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Welcome to The 13th Horseman NZ Launch Party!

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Today I have the pleasure of hosting the New Zealand launch of Barry Hutchison’s The 13th Horseman.  I’ve been a huge fan of Barry’s for a while now and I wanted to do something special to launch his new book in NZ.  In Christchurch we’re having a launch party with giveaways, a feast fit for a Horseman of the Apocalypse, and some special launch videos from Barry in Scotland.

If you can’t be in Christchurch you can still celebrate the launch of Barry’s hilarious new book.  Barry has made 3 videos especially for his readers in NZ, in which he introduces The 13th Horseman, reads from the book, and answers some questions.  Also, if you scroll to the bottom of this post, you can enter to win a copy of The 13th Horseman with a signed bookplate.  Come on in and join the party!

Barry introduces The 13th Horseman

Barry reads an excerpt from The 13th Horseman

Barry answers some questions about The 13th Horseman

Thanks so much for the great videos Barry!  If you haven’t got a copy of The 13th Horseman, rush out to your bookshop now to grab a copy or enter my competition to win one.  Competition closes Friday 1 June (NZ only).

Thanks to everyone who entered the competition.  The winners are Cath and Amu.

Make way for The 13th Horseman

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One of my favourite authors, Barry Hutchison, has a new book coming out in NZ later this month (Friday 18th May to be precise) called The 13th Horseman and it’s absolutely hilarious.  Here’s the blurb:

Drake is surprised to find three horsemen of the apocalypse playing snakes and ladders in his garden shed. He’s even more surprised when they insist that he is one of them. They’re missing a Horseman, having gone through several Deaths and they think that Drake is the boy for the job. At first he’s reluctant to usher in Armageddon but does being in charge of Armageddon have to spell the end of the world?

I’m really excited about this book so I’m holding a special NZ launch for The 13th Horseman at the Shirley Library in Christchurch on Friday 25 May, at 4pm.  Barry will be joining us (virtually from the UK) to talk about his book.  We’ll have giveaways as well as drinks and snacks fit for a Horseman of the Apocalypse.  For those of you who can’t be there I’ll also be doing a virtual launch here on My Best Friends Are Books, with a chance to win a copy of The 13th Horseman.

While you’re waiting for the book to arrive in NZ you should check out the short story that Barry wrote, featuring the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, called The Missing Remote of the Apocalypse.  You can read it for FREE on Barry’s website.  I highly recommend it (I had tears running down my face from laughing so hard while reading it)!

The Exquisite Corpse Adventure

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What happens when some of the coolest children’s book authors and illustrators play a writing game that starts with one person’s ideas and ends with a novel of 27 episodes?  You get The Exquisite Corpse Adventure.  The title makes it sound like it should be a horror story, but it’s actually a weird, crazy, funny, out-of-control story put together by some of the coolest authors around.  If you’ve read or participated in the FaBo story that Kyle Mewburn started, The Exquisite Corpse is the same idea.

The story starts with twins Nancy and Joe escaping from the circus, where they have lived since they were babies.  With the help of different clues, Nancy and Joe search to piece together the Exquisite Corpse and find their parents.  Each chapter is written by a different author, so just when you think you know what’s going to happen next, the story can go off in a completely different direction.  The story is a little bit like Alice in Wonderland and The Phantom Tollbooth because they meet lots of weird and wonderful characters and get into some tricky situations.  The first chapter hooks you in by imagining what could happen in the rest of the story:

“…there is a good chance that Nancy and Joe will have to deal with werewolves and mad scientists, real ninjas and fake vampires, one roller-skating baby, a talking pig, creatures from another planet…plenty of explosions, a monkey disguised as a pirate, two meatballs…and not just one bad guy but a whole army of villains.”

Pick up The Exquisite Corpse Adventure if you dare and be prepared to be taken on a wild ride.

Gangsta Granny by David Walliams

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Does your granny smell like cabbage?  Does she like to play boring games like Scrabble? Do you think she’s boring?  If you’ve answered yes to all of these questions you probably don’t know her that well.  For all you know she could be a spy, a superhero or even an international jewel thief like Ben’s granny.

Every Friday night Ben gets sent to stay with his granny, while his parents go out to the movies or to watch Strictly Stars Dancing Live.  Ben thinks she’s boring and would rather be anywhere else than spending time with her.  Ben gets sick of eating his granny’s cabbage soup and decides to look in her cupboard for some real food.  He never thought he would discover the stash of priceless jewels in her biscuit tin.  When he confronts her to find out the truth, he discovers that his granny isn’t boring, she’s an international jewel thief.  Ben decides to help his granny pull off the crime of the century – break into the Tower of London and steal the crown jewels.

Gangsta Granny is a book that’s both really funny and a bit sad.  I’m sure your granny’s just a bit like Ben’s granny, even if she’s not a jewel thief.  If you ask her I’m sure some of her stories are just as interesting.  Ben’s parents seem like they don’t really care about him because they’re more interested in their dancing show than they are in him, but deep down they love him.  I love the way David Walliams writes because his stories are so different and his characters are really easy to relate too.  If you liked his other stories, like The Boy in the Dress, Mr Stink and Billionaire Boy, or you like Roald Dahl’s books, you’ll love Gangsta Granny.

(My review from the Christchurch Kids Blog)

It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s Super Finn!

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Finn Marsh is just an ordinary kid who’s not very good at most things.  When his class has to do a homework assignment about what they’d like to be when they grow up, Finn decides he’d like to be a superhero.  But to be a superhero there are a few things you need, like superpowers, a nemesis, a costume, and you need to save someone’s life.  To finish his homework Finn needs to become Super Finn and, with the help of his friend Brain, he must figure out what it takes to be a superhero.  When Finn’s mum tells him and his brother that they can’t afford to sponsor their World Vision child, Umbaba anymore, Finn realizes that it’s up to him to raise the money to save him.  After their experiments to try and get super-strength and night-vision powers don’t go as planned, Finn and Brain turn to doing dares for money and running a black market junk food business during their lunch break to raise money to help sponsor Umbaba.  Are their crazy schemes enough to help save Umbaba’s life and become a superhero?

Super Finn is the funniest book I’ve read in a long time.  Finn and Brain are cool characters and you might even have kids like them in your class.  The things that they get up to are hilarious and one part of the book, when Finn is in assembly with bags of lollies strapped to his body, made me crack up laughing.  I loved the character of Finn because even though he keeps getting in trouble he doesn’t give up his mission to help Umbaba. Super Finn is Leonie Agnew’s first book and I can’t wait to read what she writes next.  Recommended for 7+     10 out of 10