Book Review: I am Wolf / Alastair Chisholm / 9 – Adult

Published by Nosy Crow May 2024

He opened his mouth, felt the warm air around him, and howled like Wolf across the broken land. Reika joined him, and their call spread over the air. Fillan’s voice was high and short, like a yip. Brann’s was a long caw.

I am a fan of Alastair Chisholm’s books – loved all of them so far. This though is definitely a Sue Stupendous – absolutely brilliant. Reminds me a little of Philip Reeve’s Mortal Engines series – but has a standing all of its own. A story of Constructs, entities that fight, in often inhospitable lands with crews, who’s very lives rely on whether they survive the fights or fall, broken to be scavenged…

‘BOOOAR! RAM! SMASH! CRASH! BOAAAAAAAAAAA!’

A story of belief and its power. Who you are and finding out who you are too. A story of unlikely friendships and of expectations, fulfilled and unfulfilled.

As always my most important criteria as to whether a book is good depends on whether I worry about the characters – whether I find myself wanting to just read another page.

I worried, I read. Little more to be said really – this is the best Chisholm volume I have read – it is BRILLIANT.

Book Review: The After School Crime Club / Hayley Webster / 8 – 12

Published by Nosy Crow

Not yet published – August 2023

A book about peer pressure. Belief and being true to yourself. It is all too easy to find yourself doing things you wouldn’t believe, just to fit in – to be friends; it’s only small, doesn’t matter…no-one will notice.

School can be a nasty and difficult place – it can be hard to think – really think about what is going on…it can have results that no-one expects.

Things aren’t always what they seem to be…

A book for the summer holidays.

Book Review: Wren / Lucy Hope / 9 – 12

Published by Lucy Hope

There is something about flying…if I were to have a super power, it would be to be able to fly, to leap from a cliff and play with the wind – I love to watch birds play in the sky and even ‘little brown jobs’ have that ‘something’ as they flit from my feeders back under cover when the cat stalks by.

Wren’s mother died attempting to fly. Wren herself likes to go out over the waters near her home in her small coracle and potter about on the water…but has yearnings too to know what it is to leap into the air and soar.

Her father, perhaps understandably, isn’t keen on his daughter following in her mother’s footsteps.

They live near the sea in a large Welsh castle – the family have lived there for generations, but the building is beginning to disintegrate. Cracks are forming, the castle seems to sigh to itself, and though for the most part it is much like other castles, a bit on the cool side, periodically there are shifts in temperature and the building becomes warm and uncomfortable in phases, it also seems to sing…

It is out in October – so you may find it on shelves now…a super book about taking your own destiny in your own hands and making something of it.

Book Review: Running out of Time / Simon Fox / 12 upwards

Published by Nosy Crow

I nod. ‘But you once said you can’t be brave unless you are scared.’

This has several elements to it – theft of time and a story of a family forced to escape prosecution and terror in their own country being the two foremost. A story of the plight of many refugees, with the added twist of a boy who is able to take 15 seconds from the future – just 15 seconds to see ‘what might happen next’ depending on what he does. 15 seconds isn’t long – its an inherited ‘gift’ – one his father wishes he wouldn’t use – concerned about the responsibility of the choices made.

When life becomes untenable and they have to leave Alex’s terminally ill grandmother behind as they try to reach safety – those small stolen 15 seconds, might be the only thing to keep them safe.

An interesting twist, with the flavour, fear and details of many refugee’s experiences thrown in for good measure.

What would you do with 15 seconds?

Always Clementine / Carlie Sorosiak / 8 – 12

Published by Nosy Crow

Not yet published (September 2022)

And I thought: Yes! Little! Little, but mighty.

This is Carlie Sorosiak’s best book yet. Written as a series of letters, Clementine ‘writes’ to Rosie an lab chimpanzee whom she befriended whilst living as a lab mouse – before she is stolen away. They aren’t letters she can send, she explains, but hopes in someway, that they will get to her.

Richard Adams wrote Plague Dogs in 1977 – a much more visceral volume about animals and vivisection – this by comparison is less ‘immediate’ for want of a better phrase. Touching on the subject, but with a good deal of emphasis on the characters of Clementine, Rosie, Hamlet and the humans who help and hinder them and their adventure.

Even Hamlet’s listening now. He’s stopped chewing the asparagus, cheeks chock-full.

I often have to talk to readers about their preferences, concerns and out look on life before I suggest titles. This is more on the side of a Disney tale – but enjoyable none-the-less and does raise the question of how we treat animals for those who are perhaps not so aware.

I liked Clementine, but somehow – I loved Hamlet, the ‘other’ mouse. It is a story of animals, a young boy and his grandfather and chess. Brilliant. I thoroughly enjoyed this.

