adventure

Maddy West and the Tongue Taker by Brian Falkner

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Characters in Brian Falkner’s books have saved the world from a deadly virus, discovered the recipe for Coca-Cola, developed super powers, traveled in time, and been chased by black lions.  In Brian’s latest book, Maddy West and the Tongue Taker, an evil witch is stealing people’s ability to talk, and it’s up to Maddy and her friends to stop her.

Maddy West can speak every language in the world. When she is asked to translate some ancient scrolls, Maddy is excited. But the scrolls hide many secrets. Secrets that send Maddy on a wild adventure with a stowaway ninja, a mysterious monkey, a Bulgarian wrestler and a fiendish witch. And soon Maddy finds herself in deadly peril. Does Maddy have what it takes to save herself and her new friends?

Maddy West and the Tongue Taker is an action-packed, magic-filled adventure that has something for everyone.  There’s a girl who can speak every language known to man (some that haven’t been spoken for thousands of years), a very clever monkey, a ninja that can go invisible, a giant Bulgarian wrestler, a witch, ancient scrolls, magic, and lots of spiders and cockroaches. The story is full of twists and turns, so you’re not sure who to trust and whose side of the story to believe.

Maddy is a very cool character.  She has an amazing gift that she uses to help people, especially those who speak another language.  She helps her friend Kazuki and the giant Dimitar by translating for them so that others can understand them or so they can understand the horrible situation that they’re in.  Maddy is also very brave and isn’t afraid to stand up to the dangerous people she meets.  Kazuki is a funny character, who is a loyal friend to Maddy and a ninja who can make himself invisible.  He does his best to protect Maddy, including stowing away on her plane to Bulgaria.  Some of the adults in the story are really annoying, like Maddy’s mum who only seems to be interested in how much money she can make, but there are others, like Dimitar, who are friendly and do all they can to help Maddy.

I love Donovan Bixley’s cover and his illustrations throughout the book.  I’m a huge fan of illustrated novels for children and Donovan’s black and white illustrations add to the excitement and suspense of the story.  I love the way that he has brought Brian’s characters to life, especially Dimitar and Maddy.

Maddy West and the Tongue Taker is a great read for 9+, especially if you liked Brian’s last book, Northwood.  It’s perfect for anyone who likes adventure, mystery and magical stories.  Get it now from your library or bookshop.

4 out of 5 stars

You can enter my competition to win 1 of 3 copies of Maddy West and the Tongue Taker here on the blog.

The Crystal Code by Richard Newsome

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What do you get when you mix Tintin, James Bond, and The Famous Five together?  You get Richard Newsome’s Billionaire Series.  So far in the series we’ve followed Gerald, Ruby and Sam to England, France, Greece and India, trying to stay one step ahead of the notorious Mason Green.  In their latest action-packed adventure, The Crystal Code, we join our favourite characters as they make new friends and enemies.

Gerald, Ruby and Sam are meeting up with Alisha and Gerald’s Australian school friend Ox for two weeks of snowboarding in the mountains of California. It’s a dream vacation.

But soon after they arrive—by helicopter, with Gerald’s butler Mr Fry at the controls, of course—the private chalet is attacked. Gerald and the gang escape through a secret passage, only to be pursued on snowmobiles by men with guns across frozen lakes and into the path of a cascading avalanche.

Could this be the work of Gerald’s nemesis Sir Mason Green, recently escaped from prison? Or is someone else behind the attack?Does the old dry cleaning ticket Gerald found amongst Green’s belongings hold the key?And how does an invitation to join the secretive Billionaire’s Club land Gerald in so much trouble?

The Crystal Code is Richard Newsome at his best!  It’s chock-full of everything I love about the Billionaire Series – chases, fights, close calls, awkward situations, sarcastic remarks, laugh out loud moments and memorable characters.  From the Sierra Nevada mountains in California, to Prague, and a tiny island in Sweden, Richard Newsome takes us on a wild ride where the action never lets up.  Whenever I read one of Richard’s books I feel the absolute joy that I remember feeling the first time I read Tintin’s adventures.  They make you wish that you were a billionaire with a crazed mad man threatening your life.  As the characters grow up, their relationships change, so things become a bit awkward between Gerald and Ruby (especially when another girl, Felicity, gets thrown into the mixture).  I really liked the dynamics between the characters, and by introducing new characters into the original trio, Richard has refreshed the series and made it even more exciting.

Richard has also taken the series in a different direction by introducing some new villains.  At the center of the story is a centuries old manuscript that nobody has been able to decipher, and there are two characters that are desperate to get their hands on it.  Tycho Brahe, the mysterious man with the silver nose, is a fantastically sinister character who will stop at nothing to carry out his plans.  There is a lot of mystery surrounding him and Gerald and his friends don’t believe that he can be the man he says that he is.  Then there is Ursus, the man with many names, a shadowy character whose motives are unknown.  They’re both really intriguing characters and I have a feeling we’ll meet them again.

The Crystal Code, and the rest of the Billionaire series, are a must read for anyone, young or old, who love action, adventure and mystery stories.  Grab it from your library or bookshop now and dive into the adventures of billionaire boy, Gerald, and his friends.

