children’s fiction

Win a copy of R.J. Palacio’s WONDERful new book

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Ever since John Schu (@MrSchuReads) and Colby Sharp (@colbysharp) of the Nerdy Book Club started raving about R.J. Palacio’s Wonder I couldn’t wait to get my hands on a copy and find out what made this book so amazing.  The wait was definitely worth it and I’m loving this wonderful story.

If you haven’t heard about it, here’s the blurb:

WONDER is the funny, sweet and incredibly moving story of Auggie Pullman. Born with a terrible facial deformity, this shy, bright ten-year-old has been home-schooled by his parents for his whole life, in an attempt to protect him from the stares and cruelty of the outside world. Now, for the first time, Auggie is being sent to a real school – and he’s dreading it. The thing is, Auggie’s just an ordinary kid, with an extraordinary face. But can he convince his new classmates that he’s just like them, underneath it all? Through the voices of Auggie, his big sister Via, and his new friends Jack and Summer, WONDER follows Auggie’s journey through his first year at Beecher Prep.

I have one copy of Wonder to give away.  All you have to do is enter your details in the form below and I’ll randomly pick a winner.  Competition closes Wednesday 29 February, 2012.  Open internationally.

Thanks to everyone who entered.  The winner is Geoff

Continue reading →

Steel Pelicans by Des Hunt

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Back in November 2010, Des Hunt told us on the Christchurch Kids Blog about a new story that he was working on, which he thought would be called Steel Pelicans.  He told us all about the characters, the setting and a little bit about the plot, but he didn’t know whether it was going to get published.  I’ve loved all of Des Hunt’s books so far and Steel Pelicans sounded like a really great story.  I was really excited when I found out that HarperCollins NZ were going to publish Steel Pelicans and I knew that it would be full of the action, adventure, New Zealand locations, and great characters that are always part of Des Hunt’s stories.

Steel Pelicans is about two friends called Dean Steele and Pete Kelly who are the Steel Pelicans of the story.  The story starts in Wollongong, Australia where Dean and Pete have spent most of their life.  Dean gets them into all sorts of trouble, especially when it comes to mucking around with explosives.  Pete’s parents don’t like him hanging around with Dean, and when Pete’s grandmother in New Zealand becomes ill his family decide to move to Auckland to look after her.  Dean doesn’t want Pete to go and gets him involved in one last dangerous stunt before he leaves.  It’s not long before Pete becomes friends with Afi at his new school.  Pete’s parents approve of Afi and let Pete go and stay with Afi and his family at their batch in Port Waikato.  It’s here that Pete and Afi stumble on a smuggling operation and find themselves in deep trouble, which only gets worse when Dean comes over for the holidays.  They’re about to learn that they shouldn’t mess with the Redfern family.

Steel Pelicans is a classic Des Hunt story with all the adventure, mystery and danger that make his stories so good.  His stories are usually set just in New Zealand but this story starts in Australia as that’s where the two main characters are from.  One thing I like about his stories is that they have a real Kiwi feel about them and they’re set in different parts of the country, from the Coromandel to the West Coast to Port Waikato.  He always adds an ecological message into the story and this time it’s about fishing and Paradise Ducks.  I always finish his books knowing that I’ve read a great story and learnt a little bit about New Zealand wildlife at the same time.  I really liked the characters of Pete (or Pelly) and Dean.  They’re almost complete opposites but somehow are still best mates.  I liked how Des Hunt added a second friend into the mix because it created some conflict between the three boys.  Des Hunt also really knows how to write scumbag villains, whether they’re gang members or drug dealers, and you can imagine that they’re the sort of people who might live in your neighbourhood.  If you’re a fan of Des Hunt’s books you’ll love Steel Pelicans, but if you haven’t read any of his books then this one is a great one to start with.

5 out of 5 stars

The One and Only Ivan Giveaway

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If you’ve read my review you know that I LOVE The Only and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate.  I want to spread the love so I’m giving away 2 hardback copies of this wonderful book.