Good, my mind repeats. A ‘good’ lab mouse. That’s all I ever wanted to be. But I never stopped to think about who was defining the word – and if they were right.

This is a story of friendship, bravery, inventiveness and playing to your strengths.

I think he’d been keeping it for me. Until I needed it. Until I needed the extra bit of bravery, and wisdom that a whisker provides. A whisker says I support you. A whisker says Here is a part of me that I’m willingly giving to you.

I have kept all the whiskers that Pakka dropped and now keep all those Sakka deposits around the house. I wonder…

Plague Dogs is certainly NOT for this age group – it’s not for me either – much too real-life for me. This though, was just right…

Book Review: Mouse Heart / Fleur Hitchcock / 9 – 12

Published by Nosy Crow

‘…a bold mouse that nestles in the cat’s ear…’

A murder mystery and theatrical drama in a fictionalised Bristol. Set in an era of Queen Anne II – she too is a figment of Fleur’s imagination.

A book of murder most foul – the denouement was filled with as much drama and action that you could want – great fun.

A tale of friendship and bravery…by the author of The Boy Who Flew – which I also reviewed I think – but this one, this one, is even better.

For those who like the greasepaint…

Book Review: The Mermaid Call / Alex Cotter / 9 – 12

Published by Nosy Crow…

NY Published July.

This has a different perspective on mermaids. The more commercial and less magical, perhaps. A story of friendships made and friendships broken – of families, both the good and the bad side and of course, it’s about mermaids…but also…so much more.

Is beauty an essential part of being a mermaid? Why are mermaids deemed to be good looking, with long blonde hair? Are there any ‘regular’ mermaids – mermaids with glasses, mermaids with a squint, mermaids with dark hair, or mermaids that are just, ‘average’?

There’s a legend on which Vivien’s family’s livelihood relies, but is there something more to the story? Is there, was there, a mermaid at all? Who were the Mermaid Girls? What did they see? What did they do?

A book of multiple mysteries…

I’d like to think that mermaids do exist – however, I’d like them to be a little more than half fish sitting on rock combing their long locks – more the sort that you can read about in the Undrowned Child (Michelle Lovric, a book for slightly older readers) – but this, examines what we generally believe and think about them – and is it right to expect them to be, just that, beautiful entities, with little more to them than that?

Book Review: S.T.E.A.L.T.H. Access Denied /Jason Rohan / 9 – 12

Published by Nosy Crow.

The car bounced on two wheels, then on four, and Arun had enough sense left to stamp the brake pedal to the floor, bringing the Audi to a screeching tyre-smearing stop. Blood pounded in his ears and he looked up to see the stricken truck in front of him.

A rollicking fast moving start to a new series – due to be published early April. Kidnaping, theft and the threat of torture colour this wild and new series for those adrenalin junkies out there!

Book Review: Max Counts to A Million / Jeremy Williams / 8 – 12

Published by Nosy Crow.

‘Fine,’ I shouted as I stormed off up the stairs. ‘I’ll count to a million.’

The recent pandemic (I think you know the one I mean) – that hasn’t quite ‘gone’ – affected people in a number of different ways. This is a story of Max a young boy who’s father is working on the front line, with patients suffering with Covid. At the beginning of the book he begins to live away from home – to keep his wife and Max safe. They keep in contact with video calls, but his father is tired, and his mother, is frightened too. When Max and his mum have a row, she suggests he goes to his room to count to 100 – and he responds that he will count to a million.

Actually a million is an extraordinary number to count to. This is a fictional story – sadly, no-one, as far as I know counted to a million whilst the world was in lockdown – but I am sure I wouldn’t be able to. I count the lengths I swim at the pool and regularly have to do extra, as I have forgotten whether I have done 16/17…

A book about a different sort of bravery – and how differently people have dealt with being in lockdown and the darker aspects of our recent history.

Book Review: Escape Room / Christopher Edge 9 – 12

Published by Nosy Crow

‘SELF-DESTRUCT INITIATED’

I have never liked the idea of escape rooms – The Crystal Maze always worried me when I watched it on TV – so I wasn’t sure if I was going to enjoy this – but it really is yet another brilliant Christopher Edge book.

‘I don’t think we were supposed to win.’

This though isn’t the usual sort of escape room – it’s not even the ultimate escape room – there’s something much darker here, much larger. For those who have ever thought that escape rooms are just a form of escapism. This time – it is SO much more. ‘The Answer lies in their unquenchable optimism; the solutions you seek can be found in their boundless creativity. Most of the time you make them feel powerless, but I’m going to tell them they have the power to change the world.’