though this isn't a handbook for growing up, it certainly shines a light on many of the predicaments any child on the cusp of maturity will encounter.

Simply written, beautifully told, Elise's story stays with you - I loved it and dearly wanted to know more (Amanda's story next, please!).

Pop Up!

2011-07-16T04:13:00.007+01:00

Over the last year or so I'm very proud to have been involved with Pop Up, a new project established to bring books and stories to thousands of kids in the Kings Cross area. The programme culminated in a huge public festival last weekend at Coram's Fields, which featured some of my favourite children's writers, illustrators and storytellers, and a lot of creativity and fun and imagination and sunshine and Moomins.

Have a look at the Pop Up website to learn a bit more about it.

We're now beginning our plans for the next year's activity - even bigger and even better! - and we're at that difficult fund-raising stage (the Pop Up programme is absolutely free to all the kids involved, and we're determined to keep it that way) so if you think it looks worthwhile and you're able to make any donation towards the running of the thing, it'd be very much appreciated!

D.H.

The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien

2011-06-18T20:52:00.005+01:00

Bilbo Baggins is just a small hobbit when an unexpected party bursts into his hobbit hole, taking him on an adventure filled with excitement and mysteries. With Bilbo goes Gandalf the wizard, the dwarf Thorin Oakenshield and his eleven followers. In Bilbo’s path he finds a magical ring that helps them on their way to finding the greatest treasure of all time, which is guarded by the most ferocious dragon, Smaug.

Will Bilbo and his friends survive the dangerous adventure and claim the treasure they dreamed of? You have to read it to find out! I think this is a thrilling book and it is a Must Read!

Oscar Harvey age 10
Dorset House School, West Sussex

The above was written as part of a lesson about review writing – a lesson using the UBGs and their entries as examples. I think it works brilliantly (the UBGs on how to write reviews and Oscar’s review on how to enthuse about a book!).

Amy and Roger's Epic Detour by Morgan Matson

2011-06-17T12:52:00.005+01:00

Amy has isolated herself from all her friends, and to make life even more dispiriting than it already is her mum has upped stakes and moved across America - pretty much as far away from their California home as you can get and stay on land. The plan is that Amy will follow her, driving across country with the son of a family friend. A family friend who not only is disconcertingly cute but who has an agenda of his own, and enough emotional baggage to fill the trunk of the car with some to spare. Though that's still less than Amy's...

So, what you have is a road trip with two almost grown-up teens, a trip complete with pictures of receipts from diners, tourist photos, diary pages, playlists of music that they listen to whilst on the road, broken-hearts, grief, despair and laughter as well as tears. But put all that together and what you get is one of the most warm-hearted stories I've read in ages. It's a story of hope that shows how life's complexities can be battled through and how friendship really is the most important thing you can find. I loved it, and thought about the characters long after the book was done.

Danny was sent the advance copy and he didn't fancy it, so maybe the cover appeals more to females than males, but certainly the content is readable by both and isn't cloying or girly or romancy. Or maybe it's a perfect example of don't judge a book by its cover (though I infinitely prefer this to the American version!).

Looking back (I read this a couple of weeks back) I want to re-read it already. In fact I want to pick it up and take it on a road trip, listening to Roger's playlists, adding in a little Elvis and eating at roadside diners. For a first time writer, Ms Matson? Well done, this is bliss in a book!

Oh, and again no vampires/ghosts/werewolves/angels! Yay!

Indy reviews

2011-06-11T00:56:00.004+01:00

I've just reviewed a couple of sort-of Young Adult books for the Independent - little piece on Mal Peet's Life: An Exploded Diagram ran yesterday, and Patrick Ness's A Monster Calls last month.

They're unquestionably two of the best books I've read in a long time. Both will win many things over the next year, and people will talk about them for a long time to come.

Meantime, please, please read them.

D.H.

PS A Monster Calls has been reviewed on this blog already, too - there's a rave from Tessa here.

Strings Attached by Judy Blundell

2011-06-04T12:33:00.006+01:00

I loved What I Saw and How I Lied - as a teen novel it was fresh-looking, brilliantly insightful and beautifully written. That Judy Blundell had managed to come up with a story that was set in the past but that spoke so eloquently to the present was something I was a little afraid she wouldn't be able to replicate. Well, I needn't have fretted: Strings Attached is another wonderfully sophisticated, complex novel.

Set in 1950, but with the past told in snapshots that piece together like a jigsaw, this is the story of smart-mouthed redhead, Kitty Corrigan. With a tangled history that binds her more securely than she dreams, she runs away from a broken romance to find fame on Broadway. But success as an actress is hard to find and, lying about her age, she becomes a nightclub dancer, all the while trying to ignore the complex presence of her ex-boyfriend's father and the plans he has for her life. Kitty's hunger for love, for life and for success blind her to almost everything, especially to the fact that actions have consequences and that very little in life comes for free.

I loved this book, as it's a real novel (woo hoo, no magic, no vampires!), a real story, with three-dimensional characters and a nail-bitingly tense mystery. Sleaze and sex ripple through the book, but Kitty is - for all her would-be sophistication - an innocent abroad and none of the sex is overt. All the period details are delicious (Mad Men watchers? Read this now!) and the claustrophobia of an America waiting for the bomb to drop or the Reds to take over is satisfyingly evoked. The nod to David Levithan in the acknowledgements is just, though this is not a carbon copy of his style at all, as Ms Blundell is far too much her own writer for that - a writer with style, panache, a real ear for dialogue and a heart for story.

With the hedonistic world of clubs, dancers, gangs, McCarthyism and mobsters evoked with all the stark depth of Film Noir, String Attached reads like a movie, one that flickers in your head long after the story is done.

The one thing I'd have changed? The title - it really didn't work for me...

Leonie

The Western Mysteries: WANTED by Caroline Lawrence

2011-05-24T15:31:00.007+01:00

Wanted is the first instalment in the Western Mysteries by Caroline Lawrence and is released on the 2^nd June 2011. It is fiction. It is set in the Wild West during the great American civil war. The main character is a boy called P.K. Pinkerton, nicknamed ‘Pinky’. It all starts when he comes back from school and sees his foster parents lying on the floor looking dead and the adventures start there and get more nail-biting as the book goes on.

I think the book is different from The Roman Mysteries because his parents die and then he sets off alone to solve a major mystery whereas in The Roman Mysteries their parents don’t die and they solve the mysteries purely for fun. In ‘Wanted’ Pinky sets off to escape killers, but then starts to do mystery work as a job - and to follow in his father’s footsteps - not just for fun! The fact that it is all sounds more serious doesn’t make it any less exciting.

I think that this book is as good as The Roman Mysteries and is more grown-up. I think it will have up lots more great surprises too as the series continues. I think it’s a great read and recommend it very much.

Asher Laws age 10

The end.

2011-05-16T01:00:00.000+01:00

With our hundredth recommendation, just published, we’re bringing our ‘Book of the Week’ series to a close. Huge thanks to all our contributors, especially to Noga Applebaum, Tessa Brechin, Ariel Kahn and Matthew Humpage, for sharing with us their enthusiasm for some of the brilliant books published over the twenty-seven months since we started.

We’ll all still be posting recommendations of books on this blog from time to time, of course, albeit occasionally rather than regularly, whenever we come across anything that we’re just too excited to keep quiet about…

D.H.

Book of the Week (100): "Caddy's World" by Hilary McKay

2011-05-16T00:29:00.001+01:00

If you’ve read the rest of Hilary McKay’s Casson Family books, you won’t need my encouragement to read Caddy’s World. Just the knowledge that there’s another one in existence and you’ll be utterly desperate to get your hands on a copy, longing to throw your arms around these characters you’ve so missed. Caddy, Saffy, Indigo and their slightly delinquent parents…

(But wait – you’re wondering – what about Rose?)

In Caddy’s World we go back to a time when the Cassons had only three children – the eldest, Caddy, is just twelve. She has three best friends (perfect Beth, brainy Ruby, and Alison who hates everybody), a sort of boyfriend, Dingbat (whom she shares with the other three) and worries about the stability of her mad family’s mad household, where things seem to keep being upturned just as she’s managed to get her bearings. And then her mother tells her there’s a baby on the way…

You may, like me, worry slightly when a book like this appears – the others in the series are so gorgeous, what if this one doesn’t live up to your expectations? Well, you needn’t fret. Everything you loved about Saffy’s World, Indigo’s Star, Permanent Rose, Caddy Ever After and Forever Rose is here in this book, too, in abundance – a lot of laughs, warmth and mischief, characters with more character than any family of children I think I’ve ever read about, a lightness of touch and, well, so many other things. It’s quite hard to talk about, really – quite hard to describe what it is that makes the Casson Family series so special. But as I say, if you’ve met them already you don’t need me to tell you. So, I’ll just say, Have a wonderful time. Caddy’s World awaits.

(If you haven’t read these books, what on earth are you waiting for? You won’t find a more endearing, eccentric, maddening and marvellously warm family in any other book, by anyone, ever. High claim? I don’t think so. But find out for yourself. Start from the beginning, and go read Saffy’s Angel now. Just do what you’re told. You’ll be so glad you did.)

Recommended by Daniel Hahn

Book of the Week (99): "One Dog and His Boy" by Eva Ibbotson

2011-05-09T00:30:00.002+01:00

When Eva Ibbotson died in October, aged 85, she had just finished work on one final book, this story about a dog, a boy, and the adventures they go through in order to be allowed to keep one another. And to my mind One Dog and His Boy is as good as anything she wrote in her amazing 35-year career.

Ten-year-old Hal has always wanted a dog. His super-materialistic parents lavish expensive gifts on him at every opportunity, but just won’t stand for the idea of a pet. All too messy for their beautiful, luxurious, spotless, lifeless house. But they believe they can cure Hal’s enthusiasm by letting him have a dog just for a weekend, certain that he’ll quickly tire of it – so they go to the Easy Pets Dog Agency and hire one. But boy and dog become immediately attached, so when the parents return Fleck to the agency, Hal has to take drastic action. He kidnaps the dog and runs away. But not long into his escape he finds he has acquired four other canine friends, as well as a human friend to accompany him on his journey. Oh, and there is a private detective trying to track him down now, too, and a huge reward for any information leading to his apprehension…

Ibbotson can be wickedly funny when she wants to be, but what will stay with you once you’ve finished this book is the warmth of it – of the story (loyalty, bravery, hope, belonging), of the characters (all of them pin-sharp – including some particularly ghastly grown-ups) but mainly of the voice – that voice, inimitable, that made us all feel as though we knew Eva Ibbotson personally, and just loved being in her company. And here, and in so many other marvellous books, we’ll have her around for a long time yet. What a legacy that is.

Recommended by Daniel Hahn

Book of the Week (98): "A Monster Calls" by Patrick Ness, with illustrations by Jim Kay

2011-05-02T13:29:00.000+01:00

A Monster Calls is the extraordinary new novel from Patrick Ness. It is based on the story idea of Siobhan Dowd, a much loved, Carnegie Medal winning author, who sadly lost her battle with cancer before she could write the book. Patrick Ness has taken that kernel of an idea and created an impressive tale, which will stay with me as one of the most insightful, heartbreaking and powerful novels I’ve ever read.

Having been somewhat in awe of Ness’s ‘Chaos Walking Trilogy’ I was desperate to get my hands on this new novel. Desperate and a little nervous, wondering how he could possibly follow it. I was not disappointed. A Monster Calls is not at all like his ‘Chaos Walking Trilogy’, yet it is equally unique and spectacular. The emotional intensity and skilful storytelling once again keeps you turning page after page until you finish and sit stunned.

Here is the story of Conor, a teenage boy trying to cope with the likely loss of his mother to cancer. With his father now living in America with his new family, Conor has to be grown up and brave as his Mum battles her way through treatments. And then a monster comes to call, but it’s not the monster he’s expecting. This one isn’t nearly as terrifying as the one that visits his nightly nightmare - ‘the one with the darkness and the wind and the screaming’. Yet this one is ancient and wild, it tells him stories and it demands the truth from Conor.

With a style reminiscent of folklore story telling and dense with symbolism, Ness captures the confusion and pain of Conor’s experience incredibly well, providing a depth of understanding to teenage grief that I haven’t before encountered in fiction.

Hauntingly beautiful illustrations by Jim Kay add extra depth and intensity to this affecting tale. As Kay says on his website ‘Get hold of a copy, hide yourself away, and throw yourself between the rollers of an emotional grinder’.

Recommended by Tessa Brechin

Book of the Week (97): "Actual Size" by Steve Jenkins

2011-04-29T18:28:00.003+01:00

A few weeks ago I was asked to do a reading assessment with a boy who didn’t like reading, didn’t want to read and would be going out now to play football not stay inside with the nasty teacher-woman, thank you very much. He, however, stayed inside. And sulked. I sat on one sofa, he on the other – tears glistened in his six-year-old eyes as he stared through the window at the bright sunshine and the green grass that just begged to have a ball kicked on it.

I, however, had a secret weapon. Instead of cajoling him, I sat back and started reading. Occasionally I gasped or ooed. Sometimes I laughed. As we all know, someone laughing at a joke you don’t know about is a terribly aggravating thing… I caught him looking at me – and at the cover of the book I was reading. After a while I exclaimed – no way, that can’t be true!

And at that, I had him. Five minutes later he was engrossed in the book. An hour later he was complaining that he didn’t know enough words yet to understand all the information. It won’t be long before he does.

And the book? Actual Size by Steve Jenkins.

It’s quite simple – pictures of creatures (or bits of creatures) actual size: the tiniest fish (no! THAT small??); the biggest spider (eek!); a 60cm tongue (complete with ants for dinner) and a gorilla’s hand (so, so human…). Simple, but genius. There is no child capable of not being intrigued.

The book isn’t brand new, but has been re-issued by Frances Lincoln – another addition to their truly outstanding range of picture books.

Oh, and many apologies for this being rather late…

Recommended by Leonie Flynn

Next for me is going to be hunting down a copy of Prehistoric Actual Size by Steve Jenkins – I can’t wait to be astonished!

Book of the Week (96): "Clash" by Colin Mulhern

2011-04-20T22:08:00.001+01:00

On the cover of Clash there is an enthusiastic endorsement from Anthony McGowan, author of The Knife that Killed Me, one of my favourite gritty teen novels from recent years. McGowan hails Mulhern as “the next name” in the genre. I agree. Clash is a well written, gripping, tough story of two very different boys, told from alternating perspectives. Alex comes from a violent background – his father is abusive, his uncle is something of a gangster, running cage-fighting nights. He is drawn to this dark world, and turns out to be quite a talented fighter. At school, however, he acquires a reputation of a loner and a psycho who can erupt with little warning leaving a trail of battered victims. Kyle on the other hand has a talent for drawing, and a more sensitive disposition. Their different personalities are bound to clash, yet there is obviously a mutual emotional connection. Alex is a surprisingly avid admirer of Kyle’s art, and Kyle is terrified of Alex, yet is fascinated by him, just like he is with his own pet scorpion, Harold. Their story intertwines in more than one way, and beyond the boys’ initial realisation. This allows Mulhern to build up the tension and supply the final twist. I certainly found the book hard to put down once the snowball of events started rolling. The two teen narrators are well realised, though I felt Alex’s voice was stronger. I did, however, have my doubts about the sincerity of his transformation following a catastrophe and some unexpected revelations that naturally I will not spoil by disclosing here. Gladly, the final paragraph implies that Mulhern does not forget the volatile nature of this character either. An absorbing read, and a new voice to watch out for.

