Eight Keys by Suzanne LaFleur

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Elise never really knew her parents.  Her mum died after her birth and her dad got sick and died of cancer a few years later.  Her Uncle Hugh and Aunt Bessie promised to look after her and she has lived with them ever since.  She’s been best friends with Franklin for years and they’ve always loved playing games like Knights together.  When they start middle school Elise starts to get embarrassed by Franklin and doesn’t want to hang around with him anymore.  Then there’s her locker buddy, Amanda who nicknames her Scabula and squashes her lunch every morning.  Elise starts to hate school and is afraid to go because of Amanda’s bullying.  Just when she needs it a special surprise comes along.  Her father leaves her a mystery to unlock and with each discovery a new key arrives.

Eight Keys is about a girl discovering who she is and learning about the parents she didn’t know.  When Elise is feeling lost and worried, the mystery that her father left for her comes along and helps her choose who she wants to be.  It helps her see who her mum and dad were and how much they loved her, even before she was born.  You see a real change in Elise, from the worried, confused girl at the start to the confident, happy girl at the end.  I really liked the character of Franklin because he’s funny, loyal and will do anything to help his friend.  Eight Keys is the perfect book for girls who like Jacqueline Wilson and Cathy Cassidy.  It will make you laugh and cry, but leave a smile on your face.

Eight Keys would make a great read-aloud for 9-12 year olds, especially as it deals with bullying and friendship.

Far Rockaway by Charlie Fletcher

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If you were to meet the characters from your favourite books who would they be?  Would you want to meet Harry Potter, Matilda, or Percy Jackson? You certainly wouldn’t want to bump into Count Olaf, Captain Hook, or Voldemort.  In Far Rockaway by Charlie Fletcher, Cat finds herself face to face with some of the heroes and villains of classic adventure stories.

Cat and her grandfather, Victor made a pact that one day, just for fun of it, they’d take the subway and stay on it until the very end of the line, at a place called Far Rockaway.  They never get to make this trip together because, while crossing the street in Manhattan, Cat and Victor are knocked down by a speeding fire truck.  Cat wakes up in a world made from all the books her grandfather used to read to her, and filled with the most memorable characters from classic adventure stories, including The Last of the Mohicans and Treasure Island.  Cat needs their help to find the mythic castle of Far Rockaway, and get herself and her grandfather home alive.

Far Rockaway is part fantasy, part adventure and full of pirates, indians, and zombies.  I really like the way that Charlie Fletcher has weaved Cat’s story in with three completely different stories.  If you know the characters from the classic adventure stories you’ll see what a fantastic job Charlie has done of transferring them to another story.  There were a couple of characters I didn’t know but this has made me want to go and read those stories and discover who they were.  Cat is a great character, who’s brave, loyal and kicks butt when she needs to.  I like what she says about girls in stories,

“Why do the guys get to do all the rescuing? I mean I loved all the stories you gave me and read me, but one thing: where were the real girls? Half the books, they weren’t there at all, and the other half they’re wimped-out girly-girls getting all weepy and falling in love with the mysterious complicated dude or waiting for the right guy to save them.”

If you want a swash-buckling adventure story about the magic of stories then join Cat on the journey of a lifetime in Far Rockaway.

Ruby Redfort: Look Into My Eyes by Lauren Child

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If you’ve read the Clarice Bean books by Lauren Child, you’ll know that Ruby Redfort is Clarice Bean’s favourite book character.  She’s a super brainy genius with terrible eyesight and loves to wear t-shirts with slogans like ‘What a total yawn’ and ‘Bored beyond belief.’  In Look Into My Eyes, we find out how Ruby got started as a secret agent.

Ruby Redfort lives her life by a set of rules, like Rule 1: You can never be completely sure what might happen next, or Rule 7: Never forget the little things – it’s the little things that will lead people to notice the big things.  When a mysterious stranger calls Ruby and sets her a challenge, her rules help her to solve the puzzle.  It’s not long before she finds her way into the HQ of the most secret of secret agencies – SPECTRUM.  After sitting SPECTRUM’s Agency Test, Ruby is put to work solving a code that one their agents failed to solve before she died in an avalanche.  The closer she gets to the truth, the more danger she finds herself in.  Ruby has grabbed the attention of some of the world’s most evil villains and crooks, but will SPECTRUM be able to save her before it’s too late.

Ruby Redfort: Look Into My Eyes has got me hooked on Ruby Redfort and her adventures.  Ruby Redfort is a very cool character and the sort of girl that everyone would like.  She’s smart, fearless, funny and isn’t afraid to stand out from the crowd.  She has quite an old-fashioned way of talking (she calls people buster and bozo), but that’s something I really like about her character and it makes her stand out.  The way that Ruby answers the phone made me crack up every time.  Ruby’s butler (or household manager as he like to be called), Hitch is one of the coolest butlers ever!  He’s very mysterious when you first meet him, but he’s always there when the Redforts need him.  Apart from Hitch, alot of the adults in the book are boring, stupid and just interested in themselves and their parties.  I was wondering how a girl as smart and full of personality as Ruby had such dull parents.

If you love books full of mystery, with kids who are secret agents, and evil villains who want to commit the crime of the century, then Ruby Redfort: Look Into My Eyes is the book for you.  As Clarice Bean says, ‘you will literally be on the edge of your wits.’

The Art of The Adventures of Tintin

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If you’re as excited about The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn as I am you’ll be watching all the different movie trailers, looking at images from the movie, and maybe even wishing you were Tintin.  I loved the cartoon series of Tintin as well as the books and the movie looks amazing.  While you wait for the movie, there is an amazing book that you should check out called The Art of The Adventures of Tintin.

