Difference between revisions of "Book Reviews From The Bookbag"

Meet Nick. He lives on a future Earth, where multiple large classrooms are taught by just one holographic teacher, which might sound impractical but can actually help with advice when you declare to the class that you are breaking the law. Nick, you see, has a pet cat, and in this massively over-populated and under-resourced world, pets are illegal. There's a simple solution – wait for the anti-pet man to turn up with his weaponry and armour and dispose of it, but the family have decided to take the other way out – emigrate to an entirely different world. Hence they embark on the trip to be pioneer farmers on Plowman's Planet, even when they're forewarned of a host of different and most unusual animals already resident there. That advice still doesn't really prepare them for the battle whose crossfire in which they immediately get caught… Full review...

Rape of the Fair Country by Alexander Cordell

Historical Fiction

When we meet Iestyn Motymer it's 1826 and he's just eight years old, but starting work at the Garndyrus furnaces near Blaenavon. His father sees it as the right thing to do and his mother knows that the money will be needed as there's another child on the way, but Iestyn's older sister, Morfydd, is adamant that it's wrong for women and children to work in either the mines or the ironworks. She believes in the aims of the Chartist movement whilst her father, Hywel Mortymer, is loyal to the ironmasters, but events involving his own family will later force him to question this loyalty. The Mortymers are better off than many in Blaenavon, but they're still at the mercy of the ironmaster and the agent: suspension or blacklisting (which can extend to relations) can leave any family penniless and starving. Full review...

Swords Around The Throne (Twilight of Empire) by Ian Ross

Historical Fiction

Centurion Aurelius Castus' time in Britain is over but not his propensity for being on the wrong side of danger. Due to an adventure on the journey he comes to the notice of Emperor Constantine, and is promoted to his elite bodyguard – the swords around the throne. The multiple emperor model that has evolved to govern the Empire is shaky to say the least, riven by plots, conspiracies and worse. Therefore Castus' new job is neither safe nor easy but it's not something he can refuse… unfortunately! Full review...

Claude's Journey by John Piper

One routine, normally uneventful journey changes Claude's life forever,. It begins with a chance encounter with a malevolent hen party and carries on with the betrayal of those he thought he could trust sending him into a spiral of captivity and fetishist slavery. Full review...

The Dark Defiles by Richard Morgan

Fantasy

Ringil Eskiath, Egar Dragonbane and Archeth Indamaninarmal have been through hell. Almost literally, in some cases. Now without fight or cause, they find themselves bored, searching for answers and fights wherever they can. But then the fight arrives, along with the Dark Court, the Empire and the greed of men. It soon becomes clear that a war fought thousands of years has not ended, but still rages fiercely on. A war that will take more than our adventurers to stop… Full review...

The Good Neighbour by Beth Miller

Minette has not had the best experience of neighbours. It's hard when you have a new born. They're not known for being quiet as a mouse at all times and occasionally, well, occasionally they scream through the night. So she's glad when the nasty couple move and are replaced by Cath and her two kids. A fellow mother! An ally! Surely she will be more understanding? Full review...

The Undesired by Yrsa Sigurdardottir and Victoria Cribb (translator)

Thrillers

If you're lucky enough to go to Iceland they will tell you, even in this day and age, that the place is heavily populated with trolls. Yrsa Sigurdardottir may or may not agree with that, but she certainly peoples her world with ghosts. Here is Odinn, and to some extent his ghost – certainly there's the ghost of 'what if' around him, and the man he might have been if he hadn't abandoned the young mother of his child. Here is that very wife, who is now dead herself. Here is the spirit of failure as he takes over a job at work from someone else who had a fatal heart attack – that task, to investigate a children's care home in the 1970s to see if anything nefarious went on. And that place certainly should be haunted – already a dead child has been disposed of, and more is to come… Full review...

The Ghosts Who Danced and other spooky stories by Saviour Pirotta and Paul Hess

Ghosts are all over the world, don't you know. I don't know of any as of yet but I dare say that people have fixed ghost stories to be set on Antarctica; they're certainly common on all the other continents. York has 500 spectres to itself allegedly, all corners of all civilisations claim to know of spirit world entities – and people even go as far as being so undignified they see them in Auschwitz. The lesson from this excellently put-together book is that ghosts are worldwide, and any one from just about anywhere can have a very interesting story to tell. Full review...