Recommended by Noga Applebaum

Book of the Week (95): "A Year without Autumn" by Liz Kessler

2011-04-12T12:35:00.001+01:00

What would you do if you could see the future?

Autumn and Jenni are best friends. They are inseparable, sharing everything, even family holidays. On her way to visit Autumn, Jenni accidentally finds herself transported one year into the future. She’s bigger, and things are almost the same; but to her horror something has gone very wrong. Tragedy has struck their families, and her friendship with Autumn is falling apart. She has no memory of what’s happened, and everyone thinks she’s acting strange. Can she figure out what went wrong and get back to the past? If she can then maybe, just maybe, she can stop the terrible future and save the people she loves.

A beautiful little book about the enduring power of friendship, A Year Without Autumn is possessed of a simple sophistication that lends great authenticity to its characters and events. Liz Kessler presents a riveting believable story of adventure, tragedy, and one girl’s indomitable will to fix the errors of the past.

Eminently accessible to younger readers and adults alike Kessler evokes an atmosphere that plays on the universal nostalgia of family holidays; leaving the reader feeling that in some way they have shared the experience on a deeper level. I challenge every reader not to feel an indefinable sense of recognition with some element of this family holiday.

A Year Without Autumn is the new novel by the bestselling author of the Emily Windsnap series and delivers a gripping tale that I was totally unprepared for. The first Liz Kessler novel I have read, I was impressed by her talent for blending pitch perfect family relationships with humour, tragedy, and time travel of all things. This book is a gem, that should remind us all just how important our friendships are, and that we should never stop fighting to protect them.

Recommended by Matthew Humpage

Book of the Week (94): "The Magical Detectives" by Brian Keaney

2011-04-04T21:32:00.004+01:00

When I first saw this book I thought to myself, ‘oh goody, a new Diana Wynne Jones!’ (This was before the very sad news of her death reached my ears.) The reason for this mistake was that the cover’s artwork resembled the rebranding of DWJ’s back catalogue post Harry Potter. I don’t think the resemblance is a coincidence, as there is a whiff of DWJ in The Magical Detectives. Certainly two of the main characters – the lemon sherbet popping detective Maximillan Hawksmoor who investigates magical mysteries and the cynical talking cat Cornelius – could have made an appearance in her novels. The plot of The Magical Detectives, however, is not as complex as the ones DWJ devised in the Chrestomancy or Howl’s Moving Castle series. It is aimed at a younger audience (around 8-9 years old), and moves in a more traditional, yet very amiable, direction. Otto Spinoza comes home from school to discover that the bookshop his mother runs is closed, and there is no sign of her anywhere. Otto is aware that if he calls the police, his lack of other relatives may land him in a care home, so he enlists a magical detective instead. Enter Maximillan Hawksmoor with his spells and knowledge of parallel universes. A short investigation leads him to believe that Otto’s mother was kidnapped by creatures from such a universe, and together with Otto he sets off through a Janusian Portal to retrieve her. Unfortunately, Otto’s classmate, Juliet, and her aforementioned cat happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and so the expedition team gains two more members. Adventure, danger, and some humorous moments ensue, until the team finally finds their way back into our world. As mentioned earlier, the plot is a tad predictable, and there are a couple of holes that could have been better cemented, but this is the opener of a series, and the characters certainly have a good potential to launch themselves into deeper trouble in the next book. With a very engaging premise and some good protagonists, I hope Brian Keaney will come up with tasty twisty challenges in forthcoming sequel.

Recommended by Noga Applebaum

Book of the Week (93): "Dear Dumb Diary: Let's Pretend This Never Happened" by Jim Benton

2011-03-28T14:34:00.009+01:00

These are the diaries of Jamie Kelly, a girl for whom life is never easy. Sarcastic, gloomy, slightly cynical (with hair like that, who wouldn’t be?) and beset with problems – mainly caused by the oh-so-perfect Angelique – Jamie suffers through middle school. She trusts her innermost thoughts to her diary, and that is what we read – a dairy complete with cartoon-style illustrations and complaints about everything including school, teachers, Stinker the dog (he stinks AND eats her homework), her hair (which will never be long, blonde and perfect), boys and life generally. Luckily for us her complaints are hilarious.

So hilarious that, despite Jamie being a girl, these books are too good to keep just for female readers – boys get them too. In fact they make a perfect ‘next’ after the Diary of a Wimpy Kid books.

In America the Dear Dumb Diary series is up to book twelve, though here in the UK we’re just catching up and the first in the series is just available. Go read. Then be patient and wait for the rest of the series – anticipation will only sweeten the fun of each book as it appears.

Recommended by Leonie Flynn

Next?

In case you’ve missed them, the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series by Jeff Kinney.
Big Nate by Lincoln Pierce is a slightly easier read, but is just as American and just as funny.
The original and best diary? Sue Townsend’s genius, The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole aged 13 ¾.

Brief hiatus

2011-03-12T01:04:00.001Z

Hi -

We're taking a fortnight off our Books-of-the-Week - back with the next one on the 28th.

D.H.

Book of the Week (92): "Wreckers" by Julie Hearn

2011-03-07T00:14:00.007Z

A story of changing friendships, of lust, hope and hopelessness, a creature unlike any other and an ordinary box – a box, which has been closed for many years; a box which if opened could have devastating consequences for the world…

‘Let. Me. Out.’

The voice is bleak. A sandpaper rasp.

Pandora’s box is a well-known Greek myth and is marvellously interpreted by Julie Hearn. Set in a time and place after ‘the attack’, when England is seemingly isolated from the rest of the world – quaint and peaceful. Inter-tellies are novel, Inter-phones and automobiles a rare sight and Eco-Christianity is the main religion as the world tries to reverse the devastation of pollution.

Five friends on a quest for entertainment decide to visit the old abandoned mansion. Five friends who have known each other since potty training, who naturally fall into the same boy-girl line up wherever they sit or walk. Yet, they are growing up; roles are changing and on the way to the mansion they swap places, their ‘first big mistake’. On entering the old house each reacts unexpectedly, the brave timid, the timid brave. Then they hear the sandpaper voice behind the wall…

‘Let. Me. Out.’

(…)

‘Do it, Maude,’ says Gurnet, his voice low and urgent. ‘Let the poor little creature out.’

Julie Hearn’s skill of developing believable characters with clearly distinguishable voices is as evident here as in her other novels. As a reader you rapidly befriend the characters and are effortlessly carried along and involved in their journey. The narrative is told primarily from four of the five friends’ perspectives, with Maude’s kept effectively minimal. These chapters are interspersed with a separate narrative reminiscent of a Greek chorus – an omnipotent narrative utilised to add depth and understanding to the history and mystery of Pandora’s box.

A tense and gripping read, Wreckers is a captivating story which forces reflection on the daily interplay of hope and hopelessness that dances through life.

Recommended by Tessa Brechin

Book of the Week (91): "My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece" by Annabel Pitcher

2011-02-28T23:44:00.005Z

Jamie Matthews is ten years old when his Dad relocates him and his teenage sister to the Lake District. A fresh start away from London. He has his cat Roger to keep him company, a brand new Spiderman T-shirt from his birthday, and has just made a new secret friend at school; a Muslim girl called Sunya, the superhero match to his Spiderman.

But beneath the surface the Matthews family is falling apart. His dad is an alcoholic and an emotional wreck, his mum stayed behind in London, and his sister Jas, wilting under a weight of comparison, has dyed her hair pink, gotten a piercing, and stopped eating.

Jamie’s other sister, Rose, lives on the mantelpiece in a golden urn. Jas’s identical twin who was killed in a terrorist attack five years ago. He can’t really remember her and doesn’t understand why the cottage is full of boxes marked ‘scared’. What he does know is that his dad must never find out about his new friend Sunya; and that his mum is going to come back to him soon.

When Jamie sees an advert for a talent show he’s convinced it’s the way to get his mum back and unite his family again.

Dealing with the extreme emotional stress that bereavement places on a family, Pitcher shows us an intimate, forthright, and ultimately heart-warming portrait of a family desperately trying to cope with an unthinkable loss. The character of Jamie Matthews is a genuine and captivating narrator that draws you deep into his complicated life. Not shying away from the serious emotions of grief, or the complications of racial pressure, she presents a brave and beautiful debut novel that is sure to draw a few tears, but leave you feeling hopeful.

My Sister Lives on the Mantelpiece is Annabel Pitcher’s first novel. Grown out of a travel notebook, it spans the heavyweight topics of terrorism, grief, and family in one bold masterful stroke; and I greatly look forward to seeing where she goes from here.

Recommended by Matthew Humpage

Book of the Week (90): "Lost in the Toy Museum" by David Lucas

2011-02-21T19:45:00.004Z

I love David Lucas’s storytelling. Picture books such as Peanut and The Robot and the Bluebird convey emotional depth in a few simple words which are never beyond the grasp of young readers. His illustrations have a very distinctive style – they are both simple, reminiscent of naïve art, yet the way they are assembled on the page is very current, and the result is beautifully decorative. Lost in the Toy Museum is no exception, although it is more light-hearted than some of Lucas’s other work.

Set in Bethnal Green’s Museum of Childhood, which is one of my favourite museums in London, it is basically a hide-and-seek game which the toys play with their surrogate parent figure, Bunting the cat. Bunting in his hat, suit and suitcase obviously cares about the toys’ welfare and education, but like many parents and teachers, he can sometimes be a bit stuffy and serious. What he needs is to let go and have fun, and this is what the toys’ game is designed to teach him. As he searches for the rebellious crew, Bunting moves from setting to setting in the museum. The scenery and the toy characters featured in the book can be found in the museum itself, so the adventure has the potential to move beyond the page and become interactive as the child reader can join the game by visiting the galleries, following Bunting’s trail and searching for the actual toys. Lucas comments that he often visited the museum as a child, and I can’t think of a better way to thank this lovely institution for preserving memories of childhood gone by and inspiring new ones daily.

Recommended by Noga Applebaum

The Oxford Companion to Children's Literature

2011-02-20T18:57:00.009Z

Well, a new project...

I've just signed a contract to compile a new Oxford Companion to Children's Literature. Many of you will know the original volume, by Humphrey Carpenter and Mari Pritchard, which OUP published back in 1984 and is long overdue an overhaul.

The original OCCL is a great book - very broad, very opinionated; it's a reference book, but far from being purely about conveying information it also takes a quite critical look at its subject; and with only two writers having put together the whole thing (Carpenter and Pritchard didn't assemble work by hundreds of contributors, they wrote the whole lot themselves) it's also got a distinctive voice.

My book will be taking the original volume as a starting-point, cutting parts of it away, updating some of it, and writing probably about eighty thousand new words. It's a big job. The daunting part, however, isn't the scale (I've done many reference books before), but the scope. Because it's not just about English children's books, but should have good coverage of other English-language work. Oh, and a bit about everything else, too. At least five hundred brand new entries - a teen novelist from Australia, a popular picture-book character from the US, an entry on folk tales from Greece, on Manga, on the Charlie and Lola TV animation, on children's publishing in Mexico, writing for young adults about sexuality, picture-book apps for the iPhone, Anthea Bell and Lemony Snicket, along with armoured bears and daemons and Dust. Books from Austria and Israel and Turkey and India.

The initial fun part, of course, is drawing up the list of what/who goes in. But first I have an awful lot to learn...

(Sounds fun, tho', doesn't it?)

D.H.

Book of the Week (89): "Ice Maiden" by Sally Prue

2011-02-14T02:21:00.004Z

It’s 1939, shortly after Kristallnacht , the Night of Broken Glass, with its wave of Nazi attacks on Germany's Jews. Franz and his parents have left Berlin behind and are in England on an extended holiday. Franz has distanced himself from his parents, disgusted by their Nazi loyalty, their abilty to turn their backs on those in need and frustrated by their refusal to provide answers. As an outsider in the local village, a boy with the wrong accent and wrong coat, Franz spends all his time alone on the nearby common, watching the wildlife, considering the ferocity and beauty of nature.

Then one day Franz is surprised to find himself being attacked by something, something icy cold, something he can’t see…

Eldrin is of the tribe, beautiful, vicious and hungry, hungrier than she’s ever been before. As her hunger grows her fascination with the daemon boy grows too. She watches him, sees him stare in her direction, careful to avoid looking into his eyes for fear of being captured by daemon slave vines. Yet realising there is something different about this daemon - he doesn’t seem to be enslaved. Spending increasing time near him, following him, she starts to change. Her Tribe grow suspicious, turning against her, forcing her to run or fight. Franz and Eldrin are two outsiders, drawn together through fascination and survival.

An interesting interplay of the distressing reality of Nazi doctrine and the supernatural realm of Faeries, exploring notions of being an outsider, the dangers of being perceived as different, of trust, misunderstanding and of survival. Ice Maiden can be read alone but it is the prequel to Sally Prue's award-winning Cold Tom, a re-imagining of the folk legend of Tam Lin, the human man tempted by an elvish queen.

Recommended by Tessa Brechin

Book of the Week (88): "Tyranny - I Keep You Thin" by Lesley Fairfield

2011-02-07T02:19:00.004Z

The Canadian author Lesley Fairfield has battled with eating disorders for nearly thirty years. To share with others the tools she has gained in the process, and to describe the mindset and danger signs of those suffering from eating disorders, she has created this powerful graphic novel.

We follow Anna from the early resistance to her body changing at puberty, through her everyday struggles to hold on to her boyfriend, get through high school in one piece, to her first job working as a waitress in the Sad Café. It is on her way home that Tyranny, her other, darker self, strikes and claims her. Tyranny literally consumes her. Drawn in large, loping, snakelike lines, this representation of Anna’s inner self allows us instantly to identify what she is thinking and feeling. Anna’s struggles against Tyranny are nerve-wracking, moving and inspiring. The gap between how she sees herself and how others see her widens painfully, as Tyranny “swallows her whole”. Food becomes all Anna thinks about, until she loses everything that matters to her, and faces the ultimate choice between life and death. Watching her health decline on the page, the danger signs are clear.

Sociologist Anthony Giddens argues that identity is a narrative created in response to loss. The way that Tyranny’s form keeps changing suggests what might occur if we leave the narrative to write itself. Anna seeks help, and acquires the tools that may help her confront Tyranny once and for all. Can she do it? Can she redraw her own script, and write Tyranny out of her system? You will be rooting for her all the way. The visual diary appearance of the book creates a powerful sense of realism. Fairfield suggests that creativity and inner strength, the aspects of ourselves we most identify with, can become Tyranny’s tools, engaged to find more and more elaborate and creative means not to eat, and to try to hide this from those who care for us. The power to imagine things differently, to find a gap outside of Tyranny’s hold, is enacted by the book itself, which both movingly presents Anna’s dilemma and allows the reader a critical distance, as Fairfield emphasises the need to love ourselves as we are, even as she presents the many obstacles and challenges to doing so.