To get in the draw, all you have to do is leave a comment on this post (along with your name and email address) telling me a fact about Silverback Gorillas.  You could either tell me your fact or you could post a link to an interesting Silverback Gorilla video on YouTube.  Competition closes Friday 10 February, 2012.

This competition is now closed.  Congratulations to Sandra and Anita. 

The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate

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Have you ever read a book that makes you want to pull the characters into your arms, rock them gently and tell them everything is going to be OK?  This is exactly what I wanted to do the whole way through Katherine Applegate’s beautiful story, The One and Only Ivan.

Ivan is an easygoing gorilla.  Living at the Exit 8 Big Top Mall and Video Arcade, he has grown accustomed to humans watching him through the glass walls of his domain.  He rarely misses his life in the jungle.  In fact, he hardly ever thinks about it at all.

Instead, Ivan thinks about TV shows he’s seen and about his friends Stella, an elderly elephant, and Bob, a stray dog.  But mostly Ivan thinks about art and how to capture the taste of mango or the sound of leaves with color and a well-placed line.

Then he meets Ruby, a baby elephant taken from her family, and she makes Ivan see their home – and his own art – through new eyes.  When Ruby arrives, change comes with her, and it’s up to Ivan to make it a change for the better.

From the opening lines, ‘I am Ivan. I am a gorilla.  It’s not as easy as it looks,’ you are transported into Ivan’s head and see the world through his eyes.  You read everything Ivan thinks and remembers, sees, touches, tastes and smells.  Ivan comes out with some real pearls of wisdom and I found myself writing down so many quotes that I wanted to remember later.  Things like,

“In a Western, you can tell who the good guys are and who the bad guys are, and the good guys always win.  Bob says Westerns are nothing like real life.”

There is a real sadness to the story, because these once great majestic beasts are locked away in cages, but the friendships between them help them to deal with their situation and add humour to the story.  It’s these friendships and Ivan’s need to protect Ruby that bring a sense of hope.  Ivan wants Ruby to have a better life than the one that he has lead, locked up in the mall.  Katherine Applegate’s writing is absolutely beautiful and I wanted to savour every word.  The stream of consciousness writing style she has used for this book means that she has obviously chosen her words very carefully.  Her writing is incredibly descriptive and, like Ivan, she paints a vibrant picture for you.  This is my one of my favourite descriptions,

“Because she remembers everything, Stella knows many stories.  I like colourful tales with black beginnings and stormy middles and cloudless blue-sky endings.  But any story will do.”

I can’t recommend The One and Only Ivan highly enough.  It’s a story that will affect you and the characters will stay with you long after you close the covers.

 5 out of 5 stars

The Field by Bill Nagelkerke

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How on earth do you tell your family that you’d seen . . .

 . . . Our Lady . . .

 . . . The Virgin Mary . . .

 . . . The Queen of Heaven . . .

 . . . The Mother of God. (The Mother of GOD!)

 And that she had spoken to you.

 And that she was going to speak to you again.

 Up in the Crow’s Nest.

 Tomorrow.

 And that was why you had to be there.

 (And that’s why you’d wet yourself.)

Jacinta’s father works as the groundsman for the local sports stadium, which they’ve nick-named The Field.  While he tends to the needs of the stadium, Jacinta looks down on the world from the Crow’s Nest, the corporate box used by the big-wigs to get the best view of the games at the stadium.  The Crow’s Nest is one of her favourite places in the world and she often pretends that she commands the players and places them where she wants them to go.  She may not have her special place for much longer if the City Council gets its way and knocks down The Field to replace it with a carpark for the new stadium.  It is while she is in the Crow’s Nest one day that Mother Mary appears to her in the television.  Jacinta doesn’t know if she is going crazy and seeing things or whether her vision is real, but when Mary appears again the next day there is no doubt.  Mary wants Jacinta to gather as many people as she can at The Field so that she can pass on a message.  The only problem is trying to get her family and the rest of her town to believe her.