I find it really interesting finding out how movies are made, how they choose the actors to play the characters, what costumes they choose, and how they decide where to shoot the movie.  The Art of the Adventures of Tintin is overflowing with all this information about The Secret of the Unicorn.  There are introductions by the brilliant Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson who are directing and producing the movie.  They talk about why they decided to make this movie and how important it was to get the details correct.  The author of the book (and Lead Conceptual Designer for the movie), Chris Guise takes you on a kind of tour of the movie, showing you some of the amazing art work and design from the team at Weta Workshop that has gone into the movie.

The book is split into four sections: The Film Makers, The Beginning, The Characters, and The Environments.  The Beginning gives some background on Tintin’s creator, Herge, and shows you how the designers came up with the look of the movie.  My favourite section of the book is The Characters.  You get to see what Tintin could have looked like in the movie, and I really think they picked the right image for the movie, because some the early images look pretty strange.  You see how they created all the main characters and find out how they made them look so realistic.  The Environments shows you how the designers made the sets, props and vehicles look exactly like Herge imagined them.

If you’re a Tintin fan or even just like seeing how movies are made, The Art of the Adventures of Tintin is the perfect book for you.  There is so much detail and so many images in this book that it will keep you entertained for hours.  I can’t wait to see how all these aspects of the film have come together when The Secret of the Unicorn is released in New Zealand on 26th December.

Subscribe and win a New Zealand picture book pack

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If you’ve enjoyed reading my reviews you might like to get them emailed to you as soon as they’re posted.  If you subscribe to My Best Friends Are Books before 30 November you could win a New Zealand picture book pack just in time for Christmas.  The pack includes All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth, There’s a Hole in my Bucket, and The Elves and the Cloakmaker.

The winner of the New Zealand picture book pack is Nicole Latham.  Thanks to all my new followers!

Rick Riordan talks about The Son of Neptune

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The Son of Neptune is the latest book in the Heroes of Olympus series by Rick Riordan.  If you loved the Percy Jackson series you’ll love this new series with new demigods and mythical creatures.  Percy Jackson even makes an appearance in The Son of Neptune.

The Un-forgotten Coat by Frank Cottrell Boyce

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When you speak a different language from everyone else or come from a different culture it can be hard to fit in and make new friends.  In his new book, The Un-forgotten Coat, Frank Cottrell Boyce tells us the story of two brothers from Mongolia who just want to fit in.

The Un-forgotten Coat is told from the point of view of Julie, who is chosen by Chingis and his brother Nergui to be their ‘Good Guide.’  As their ‘Good Guide’ Julie looks after them and helps them to fit into their school and life in England.  Julie and her classmates learn all about Mongolia and that Chingis and Nergui had to leave their home because they were being chased by a demon.  Julie wants to be invited around to their house like her other friends but she can’t even figure out where they live.  When she discovers where they live Julie and her mother are not welcomed and Julie doesn’t understand why.  One day Chingis and Nergui disappear and Julie’s teacher tells her class that they weren’t supposed to be in England and were sent back to their own country.  Julie never sees or hears from them again until she makes a discovery on the internet many years later.

The Un-forgotten Coat is a story about friendship that leaves you with a smile on your face.  It shows you how hard it can be for people of other cultures to fit in, but how they just need friends to help them along the way.  There are some really funny parts in the book, especially when Chingis and Nergui are learning how to play football.  I really liked how Frank Cottrell Boyce has used Polaroid photos to help tell the story and I think it would be interesting to write your own story just using the photos.   Frank Cottrell Boyceis a great storyteller, and if you like his other stories including Millions, Framed and Cosmic, you’ll love The Un-forgotten Coat.

Brother/Sister by Sean Olin

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Some books you can only read when you feel in the right mood, and other books have the power to affect your mood.  Sean Olin’s latest book, Brother/Sister got so inside my head that it started to affect my mood.  It has to be one of the darkest, most disturbing Young Adult books that I’ve read in a long time

The brother and sister of the title are Will and Ashley and each chapter alternates between their points of view.  Sean Olin grabs you from the first paragraph,

“How many times do I have to say it?  Yes, I see the picture.  You’ve been shoving it in my face for, like, the past forty-five minutes.  And, yes, I understand what it is.  It’s a body, obviously.  It’s a dead body.  I’m not blind, okay?”

Both Will and Asheley are being interviewed by the police and it’s clear that they have something to do with the dead body.  Through their interviews we hear about their lives and their decisions that have lead them to this point.  Their parents have never been good role models.  Their mum has mental health problems which have lead to drink and drugs so she’s always in and out of rehab centres.  Their dad decided he couldn’t handle their mum and just up and left one day.  For a while now they’ve only had each other to look out for them and Will is the protective older brother.  He loves his sister and he’ll do anything to protect her.  When Asheley’s boyfriend forces himself on her, Will lashes out and does the unthinkable.   Asheley struggles to keep it together and Will really starts to spiral out of control, believing that people will find out what he’s done and try to take Asheley from him.  But at what stage does Will’s love for his sister cross the line?

Brother/Sister is a dark and disturbing story about the relationship between a brother and sister and the lengths they will go to to look out for each other.  Sean Olin takes the reader to some dark places and just when you think the character’s situation couldn’t get worse, it does.  Sean does an amazing job of getting inside his character’s heads and showing the reader the different sides of these characters.  Both Will and Asheley have authentic voices and, even when Will was at his most unstable, I still empathised with him.  Although I found the story disturbing in parts, Sean’s writing style made me want to keep reading to see how it would end.  If you enjoyed Jenny Downham’s You Against Me, try Sean Olin’s different take on the brother/sister relationship.