children’s fiction

Ivy + Bean: No News is Good News by Annie Barrows

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Working in a library you see the hundreds of fairy/princess/ballerina books that fill the shelves and that young girls borrow by the handful.  They’re all very much the same story, with different characters so kids fly through them.  It’s great when you discover a series for young girls that’s original and features quirky, memorable characters.  If you know girls who want a story that will make them laugh, about girls just like them, then the Ivy + Bean stories, written by Annie Barrows and illustrated by Sophie Blackall, are perfect.  No News is Good News is the latest book in the series.

Ivy and Bean need some money.  Ten dollars to be exact.  Never mind what for.  Don’t even ask.  Okay.  It’s for cheese.  Two bags of low fat Belldeloon cheese in a special just-for-you serving size.  Don’t ask why.

But ten dollars is a lot of money.  How are Bean and Ivy going to make ten dollars?  Should they wash the car?  They’re not allowed to touch the car.  No.  Should they write a newspaper about their neighbours and sell it?  Great idea – and easy too!  Yes.  All Ivy and Bean have to do is snoop around Pancake Court and get some news.  It’s very interesting what you can find out if you look in your neighbours’ windows.  It’s even more interesting when the neighbours read about it in the newspaper.

No News is Good News is the 8th Ivy + Bean book, but the first one that I’ve read.  I loved it and I’m going to hunt down the other books in the series from my library!  If, like me, you haven’t met Ivy and Bean before, let me introduce them.  They’re two unlikely friends.  Bean is loud, wild and goofy and Ivy is quiet and full of ideas.  They’re complete opposites but they make a great team.  In their latest adventure, they need money to get their favourite cheese (or the wax on the outside of the cheese) so they have to come up with a scheme to get it.  After a very unsuccessful attempt to sell their flying potion, Bean’s dad suggests they make a newspaper.  That’s when all the trouble starts.  Little do their neighbours know that their secrets (and their bottoms) will feature in Ivy and Bean’s newspaper.

Ivy and Bean are quirky, funny, and mischievous.  They’re the sort of characters that girls will want to be like and will wish were their friends.  Like Ivy and Bean, Annie Barrows and Sophie Blackall make a great team.  Sophie’s quirky illustrations go perfectly with Annie’s text and will really appeal to girls.

Get Ivy + Bean: No News is Good News from your library or bookshop now.  Once you’ve read one, you’ll be hooked!

Recommended for 7+

International Ivy + Bean Day is being celebrated around the world on Saturday 13 October.  We’re celebrating it at Christchurch City Libraries, and you can ask your library or bookshop to see if they are too.

Elf Girl and Raven Boy: Fright Forest

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Marcus Sedgwick is one of my favourite writers of Young Adult fiction.  Blood Red Snow White would have to be in my list of all-time favourite books.  In recent years he has started writing younger fiction (for 8-12 year olds), with his Raven Mysteries series (illustrated by Pete Williamson).  The first book in his great new younger fiction series, Elf Boy and Raven Girl: Fright Forest, has just been released.

Raven Boy has short black spiky hair, amazing night vision and can talk to animals. Elf Girl is light of foot, sharp of mind and…elfish all over. She hadn’t expected to meet Raven Boy; it’s not that often someone falls out of the trees and squashes your home flat like Raven Boy did.

Before they know it they are plunged into some very strange, creepy, altogether spooky and hilarious adventures as they save their world from trolls, ogres, witches and things that slither and slide in the fiendish forest.

Fright Forest is a fun-filled story, with quirky characters that kids will love.  Elf Girl and Raven Boy are very different from each other, but they join forces to find out who is destroying their home.  Raven Boy has a habit of eeping like a raven when he’s scared and Elf Girl’s ears go red at the tips when she’s embarrassed.  Elf Girl and Raven Boy aren’t actually their real names and they have seem to have a lot of fun trying to guess each others real names. At the beginning of each chapter we learn something new about the characters or the place that they live, like the fact that Raven Boy is really good at climbing or that Elf Girl loves shoes.  They meet some rather strange characters on their journey, including a helpful rat, some hungry trolls and a very bad witch, and find themselves in some very awkward situations.  I love illustrated novels for younger children and Pete Williamson’s illustrations are fantastic. They match the tone of Marcus’ story perfectly. They’re a little bit dark and spooky, but very funny as well, especially the illustrations of the trolls.