For anyone who worries about their weight, or knows someone who just wants to be thin. For all of us who want to understand how hard it can be to escape tyranny’s clutches.

Recommended by Ariel Kahn

Book of the Week (87): "Tyme's End" by B.R. Collins

2011-02-01T02:16:00.003Z

Bibi is drawn to Tyme’s End, the deserted old mansion close to where she lives with her adoptive family; and the truth is, Tyme’s End is the only place she really feels at home – the old house holds an attraction for her that’s undeniably potent, but also hard to explain. Even Bibi knows there’s something odd about the place, but what? When the long-lost owner, Oliver, shows up one day out of the blue, it seems as though the reasons for the house’s strange power might be made clear. But no, not yet, it’s not quite that simple…

If you’ve read either of the previous books by B.R. Collins, you won’t be surprised to learn that she’s trying something pretty ambitious in Tyme’s End. It’s a story in three parts, set in 1936, 1996 and 2006, where events of one time have chilling consequences in the later periods, but they’re told to us in reverse order. We’re in 2006, and something is amiss but it’s not quite clear what… and we have to go back to 1996 to understand it… or at least part of it, because really to get the full picture of why 1996 is as it is we have to go still further back to 1936, to a story in which Oliver’s grandfather is the protagonist and all is revealed. The chronology has to go backwards, the momentum still has to feel like it’s going forwards. Not an easy one to pull off.

The opening of Tyme’s End is good, and it gets better, gaining in menace as it retreats in time – the past is a foreign country, yes, and it’s certainly full of surprises, but it’s also perpetually here with us today, in ways we might not expect and that we certainly won’t like. And so the reader is drawn back into that other time, an irresistible gravitational pull towards back a single extraordinary character who is evil, and irresistible…

(But no more for fear of spoilers.)

Smart, chilling stuff.

Recommended by Daniel Hahn

Book of the Week (86): "When You Reach Me" by Rebecca Stead

2011-01-25T23:50:00.000Z

When You Reach Me landed on my reading pile with proven credentials. This short novel won numerous awards in the US, including the Newbery, and now the brand new UK edition is shortlisted for the Waterstone’s Children’s Book Prize. Naturally, my expectations were high, and I am relieved to report that the book lived up to its reputation.

If I were to describe Stead’s novel in one word, it would be ‘lovely’. This is not an ‘in your face’ sort of book, it gently and quietly ropes you in and suddenly you realise that you can’t put it down. Most of all it reminded me of Louis Sachar’s Holes with its host of quirky yet completely believable characters and the wonderful depiction of a reality which is just touching on the fantastic.

The story, set in 1979, is told by Miranda, a twelve-year-old girl, and addressed to an elusive ‘you’ whose identity is the one of the many mysteries at the heart of the novel. Another one is who is the kid who punched Sal, Miranda’s best friend, in the face in broad daylight, and why Sal started avoiding Miranda afterwards, and of course the weird notes addressed to Miranda which pop up in the strangest of places. These mysteries intertwine beautifully as the novel progresses and are certainly a factor in its appeal, but this not a mere thriller. Stead introduces us to the people surrounding Miranda – from her single mum training for a TV game-show, to her classmates, among them the stuck-up Julia and her long-suffering friend Annemarie, and the locals she sees on her way home every day – Belle the shopkeeper, the boys hanging outside the garage and the homeless guy who sleeps with his head under a mailbox. These characters, each with his or her little quirks, play a role in the unfolding story like human puzzle pieces, and make it a joy to read. Another important presence is Miranda’s favourite book – A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle (also a winner of the Newbery medal) and When You Reach Me is both a love song and homage to this classic children’s fantasy. Quite unexpected, completely human, and simply, well, lovely.

Recommended by Noga Applebaum

Book of the Week (85): "The Girl Savage" by Katherine Rundell

2011-01-17T19:34:00.004Z

Finding a book you love is always a delightful experience. But there’s something particularly special, I think, when it’s a writer’s debut. There’s a particular thrill of discovery, and of promise. That’s what I felt, certainly, reading The Girl Savage, a first novel by Katherine Rundell. I can’t wait for her second.

The Girl Savage is partly set in Zimbabwe, home to young Will (Wilhelmina), who lives on Two Tree Hill farm with her father, her friends, and the farm’s kindly owner Captain Browne. Unlike the bleak Zimbabwe of Jason Wallace’s recent Costa-winning Out of Shadows, however, Will’s world is one you will long to live in. The place blazes with flavour and colour and touch – and Will’s experiences blaze, too. She lives an intense, unfettered life. Eating fruit off the trees, galloping bareback across the farm, poised in silence watching how beetles move, sitting in her tree-house with her friend Simon, gathering by the fire to bake bananas with brown sugar. Everything is vivid, heightened. Her beloved father calls her Wildcat. She is happy and brave and free.

But then Will is sent to live in grey England, to Leewood, a starchy, horribly clean boarding school. The tricks she’s learned for survival back at Two Tree Hill are no use to her here. There are rules at Leewood, but the ones she knows do not apply. As one of the teachers points out when Will asks to sleep outdoors, “This is England, my dear! This is the land of common sense.”

Will runs away. But surviving in London won’t be easy, as Will could not be more out of place. (Though to be clear, she is not foreign; she’s “just in the wrong country”.) And will she make it back home?

Will is a fine, strong character, and there’s some really beautiful writing here – phrases that make you think afresh about things you thought you knew already, which not many writers can do. It’s life-affirming without being too self-indulgent or too glib. There are flaws, I think, too – about half-way through I had my doubts about the relative balance of the weights of the story’s three parts (the farm in Zimbabwe, Leewood School, and running wild in London to the conclusion), and there are just occasional moments when there is simply too much writing in it (turns of phrase that are well-wrought and bright and impressive, to be sure, but also obtrusive and perhaps over-wrought when something simpler and less distracting would have done better), but these are small cavils only, and nothing to detract from a really impressive debut and a really heartening, enjoyable read. When do I get book two?

Recommended by Daniel Hahn

Book of the Week (84): "Rivers of London" by Ben Aaronovitch

2011-01-10T01:59:00.002Z

Peter Grant was just a cynical probationary constable in London’s Metropolitan Police Service until he was approached by a ghost with important information on a murder investigation. Now everything’s changed. Somehow he’s become an apprentice wizard, the first in fifty years, and has been charged with keeping the Queen’s peace.

Easier said than done when there are nests of vampires in Purley, the God and Goddess of the river Thames have started a turf war, and some supernatural force is twisting the good citizens of the city into violent mindless marionettes, intent on bashing each other’s heads in for its own amusement.

Now PC Grant and his boss have stumbled onto something big. Something’s very wrong at the heart of the city he loves, and it’s up to them to unravel the whole rotten mess before London tears itself apart.

With a laudable level of precision Aaronovitch paints a convincingly accurate depiction of London’s architecture and inhabitants. His use of language is impressive, capturing not only an authentic vernacular for the city, but also presenting a near flawless rendition of the Metropolitan Police Service’s vocabulary. All these elements come together to create an immersive and extremely funny fantasy that is as believable as it is entertaining.

Better known for adaptations like Doctor Who’s Remembrance of the Daleks, this is Ben Aaronovitch’s first step into an urban fantasy of his own creation. A wry witty blend of old folklore, London history, and magic, makes Rivers of London a worthy and unique read. With a distinctive voice and narrative style that is reminiscent of Neil Gaiman or China Miéville's Un Lun Dun this will appeal to fans of Gaiman’s Neverwhere, Jim Butcher’s The Dresden Files, and Mike Carey’s Felix Castor novels.

The first of a series, Rivers of London had me laughing within the first couple of pages, and promises to be the beginning of an entertaining journey for London’s very own Detective Constable Grant, copper-turned-trainee-wizard.

Recommended by Matthew Humpage

Book of the Week (83): "Half Brother" by Kenneth Oppel

2011-01-03T16:07:00.001Z

Ben has just turned thirteen, and he’s trying to build himself a new life. His parents have just moved the family away from Toronto, out west to Victoria, he’s starting in a new school, trying to make new friends, and to attract the attention of the gorgeous Jennifer. Everything is new and difficult. His grades at the posh private school where he’s been sent aren’t shining, and he isn’t naturally the class alpha-male, either.

So it doesn’t help matters that his university professor father has just decided to adopt a new baby for the family, and that the baby – Ben’s sort-of-brother – is a chimp. His name is Zan. Ben’s parents hope to be the first to raise a chimp as though he were a human and teach him to communicate in sign language. Not surprisingly, many people are excited at the idea of this experiment – some (scientists, the media) are very enthusiastic, some (animal rights protesters) are very critical; and everyone is watching closely to see how the experiment goes…

But for Ben it’s more than just an experiment. At a time when he is learning about life, trying to learn his own way in the world, he’s faced with a situation where he and his family and friends are forced to question what it means to be human, and what’s really best for the little chimp he has come to love almost like a real brother. Is this strange set-up of theirs giving Zan a real home and a real family, or would he be happier if he were to be sent away somewhere to live with other chimps – or has Project Zan made him too human for that now?

It’s a really good premise for a book, but in the execution so much more than just that. It’s gripping storytelling by a really good writer at the top of his game – sometimes deeply touching (Ben and Zan’s relationship is extraordinary and extraordinarily drawn) and always thoughtful and thought-provoking – this is one I’m sure I won’t forget in a hurry.

Recommended by Daniel Hahn

Book of the Week (82): "The Iron Man" by Ted Hughes, illustrated by Laura Carlin

2010-12-27T19:05:00.003Z

This powerful fable of an extraordinary, mysterious giant metal man still haunts me from childhood, and is now brought to resonant and compelling life by Laura Carlin. Rarely has the artwork in a book become so integral to the reading. This edition celebrates the book as artefact, with all kinds of unexpected openings and surprises as we inhabit the perspective of the characters within the book, especially the young hero, Hogarth. I developed an anticipatory pleasure about turning the next page that had as much to do with the beauty of this book as the compelling story it describes. My young son was similarly transfixed, returning several times to key sections, such as the flaps that allow the iron man to literally burst out of a hill. Carlin is equally assured handling the truly menacing space bat angel dragon, focusing on aspects of it as if the whole were too terrible to grasp, and the panoramic chaos of humanity’s attempts to stop it. The poetic rhythm of the prose is captured and accentuated, as the images dominate or comment on the narrative in a carefully controlled rhythmic dance, culminating in the surprisingly moving transformation of terror into beauty at the story’s close. If children’s books, and science fiction in particular, are about evoking a sense of wonder, this book succeeds wholeheartedly. A work of art that stimulates the imagination, and, in our household, brought adults and children together in a celebration of the pure joy of reading, looking, experiencing.

Recommended by Ariel Kahn

Book of the Week (81): "The Golden Acorn" by Catherine Cooper

2010-12-20T14:13:00.004Z

Jack Brenin is just an ordinary boy living with his Granddad in the country. One day he finds a golden acorn lying in the grass, and is thrust into an extraordinary world of magic, witchcraft, sinister creatures, and talking animals.

There is a vital task to be completed, but the raven doesn’t think Jack is strong enough. But they have no other choice - Jack is ‘The One’ from ancient prophecy and everyone expects him to help. He is not sure he can. He’s not very brave and what they are asking is dangerous and scary.

Can he find the strength to embrace the world of magic and legend? Can he conquer his fears? Time is running out and Jack doesn’t know if he can save his friends.

Rooted firmly in British mythology and history, Catherine Cooper’s world of Glasruhen is vivid, humorous, and entrancing. The combination of loveable characters, mischievous creatures, noble quest, and humour gives the magical genre back the sense of heart-warming innocence that has been missing for years.

With a feel akin to the tales of Hans Christian Andersen or the Grimm brothers, The Golden Acorn is highly deserving of the Brit Writers’ Awards 2010 for unpublished writers, and I for one cannot wait to see what happens in the following books.

Recommended by Matthew Humpage

Book of the Week (80): "School Blues" by Daniel Pennac, translated by Sarah Ardizzone

2010-12-13T16:04:00.003Z

While Daniel Pennac’s School Blues is not a book for children or teenagers it deals with core issues that confront today’s youth each day they battle through the education system. So we thought it appropriate to give it mention here, to spread its message to as many teachers, parents or educational professionals possible.

School Blues is not a book about school, but about dunces – those children failing to engage with education, written from the perspective of a schoolboy dunce with an aversion to capital letters, who took a year to learn the letter A, and simultaneously from the perspective of experienced teacher aka dunce rescuer. It’s an insightful tightrope Pennac walks as he recalls school days dominated by shame and failure alongside later years as a passionate teacher of literature and language.

It only takes one teacher to tap in and resuscitate a flailing pupil. A teacher with the passion and determination to find a way to engage the individual in education; for Pennac there was the teacher who set him the task of writing a novel – to deliver one chapter a week, with accurate spelling throughout. The teacher recognised the narrator within and gave him a voice. His other inspirational teachers were those that somehow communicated a thirst for knowledge and the desire to pass it on. On a base level, it requires someone, other than parents, to believe the child capable of learning and to show the child their ability.

Historical memories of ignorance battle his current educational knowledge as his old dunce voice pipes in from time to time to remind us of his roots, his self-doubt, his expertise in all things dunce. Ignorance versus knowledge – a battle core to any classroom. Teachers think ‘I wasn’t trained for this’, while children think ‘I’m not made for this’. Pennac takes ‘this’ and dissects it, both within classrooms exploring its grammatical vagueness in children’s statements, uncovering the fear it attempts to disguise, and within this book concluding ‘this’ to be the violent clash between knowledge and ignorance for which teachers are little prepared. He wills new teachers to consider their own prior ignorance, to explore their failures at school in any subject, to remember how it feels to not understand when all others do.

School Blues is a delightful mix of personal anecdote and professional commentary on the educational system, and unavoidably thought-provoking. A book to be considered by all those taking their first doubting, stumbling steps into teaching as well as experienced teachers, for parents of dunces, for dunces, for educational ministers. In short for anyone who encounters the educational system from any angle – this book should be read.

Recommended by Tessa Brechin

[PS - Anyone who likes the sound of this might also be interested to read the interview a friend and I did with Daniel Pennac about this book The Independent a few months back. You can find it here. - D.H.]

Slight hiatus

2010-12-13T14:10:00.000Z

Sorry for the lack of Books of the Weeks lately ; we've all just been occupied with other things and had to let the blog lapse temporarily - but back now. BotW (80) will be posted shortly...

D.

Book of the Week (79): "White Crow" by Marcus Sedgwick

2010-11-01T22:42:00.003Z

Halloween has been and gone, but it is never too late for a creepy read, and White Crow is one of the creepiest I've read for quite a while. With the success of Twilight many authors tried on the Gothic mode, but most of them simply copy the ‘new girl in town falls for sexy supernatural boy’ formula. Sedgwick has a different, more sophisticated, take on this popular genre as the ‘love story’ is between two girls, city girl Rebecca, forced into rural exile, and the haunting, enigmatic Ferelith. This is not a romantic relationship, however, but rather a mind game between manipulator and victim in which the roles subtly progress and shift. Rebecca and Ferelith's story is set in a dormant cliff-top village which is gradually being eaten away by the sea, and is intertwined with journal entries written by a local priest in the 18^th century. Slowly, the two narratives move towards each other, united by the common theme of an eternal question – is there life after death? The quest for an answer leads to truly terrifying places. White Crow is a well written, disturbing horror thriller with more psychological depth than what is usually on offer in this genre, which only adds to its creepy factor. Not to be read at bedtime.