The Field is a refreshingly original story from one of Christchurch’s own children’s authors, Bill Nagelkerke.  The story had a real ‘Kiwi’ feel about it, from the setting (which could be just about any city in New Zealand) to the characters.  Don’t be put off by the religious aspect to the story because I think you’d enjoy it whether or not you have any religious affiliation.  I found Jacinta easy to relate to as she was just a normal kid, and I found myself wondering what I would have done if I’d been in her situation.  In a way she’s a modern day Joan of Arc, who has to convince her parents, the priests and the other people in her city that she actually is communicating with Mother Mary and that they should listen to her message.  One thing that I particularly liked about the story was that the second part was told using different forms of media, including newspaper articles, letters to the editor and City Council meeting minutes.  This added different opinions to the story that we didn’t get in the first part.   The ending leaves you wondering whether people do turn up to hear her message and what that message might have been.  Like the other people in the story, we have to make up our own mind.

3.5 out of 5 stars

The Field is one of the first ebooks I’ve read and it’s the first title in ACHUKA’s digital publishing imprint: ACHUKAbooks.  I’ll look forward to reading their next releases.  ACHUKAbooks  are encouraging more submissions so if you are interested you can contact them at kindle@achuka.co.uk.

The One and Only Ivan book trailer

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The One and Only Ivan is the beautiful new book by Katherine Applegate.  It’s due out in New Zealand in February and I’m reading it at the moment.  I’ve fallen in love with Ivan and his friends and am trying to make the story last as I don’t want it to end.

Floors by Patrick Carman

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Imagine if you could live in a hotel.  Not just any hotel, but one where each of the rooms had a different theme.  If you like cuddly toys, you could live in a room full of cuddly toys of every size, colour and type.  If you like Playstation, you could live in a virtual reality room where you could be a character in any game you chose.  In Patrick Carman’s new book, Floors, Leo lives in the weirdest, most wonderful hotel in the whole world, the Whippet Hotel.

Leo Fillmore and his father Clarence live and work at the Whippet Hotel as the caretakers, making sure everything is in working order.  The hotel’s eccentric owner, Merganzer D. Whippet disappeared one hundred days ago and hasn’t been seen or heard from ever since.  This leaves the mean hotel manager, Ms. Sparks in charge of the hotel, and when the hotel doesn’t work as it should, everybody hears about it.  Leo spends his days helping his father maintain the hotel and making sure Betty and the other ducks get walked.  One day, as Leo is returning the ducks to their pond on the roof, he discovers a mysterious box in the duck elevator.  This box is the first of four that will lead Leo to discover the secrets of the Whippet Hotel and the mystery of the missing Merganzer D. Whippet.

Floors is full of wonder, mystery and mahem, and made me smile the whole way through.  Patrick Carman has created this weird and wonderful hotel and filled it with one exciting room after another.  There’s a Pinball Room, which is set up like a pinball machine, with bowling balls as the pinball and couches for the flippers; the Cake Room filled with real cakes that are delivered by the chefs each morning; and the Central Park Room which contains a scale model of New York’s Central Park.  The characters are just as weird and wonderful as the hotel.  There’s Captain Rickenbacker who thinks that his arch-nemesis is out to get him, the obsessive writer, Theodore Bump, and the nasty hotel manager Ms. Sparks.  Floors is one of the most fun, imaginative stories you’ll read this year.  It’s perfect for fans of Roald Dahl and Lemony Snickett.

5 out of 5 stars.

Blood Runner by James Riordan

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The best authors can put you in their characters shoes and experience everything that they do.  You can empathise with the characters and feel all their emotions.  James Riordan is one of those authors.  I still remember how I felt when I read his book Sweet Clarinet (about a boy badly injured in World War II) many years ago.  His latest book, Blood Runner, puts us in the shoes of a boy growing up in Apartheid South Africa, who fights for his people’s freedom in the only way he knows how.