Elf Girl and Raven Boy is perfect for 8-12 year olds who love adventure, a touch of magic, or just a really funny story.  I think the series would be especially great for those girls who don’t like fairy books or boys who want something more than Captain Underpants.  For those children who love series, there are five more Elf Girl and Raven Boy stories to come too.

4 out of 5 stars

Win a signed copy of The Brain Sucker

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Glenn Wood’s fantastic debut children’s novel, The Brain Sucker, is released this week.  To celebrate, I’m having a week of brain-sucking fun, with my review of The Brain Sucker, a video of NZ comedian Jeremy Corbett reading the prologue, and a guest post from Glenn.

Thanks to Walker Books Australia I also have 5 signed copies of The Brain Sucker to give away.  All you have to do to get in the draw is enter your name and email address in the form below.

Thanks to everyone who entered.  This competition is now closed.

Jeremy Corbett reads The Brain Sucker

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NZ comedian and presenter of 7 Days, Jeremy Corbett reads the prologue to Glenn Wood’s fantastic new book, The Brain Sucker.  It’s one of the coolest books I’ve read lately and you can read my review here.

Tomorrow I’ll have 5 signed copies of The Brain Sucker up for grabs, so make sure you pop back and enter the draw.

The Brain Sucker by Glenn Wood

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I love a story with a great villain.  Some of them, like Patrick Ness’ Mayor Prentice and Chris Morphew’s Noah Shackleton, you hate so much because they’re incredibly evil men (and you really want to punch them in the face!).  Other villains are quite likeable because, no matter how hard they try, things really don’t work out for them.  Lester Smythe, in Glenn Wood’s fantastic debut children’s book, The Brain Sucker, is one such villain.

How would you act if part of your personality was stolen with a brain-sucking machine?

Lester Smythe has a black heart. He s invented a dangerous brain-sucking machine that removes the goodness from its victims, and he intends to use it to rid the world of all human kindness. But Lester didn t count on thirteen-year-old Callum McCullock and his two best friends, Sophie and Jinx. The trio vow to destroy the brain sucker. And nothing will stop them.

The Brain Sucker is one of the coolest junior fiction (middle grade) books I’ve read in ages!  The idea is original, the story is action-packed, the heroes are unlike any you’ve met before and the villain is sinister.  From the very first page, when the villain slinks onto the page, I knew I was going to love the story, and I greedily turned the pages wanting to know how it would end.

Lester Smythe is a sinister villain, but there’s also something awkward about him.  He reminded me of a cross between Gru (from Despicable Me) and Professor Doofenshmirtz (from Phineas and Ferb) and I almost expected him to announce that his brain sucking machine was the ‘Brain-suckinator.’ I think Craig Phillips has perfectly captured Lester in his front cover illustration (I especially like the way that Lester’s eyes catch the light).  Lester’s plan is to rid the world of goodness because anyone acting good makes him physically sick, due to a horrible experience when he was younger.  The machine that will help him with his task is the Brain Sucker, which sucks the goodness right out of people’s heads.  It’s up to the heroes of the story to save the day (and the world from becoming a miserable place).

The heroes of the story, Callum, Sophie and Jinx are unlike any heroes I’ve met before.  They all have flaws but they manage to overcome these to help save the day.  Callum is paralysed from the waist down so he’s wheelchair bound, but he’s really determined and doesn’t let his disability get in his way.  He’s also got one of the coolest wheelchairs around!  Sophie is Callum’s best friend and she’s incredibly talented and intelligent.  She has a mechanical mind, so she can make improvements to her toys or invent new gadgets to help her friend.  Her only problem is that she gets claustrophobic.  Jinx is the funniest character in the book, because he has really bad luck.  He’s always in the wrong place at the wrong time, whether it’s a gas main exploding under his school desk or bird dive-bombing him.  You always know something bad is going to happen when he’s around, especially when his thumb starts to dance.

If you’re after a fun story, full of adventure, mystery, magic, exciting gadgets, and great characters, The Brain Sucker is the book for you.  I’d recommend it for 9+ and it would be a great read-aloud for Year 5-8.