Recommended by Noga Applebaum

Book of the Week (78): "The Dangerous Journey" by Tove Jansson, in an English version by Sophie Hannah

2010-10-25T00:30:00.002+01:00

Tove Jansson is loved the world over for her Moomin series, books like Finn Family Moomintroll, A Comet in Moominland and Who Will Comfort Toffle? (surely one of most delightful book titles of all time!), which have become some of the most popular of all children’s classics. The Dangerous Journey, reissued next week, was Jansson’s final Moomin book, an illustrated poem about a girl called Sophie who puts on magic glasses and finds herself in a strange world of volcanoes and upside-down birds and harmless snakes and a red and gold hot-air balloon. And Moomins, too – she meets familiar characters from the old books, and they all end their adventures with a party in Moominvalley. It’s an episodic narrative, with each spread bringing Sophie and her friends into a new danger – dark and threatening and a little weird – and then opening up to bright colour for the friendly, festive Moominending.

Made up of Tove Jansson’s last ever pictures of the Moomin world, this book will matter to anyone with affection for the characters, to anyone for whom this world is important (as it is for me, and probably you, too). For my money, though, what makes this so special is Sophie Hannah’s English version of the book, rendered with perfect pulse and rhyme. It’s especially not easy to make such things feel natural and unforced in translation and she pulls it off impeccably – this is a superb achievement.

Recommended by Daniel Hahn

Book of the Week (77): "There's Going to Be a Baby" by John Burningham and Helen Oxenbury

2010-10-18T13:50:00.010+01:00

This book has garnered a lot of press attention because it's the first ever collaboration between veteran picture book author / illustrators John Burningham and Helen Oxenbury - the first ever, despite the fact that they're married to each other.

I always feel slightly anxious when approaching a book that is the result of two fantastic writers or illustrators working together for the first time. I worry in case the book isn't as totally outstandingly brilliant as it ought to be - in case my expectations are not matched by the reality.

So does this apply in the case of There's Going to be a Baby?

The story is an original take on the books-to-read-to-your-child-to-prepare-them-for-a-new-sibling genre. It takes the form of a conversation between a small boy - he looks about 2 and a half / three years - and his mother. The exchange is an ongoing one - it lasts from the first announcement "There's going to be a baby" to the birth. As the book progresses, the seasons change and the mother's bump grows gradually bigger. I would have liked the mother's maternity wardrobe when I was pregnant - she is very chic.

The conversation centres mostly on whimsical speculation about what the baby might become when it grows up. Interspersed with this are wordless, double-page spreads which take the form of a strip cartoon, and depict the baby fulfilling these careers - while still a baby - with appropriately chaotic consequences.

The book is exquisitely illustrated by Oxenbury. The mother and son are drawn with fluid lines that capture effortlessly the easy intimacy of their relationship - whether strolling in the park or cuddled up in bed with a story. This intimacy is subtly challenged by the boy's worries about the new baby: "Mummy, can't you tell the baby to go away? We don't really need the baby, do we?"

The pages where the baby embarks on different career paths are funny - my 5-year-old very much enjoyed them. These scenes are differentiated by the use of halftones dots - a bit like a piece of Lichtenstein pop art, except with a pastel palette (thank you to Sophie Pelham for this clever-sounding bit). The baby's attempts to be a chef end up with pancakes on his head, whereas when he becomes a banker, he's depicted tossing piles of gold coins in the air and laughing like a miniature super-villain.

There is one problem I have with the book, which is that a small child, speculating about the arrival of a new sibling, doesn't think of the baby in terms of what it will do when it grows up. It's hard enough to imagine it existing as a baby, still less as an adult.

I wouldn't, therefore, recommend this as the book to read to a child, if the express purpose of doing so is to help prepare them for a new baby. If it's read in the context of other books on the subject, then great - or indeed just for pleasure without a new baby on the horizon at all. It's fun, warm and reassuring - and beautiful, too.

And were my expectations of the Burningham / Oxenbury collaboration met? Not quite, but almost.

If you want a book which is in many ways the opposite of this one, try Topsy and Tim: the New Baby by Jean and Gareth Adamson. It's an account of Topsy and Tim and their friend Tony who has a new baby brother. The book is not poetic, it isn't beautiful. But is extremely practical. Everyday realities such as breastfeeding and bathing are covered and Tony's emotional response is subtly dealt with. At first he feels moody and left out, but his mother gets him to help with bathing the baby, allowing him to feel part of things.

If you pair this title with There's Going to Be a Baby when preparing a child for a new sibling, you should end up with the best of all worlds. Though there's still no guarantee that the new baby will be welcomed without jealousy or bad behaviour!

Recommended by Susan Reuben

Book of the Week (76): "The Little Prince" (a graphic novel), by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry and Joann Sfar, translated by Sarah Ardizzone

2010-10-11T13:31:00.003+01:00

A key tension in literature written for children and Young Adults is the nature of the relationship between adult author and child reader. The dangers of imposing adult authority on the child in fiction is so great that Jaqueline Rose in her book on Peter Pan famously argued that children’s literature itself is “impossible”. Fortunately, Joann Sfar disagrees. His moving and delicately nuanced rendering of this classic work puts the relationship between adult pilot and the mysterious prince at the heart of the story.

The haunting landscape of the desert, presented in glowing bars of colour, frame the crashed pilot's increasingly desperate plight, and provide a poignant context for the tender relationship with the Prince. Sfar has utilised material and visual metaphors from Exupery’s autobiographical Sand and Stars, his memoir of the crash that led to the creation of the Little Prince, to create a complex, layered work of great poetic beauty, not so much an adaptation but a transformation of The Little Prince. The suggestive power of Sfar's combination of vulnerability and strength, wisdom and naïveté, overturn the adult-child hierarchy in the book, as the Pilot and the reader come under the Prince's spell. Sfar’s fluid and adaptable style allow us to see the Prince’s precious flower in a visually complex way; as the Prince’s understanding of his relationship, and his experience of love change, so does the way Sfar represents the flower. The caricatured grotesque adults that the Prince meets are very wittily evoked. Peter Pan claims that “to die would be an awfully big adventure.” Sfar’s book allows us to go on that adventure with the Prince, and to celebrate the numinous wonder of great storytelling. You’ll fall in love with the Prince all over again in this lushly presented book.

Recommended by Ariel Kahn

Book of the Week (75): "The Hunger Games 3: Mockingjay" by Suzanne Collins

2010-10-05T21:48:00.004+01:00

I find trilogies tricky. More often than not I love the first volume, even more so the second, and find that the third doesn’t live up to the promise the previous two hold. I was therefore very much relieved to finish the third instalment of the Hunger Games series (entitled Mockingjay) as it is a real cracker.

Instead of going down the route of mushy love triangle, beautiful heroine, and a clear cut victory, as one expects these days from a bestselling series as this one, Collins carries on down the treacherous path she laid out in the first two volumes – Katniss Everdeen remains tough, often self-centred, at times unpleasant, and a brilliant protagonist. Her two leading men are no prince charmings either, and often as in real life, the opposition is not that different from the government in power.

The plot begins with a rebellious Katniss stranded in District 13 against her wishes, and mightily ticked off at the fact that Peeta was left behind and is now at the mercy of President Snow and the Capitol. Being underground makes her claustrophobic, and the constant pressure to become the Mockingjay - the televised face of the districts’ revolt - is getting on her nerves. As usual, she has to do things her way, and via twists and turns, she finds herself with a small, but not really trustworthy, crew, fighting in the streets for her life and for the ultimate cause – to take her revenge on President Snow.

This novel is a page-turner alright, but there is more to it. The violence escalates with tragic results – expect the death of many loved characters, and the scarring, emotional and physical, of many more. After all, this is what Collins is out to show – war is ugly (and reality TV is bad for you). Enjoy!

Recommended by Noga Applebaum

Outside In event

2010-10-03T12:18:00.005+01:00

Now that IBBY's 2010 congress is all done (I was in Santiago de Compostela for that a couple of weeks back), attention is being turning to the next congress, which is to be held in London in 2012. One of the key themes for that congress will be translation, and (for this reason and others) the translation of children's books has been exercising me a lot lately. So I'm delighted that Outside In - a brilliant organisation you should be checking out if you don't know them already - will be hosting an event at the Free Word Centre tomorrow at 5pm, as part of the FLOW festival and Children's Book Week. Should be a great event - do go along if you possibly can.

Outside In is a small and innovative organisation with a simple aim – promoting, exploring and celebrating world literature and particularly children’s books in translation. This event at the start of Children’s Book Week will showcase the work of Outside In, together with the 2009 flagship project ‘Reading Round the World’, in which a whole host of authors, illustrators and translators from all over the globe visited UK schools and libraries and conducted workshops with children and adults. Alexandra Strick and Edgardo Zaghini will introduce the ‘Reading Round the World’ concept outlining its aims and key achievements, as well as offering expert advice on workshop formats and book recommendations to get children reading more in translation.

It's free, but you do need to book - you can do that here.

D.H.

Events

2010-09-28T12:08:00.001+01:00

Just a couple of things for the diary...

I'm going to be at the Henley Literature Festival on Saturday, in conversation with Emma Freud about the UBGs and kids'/teen books in general. Very much looking forward to it - come along if you can. Details here.

And then the weekend after that, Cheltenham starts; I'm chairing two events on Sunday 10th:

1pm, The Playhouse: SHERLOCK HOLMES MYSTERIES - Andrew Lane and Simon Cheshire on their books and why Sherlock Holmes has been such an inspiration to them.
4pm, BookIt! tent: AFTER TWILIGHT - Marcus Sedgwick, L A Weatherly and Steve Feasey on their vampires, angels and werewolves, respectively...

And there's loads more, of course - check out the full festival programme.

D.H.

Book of the Week (74): "My Name Is Mina" by David Almond

2010-09-27T12:03:00.002+01:00

My Name Is Mina tells you more about the art of writing than most university courses. It’s also a treatise on how not to fit in – and how sometimes not fitting in is the sanest thing you can do with your life. It’s also a book about about words and flight, nature and nurture, thought and reaction. To most people, though, its most important aspect is that it’s the prequel to David Almond’s much-acclaimed novel, Skellig.

Mina doesn’t fit. Her dad’s dead, her mum is lovely, lonely and kind. Mina sits in trees, writes words, writes nothing, and thinks about the universe, about life, death and the bones of birds. She is wise far beyond her years and yet still a small girl, figuring out each day one breath at a time. Her story is told lightly, skimming through her truth, her lies, her understanding of her self with great skill. David Almond is here, on the page. He’s the teacher who sees her, he’s her mother, he’s the blackbirds in the tree and the shadowy cat, Whisper. Mina says – take a line for a walk and you’re drawing. Take words for a walk and you’re writing. Here are the kernels of creativity – even blank pages are crammed with meaning. In Mina, stars sing and bones rattle – and it is as if every single story that David Almond has ever written is held in here.

Did I like it? Of course. Did I think it a good gook to read after Skellig? Yes. Did I think it a good book to read before Skellig? No. Absolutely not. The depth of this book takes away from Skellig something that needs to be experienced there for the first time. I don’t want any of Skellig’s mysteries de-mystified. Read Skellig first should be emblazoned on the cover.

But read this too. For here is joy. Is it a book for kids? Of that I’m less sure. I think adults will love it, some teens will fall for its myth and meandering, its plotless prose and immense notions. Kids? Not so much. Does that make this less of a wonder? Not really.

Recommended by Leonie Flynn

HEROES OF OLYMPUS: THE LOST HERO

2010-09-21T15:03:00.005+01:00

A new Percy Jackson? OK so not quite, but almost! How about more Camp Half Blood and a new generation of demigods? Well, Rick Riordan's new book AND new series - HEROES OF OLYMPUS: THE LOST HERO is published by Puffin Books on October 12th. There's three new heroes, Jason, Piper and Leo, and more fast-paced adventure - well, what else would you expect from Rick Riorden?

But there's more! Go to Rick's website to find out more about the books. Or if you fancy watching Rick talking about the new series, keep an eye out for his webcast: "Rick Riordan: Virtually Live" on November 2nd. When Eoin Colfer did this webcast earlier in the summer, he reached more than 22,000 school students and Rick will be looking to top that number! Sign up is already available at http://www.rickriordanvirtuallylive.co.uk. Kids, tell your teachers! Teachers - sign up!

Book of the Week (73): "The Eternal Ones" by Kirsten Miller

2010-09-20T11:55:00.000+01:00

The visions are getting stronger and she can’t deny them.

Haven Moore is different. She has talents she can’t explain, memories of places she has never been, and an irresistible urge to leave the rural religious community of Snope City behind in search of New York. A far away city she feels inexplicably drawn to, a city that she remembers, but has never visited.

Her visions of Ethan and Constance, of their life and tragic murder decades before, are overwhelming her quiet life. Haven needs to find out the truth behind the lovers’ fate, and all the answers lie in New York. But she is scared. For Constance and Haven are the same person, and the memories of the horrific death are her own.

When Haven sees the famous movie star Ian Morrow she knows that he is her Ethan, and can no longer resist the pull of her past. Travelling to New York she is plunged into an epic love affair that threatens to rain disaster on her and everyone she cares about. Can she unlock the secrets to her past without destroying her present? Can she solve the mystery without loosing Ethan forever?

The Eternal Ones is an epic romance thriller that takes us from the deeply religious communities of rural America to the bourgeois world of old New York, from the ruins of ancient Rome, to the modern celebrity tabloid-driven New York City.

Kirsten Miller gives us an eminently readable and entertaining tale of reincarnation that blends beautifully rendered past-life memories with a page-turning murder mystery; and proves to be a refreshing change from the proliferating vampire romance genre.

The protagonist Haven Moore can be a little challenging at times, with a pendulum-like swing in her decisions to trust other characters that could make you dizzy; but persevere and you won’t regret it. The end is worth the work, and the sequel promises to be just as fascinating and entertaining as this book.

Recommended by Matthew Humpage

Book of the Week (72): "Noah Barleywater Runs Away" by John Boyne

2010-09-15T12:02:00.004+01:00

The latest book from John Boyne, widely known for his bestselling Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, is a story in a quite different tradition, and it’s a delight.

It’s the story of eight-year-old Noah who has run away from his home, run into the forest where he finds a strange shop owned by a nameless old man. This old man, a puppet-maker, tells him stories from his own life (he was once the fastest runner in the world), and about his father whose shop it used to be. The stories help Noah learn what’s important in life, and it becomes clear to readers what it is he’s running away from, and what he has to do.

A talking dog and donkey (not to mention animate doors, clocks, etc.), a mysterious tree, strange villages nestling deep in the forest, Noah Barleywater’s world is the world of fairy-tale, a world which seems to be like ours, sometimes, but isn’t quite. (And there’s one classic children’s story in particular buried at its heart.) From what seems a typical fairy-tale opening – young hero setting off from home on to discover adventure in the world beyond – Boyne has created something sometimes dark and sometimes moving and often mischievously funny, a vivid rendering of a child’s perception of the baffling, confusing peculiarity of the world around him, and a journey into a place whose very strangeness will feel familiar to you as you read. Noah Barleywater Runs Away is a book filled with magic, of all kinds.