5 out of 5 stars

Interview with Barbara Else, author of The Queen and the Nobody Boy

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Barbara Else is the creator of the Land of Fontania, the magical setting of her award-winning The Traveling Restaurant and her latest book, The Queen and the Nobody Boy.  Her books are full of magic, adventure, pirates, spies, and wonderful characters.  I had a few questions about Fontania and its inhabitants and Barbara very kindly answered them.

  • What’s your favourite place in Fontania?

I’m a city girl so it has to be the City of Spires. But I’d like to visit the High Murisons. There (so I have heard) live the only wild bears in Fontania. They have a growl deeper than any other living creature.

  • The Um’binnians have strange names and speak quite differently than the Fontanians. How did you come up with them?

The name for Um’Binnia just typed out under my fingers when I was wondering what to call the neighbouring country. It seemed to me that a good way to identity the Um’Binnian characters would be to use commas in their names too. They speak the same language as Fontanians but, just as all English speaking countries have different accents, I thought the Um’Binnians would sound different too.

  • The Queen and the Nobody Boy features some wonderful new characters, creatures and machines. What is your favourite creation from this story?

I love Hodie for his courage and determination.  And I love the squirrel for its single-mindedness.  But I think Princessa Lu’nedda is the character I cherish the most. She’s very troubled by her father, seems far too cutesy and fluffy at first, but is full of courageous surprises.

And I’m very pleased with the wind-train.

  • If you were the Queen of Fontania what would your first royal proclamation be?

‘Royal Proclamation, Part the First:  Every city, town and village in the Kingdom of Fontania shall have a library stocked to the brim with books to suit each child.

Royal Proclamation, Part the Second: At the end of each year of successful reading every child shall be rewarded with a cake shaped like the Travelling Restaurant.’

  • Can we look forward to more Tales of Fontania?

I’m certainly playing around with more ideas.

 

 

Barbara’s follow-up to The Traveling Restaurant, called The Queen and the Nobody Boy, is out now in NZ.  It’s another wonderful story, set in the world of Fontania.  You can read my review of The Queen and the Nobody Boy here on the blog.

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.

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

The Terrible Thing That Happened to Barnaby Brocket Book Trailer

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The Terrible Thing That Happened to Barnaby Brocket is the latest children’s book from John Boyne, author of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas.  I’m reading it at the moment and absolutely loving it!  John Boyne is coming to Christchurch at the end of August for the Christchurch Writer’s Festival and I’m very excited to be interviewing him on behalf of Christchurch City Libraries.

The Terrible Thing That Happened to Barnaby Brocket is out in NZ on August 17.

The Drover’s Quest by Susan Brocker

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Over on the Christchurch Kids Blog (Christchurch City Libraries’ blog for children aged 8-12 years) our June Star Author, Susan Brocker has just released a fantastic new book called The Drover’s Quest.  It’s filled with Susan’s favourite things, including history and animals, and it’s set in New Zealand in the 1860s.

Rumour is flying around the west coast gold fields that Tom McGee has struck it rich and found a nugget of gold as big as a man’s fist. So no one is surprised when next his campsite is found wrecked and abandoned. Men have been killed for a lot less on the tough goldfields of 1860s New Zealand.

But one person is convinced Tom is not dead. His headstrong daughter, Charlotte.  Solving the mystery is not her first task, though. First, she must get to the coast. A skilful horse rider, she disguises herself as a boy and joins a cattle drive across the Southern Alps. To survive the dangerous drive over Arthur’s Pass and to keep her identity hidden from the vicious trail boss, she’ll need the help of her dog, her horse, and her father’s friend, Tama. She knows she can do it – she has to – but what will she find? And will her new American friend, Joseph, help or hinder her quest?

Charlie is in for the ride of her life – and the stakes couldn’t be higher.

If you love stories set in the past, stories about animals or stories with lots of adventure then The Drover’s Quest is the book for you.  The story starts in Christchurch and the characters travel over Arthur’s Pass to Hokitika on the West Coast.  These are my favourite parts of our beautiful country and I’ve travelled the route they took many times so I could see it clearly in my head.  It’s a route that is very quick and easy to travel today but was very rugged and dangerous in the 1860s.  There is a very tense part in the book where the drovers are taking the cattle down the Otira Gorge (it had me on the edge of my seat).

I really liked the characters, especially Tama and Joseph who bring different cultures into the story, and Scar because I couldn’t figure out whether he was good or bad.  The animals are also important characters in the story and they are incredibly loyal to their masters.

Check out the Christchurch Kids Blog throughout June to find out more about The Drover’s Quest from our June Star Author, Susan Brocker.

5 out of 5 stars

Red Rocks by Rachael King

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A great book can transport you to a place that you’ve never been to.  You can picture it so vividly in your mind and you can smell the smells, feel the warm sun on your skin or the biting wind in your bones.  I especially love books set in New Zealand, because they can show me a part of the country that I’ve never seen and make me want to visit it desperately, just so I can imagine the characters walking around the place.  Rachael King’s new book for younger readers, Red Rocks, transported me to Wellington’s wild south coast and immersed me in a magical story about the mystical selkies.

