This is the start of a great new series for good 10+ readers.
I suspected that Dibben must have been a teacher in a previous life because his choice of words and phrases throughout are designed to stretch the average child's vocabulary and their understanding of history. But he wasn't and he manages to do this in a way that is not preachy, self-conscious or clunky.
In fact I thoroughly enjoyed this action-packed, exciting romp through history. The characters were likeable and interesting with the occasional odd-ball, rogue and villian (think Harry Potter and co) thrown in. The story was paced well, well constructed and great fun.
You can read the first 2 chapters here.
Perhaps I'm in a bad mood and don't know it. Maybe I got out of bed on the wrong side. Maybe I'm too tired. But this book just left me cold.
I know! I've read some of your reviews out there in blog land - you all love this book! It's a breath of fresh air, the book you've all been waiting for. But I was disappointed. My previous Meg Rosoff experiences have been fabulous so perhaps my expectations were too high.
The construct was amusing - a teenage boy as god - which would actually explain a lot. But I got tired of it after the 3rd chapter. It felt like cleverness for the sake of cleverness.
I couldn't engage with any of the characters; they left me cold, with a couldn't care less attitude towards them.
I ended up skimming the middle section just to get it over and done with :-(
This book contains sexual references.
It is to be expected that a children's book from Roddy Doyle would be funny, poignant and very, very Irish.
A Greyhound of a Girl doesn't disappoint on any of these points. It is beautifully written with characters that charm you from the start.
This is a four generational story of mothers and daughters; a ghost story; a road trip; a tear-jerker! The big themes of life and death are dealt with deftly and delicately.
Highly recommended for 10+ readers, teens and well, anyone really.
A great story, simply told that deserves to have no limits set for readership!
What a lovely, lovely story.
One Dog and His Boy is perfect as a read-aloud or for good 8+ readers.
This is the story of Hal - an only child to rich parents. A child who has everything...except a dog of his own. For his 10th birthday, Hal's father arranges to hire a dog for the weekend to "get it out of his system."
Of course Hal and Fleck fall in love and refuse to be parted.
What follows is a road trip complete with runaway children, dogs and bumbling private detectives. A journey that gives everyone (especially Hal's parents) time to think about what's really important to them.
Delightful and heart-warming. And very sad to think that this will be Ibbotson's last novel.
I've already declared my love of books by Oliver Jeffers, so you will not be surprised to see his latest book here.
This time we have a little boy whose kite gets stuck in a tree. To try and get it out he throws his shoe up...which also gets stuck, followed by his other shoe, another toy, the family cat and so on.
Every time the object thrown into the tree gets a little bit bigger and a little more absurd!
This book is silly and quirky and appeals perfectly to the young child's sense of the ridiculous.
I recently read 'Stuck' out loud to my storytime group to popular acclaim. And it seems to be the kind of story that gets stuck in a child's imagination as I have had several families come back saying their child is now obsessed with the book. High praise indeed!
This book ticks all the right boxes for me - historical fiction set in Florence during the time between Medici rulers. An appealing central character, art and some romantic entanglements.
And I did enjoy it. It was well written and engaging. The 1500's came alive as the young man (fictional) that Michelangelo used as his model for his sculpture of David tell us his story.
We see the warring factions in Florence, the life of the artist and young love.
This is not a biography though. The facts of history have been played with a little, so if you like your history strictly by the book, this will not work for you. Hoffman occasionally gets bogged down in explaining who is who and what faction they belonged to, but generally she manages to convey this information via the plot and dialogue.
There are plenty of sexual references and intrigues throughout this book as befitting an Italian lothario! But nothing explicit or gratuitious.