(And as a bonus, there are decorations by picture-book artist Oliver Jeffers. Nice touch.)

Recommended by Daniel Hahn

Roald Dahl Day

2010-09-12T07:39:00.009+01:00

Just a reminder to everyone that Roald Dahl Day will be celebrated on September 13th - which was Roald Dahl's birthday.

There’s a mass of fantastic events (some today!) and all are listed on the website. For although Roald Dahl Day itself is September 13th, the celebrations have grown from the original idea of a day to the more actual reality of a month - there are actually celebrations right through September all over the country.

If you’re at a loose end today, try visiting Great Missenden, where Roald Dahl lived and wrote. There’s a day of festivities, with special events at the Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre. There’ll be Matilda-storytelling, village trails, craft activities, magic, face-painting, behind-the-scenes tours of the Roald Dahl archive AND, courtesy of the RSC, an opportunity to find out more about their forthcoming production of Roald Dahl’s Matilda

Book of the Week (71): "Raven's Gate: The Graphic Novel", by Anthony Horowitz, Tony Lee, Dom Reardon and Lee O'Connor

2010-09-06T00:36:00.002+01:00

There is no proof. There is no logic. There is only the gate.

After getting into trouble with the police Matt Freeman is sent to Yorkshire to be fostered by the sinister Mrs Deverill. It soon becomes clear that something is very wrong in the town of Lesser Malling. Beset by mysterious dreams and gruesome murders he learns that the Old Ones, a race of diabolic gods once banished from our world, are trying to return, and Matt alone holds the key to the salvation of mankind.

Writer Tony Lee and artists Dom Reardon and Lee O’Connor deliver a stunning re-envisioning of Anthony Horowitz’s bestselling novel. Lee’s stark language matches perfectly with the striking illustrations of Reardon and O’Connor. A monochromatic colour palette lends a brutally hard and claustrophobic atmosphere that serves to heighten the chilling supernatural world of Lesser Malling.

An austere and stunning graphic novel adaptation, Raven’s Gate will have you clutching at the bedcovers as you race through the pages. This engrossing nightmarish vision of Horowitz’s supernatural tale will please diehard graphic novel fans and the uninitiated alike. If you love the Power of Five series, this is an absolute must read.

Recommended by Matthew Humpage

Book of the Week (70): "I Shall Wear Midnight" by Terry Pratchett

2010-08-30T20:20:00.001+01:00

I Shall Wear Midnight is the latest outing for Tiffany Aching, the witch, and her allies, the Nac Mac Feegles, the small blue psychopaths with Scottish accents whom we first met in The Wee Free Men. This is officially one of Pratchett’s book for young readers, but some of the themes are definitely adult. When we first met Tiffany she was nine and deciding whether there was a future for her in witchcraft. In her latest outing she is 16 and the storylines have grown with her. Early on in the book, for example, she is having to decide what to do about a father who has beaten up his pregnant 13-year-old daughter, killing the baby. It’s a coming-of-age story, following her growing understanding of prejudice, how communities work and the hysteria of crowd mentality. Despite the gravity of some issues covered, the book is great fun, as you would expect from Pratchett, and there are welcome cameos from some of the senior witches and other entertaining characters we have met in the ‘grown-up’ Discworld novels. It’s another excellent read with plenty of humour.

Recommended by Anthony Reuben

Edinburgh

2010-08-11T22:39:00.003+01:00

Apologies for the summer pause in the Books of the Week series. Normal service will resume shortly.

But in the meantime...

The Edinburgh Book Festival starts this weekend! And there's a packed children's programme - and schools' programme - with loads of lovely things to see...

I'm going up for a few days, and I'm delighted to have been asked to chair twelve (!) events - some for the public programme and some in the schools' programme. I get to do events with a lot of my favourite writers, so should be great fun - do come along if you can.

I'll be doing...

Saturday 21st - 2pm - Babette Cole

Sunday 22nd - 4:30pm - Patrick Ness

Monday 23rd - 10:30am - John Boyne
Monday 23rd - 1:30pm - Keith Gray & Patrick Ness ("Losing It")

Tuesday 24th - 1pm - Gregory Hughes
Tuesday 24th - 6pm - Sharon Dogar

Wednesday 25th - 12pm - Mal Peet
Wednesday 25th - 4:30pm - Gareth P. Jones
Wednesday 25th - 6:30pm - William Nicholson

Thursday 26th - 10am - Marcus Sedgwick
Thursday 26th - 12pm - Philip Reeve
Thursday 26th - 4:30pm - Roddy Doyle

... and rest. Phew.

Sound fun?

Book of the Week (69): "Losing It", edited by Keith Gray

2010-07-13T20:18:00.005+01:00

To publish – not to say edit and contribute to – an anthology for teenagers consisting exclusively of stories about losing virginity is a pretty brave thing to do. (Frankly, publishing short stories at all is daring enough these days, whatever the subject…) All credit, then, to Andersen Press, editor Keith Gray and the other seven contributors to Losing It.

But to focus on the sensation of this book’s very existence is to sell it short, because it’s also very good indeed. The stories are by some of the best YA writers working at the top of their game, and they’ve produced stories that are varied, imaginative, surprising. Some are very funny indeed, others gentle and touching, there’s contemporary and historical, a range of perspectives, and – most important of all – they are not patronising, preachy, moralistic, judgmental or anything even close. They take the subject – sex, a subject which all human beings are biologically programmed to find interesting – and they talk about it properly. Not trying to impart information that’s good for you, but to explore it by getting into the skin of a variety of characters, which is, after all, what fiction does best. My favourites are probably 'Different for Boys' by Patrick Ness (really original, and very funny) and 'The Age of Consent' by Jenny Valentine (again, made me laugh out loud), but I liked them all and there are several others that are terrific, too. We need more books like this.

[The full contributor list is as follows: Melvin Burgess, Anne Fine, Keith Gray (also the editor), Mary Hooper, Sophie McKenzie, Patrick Ness, Bali Rai and Jenny Valentine.]

Recommended by Daniel Hahn

Book of the Week (68): "Wasted" by Nicola Morgan

2010-07-06T12:08:00.002+01:00

Jack’s desire to feel some sense of control leads him to devise a game, a game that becomes dangerous. He can choose whether or not to play the game but the decision to play means following the rules and obeying the toss of a coin, wherever it leads him. He thinks sacrificing himself to luck this way will keep him lucky, but will it?

Nicola Morgan has written an original multi-layered book exploring concepts entrenched in philosophy and quantum theory through a captivating narrative of ‘what ifs?'. To what extent is life governed by chance or luck, and what control do we really have over what happens to us and around us? Is there anything we could do differently to change what might happen?

Gorgeous wild-haired Jack happens to overhear the beautiful Jess singing just when he’s desperate for a new singer in his band and an instant attraction draws them together. Yet ‘The moment when Jack hears Jess sing so nearly doesn’t happen’, just as many things nearly happen or nearly don’t happen. Morgan’s omniscient narrative style means the reader gets to see them all, we see alternative events unfold and disappear and all the little details that lead to these events as they did or could have happened. This style adds to the sense of being pulled into Jack’s game, feeling its appeal, sensing its danger as the idea of ‘what if?’ seeps into your mind. You can’t help but start experiencing the instability of life, the uncertainty of what could happen, and with it the need to believe you have some control. But Morgan does well to bring in just enough commentary to stop you slipping into the abyss. You can’t live with awareness of all the possibilities of what might be if only… You would go mad.

Through exploring this theme of chance and luck, Morgan interweaves a story of love, of loss, of choices and addiction. The characters are true characters relatable and believable that breathe life into a philosophical idea making it accessible and mind-blowing. The book is interactive both in its ability to make you think and its request that you participate and play Jack’s game to determine the ending.

The more I reflect on this book the more I realise how clever it is - it’s definitely one to read. If you’re not convinced, maybe you should toss a coin and leave it up to chance…

Recommended by Tessa Brechin

Next?

You may want to explore Nicola Morgan’s blog on Wasted, or her website, has details of her other novels such as Deathwatch and Fleshmarket.
Or you could try Being by Kevin Brooks, which also looks at questions of free will and determinism.

Book(s) of the Week (67): "Bob and Barry's Lunar Adventures" by Simon Bartram

2010-06-29T00:26:00.002+01:00

I first met Bob, the man on the moon, and Barry, his strange one-eyed canine companion, in Simon Bartram’s lovingly drawn picture books. Now two new chapter books allow young readers to experience their adventures in an exciting new series.

In The Disappearing Moon, the Mysterious Alacazamo, earth’s most powerful magician, makes the moon disappear, and Bob’s job is on the line. Under orders from his tough, cake-loving boss Tarantula Von Trumpet, Bob has to race against the clock to solve the mystery of its disappearance. Is there a clue in the magician's autobiography, The Hocus Pocus Hombre? Wonderfully witty illustration and hilarious characters like Hyacinth Trombone and Cornelius Trolley will have you rooting for Bob on his madcap adventure.

A Right Royal Disaster plunges Bob into terror when he discovers he has to host the birthday party for frighteningly bad-tempered Queen Battleaxe on his beloved moon. He has to make sure the party goes with a bang or he’ll lose his head! He enlists the help of celebrated royal artist Sir Lucien to create the largest ever sculpture of the Queen – on the moon. All seems to be going well until Bob decides to help out, with hilarious and terrifying results. Only Bob’s detective work about the Queen’s mysterious past can avert certain disaster. This story is tender, tense and has a very unexpected ending.

Recommended by Ariel Kahn

[NB A third in the 'Bob & Barry' series, The Heartless Robot, is due out in September.]

Book of the Week (66): "Paper Towns" by John Green

2010-06-21T00:01:00.003+01:00

Three facts are true about Quentin Jacobson: 1. He is a living breathing boy living and breathing in Jefferson Park, Florida. 2. He is going to Duke next year after he graduates high school. 3. He is incontestably in LOVE with his next-door neighbour Margo Roth Spiegelman.

So when the mysterious Margo appears at his bedroom window to enlist his help in a campaign of revenge, Quentin is powerless to refuse. What follows is an adventure more thrilling than he could ever imagine. And as the greatest night of his life finally draws to a close, Q dares to hope his life has changed forever, and maybe, just maybe he and Margo can be something more than neighbours.

But in the morning, Margo has disappeared, missing, and no one knows why. Plagued by worry Q starts to investigate his enigmatic neighbour, discovering the secrets she kept hidden from everyone, along with a strange trail of clues she has left that only he can follow. But who is the real Margo? And does she really want to be found?

With characters so vivid that you’ll forget they’re made of paper, John Green presents a rare gem of a book that tells us of the struggles of growing up trying to find the courage to stand up for yourself, of the pains of high school while trying to forge your own identity; all the while exploring just how deeply being in love for the first time can change you.

Few are the books that can claim to change your life, but Paper Towns certainly did for me; with its expertly crafted combination of mystery, humour, poignant sentiment, and the uniquely thought provoking philosophy of the incandescent Margo Roth Spiegelman. I hope that you find it as impossible as I did not to view yourself through the mirror that John Green flawlessly constructs, and I challenge you not to change from what you see.

Too much praise? I don’t think so. Paper Towns possesses insight, wit, and genuine human emotion captured in a relentless narrative of intrigue suitable for both old and young readers alike. Even should this book not change the way you view the world, it’s certainly a read you will not soon forget and never regret.

Recommended by Matthew Humpage

Book of the Week (65): "Laghu, the Clever Crow", by Bhavit Mehta, illustrated by Carol Liddiment

2010-06-14T03:59:00.003+01:00

The newly established Saadhak Books has the tagline ‘Bringing timeless Indian wisdom to children of all cultures’. This book, Laghu the Clever Crow, is the first of their Granny Geeta series and is their first publication.

The story of Laghu is taken from a collection of animal fables, written in Sanskrit in the 3rd century BCE (so it is estimated), though it is believed the stories originated long before this and were passed on by storytellers. The tale of Laghu and the doves is also found in fables from other cultures.

Traditionally in the Indian Subcontinent the grandmother is the chief storyteller and Granny Geeta is the fictional embodiement of a good storytelling grandmother. She retells old tales and fables using her insight and humour to breathe life into them and deliver their message.

Here Granny Geeta tells her Grandson the story of Laghu the clever crow and how he rescues the doves. It is a simple tale highlighting that things should not be judged on how they appear. Straight-forwardly written and easy to read aloud I can imagine parents (or grandparents) reading it to children by the fireplace. The illustrations are bright and colourful – they certainly reminded me of Southern India and made me smile.

Saadhak Books look set to put Indian picture books on our shelves (where they have been previously lacking), repackaging traditional fables and tales in an accessible familiar picture book format, to introduce children to different cultures through simple stories. I wonder what tale Granny Geeta will share next…

Recommended by Tessa Brechin

Book of the Week (64): "The Moonstone Legacy" by Diana de Gunzburg and Tony Wild

2010-06-07T03:54:00.000+01:00

Shalimar is a place of beauty. A princely Indian mansion high in the Yorkshire moors. It has been home to the Abercrombie family for over a century, and for sixteen-year-old Lizzy it is an exotic wonder; but what dark secrets do its majestic towers and sumptuous murals hide?

After a tragic accident steals Lizzy’s mother away from her on the full moon, she begins to question Shalimar’s beauty. Was her mother’s death more than an accident? Was she the latest of her ancestors to fall victim to the mysterious family curse?

Lizzy sets out on a quest to discover the truth about her family, its deadly curse, and her strange Uncle George who seems to be at the heart of it all. Her journey takes her from the windswept Yorkshire moors, to the rocky peaks of India and back again. But can she solve the mystery in time and save her family? For the full moon is rising again, and a deadly new enemy draws closer.

By turns a meditation on the pains of growing up torn between two social classes, and the vivid cultural exchange between Britain and the Old Empire, Diana de Gunzburg and Tony Wild present a subtle thrilling tale of secrets and death, and broken families and curses that leads us from the austere beauty of the Yorkshire moors to the mystic opulence of Northern India.

The Moonstone Legacy explores the enduring relationship between Britain and India. A tale of intrigue and betrayal that will leave you questioning the strange power the moon holds over all our lives, the complex nature of families, and hoping against hope that curses are nothing but superstitious nonsense.

Recommended by Matthew Humpage

Book(s) of the Week (63): The DFC Library by various authors/illustrators

2010-05-31T03:49:00.000+01:00

One of my favourite reading experiences of the last few years was the DFC comic; exciting stories, brilliant artists, all unfolding under one cover, aimed at a wide spectrum of readers. It was hugely popular, and deservedly so. Now three of the DFC authors get their own books!

Good Dog Bad Dog Book 1 by Dave Shelton, is a hilarious noir detective romp, with Kirk Bergman, his secret flea weapon, and the frighteningly strong, bumbling, milkshake-loving Duncan McBoo. Kirk has a dark past, and is recovering from the death of his former sidekick, Big Beagle. Duncan’s window-shattering arrival changes everything, and they are soon out-quipping one another as they hurtle through a series of madcap adventures that pit them against some of the meanest dogs in town, from Pug Ugly to the diminutive evil genius, Wah Wah Johnson. Full of slapstick visual gags and great wordplay, you’ll soon develop a soft spot for these two lovable detectives, as they track down treasure, kidnapped chef Anton le Boof, and a whole lot of trouble.