Samuel is growing up in a South Africa divided into blacks and whites.  Samuel and his people have to carry passbooks in order to move into the whites-only zone, but a group of men in Samuel’s town don’t think that it is right they should have to carry them.  This group stage a peaceful protest by walking to the police station, and many of the other residents of the town, including Samuel and his family come to watch what will happen.  In a display of their force, the police arm themselves with guns and tanks, and when someone fires accidentally, all hell breaks loose.  As people try to flee, the police start gunning them down and Samuel’s parents and sister are killed.  Samuel is separated from his brothers who both retaliate by joining the anti-Apartheid movement, with guns and terrorism as their weapons.  But Sam decides to fight for freedom in his own way – as a runner.  Against all odds, Samuel strives to become the best runner he can so that he can compete in marathons, and achieve his dream of winning gold in the Olympic Games.

Blood Runner is an inspirational story that portrays the hardships and prejudice that black people, like Samuel, faced in Apartheid South Africa.  Through Samuel, James Riordan shows us that people can face extraordinary circumstances but still have the strength and determination to fight for what they believe is right.  James Riordan also shows us, through other people Samuel meets, that not all white people shared the same views, that many of them wanted everyone in South Africa to have the same rights and freedom.  James also provides a basic history of Apartheid at the end of the book which would be a great teaching tool.  If you like authors like Elizabeth Laird, Deborah Ellis or Sally Grindley then this is the perfect book for you.

4 out of 5 stars

Coming up from HarperCollins New Zealand – February 2012

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Here are some of the great books I’m looking forward to coming in February from HarperCollins New Zealand.

Steel Pelicans by Des Hunt (NZ)

Sometimes friendship and loyalty can be dangerous things – especially when fireworks are involved.
Inseparable Aussie friends dare-devil Dean and tag-along Pelly often get up to no good. That’s what makes them the Steel Pelicans. But as Dean’s homemade fireworks get increasingly dangerous, things start going wrong, and Pelly’s parents hasten a move back to New Zealand.  After living most of his life in Australia, Pelly feels like he’s been dumped in a foreign land with no friends and a school that doesn’t care, until he joins up with Afi Moore and is invited to stay the weekend at the Moores’ seaside bach. Then the pair stumble on a smuggling operation and find themselves deep in trouble, which only gets worse when Dean comes over for the holidays. In no time at all, Dean’s obsession with explosives threatens not only the investigation but also their lives.

Des Hunt is one of my favourite New Zealand authors.  He writes adventure/mystery stories set in New Zealand and they usually have an ecological message.  If you live in NZ and haven’t read any of Des Hunt’s books you should remedy this immediately. They’re especially good for boys around age 9+.

The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate

Ivan is an easy-going gorilla. Living at the Exit 8 Big Top Mall and Video Arcade, he has grown accustomed to humans watching him through the glass walls of his domain. He rarely misses his life in the jungle. In fact, he hardly ever thinks about it at all.
Instead, Ivan thinks about TV shows he’s seen, and his friends Stella, an elderly elephant, and Bob, a stray dog. But mostly Ivan thinks about art and how to capture the taste of a mango or the sound of leaves with colour and a well-placed line.  Then he meets Ruby, a baby elephant taken from her family, and she makes Ivan see their home-and his own art-through new eyes. When Ruby arrives, change comes with her, and it’s up to Ivan to make it a change for the better.
Katherine Applegate blends humour and poignancy to create Ivan’s unforgettable first person narration in a story of friendship, art, and hope.

I’ve heard so many good things about this book and I just know that it’s going to be one of those stories that gets right under my skin. 

The Lorax (Eco edition) by Dr. Seuss

An eco-friendly edition of one of my favourite Dr. Seuss stories, printed on 100% recycled paper.  The Lorax movie, starring Danny Devito (as The Lorax) is coming soon so this is a lovely edition to bring the story to a new generation.