Thursday 26 September 2019

Picture This: Little Puggle's Song


Thank you New Frontier Publishing for our gifted copy of this lovely picture book. 

Little Puggle's Song is the story of an echidna called Puggle who dreams of joining in with the chorus of animal voices he hears around him, but is unable to make a sound. Puggle is a warm, sympathetic character who it is easy to root for. 

Helene Magisson's illustrations are incredibly sweet and I especially loved all the reds and pinks in the flowers. 

Little Puggle's Song reminded me of Giraffes Can't Dance and would work well in nursery/school as a way of teaching children about fitting in and celebrating their own unique talents. 



Little Puggle's Adventure is written by Vikki Conley and illustrated by Helene Magisson

Wednesday 25 September 2019

Writing Wednesdays

I have my first online class for my MA tonight and I'm not sure how much time I'm going to get to spend on my WIP over the next few months (an irony, given I'm working on an MA in creative writing...) So here is a little snippet of what I've managed to add this week.


Lis didn’t regret her decision. 
Not really. 
Not deep down, wherever her conscious lurked. 
Not when she thought about the repercussions of her father’s actions, or the oath she had been preparing to swear to become a fully-licensed apothecary.
But when she looked at the venom in Astyanna’s eyes, and the cold, condescending weight of Wilf’s gaze, her faith wavered ever so slightly. When she thought about the dangers that lay ahead, the knowledge that Cass was still in the Fear Guard’s grasp, it wobbled a little more. 
Minute by minute, hour by hour, as the trio ventured forwards in frosty silence, panic began to mount in the pit of Lis’s belly, telling her that she had made a mistake worse than leaving Cass behind in South Vesta. 
Eero had been within their grasp, and she had let him escape. 
How did she really think this was all going to end? With a nice sit down over tea and Eero agreeing that he was in the wrong and promising to be a better person? Even fairytales didn’t have such neat, naive endings. Where the Guard ventured, violence followed. It was as inevitable as the evening tide. She had been foolish to push against it with hopeless idealism. 

Tuesday 24 September 2019

Picture This: The Adventures of Miss Petitfour



Miss Petitfour is always ready for an adventure. With her sixteen cats and trusty tablecloth, she takes to the air, never knowing quite where the wind will take her.

A modern children's story for fans of Mary Poppins or Mrs Pepperpot, Miss Petitfour is a future classic. 

This is another, longer chapter story we've been enjoying at bedtime. The illustrations were sweet and engaging and the writing was a joy to read aloud. My favourite thing was the cats (all sixteen of them), whose names run in a long list and are so fun to read. Each story was full of charm and delight and was the perfect length for bedtime.

I loved the way difficult words (like 'digression') were introduced with plenty of explanation and examples, and while the vocabulary was sometimes quite advanced for a young audience, it never led to my daughter losing interest in the story, or made it difficult to understand.

The stories were just the right mix of fantastical and funny, and I can definitely see us revisiting them again in years to come. 

Friday 20 September 2019

Vicious by VE Schwab


Victor and Eli started out as college roommates—brilliant, arrogant, lonely boys who recognized the same sharpness and ambition in each other. In their senior year, a shared research interest in adrenaline, near-death experiences, and seemingly supernatural events reveals an intriguing possibility: that under the right conditions, someone could develop extraordinary abilities. But when their thesis moves from the academic to the experimental, things go horribly wrong. {goodreads summary}

I feel as if I am savouring Schwab's novels, reading one every few months rather than binging them all in one go and being left with nothing to read next. Her writing never fails to delight; she is a superb storyteller and I have loved every novel and series I have read by her. Three things I particularly enjoyed about Vicious are:

1) Schwab's ability to switch between different timelines - weaving her story together seamlessly in a way that keeps you constantly on the edge of your seat and reveals information at just the right moment - is incredibly impressive. 

2) I love the way this story took a lot of tropes and turned them on their heads. A few stories recently have focused on villainous or morally grey characters, but what I liked about Vicious was the way the characters saw themselves, in contrast to how they came across to readers. Vicious didn't follow a clear-cut villain as he went against a stereotypical hero - Eli subverts the idea of what a hero is just as much as Victor challenges the concept of a villain. 

3) One of the things I enjoyed most about Our Dark Duet was the way Schwab intertwined poetry with her prose narrative. She does this again to great effect in Vicious with the use of blackout poetry.

I'm looking forward to diving into the sequel, Vengeful once I'm caught up on MA reading. 

Tuesday 17 September 2019

Picture This: Max's Dinosaur Feet


Thank you so much New Frontier Publishing for our gifted copy of Max's Dinosaur feet! It was an instant hit in our house; not only have we been reading it multiple times a day, we've also been recounting it while out and about. 