The Spider Moon Book 1 by Kate Brown is a moving, exciting fantasy story. A beautifully drawn, and vividly realised alternative universe. We meet the gifted and mischievous Bekka Kiski, who lives on the lower islands of the Kapchu archipelago. Her community make their living by diving for spinefish, and Bekka has a powerful and mysterious connection to the creatures of the deep, from Fii her Dodecapod to a giant whale. She and her family are falsely accused by the winged Dathar people of cheating, and her mother is taken prisoner. Bekka tries to clear their name; she knows they are not guilty, but who is? As she investigates, she meets the dashing Prince Kaliel, and together they uncover a dark and dangerous plot. If this wasn’t enough to contend with, there is also the terrifying legend that the sky will fall on them, a legend that seems to be coming true. Only the floating island and Bekka’s ingenuity hint at the possibility of escape. Superbly realised fantasy landscapes, from the depths of the sea to the labyrinthine Dekkan palace, and subtle characterisation, mean you’ll definitely want to visit spider moon, you just won’t want to leave. This is bold ambitious storytelling, that leaves you wanting more. I can’t wait for the next instalment!

Mezolith Book 1 by Ben Haggarty and Adam Brockbank. This book is something special. I read a lot of comics, but this one of the best I’ve encountered; moving, haunting, thrilling and compelling. Once you enter the story, it wont let you go. Ben Haggarty takes you back 10,000 years to the dark world of Poika and his tribe, the Kansa. Adam Brockbank’s stunning artwork leads you right into Poika’s world – under the thundering hooves of a giant buffalo, facing off against a giant, ravenous demonic baby Urga, and struggling against the malevolent evil of the Owl people. The lush visual detail will have you revisiting pages in wonder, noticing telling clues which the next chapter builds on. The layered narrative creates a powerful mythic journey, revisiting fairytales you thought you knew, but in Mezolith nothing is as it seems. On his journey, Poika is assisted by the enigmatic bird-woman Korppi Vehlo. Using his wits, bravery and her visonary gifts, he faces increasingly dangerous foes, taking him into the dark heart of a world that will haunt and horrify you long after you turn the last page.

Recommended by Ariel Kahn

Book of the Week (62): "The Prince of Mist" by Carlos Ruiz Zafón

2010-05-24T20:48:00.001+01:00

We follow Max and his family as they move to a small town by the sea away from the city to escape from the war. However, it seems it’s not to be the reassuring haven they had hoped for - their new house carries the devastating history of a small boy who drowned and there’s a disturbing garden of statues hiding in the mist.

On arrival in the town it is immediately evident to Max that something peculiar is going on; his little sister is befriended by a stray cat with an unsettling presence and unwavering glare and the train station clock is going backwards… The oddities continue and become increasingly threatening as Max investigates his new surroundings and makes a new friend.

Max’s little observations of family and friends, his brave curiosity to explore what many would run from, his reactions to situations and his determination to uncover the truth of what’s going on, adds a sense of a personal journey to the story and enables the reader to experience events alongside him. While some elements of the story did seem common to many scary tales, Zafon achieves a subtle yet strong build-up of suspense and weaves a unique, vivid plot, creating terrifying moments that keep you glued to the page.

All in all it’s an evocative, atmospheric and easy to devour novel with characters you’ll be holding your breath for.

Recommended by Tessa Brechin

Book of the Week (61): "So Much to Tell" by Valerie Grove

2010-05-17T00:28:00.000+01:00

This is not a recommendation of a children's book, but of a book about one of the most influential children's book figures of the last 50 years - Kaye Webb.

Anyone who grew up in the 1960s and 70s may remember that inside the front cover of every Puffin book, it said 'Editor: Kaye Webb'. It was, explains Valerie Grove, not her decision to have her name in each book in this way, and it was unusual - traditionally it is the role of the editor to sit in the background as an anonymous presence. But Kaye Webb was not the kind of person to sit in the background under any circumstances.

Kaye had an incredibly strong - some might claim overpowering - personality. She was warm (she addressed everyone as 'darling') enormously gregarious (she found her later years when she was disabled and housebound impossibly difficult due to the lack of company) and upper class (she is described as addressing her listeners in a radio broadcast in the same tones that Annette Mills used to speak to Muffin the Mule). She was a great user, having the power to persuade and charm all around her into running errands and making her - often madcap - plans come to pass. But she was also a great giver, with tremendous energy and passion for her work.

Kaye was married three times, the final time for 10 years to the artist Ronald Searle, who suddenly and brutally deserted her and their twins with no prior warning - leaving for France to live with another woman.

After a prominent career in journalism, Kaye was brought in to run Puffin books, and took on the role with incredible panache, founding the Puffin Club with its secret code and badge, regular magazine and frequent trips for children, that allowed them to have adventures away from home and meet their favourite authors. She presided over many of the most prominent children's book of the 20th century, including Watership Down, Carrie's War, The Borrowers, Tom's Midnight Garden and Stig of the Dump - to name only a tiny fraction.

Kaye showed less commitment to her family than to her work. She appears barely to have seen her twins as they grew up, leaving them in the care of her mother or with staff. She and Ronald were away on their 10th birthday - they were taking a three-month holiday. Later, John was sent away to boarding school where he was deeply miserable. She seems to have had a closer bond with the many children whom she took on Puffin Club trips than with her own. I was reminded of Enid Blyton who paid huge attention to her child readers, but - at least according to one of her two daughters - very little to her own children.

In a letter to her father at the age of 56, Kaye wrote 'Esteem in other men's eyes? Isn't it more important to have it in your own? I shall grow older and die and the only flag I'll have to wave is I did a job fairly well and wangled myself a lot of attention... but I shan't have read the books I wanted to, or had the thoughts I wanted to, or even really explored relationships with other people properly... all this in the sacred name of being successful'.

I found myself having very mixed feelings when reading about Kaye Webb. As a children's book editor, I know that if I'd been lucky enough to work for her, she would have inspired in me the same loyalty and passion she did in all her staff. But reading about her as a whole person - not just a publisher - I found her egotism and disregard for family responsibilities off-putting, and her loneliness at the end of her life desperately sad.

Recommended by Susan Reuben

Next?

For another biography of a prominent figure in the children's book world, also by Valerie Grove, try Dear Dodie, about Dodie Smith, author of The Hundred and One Dalmatians and I Capture the Castle.
To find out more about Puffin, take a look at Puffin by Design by Phil Baines, which publishes on 27 May. It explores the visual history of Puffin books.
If you're inspired to find out more about Kaye's husband Ronald Searle, read Ronald Searle, The Biography by Russell Davies.

Hay Fever!

2010-05-10T15:42:00.003+01:00

Very exciting - the complete line-up for Hay Fever, the children's programme of the Hay Festival, has now been announced. You can find full details of the programme here. Needless to say it's packed full of wonderful treats!

I'll be there, in the chair for three events...

Sunday May 30th, 1pm: Mal Peet & Bali Rai
Monday May 31st, 2:30pm: Ian Beck & Glenn Dakin
Friday June 4th, 5:30pm: Patrick Ness

... so do come along if you can! Look forward to seeing you there...

Book of the Week (60): "Not Bad for a Bad Lad" by Michael Morpurgo, illustrated by Michael Foreman

2010-05-10T12:07:00.003+01:00

What if fairytales could come true? This is a beautiful, tender, and moving story, an exciting creative collaboration between the two talented Michaels, their twenty third book together. As you might expect from them, it is beautifully presented and published. Morpurgo revisits the territory he made his own so memorably with War Horse, and brings it home. A young boy sits mesmerised as his grandfather reveals his wayward childhood growing up after the blitz. The first-person voice of his former self catapults us back in time so that we relive his experiences, as a fatherless boy whom only Miss West, his music teacher, believes in. He plays on bomb sites, is chased by the police, and ultimately caught stealing, sentenced to a spell in borstal in Hollesey Bay, Suffolk. Each of these experiences is suggestively and captivatingly illustrated by Foreman, whose own War Boy series and multiple awards for illustration admirably equip him for depicting this period. Every page is illustrated, and the images form a musical accompaniment to the story, bringing out key personalities and moments of transformation with telling detail and insight. Full-page scenes, and double page spreads in watercolour and pencil capture a range of moods and experiences, from a comic chase through bombed-out London to the moment he is caught by another young boy at night, raiding the family greenhouse for tomatoes. This moonlight encounter between the haves and the have-nots has a powerful, fairytale quality. Time and place come alive in the dialogue between the pictures and the text, and the boy’s alienation and isolation in Borstal are finely rendered. The landscape is very much a character, as the police van taking him to school seems at sea in a wash of vibrant greens, under a vast sky. The pictures give the reader a sense of hope, and amplify the emotional journey the story describes.

The boy finds himself drawn to the stables, and comes to the attention of Mr. Alfie, the taciturn but compassionate head horseman, who introduces him to his beloved Suffolk Punch horses. The boy develops a particularly close relationship with Dombey, a horse who is troubled and difficult, very much like the boy himself. Together they take us on a unique journey, and the words and images take flight, as he trains the horse by racing it along the seas’ edge, galloping through the rainbow surf. But their relationship is not to last, as Dombey is sold, and when he is discharged early for good behaviour, he ends up homeless on the streets of London. Just when everything seems hopeless, an extraordinary twist of fate reunites him with Dombey and changes his life forever. At last, he has the chance to make himself proud, and justify the special people who believed in him.

The storyteller's voice is quiet and understated, allowing the reader to become involved in the feelings his experiences evoke. The pictures make the story come alive, enriching the reader’s experience to create a layered and involving account of one boy’s redemption through tough experiences, luck, and some amazing horses. The story feels both deeply grounded in time and place, and truly timeless. It includes a fascinating appendix about Hollesley Bay Borstal, the Suffolk Punch horses, and the boys and men who cared for them. Whether you love horses, war stories, triumphs over adversity, or stories with a vivid sense of time and place, in which history comes intimately alive, this timeless classic is for you.

Recommended by Ariel Kahn

Book of the Week (59): "Monsters of Men" by Patrick Ness

2010-05-03T00:35:00.003+01:00

It’s here: the book I have impatiently waited for since devouring The Ask and the Answer last autumn has finally arrived through my door. Once I’d finished leaping round with excitement and managed to regain an ability to focus on text I began reading and was effortlessly transported back to New Prentisstown and Todd’s dilemma. The ROAR of impending war surrounds; the spackle are on the march, The Answer are closing in and Todd has captured the mayor whose release may be the only option to ensure Viola’s safety.

Patrick Ness once again delivers a magnificent novel; the pace keeps you turning pages well beyond bedtime, you can’t help getting attached to the characters and therefore leaving yourself open to feeling the love, pain, trauma and danger they encounter, and he explores difficult social and personal dilemmas of trust, manipulation, war and personal strength. It’s complex, insightful and accessible. Quite honestly I think the guy is a genius!

I had intended to write this review immediately after finishing the book but found I needed to recover from the experience first. Few novels have me holding my breath, switching from optimism to sudden tears at the turn of a page, few books make me pause reading just to process the author's brilliance as new twists emerge, few books do I race to finish while not wanting them to end, and even fewer leave me in a stunned silence when I read those last words and close the cover. This book - in fact all three of this trilogy - had that affect on me.

Even now, a week on, I’m struggling to find the right words to do the book justice. I really can’t recommend it highly enough. Perhaps, all I need say is wow! Read it, read it now!

Recommended by Tessa Brechin

Patrick Ness interview

2010-05-03T00:28:00.008+01:00

To mark the publication of Monsters of Men, the third in Patrick Ness's magnificent Chaos Walking series, I've interviewed Patrick for a feature that ran in today's Independent on Sunday.

Monsters of Men hits the shops officially today (though apparently there have been sightings in the public domain over the weekend...) and it's very highly recommended. Tessa is writing it up as our new Book of the Week, too, so check back here for that later today.

Book of the Week (58): "The Red Pyramid (The Kane Chronicles, vol.1)" by Rick Riordan

2010-04-30T17:53:00.008+01:00

This is a brilliant, funny and thrilling novel, full of strange magic and mind-blowing adventure. There is never a dull page - the only thing that stopped me reading it cover to cover was school!

Carter and Sadie Kane suddenly find that they have magical powers and their father has been locked in a sarcophagus. They embark on a dangerous quest to save their father and find that not only are the Egyptian Gods real but they are much closer than they ever could have imagined.

Comic in places, really absorbing, tense and exciting – this is even better than ‘Percy Jackson’!

Recommended by Andrew Lewis, Aged 12

Next?

For more supernatural adventure, try The Power of Five: Necropolis by Anthony Horowitz.
For more adventure on an epic scale, try Airman by Eoin Colfer or Corydon by Tobias Druitt.
If you want to know more about Egyptian myth, try hunting out any of the many versions available in your local bookshop or library.

Book of the Week (57): "Rich and Mad" by William Nicholson

2010-04-20T17:53:00.001+01:00

I was quite surprised when I received the review copy of Nicholson’s latest novel for teenagers. I was familiar with his fantasy writing, as well as his screenplays for blockbusters such as Gladiator and First Knight, so a realistic, tender novel about first love and sex was the last thing I expected. Well, some people are just multi-talented – Nicholson is a good writer even when he steps away from the big canvases of alternative worlds or historical epics to focus on the life of two, quite ordinary, teenagers. The novel shifts between the stories (and points of view) of Rich Ross and Maddy Fisher who go to the same school but have very little to do with each other until they find that they have something in common – they are both victims of unrequited love. Maddy is sure that she is having a secret love affair with the gorgeous, but still-to-dump-his-current-girlfriend, Joe Finnigan, while Rich is busy making a fool of himself to get the attention of the I-couldn’t-care-less-whether-you-live-or-die ice queen, Grace. When reality finally kicks in, Rich and Maddy find that they understand each other, have shared interests, and, actually, feel quite comfortable together.

The budding relationship between Rich and Mad is written convincingly and realistically, but the book mostly impressed me with its honesty about sex. From describing sexual feelings to pornography and finally ‘doing it’ – Nicholson is direct, doesn’t recoil from naming body parts, and more importantly, stays away from the ‘double standards’ which annoyingly persist in so many teen novels by showing us a girl who is interested in sex, enjoys and initiates it, as much, if not more than her male partner. Rich and Mad does not feel like sensational reading material as some aspects of Burgess’s ground-breaking Doing It did, and it is all the better for it. My only issue with it is that it still operates within the conservative / educational frame by promoting sex within a ‘proper’ relationship. (For this reason I still prefer Aidan Chambers’s Breaktime and the more recent Good Girls by Laura Ruby.)

Recommended by Noga Applebaum

Next?

Well, obviously I highly recommend all three novels mentioned in this review. Melvin Burgess’s Doing It is still an important novel about sex for teenagers, even if it is far from perfect, Aidan Chambers’s Breaktime was published in 1978 and is still fresh, exciting and ground-breaking, and Laura Ruby’s Good Girls explores society’s double standards about the sex life of girls and boys.
I’d just like to throw in a trailer – Andersen Press are about to publish (July) a short story collection edited by Keith Gray and entitled Losing It, in which an impressive cast of current YA writers give their version of ‘the first time’. Should be interesting.