Jeff Lynne: The Electric Light Orchestra - Before and After by John Van der Kiste

Biography

Jeff Lynne grew up in a Birmingham suburb right at the end of 1947: even as a child he was passionate about music and was a much respected guitarist as a teenager. He was a member of various semi-professional groups - critical acclaim came when he fronted Idle Race in the late sixties and popularity and a degree of commercial success arrived when he joined the popular group The Move. Whilst still playing with that group he co-founded, along with Roy Wood, the groundbreaking Electric Light Orchestra, but it was with Wood's departure that Lynne turned what had been an occasionally uneasy fusion of classical and rock into a successful and popular act. Full review...

Where's Will? by Anna Claybourne and Tilly

Taking 10 of the best known stories, this book neatly summarises the plots and highlights the must-know elements of each. That's just the start, though, because after you've read what's going on, you get to see it in another form. Each story is followed by an illustrated two page spread, highly detailed and bursting with activity and characters. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to find the stars of the play among the many other people on the page. They're hidden, but can you find them? Full review...

Confluence by Paul McAuley

Dystopian Fiction

Yama is a foundling orphan adopted as a baby by the Aedile (chief civil servant) of a small city downriver of the mighty, ancient city of Ys, capital of the man-made world of Confluence. Longing to become a soldier and take his late brother's place in the long-running war against the heretics, the restless seventeen year old is about to be taken as an apprentice clerk despite his young age, to keep him out of trouble. Destiny, however, has other plans for him. Full review...

Lion Practice by Emma Carlisle

Laura loves practising at being different kinds of animals. As well as being a kangaroo and an elephant, she's an expert at being a crocodile (much to the other children's dismay in the swimming pool!) But one day she decides that it's time for lion practice, and this is the day when her parents think her imagination has gone just a little too far… Full review...

Molly Maybe's Monsters: The Dappity Doofer by Kristina Stephenson

Molly Maybe lives in Smallsbury, a snoringly, boringly, ordinary place - well, it is until you discover the town's best kept secret. But before we talk about that, let me tell you about Molly's treehouse, where she and her dog, Waggy Burns, can look out over her neighbours' gardens. Mr Bottomly Brown is doing some digging (it's going to be a pond) and he's discovered something rather peculiar: it looks like a small statue. Three days later the statue is in place in the middle of the pond but that's not what's making Mr Brown angry - there are piles of soil all over his perfect lawn. He's convinced that it's moles, but Molly has spotted a claw and she knows better. Full review...

Danny Dread by Ben Davis

Meet Danny Dread. He's a pupil at Demento's Academy for Young Evil Geniuses, where classes range from bank robbery and 'applied superhero torture' to creating flying craft and machines with which to do the most dastardly deeds, and where the head mistress is only too pleased to see bullying happening in the corridors. Now meet Mynah Boy – freshly costumed, and talented inasmuch as he can mimic lots of people and things. He might not be the world's best superhero, but neither is Danny Dread the world's best villain – the Dread family have slowly been getting worse at being evil, and Danny is so hopeless he can't even kill a fly. You might think they'll be set up for the most clumsy, calamitous adventure against each other, until you learn that actually they're one and same lad – but things will still get clumsy and calamitous enough… Full review...

Thunderbirds are Go Official Guide

It's time to admit that I am old. I remember the first series of Thunderbirds from Saturday morning kids' cinema – an episode of that, then a second-run film, both for a quid. They were only ten years old or so then, but at least that proved the franchise was durable. Nothing did that quite as much, however, as the news a couple of years ago that the Anderson estate was to allow a CG updating, bringing a new generation of people to the massed audience. Amid the usual worries about it losing everything that made it special, it actually did pretty well when it aired in 2015 – even with a breakfast time transmission slot. This small(ish) format hardback is, bar the annual, the very first chance to look at an official book concerning the series, and inasmuch as it inspired me to research the return, and certainly accept it as looking a worthy addition to the canon, it succeeds on all fronts. Full review...