Max's Dinosaur Feet tells the story of a little boy trying to keep the house quiet so that his baby sister, Molly, can have a nap. With bright, engaging artwork and lots of fun onomatopoeia, it's sure to engage any young dinosaur fan - and encourage them to walk on "dinosaur eggshells" whenever they need to be quiet.

We are particularly enjoying the fun dinosaur story at the end - a retelling of 'this little piggy', which we have been doing with our two year old at bedtime ever since this story arrived. 


Max's Dinosaur Feet is written by Lana Spasevski and illustrated by Penelope Pratley

Thursday 12 September 2019

Under a Dancing Star by Laura Wood

I adored A Sky Painted Gold, and have been recommending it ever since. I knew I would love Under a Dancing Star, but I wasn't prepared to love it even more than ASPG. Wood is going straight onto my auto-buy list; I can't wait to see what she writes next. 



I bought Under a Dancing Star at YALC (where my sister had the pretty UaDS themed manicure she's modelling the book with in this photo) and started it that evening, as soon as I'd finished Flame in the Mist. I adored this story, and here are three reasons why I think everyone should read it:

1) It's a really different take on a Shakespeare retelling. I love Much Ado About Nothing, and this reimagining hit on familiar notes, but still felt fresh and special in its own right. I think anyone interested in writing retellings could learn a lot from Wood. 

2) The setting was beautiful: idyllic and intoxicating, with an undercurrent of danger and foreboding. Wood expertly balances the beauty of the Italian countryside with the political threat about to engulf the country. The setting is integral to the story and I also thought it was an interesting link to the original, since Shakespeare's plays are often set in continental Europe, and Italy in particular. 

3) The romance is so well done. Swoonworthy. Beautiful. Perfect. Bea and Ben were as witty as their Shakespearean counterparts and I loved every scene they spent together. 

Tuesday 10 September 2019

Picture This: Two Sides


I first noticed Two Sides on Twitter, but wasn't sure my five-year-old would quite be ready for it. When I found it in our local library at the start of the summer, I decided to give it a go. Reading wise, it was definitely too advanced for her, but we had fun reading it together instead - she did a few words on each page, and I did the rest. 

My daughter is really enjoying longer stories at the moment that we can read together over a few nights or weeks, but she still needs plenty of pictures to hold her interest. Two Sides was perfect for this - the artwork was bright and engaging.

The story itself was sweet and very relevant to the age range it's written for - I just know I'll be referring back to it again when she falls out with friends at school.

If you're looking for a story for children to read independently, I would recommend this to 6-8 year olds, but if you want a lovely, longer story to read to 4-5 year olds, the Two Sides is perfect. 

Thursday 5 September 2019

Flame in the Mist by Renee Ahdieh


Mariko has always known that being a woman means she's not in control of her own fate. But Mariko is the daughter of a prominent samurai and a cunning alchemist in her own right, and she refuses to be ignored. When she is ambushed by a group of bandits known as the Black Clan enroute to a political marriage to Minamoto Raiden - the emperor's son - Mariko realises she has two choices: she can wait to be rescued... or she can take matters into her own hands, hunt down the clan and find the person who wants her dead.

Disguising herself as a peasant boy, Mariko infiltrates the Black Clan's hideout and befriends their leader, the rebel ronin Ranmaru, and his second-in-command, Okami. Ranmaru and Okami warm to Mariko, impressed by her intellect and ingenuity. But as Mariko gets closer to the Black Clan, she uncovers a dark history of secrets that will force her to question everything she's ever known.

I picked up a copy of Flame in the Mist from the book swap YALC last year, and it sat on my tbr list until YALC this year! Hopefully this year's book swap find (The Million Pieces of Neena Gill) won't have to wait that long to be read! Once I started reading FitM, I couldn't stop, and even took it to YALC with me on the train because I couldn't bear the thought of leaving it behind and starting something else. Here are three writing related reasons I loved Flame in the Mist:

1) The characters were complex and imperfect and so wonderful to follow. There were plenty of secrets and twists in the character's backstories too, and relationships unfolded with tantalising slowness. 

2) Like the Wrath and the Dawn, this is a Ahdieh novel with phenomenal world building. I felt completely immersed in the magic and history of FitM's setting. 

3) The cliff hanger ending leaves you immediately desperate to pick up book two (which I would have done if I wasn't so snowed under with MA reading! Luckily I'm just about caught up, so I'm looking forward to starting Smoke in the Sun very, very soon).