Book of the Week (56): "Pretty Bad Things" by C.J. Skuse

2010-04-14T03:04:00.003+01:00

Imagine a mash-up of Bonnie and Clyde, the TV series Supernatural and Hansel and Gretel and you’ll get a flavour of Pretty Bad Things. Add in a mullet-rock sound track, the sleaze and glitz of Las Vegas and a tonne of adolescent anger and there you are, deep in a story that sweeps you along at a reckless pace.

Paisley and Beau are twins - ones once famous for surviving three days alone in the woods after the death of their mother. They're 16 now, separated both in distance (by their super-bitch grandmother) and in temperament, as Beau is the geeky quiet boy and Paisley the hell-bent wild-child that no school can tame. Deliberately getting expelled from her last school, she finds Beau and the two of them go on the run, hunting for their long-lost father - last seen in Las Vegas.

I enjoyed the book, but probably not quite as much as some other reviewers. I didn't really believe in Paisley until about half way through the book, and I really never quite believed in her father. I'm not a fan of the current rage for pushing the boundaries of teen fiction with evermore explicitly violent and sexually aware stories - and this book is both. I kept wondering who it was aimed at... 12 year olds? 14 year olds? 16 year olds? When are teen books simply adult books with splashier covers?

I'd say this particular story of sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll would be perfect for sophisticated teens - but definitely not for anyone wanting something comforting!

Recomended by Leonie Flynn

Next?

Kevin Brooks and Melvin Burgess for sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll...
Jenny Valentine for realism with real people.

Book of the Week (55): "Angelica Sprocket's Pockets" by Quentin Blake

2010-04-05T20:30:00.009+01:00

It’s by Quentin Blake.

Surely that’s enough of a recommendation for anyone? No? You want more?

This is imagination in a pocket, well, lots of pockets. Angelica Sprocket has a pocket for everything you can think of and even things you wouldn’t believe. It left me wondering what she may have hidden up her sleeve…

Quentin Blake’s illustrations are, as always, full of character and characters. I love the recurring ducks that drink through straws and jump at horns and the alligator escaping the page. Energetic, colourful and playful, it’s a delight to read. It’s a wild adventure in an overcoat that may just leave you wondering if you could be making better use of your own pockets.

Recommended by Tessa Brechin

Next?

A Quentin Blake favourite of mine is Clown - it has no words and really opened me up to the power of storytelling through pictures.

David Almond wins 2010 Hans Christian Andersen Award

2010-04-02T22:27:00.005+01:00

Though this is rather late news (it happened more than a week ago), I did just want to mention how delighted I am that David Almond has won the 2010 Hans Christian Andersen Award. David is of course the author of many wonderful books, and while to my mind the best of them remain Kit's Wilderness and Skellig, I've never read one I didn't like. He's a favourite of all three UBG editors, and we're particularly proud to have him as the author of the introduction to our Ultimate Teen Book Guide.

Nikki Gamble, who runs the brilliant Write Away site, asked me last week for a few words on why I thought David was a great choice for the HCAA. So for what it's worth, this was my slightly rambly quote...

If you read a lot, you quickly learn that many books are rather like many other books. But this is not always true. David Almond writes books that are unlike anything by anyone else. You can always recognise a David Almond book, and not just the consistent setting, or the familiar way of telling a story, the characters, the prose, but because he seems to see the world quite differently from everyone else. It’s not a fantasy world he lives in, however, it’s not a different world to our own, he merely seems to see things in our own world that the rest of us don’t. And as a result, once you’ve read Kit’s Wilderness, or Skellig, or Clay, you’ll start seeing our world a little differently, too. And really, what more could a reader ask? Almond shows you the things that might be just half-glimpsed out of the corner of your eye, the spirits inside everyday things and places, the shadows lurking behind visible surfaces, the fault-lines between the physical world and the metaphysical, between past and present, life and death. No less than that. His are beautiful books, bold books, they’re books for brave readers who love writing. When we celebrate the pleasure of reading it’s because books allow you to immerse yourself in a world and see it through another’s eyes, and maybe understand something new; when we celebrate the greatness of truly great books it’s because it is these that will deeply change your own perceptions of your own world, and change it, and you, for good. I can think of no one writing for young people today who more deserves celebrating than David Almond.

Book of the Week (54): "Frightfully Friendly Ghosties" by Daren King, illustrated by David Roberts

2010-04-02T22:14:00.006+01:00

It’s really a problem. Tabitha Tumbly and her ghosty friends are obliged to share their house with a family of still-alives (the bearded one, the one with high heels, and the two half-sized ones) who keep doing annoying things like locking the attic door when Pamela Fraidy is inside (and there’s a big leggy spider in there with her – and her a nervous wreck to begin with…). And the worst of it, blubs Wither, is that those still-alives keep being so mean to their ghosty housemates! So Tabitha, Pamela, Wither and their friends come up with a plan to befriend the still-alive family. Unfortunately the still-alives don’t seem very happy to have a troop of ghosties trying to get chummy with them. The ghosties are terribly friendly, frightfully modest, and exceptionally polite (especially Charlie, who always remembers to take off his hat), but those mean still-alives still run screaming every time they see them. How rude!

The family bring in a priest, carrying garlic and a cross ("What does the cross mean?" asked Humphrey. "I think," blubbed Wither, "it means he's cross..."), and the ghosties bring in a big scary Ghoul, and, well, then things really get out of hand...

This is a delightful, really very funny story for younger readers, written by the brilliant Daren King and illustrated with all his customary style by the even-brillianter David Roberts, with whom he’s collaborated before, including on the Nestlé-winning Mouse Noses on Toast. The story is well-told, witty and eccentric, and those fantastic pictures just bring out the best in it – a perfect match.

Owing to some shameful mistake by the publishers Roberts isn’t credited on the book, but if lots of us buy copies now they’ll have to reprint it soon and get it right next time. So if you needed another excuse…

Recommended by Daniel Hahn

Book of the Week (53): "The Heart and the Bottle" by Oliver Jeffers

2010-03-24T01:27:00.005Z

Oliver Jeffers illustrated and wrote one of my favourite picture books of recent years, Lost and Found, the story of an unlikely friendship between a boy and a penguin. (Other favourites include The Way Back Home and The Incredible Book Eating Boy.) His latest book, The Heart and the Bottle, is no less off-beat, and every bit as charming. It’s the story of a little girl who loves to learn all about the world – the stars, the sea – until one day, she comes over to her father’s chair to show him something she has drawn and finds the chair empty. Her father is no longer there. At that moment she stops feeling wonder at the world, stops marvelling at the beauty of things. Sadly she puts her heart away in a bottle, just to keep it safe…

Like Lost and Found this is at least in part a book about loneliness, and its story is supremely well told; and just like the earlier book it finds an ending which doesn’t feel forced or over-sentimental and yet is sweet, is just right. As usual Jeffers’ mixed-media pictures bear slow appreciation – they’re beautiful things (I’m going to have an Oliver Jeffers on my wall one day, just see if I don’t…), sometimes very richly detailed and sometimes expressive with such simplicity, with many lovely, witty discoveries to be made.

I have slight doubts, as I occasionally do with Oliver Jeffers’ books, whether they aren’t the sort of lovely picture books that adults adore more than children do – I’m yet to be persuaded that this is a book that young children will be charmed by. But I’m going to ignore that brief cavilling for now, because personally I love it. It’s about grief and love and the whole world – it’s touching, and profound.

Recommended by Daniel Hahn

Book of the Week (52): "No and Me" by Delphine de Vigan

2010-03-16T00:01:00.007Z

Lou Bertignac, a thirteen-year-old girl with an IQ of 160, has been moved up a couple of years at school. She is socially awkward and shy, with few friends. The last thing she wants to do is a class presentation. Findng herself put on the spot to identify her topic she blurts out the first thing that comes to mind - the homeless. She will interview the homeless girl, 'No', whom she met at the station. There begins a new friendship and a strong bond between two young girls struggling through life in very different circumstances. No without home or family, Lou with a family that seems to have stopped living. Lou finds herself opening up, not only to No but also to Luke, the older boy in class who seems to like her. Luke quickly becomes her accomplice as she tries to help No.

It's a touching and engaging story led by its characters. Lou's narrative walks a delicate balance between being intelligent and beautifully innocent and childlike. I warmed to her instantly, feeling her desire to understand, following her life through thought tangents and experiments, and moments of lostness as she tries to navigate her life in a painful world.

No and Me is well written, effortless to read and enjoy while touching on heartbreaking issues of loss, illness, family and social dysfunction. Most of all this is a story of friendship, loyalty, the way people relate to each other and how personal determination and desire to help can make a difference - though not always in the way you expect.

Recommended by Tessa Brechin

Next?

Try Make Lemonade by Virginia Euwer Wolff, which explores another supportive yet complex friendship growing from one girl's attempt to help another with her difficult life situation - in this case being a teenage mum of two.
Or for another unique character-led story, try The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon.

Book of the Week (51): "Lob" by Linda Newbery

2010-03-09T08:06:00.006Z

The Green Man is one of the oldest thematic figures in this country's folklore, and Linda Newbery has taken this motif as a starting point for her new book, Lob.

Lob is an ageless wanderer, who walks the roads till he meets his next special person to whom he will devote himself for the rest of their life. He will work with them as they clear and sow and tend their plants, to bring their gardens stunningly to life. Not everyone can see Lob, but Grandpa Will is one of the lucky ones, and now young Lucy can see him too - so whenever she visits her grandparents, and helps Grandpa Will in his garden, she knows Lob is there with them, helping, too...

Though set in a modern world - urban traffic, waiting lists for city allotments, etc. - there's something timeless about this lovely story, not only in its theme, which links us back to generations past, but also in the telling of it: elegant, sedate, beautifully crafted, filled with a warm kind of hope and old-fashioned charm. It's also an unashamedly poetic, writerly sort of book (for something that is being sold to quite young readers), which in other hands might have weighed it down, but not so here. There are not many writers who could have pulled off a story like this - but Linda Newbery is one of them. Very lovely.

Recommended by Daniel Hahn

Book of the Week (50): "Blackout" by Sam Mills

2010-03-01T06:33:00.010Z

How much harm can a book do? That’s the central question running throughout Sam Mills' new novel, Blackout. It’s a question still playing on my mind.

When Stefan’s father hides the writer of a banned book in their house Stefan finds himself torn between loyalty to his father and to the state. Could it be that his father really is a terrorist or has state authoritarianism just gone too far? Whose side does Stefan want to be on?

An action packed, thought provoking variation on a dystopian idea, with references to many loved classics such as 1984 and Catcher in the Rye as the dangerous books banned in society for fear of triggering teenage terrorist attacks. Such books are rewritten by the state, removing all hint of violence or lust – Lord of the Flies becomes a tale of boys quibbling over sweets! If you haven’t read these books already, you’ll find yourself seeking them out urgently, before it’s too late, before they’re re-written. If you’ve read them before, you’ll want to re-read them just to check they’re as they should be, or perhaps just for the thrill of reading a dangerous book.

A must-read for anyone with a burning desire to read to explore the complexities of life through literature and for those who like to ‘escape’ into a book. It inspires a simultaneous desperation to read everything ever written, while fearing the power of the words contained within those books and reminding you of the uncertain truth of fiction. It felt dangerous to read.

Recommended by Tessa Brechin

Next?

For another dystopian novel focusing on the impact of censorship on literature try Ray Bradbury’s Farenheight 451.
Or maybe you’d like to risk reading some of the novels mentioned within the text – 1984, Catcher in the Rye, or Lord of the Flies.

Book of the Week (49): “Threads” by Sophia Bennett

2010-02-23T00:04:00.003Z

There’s an awful lot of reality in books for girls: the reality of tower blocks, gangs and the everyday misery of growing up. Boys seem to get guns, spies and saving the world whilst girls get pregnancy, ‘issues’ and boys with fangs – unless of course the book in question has a pink (and sparkly) cover in which case you get girl-meets-boy-plus-misery-before-luv4evah…. But, hang on, the cover of Threads is pink. With sparkles. Does that mean…

No, it doesn’t! There’s romance here, yes, but the romance of perfectly cut clothing, of colour and fit and designers who want to make the world more beautiful. There’s the romance of finding what friendship means. The romance of a world where dreams can come true. The romance of a fairy tale – where the wicked witch is the reality of war-torn Uganda and Cinderella is a dyslexic girl in a tutu and fairy wings. It’s also all about the romance of being yourself, regardless of shape, colour or creed. And most of all it’s about love.

Sophia Bennett won The Times / Chicken House prize for an unpublished author. That this wasn’t snapped up by some publisher long before the prize is a mystery as the writing is fresh, funny and the story is utterly captivating. There’s a sequel, Boys, Beads and Bangles, coming out in May and I for one am eagerly looking forward to finding out more about Crow, Nonie, Edie and Jenny.

Threads also has the best use of a museum in a kids’ book since Charlie Fletcher’s Stone Heart – not the Natural History museum this time, but the glorious Costume gallery next door at the V&A. Go and check them out, as whether you choose to wear a tutu or not, they’re brilliant!

Recommended by Leonie Flynn

Next?
• Ballet Shoes by Noel Streatfield – another fairy story for girls who like things real.
• The Susanna series by Mary Hogan is about a girl who wants to be a journalist – try Susanna Loves London which has more about the London teen scene, and London fashion too. Or maybe start with Susanna Covers the Catwalk which is about New York fashion week.
• They’re pretty much classics now, but you can’t beat Meg Cabot’s The Princess Diaries for girls, friends, and family. Oh, and boys. And a bit of fashion too.

Book of the Week (48): "The Hunger Games 2: Catching Fire" by Suzanne Collins

2010-02-16T11:33:00.003Z

I always worry when it comes to trilogies. If I loved the first volume, there is always the chance of shattered expectations when the second one comes along. Well, I’m glad to announce that the second volume in Collins’ terrific trilogy is another ‘can’t put down’ success.

We left Katniss in what seemed like a relatively safe spot – having won the blood curling Hunger Games, poverty and danger should be behind her, and the wellbeing of her mother and younger sister guaranteed. There was, however, the emotional turmoil to sort out, as Katniss is torn between co-winner Peeta, publicly endorsed as her ‘one true love’, and Gale, her childhood hunting companion for whom she harbours deep, yet confusing, feelings.

But at the opening of the new instalment, Collins doesn’t dwell too long on inner conflicts, though they remain in the background throughout, as Katniss finds that the tyrannical Capitol sees her as a threat, and will stop at nothing to destroy her. Her act of rebellion, and consequent victory when the rules of the game are broken and both she and Peeta come out of the arena alive, has sent shockwaves through the nation, and the disquiet in the Districts grows, threatening the status quo. Katniss is now more than just a girl, more than another winner – she is a symbol, and her famous mockingjay broach now the logo of a silent revolution. If she thinks the forced marriage to Peeta would be the low point of her future, she soon finds out that her fate is far worse.