While holidaying at his father’s house, Jake explores Wellington’s wild south coast, with its high cliffs, biting winds, and its fierce seals. When he stumbles upon a perfectly preserved sealskin, hidden in a crevice at Red Rocks, he’s compelled to take it home and hide it under his bed, setting off a chain of events that threatens to destroy his family. Can he put things right before it’s too late?

Red Rocks is a magical adventure story, set in New Zealand, that children and adults alike will love.  Rachael King has taken the Celtic myth of the selkies and transplanted it into a New Zealand setting that kiwi kids will relate to.  Jake is an average kid who gets sent to live with his dad for a few weeks, and like any kid, soon gets bored and sets off to explore the coast.  I really liked Rachael’s interesting cast of characters, from old Ted who lives in a run-down shack along the coast, to the mischievous Jessie and mysterious Cara.  Jake’s dad is a positive father figure who cares a lot about his son (something that I like to see in children’s fiction and is often missing).   There is a hint of darkness running throughout the story (you’ve probably already guessed this if you know the myth of the selkies) and you get a feeling of foreboding right from the start.

One thing that I particularly love about Red Rocks is Rachael King’s beautiful writing.  She’s very descriptive so she paints a vivid picture of the wild, windy coast.  It’s the sort of book that you want to read snuggled up in bed because you almost feel the biting wind and the freezing ocean.

Red Rocks is perfect for age 9+ and would be a great read-aloud for Year 5-8.    Grab a copy from your library or bookshop now.  You can also enter my Red Rocks competition to win a copy.

5 out of 5 stars

Win Red Rocks by Rachael King

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Red Rocks is a fantastic, magical adventure story for younger readers from local author Rachael King.  It’s a wonderful story that’s set in New Zealand that’s perfect for age 9+ and would be a great read-aloud for Years 5-8.  To find out more about it and why I thought it was so good, you can read my review here.

Thanks to Random House New Zealand I have 2 copies to give away.  All you have to do to get in the draw is leave a comment below telling me: What is your favourite children’s book set in New Zealand?  Competition closes Monday 11 June (NZ only).

Thanks to everyone who entered.  The winners are Cath and Lee-Ann.

Department 19: The Rising by Will Hill

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Will Hill’s Department 19 was one of my favourite books of 2011 so I’ve been eagerly awaiting the sequel.  Until Department 19 came along I’d been put off vampires because most of the vampire books around seemed to be about vampires that sparkled and spent their time scowling at girls or were stuck in a love triangle.  Department 19 blew me away because Will’s vampire were vicious and would do anything to get the blood they needed to survive.  Department 19: The Rising amps up the violence, the blood and guts, and the action.

“91 DAYS TILL ZERO HOUR.

THAT’S 91 DAYS TO RUN.

91 DAYS TO HIDE.

OR 91 DAYS TO PRAY FOR DEPARTMENT 19 TO SAVE YOU…

After the terrifying attack on Lindisfarne at the end of the first book, Jamie, Larissa and Kate are recovering at Department 19 headquarters, waiting for news of Dracula’s stolen ashes.

They won’t be waiting for long.

Vampire forces are gathering. Old enemies are getting too close. And Dracula… is rising.

The 700 brilliant pages of Department 19: The Rising are dripping with blood and vampire guts.  The Rising is even better than the first book, as Will amps up the violence, blood and guts, and the action.  One of the reasons I loved Department 19 so  much was because of the history of the organisation and their fight with vampires and Will gives us more of this in The Rising.  At the end of the first book we were left wondering if Frankenstein survived and Will explains what happened to him and tells us about Frankenstein’s history, including his links with some horrendous vampires.  Sometimes when you’re reading a book you wish that you knew what happened to a character before you meet them, so that you know why they act the way they do, and I love that Will shows us these details.  The Rising could be half the length it is without this back-story but it’s this that makes the book so brilliant.

One thing I especially liked about The Rising is that Will shows us that not all vampires are evil.  Some vampires wish nothing more than to be human again and hide away from the world as much as they can.  They still need to feed so get animal blood from a butcher or find other ways that mean they don’t have to kill humans.  There are vampires of all ages, including fathers and daughters, and some of them just want to carry on living the way they did before they were turned.

The Rising is real boys book.  Department 19 is a secret government organisation that protects the world from the supernatural (especially vampires) and they’re equipped with some great weapons, including the T-Bone, a gun that fires a stake at vampires.  There’s more blood and guts in this book than what I’ve seen in any vampire movie.  Whenever a vampire is staked in the heart it explodes like a balloon leaving the Operators covered in blood and chunks of vampire.  Will has written some of the best fight scenes I’ve ever read, with blood squirting everywhere and they left me feeling quite queasy.

Anyone who loved Department 19 should get their hands on The Rising and you should shove the Department 19 books into the hands of any teenage boy you know.  They’re perfect for readers of Anthony Horowitz, Robert Muchamore and Darren Shan.

5 out of 5 stars

NB: I know some primary schools have the first book in their libraries but I wouldn’t suggest The Rising for your library unless you really know your readers can handle it.