4 out of 5 stars

Win a signed copy of The Terrible Thing That Happened to Barnaby Brocket

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John Boyne is touring New Zealand this week, including attending the Christchurch Writer’s Festival.  I had the pleasure of interviewing him this morning, and I’ll be posting this soon.  As well as signing my copies of Noah Barleywater Runs Away and The Terrible Thing That Happened to Barnaby Brocket, John kindly signed two extra copies of Barnaby Brocket.

If you would like to win one of 2 signed copies of The Terrible Thing That Happened to Barnaby Brocket all you have to do is enter your details in the form below.  Competition closes Friday 7 September (NZ only).

Thanks to everyone who entered.  This competition is now closed.

Chris Colfer introduces The Land of Stories: The Wishing Spell

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The Land of Stories: The Wishing Spell is the debut novel from Chris Colfer (Kurt from Glee).  It’s a beautiful book and I’m loving the story.  If you like books about books, like Inkheart, or fairy tales it’s the perfect book for you.  Available now in NZ.

Win The Infinity Ring: A Mutiny in Time

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To celebrate the release of Scholastic’s new interactive series, The Infinity Ring, I’m giving away 2 copies of the first book, A Mutiny in Time by James Dashner.  It’s a very cool new time travel adventure series, perfect for fans of The 39 Clues.  To learn more about the series you can read my post here on the blog.

Thanks to everyone who entered.  This competition is now closed.

Scholastic NZ are also running a really cool competition on their website to celebrate the release of the series.  All you have to do is register and play the Infinity Ring game on http://www.scholastic.co.nz/assets/pdf/tileE.pdf and you go in the draw to win iPods and iPads.

The Infinity Ring: A Mutiny in Time by James Dashner

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A Mutiny in Time, the first book in Scholastic’s new interactive series, The Infinity Ring is released today. Like the hugely popular 39 Clues series, the story doesn’t stop when you close the book.  It’s one of those books that comes with extra bits and pieces so that you can find out more about the story and the characters.  The Infinity Ring series is all about time travel so you follow the characters through different time periods.  Each book comes with a Hystorian’s Guide, a collectible map that includes a special code to unlock exclusive content on the Infinity Ring online game.  The multi-dimensional game on http://www.infinityring.com allows readers to play as the main characters from the books, as they travel back in history to fix the “Great Breaks,” key events that have gone wrong, altering history as we know it.  Players can interact with characters and explore key events in history alongside Christopher Columbus, Abraham Lincoln, and other figures featured in the books.

Book 1 is called A Mutiny in Time  and it’s written by one of my favourite authors, James Dashner (author of The Maze Runner series).

History is broken, and three kids must travel back in time to set it right!

When best friends Dak Smyth and Sera Froste stumble upon the secret of time travel — a hand-held device known as the Infinity Ring — they’re swept up in a centuries-long secret war for the fate of mankind. Recruited by the Hystorians, a secret society that dates back to Aristotle, the kids learn that history has gone disastrously off course.

Now it’s up to Dak, Sera, and teenage Hystorian-in-training Riq to travel back in time to fix the Great Breaks . . . and to save Dak’s missing parents while they’re at it. First stop: Spain, 1492, where a sailor named Christopher Columbus is about to be thrown overboard in a deadly mutiny!

Reserve your copy of The Infinity Ring: A Mutiny in Time at your library now or grab a copy from your bookshop.

Enter my competition to win one of two copies of The Infinity Ring: A Mutiny in Time.

Scholastic NZ are also running a really cool competition to celebrate the release of the series.  All you have to do is register and play the Infinity Ring game on http://www.scholastic.co.nz/assets/pdf/tileE.pdf and you go in the draw to win iPods and iPads.

Four Children and It Book Trailer

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Four Children and It is Jacqueline Wilson’s brand new book.  It’s due out this month and you can reserve your copy at your library now.  I haven’t read a Jacqueline Wilson book before but I’ll definitely be reading this one.  I remember watching the BBC adaptation of Five Children and It as a kid and loved it.  I’m sure Four Children and It will be just as popular as her previous books.