What I love about this book are the characters. Many action-packed futuristic page-turners compromise on the depth of their characters, opting for identifiable stereotypes. Collins’ protagonist is feisty and a good hunter yet can appreciate a beautiful outfit. She may be unsure of her feelings towards two different young men, but unlike the coy Bella of Twilight, she allows herself to explore the physical aspects of both relationships. I liked Katniss, and her honest voice carried me easily through the twists and turns of the plot. Here’s hoping that part three will be just as good.

Recommended by Noga Applebaum

Next?

Unwind by Neal Shusterman also takes place in a future America where teenagers can be ‘aborted’ by their parents if they are branded trouble-makers. These teens are sent to be ‘unwound’ – each and every organ harvested from their bodies to become transplanted elsewhere. Three unlikely companions challenge the system and attempt to escape.
The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness – a first of a trilogy following Todd, his talking dog, and a strange girl running from Mayor Prentiss’ man-only regime in search of a safe place on an alien planet.
Epic by Conor Kostick – in Erik’s colony, everything is decided by Epic, a complex computer game, where your skills can get you status and wealth in real life. What seems like a fair chance for all has in fact resulted in huge social gaps where Central Allocations – the powerful and rich elite – control society, while many are overworked and poor. Erik sets out to change the system in part one of a riveting saga.

Chaos Walking 3: Monsters of Men

2010-02-13T11:15:00.003Z

I've just finished reading Monsters of Men by Patrick Ness, the concluding part of the Chaos Walking trilogy.

If you're a follower of this blog you'll know how much I liked the first two in the series. But the third is something else altogether. Absolutely magnificent. I had really high expectations, and it cleared them by a mile.

I can't tell you anything about it, except that fans of the first two are in for a huge treat when this comes out in May; and if you've not read the first two yet, you have just under three months to do that and get yourselves ready for Monsters of Men. It's out on May 3rd and you really won't want to miss it.

Book of the Week (47): "Vampirates: Empire of Night" by Justin Somper

2010-02-08T02:25:00.005Z

Justin Somper’s latest foray into the world of the Vampirates is, without a doubt, his best yet.

Fast-paced and genuinely moving in places, Somper focuses less on established favourites such as Lorcan and instead moves the action to Sidorio’s ships. Grace and Connor, still trying to come to terms with the fact that they are half-vampire, take on a dangerous mission and are forced to decide where their true loyalties lie. We see more of Stuckley and Johnny, at least one character makes an unexpected return and there’s a surprise death – or two.

But it’s not just the pace of the writing that makes this volume stand apart from the previous books. Somper really seems to be hitting his stride as a writer of horror and there was certainly one scene that I found quite disturbing... and in case you are wondering, that’s a good thing! After all, Vampirates – no matter how handsome – exist on blood; a fact that was certainly downplayed at the beginning of the series.

All in all Empire of Night is a real treat for Vampirate fans and a great way into the series for anyone interested in horror, adventure or good old-fashioned gore. If you can’t wait for its publication, then visit Somper’s excellent website to read an extract and remind yourself of the plot so far.

Recommended by Laura Hutchings

Next?

More horror? Try Darren Shan’s Cirque du Freak.
More Vampires? Try Twilight by Stephanie Meyer.
Or for more rip-roaring swash-buckling adventure try Eoin Colfer’s Airman.

Book of the Week (46): "The Ultimate Teen Book Guide"

2010-02-01T19:32:00.005Z

The magnificent new edition of The Ultimate Teen Book Guide is out today! So what better to choose to recommend as our new Book of the Week? And chosen quite without bias, of course - it just is, objectively, Absolutely the Best Book Ever.

So you can ignore all our other recommendations now. Buy this one. You must buy it. Lots of copies. We've never read anything so good, ever. Described by its editors as "Touching, thoughtful, dazzlingly funny, charming, intelligent, reliable, insightful, elegant, life-affirming - it is, in short, a masterpiece". It will, quite simply, change your life. Trust us...

Recommended by The Editors of The Ultimate Teen Book Guide

Next?

The Ultimate Book Guide for 8-12s
The Ultimate First Book Guide
The Ultimate Teen Book Guide (US)
The 'National Year of Reading' UBG digest

etc. etc.

Book of the Week (45): "Cars" pop-up by Robert Crowther

2010-01-25T00:04:00.006Z

Since my kid was one year old, he has been interested in wheels. Now that he is nearly four he can identify different makes of cars. What to me looks like ‘a big black car’ is enthusiastically identified as a Nissan Quashqai Crossover. The new pop up novelty book from Walker was therefore a great success. Although the book is aimed at a slightly older audience, as the amount of information about cars and their specs suggests, there are enough ‘hands on’ flaps and pop-up models to satisfy a younger child. Robert Crowther dedicates each double spread to a different type of car. The first spread charts the early history of the automobile from the 1885 Benz Motorwagen to the 1908 Ford Model T. Other spreads display Supercars, everyday cars through the decades, record-breaking cars, and future cars, including some intriguing eco-models. All of these are accompanied by 3D models, and pull-tags to get the cars moving across the page. The pièce de résistance, however, is the double-spread 3D model of a racetrack, including a wealth of information about Formula 1 racing, on which my son happily raced his own collection of toy cars. Fun, interactive and informative – I certainly learned a lot. Crowther also has similar books about trains, flight and ships, so there is something for every young transport enthusiast. Bon voyage!

Recommended by Noga Applebaum

Diary Dates

2010-01-24T23:31:00.006Z

Just a couple of new things to mention for the diary in the coming months...

There will be an Ultimate Book Guide event at Jewish Book Week this year - Susan and I will be there with Anne Fine and Meg Rosoff, two of our favourite writers, talking about some books we love and giving some tips on how to discover and choose great new reads... It's Sunday March 7th at 12:30 - follow the link above for more details.

And May 21st is the Write Away conference (hosted at the Wellcome Centre on Euston Road), and Leonie and I have just joined the programme to talk about 'Inspiring Reading'. It's an all-day conference with speakers including Philip Ardagh, Prue Goodwin, Mini Grey, Miranda McKearney, Marcus Sedgwick and, of course Nikki Gamble (the brains behind Write Away and the conference). It's my first Write Away conference and I'm very much looking forward - more details here. Book now!

There's Nuffin Like a Puffin

2010-01-24T09:12:00.006Z

Puffin is 70 years old - and it's celebrating in style...

On Monday (yes, I know, a week ago almost and I'm only just writing about it now, sorry!) I went to the press launch for Puffin's 2010 line-up. Press launch? Well, sandwiches, coffee, lots of familiar faces (and a few famous ones) and a bucket load of enthusiasm about new titles, old titles revamped and a few surprises thrown in for good measure.

Puffin is focusing on three things - big brands, crossover titles and classics. There's new teen fiction from the Razorbill imprint ('Unputdownable teen fiction'), Puffin Baby with Puffin classics re-styled for babies (a strategy already successful last year with The Very Hungry Caterpiller and pushed further this year by the re-jigged Moomins), Pocket Money Puffins in May are priced at 3.99 each and in June there'll be the Puffin Classics - seven titles, one for each decade (and a chance in June to vote via the website for the Puffin of Puffins). There'll be product! Yes, deckchairs, mugs, pencils etc. all with the wonderfully idiosincratic Puffin illustrations familiar to anyone who remembers Puffin Post.

But the Big Brands rule: Diary of a Wimpy Kid is going global with a movie - as is Percy Jackson; Cathy Cassidy has a new series Chocolate Box Girls, starting with Cherry Crush; there's a new Artemis Fowl: The Atlantis Complex (Shock horror! Artemis turns nice!) and to tie in with a new pre-school TV series, Tinga Tinga, a multicoloured glorious series set (and made) in Tanzania.

There's serious teen books from David Yelland (yes, the ex-editor of the Sun - and the theme is alcoholism), Kevin Brooks, Helen Grant and a smash-hit from the USA, Beautiful Creatures (Gone With the Wind meets Twilight). How about a new series from Rick Riordan? It's coming in May called The Kane Chronicles, which hopes to do for Egyptian myth what The Lightning Thief has done for Greek. My own excitement level notched up with the promo for Time Riders by Alex Scarrow. He writes adult thrillers and was a games designer - the promo features a lot of 'what ifs' to do with changes in history: the US flag with a swastika instead of stars next to the stripes, the Mona Lisa with an alien's face, a David with a lizard instead of Napoleon crossing the alps... fabulous! The books look set to rival Robert Muchamore for thrills, appeal to reluctant readers and boy / girl interest.

So, lovely lunch, lovely people - Charlie Higson talked and was funny, David Yelland talked and was thought-provoking, Jeanne Willis talked and was quite, quite mad (and fabulous!) and Cathy Cassidy proposed putting day-dreaming on the school curriculum. As the publicity bumph says - There's Nuffin Like a Puffin.

It's here!

2010-01-22T12:02:00.004Z

The latest addition to the UBG family has arrived! (Cue group photo on my living-room carpet.)

It's the second Ultimate Teen Book Guide - with more than 150 new entries from our panel of wonderful writers for teenagers - contributors such as Marcus Sedgwick, Eoin Colfer, Joanne Harris, Patrick Ness, Chris Riddell, Jenny Downham, Narinder Dhami, Sophie McKenzie, Anthony McGowan, Paul Stewart, Jonathan Stroud, Joanna Nadin, Ally Kennen, Frances Hardinge, Sally Nicholls, Nicola Morgan, David Gilman, Tanya Landman, Philip Ardagh..., as well as a new intro from David Almond, more lists etc. etc. etc.

(And of course loads of the old stuff is still there too - entries and essays by Kevin Brooks, Mal Peet, Bali Rai, William Sutcliffe, Anne Fine, Meg Cabot, Philip Reeve, Darren Shan, Meg Rosoff, Jonathan Coe, Melvin Burgess, Geraldine McCaughrean, Philippa Pearce, Anthony Horowitz, blah blah blah...)

And it's lovely...

In bookshops Monday 1st!

Book of the Week (44): "Toddle Waddle" by Julia Donaldson, illustrated by Nick Sharratt

2010-01-18T19:52:00.021Z

Toddle waddle.
(A toddler and a duck go for a walk.)

Flip flop, toddle waddle.
(Mum walks behind.)

Hurry scurry, flip flop, toddle waddle.
(Dog follows.)

Eventually a whole procession is making its way through the park, each in its own manner. But where are they going? To the seaside! And there everyone and everything is making fantastic noises. Splish splash (paddling in the sea), chitter chatter (girl on mobile), puff puff (steam train), bash crash (drummer in the band).

Julia Donaldson, in her inimitable way, has done wondrous things with the bare minimum of words. Her text forms an atmospheric sound track to Nick Sharratt's pictures, which tell the reader what is actually going on in the story.

It can't be a coincidence that Nick lives in Brighton. The noisy group end up in a playground by the sea, then on a little train chuffing along the seafront, then finally on a pier where they boogy along to a band, the duck taking a starring role by playing the tambourine while perched upon the drummer's head!

It's brilliant.

Recommended by Susan Reuben

Next?

Try some of Julia and Nick's other collaborations: Chocolate Mousse for Greedy Goose, Hippo Has a Hat or One Mole Digging a Hole.
Nick Sharratt's novelty books are fantastic. Muddlewitch is a favourite with my children.
Or how about You Choose by Pippa Goodhart, which Nick illustrated? Every spread is crammed with pictures, each on a different theme - food, transport, animals and so on. Babies love it, and because you can talk about the pictures in any way you want, it grows with your child.

Costa Children's Book Award

2010-01-05T02:04:00.004Z

Just a quick note to congratulate Patrick Ness on winning the Costa today!

He won with the brilliant The Ask and the Answer, the second in his Chaos Walking trilogy.

I've written about the book elsewhere, including the Independent on Sunday round-up I posted about here the other day; it was on our Booktrust shortlist; and also featured as our Book of the Week back in May. It's a superb book - better even, I think, than its prequel, The Knife of Never Letting Go - so keep your fingers crossed for Patrick at the Costa Book of the Year in three weeks...

Happy New Year!

2010-01-01T04:27:00.001Z

Hoping you all have a great 2010!

We'll be back with more Books of the Week shortly (just taking a little break...), and also with news of publication of the all-new Teen Guide, which will be hitting the shops a month from today! Very exciting...

Teen Round-Up 2009

2010-01-01T04:17:00.005Z

My round-up of the best teen books from 2009 appeared in the Independent on Sunday a couple of weeks back - you can find it here.

Hope you like my choices - the books included are as follows:

The Vanishing of Katharina Linden (Helen Grant)
Stolen (Lucy Christopher)
What I Saw and How I Lied (Judy Blundell)
Revolver (Marcus Sedgwick)
The Ant Colony (Jenny Valentine)
Salem Brownstone: All Along the Watchtowers (John Harris Dunning & Nikhil Singh)
Ausländer (Paul Dowswell)
Rowan the Strange (Julie Hearn)
The Ask and the Answer (Patrick Ness)

(Lots of others that could have gone in had there been more space, of course...)

If you've been following this blog none of these choices will come as a surprise to you - six of the eight have featured as Books of the Week, four were on the Booktrust shortlist, and I've mentioned them all in one post or other. All great books, highly recommended...

Book of the Week (43): "Snow White" by Jane Ray

2009-12-22T23:01:00.004Z

This one is for all you late shoppers, running around like headless chickens, tearing your hair out, trying to find those last few elusive Christmas presents. Well, if you happen to have a 3-7 year old on your list, or even an adult with an appreciative eye and a taste for fairytales, you are in luck. Walker books just published a new edition of Snow White, retold and illustrated by one of their top artists – Jane Ray. This edition is subtitled “A Three Dimensional Fairy-Tale Theatre” and includes 6 scenes, all framed by dramatic red curtains, behind which hides the story itself, told simply and elegantly, with no frills to distract from the main event: the outstanding illustrations. Exquisitely detailed, coloured in a warm palette, and with Ray’s signature patterns, these illustrations, inspired by folk art from various locations, are especially suited to this classic fairytale. Each scene is delicately layered, bringing the characters and their surroundings to life. Rich and vibrant, it is bound to impress any child, and quite a few adults, who will be delighted to find it under their tree. A truly special gift, if you can bear to part with it.

Recommended by Noga Applebaum

Next?

Jane Ray has illustrated a beautiful edition of Classic Fairy Tales, edited by Berlie Doherty and including twelve stories.
Jan Pienkowski’s Fairy Tales is another beautiful edition illustrated with his stylish silhouettes to a truly magical effect.

Book of the Week (42): "Ernest" by Catherine Rayner

2009-12-17T01:09:00.017Z

This is a very simple, one-idea book. But it's such a good idea, and so well executed, that it's a really pleasing, satisfying read even for those of us who aren't two years old...

Ernest is very large. A very large moose. So large, indeed, is Ernest the moose that he can't even fit into this book! You can see bits of him on each spread, but he can't quite squeeze himself fully in, however hard he tries - which is very, very sad... But Ernest has a persistent little friend, and together they devise a brilliant solution, leading to a final fold-out quadruple-size page, and there he is!

Catherine Rayner's pictures are gorgeous (she won the Greenaway Medal this year for Harris Finds His Feet), making Ernest so much more than just a good joke, but a sweet, lovely book all-round. Just delightful.

Recommended by Daniel Hahn