One Hundred Days of Happiness by Fausto Brizzi

Sometimes Serendipity coerces Fate into making sure you read a particular book. I picked One Hundred Days… off the shelf on the back of the blurb from an author of a book I haven't actually read. I confused the title of their book with one I adored. Make of that what you will, I'm going to call it a happy accident, because this is a book many of us really need to read. Full review...

Bear and Hare: Where's Bear? by Emily Gravett

Bear and Hare are playing hide and seek. Hare covers his eyes, turns to face the wall, counts slowly to ten and then goes looking for Bear. Unfortunately he's tried to hide behind and under the standard lamp and he's not exactly invisible. Well, let's be honest - he looks as though he's wearing a very strange hat. Still, we can always have another go, can't we? This time, after the ritual counting, Bear is behind a (very small) pile of books. OK, one more time? This time it's the fish tank. I'd like to be able to say that he was behind the tank, but he's visible over, under and through the tank. Even the fish look rather surprised. Full review...

How You See Me by S E Craythorne

Daniel's father is ill after a stroke and so Daniel needs to go home to Norfolk to nurse him. While there he continues to write letters to his beloved girlfriend Alice, his sister Mab and his boss to keep them up to date. The problems in Daniel's life are a lot closer to home than those he's left behind in his normal life though. Gradually the reasons why Daniel left Norfolk return to him, increasing in intensity until it's much, much too late. Full review...

Field Service by Robert Edric

Historical Fiction

Morlancourt, France 1920: World War I may be over but a grisly job remains. The soldiers killed and buried in battle are to be exhumed, identified and brought to War Commission designed cemeteries for reburial. Captain James Reid and his corps are responsible for receiving and burying in the embryonic burial grounds while Alexander Lucas' detachment go out to collect the corpses or check the veracity of claims that British and Commonwealth troops have been uncovered in various settings including farmers' fields. It's a job that may take its toll on any man and it does. Full review...

More! by Tracey Corderoy and Tim Warnes

Archie the rhino has a new favourite word - more! Whatever it is that Archie likes, he likes it a lot! He just wants more of everything; more stories, more bubbles in the bath, more glitter...but what happens when one day, Archie's idea of 'more' becomes a little too much to handle? Full review...

Black Cairn Point by Claire McFall

Teens

Heather agrees to a camping holiday with Dougie and his friends because she's desperate to get closer to him. But when they disturb a pagan burial site above the beach, Heather becomes certain that they have woken a malevolent spirit. Something is alive out there in the pitch-black dark, and it is planning deadly revenge. Full review...

Where's Gilbert? The Not So Little Princess by Tony Ross and Wendy Finney

Emerging Readers

This title is part of a new series which develops Tony Ross's unforgettable Little Princess for older children reading on their own. The Not So Little Princess hasn't really grown out of her teddy bear, Gilbert, but she's old enough to have become self-conscious when her friend Ollie finds her telling stories to the teddy in the garden. She denies and abandons Gilbert. Full review...

Captain Pugwash by John Ryan

Captain Pugwash was first published in 1957. It was a comic strip, a TV animation and the story series developed into a further twenty four titles. Pugwash is conceited, stupid, podgy, unshaven and lovable. His crew are the laziest afloat, his enemy, Cut-Throat Jake, is satisfyingly villainous and cabin-boy Tom can always be relied on to save the day. Many families will remember these as childhood favourites whether in print or on the screen. Full review...

Fire Girl by Matt Ralphs

It's 1656 and England is in the middle of the Civil War. Oliver Cromwell, the Lord Protector, has sent Witch Hunters out across the land, so for her own safety twelve-year-old Hazel's mother Hecate confines her to a magic and invisible glade. But there's stronger magic than Hecate's around, and when a demon seizes and carries off her mother, Hazel is left entirely on her own with no knowledge or experience of the outside world. Well, not entirely on her own - if you count a rather tetchy and opinionated dormouse as a companion... Full review...

Fire Girl by Matt Ralphs