The Bookbag
Hello from The Bookbag, a book review site, featuring books from all the many walks of literary life - fiction, biography, crime, cookery and anything else that takes our fancy. At Bookbag Towers the bookbag sits at the side of the desk. It's the bag we take to the library and the bookshop. Sometimes it holds the latest releases, but at other times there'll be old favourites, books for the children, books for the home. They're sometimes our own books or books from the local library. They're often books sent to us by publishers and we promise to tell you exactly what we think about them. You might not want to read through a full review, so we'll give you a quick review which summarises what we felt about the book and tells you whether or not we think you should buy or borrow it. There are also lots of author interviews, and all sorts of top tens - all of which you can find on our features page. If you're stuck for something to read, check out the recommendations page. We can even direct you to help for custom book reviews! Visit www.everychildareader.org to get free writing tips and www.genecaresearchreports.com will help you get your paper written for free.
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The Sword of Hachiman by Lynn Guest
Set at the dawn of the Shogun era, The Sword of Hachiman follows two warrior clans, the Minamoto and the Taira, as they struggle for power under the Emperor. At first the Taira are in uneasy control, but the three Minamoto sons, separated at birth, plan to secretly reunite in order to defeat the Taira and avenge their Father's death. The youngest, Yoshitsune, is deemed most worthy and is granted the family heirloom, the Sword of Hachiman, the War God. Initiated into love and espionage by a young Taira noblewoman, and tested in the ferocious hand to hand combat that is his birthright, we follow Yoshitsune as he meets his faithful retainer, Benkei, and as he goes behind the scenes of the Cloister court, where two extraordinary women enter his life… Full review...
Threadbear by Mick Inkpen
We have all had a special teddy, the teddy which is not perfect, the one that would never be classed as beautiful but the one that is loved more than any other. Threadbear is that very teddy. The man who made him put so much stuffing in him that his arms and legs were too hard. Sadly, because of all the extra stuffing, the squeaker in his stomach has never squeaked. Not once. Ever. Threadbear feels he is letting his Ben down, so he embarks on a mission to fix his squeaker. He tries and tries but fails, until he decides that there is one special person he must meet and maybe this will be the only person who can fix his squeaker. Full review...
The Building Boy by Ross Montgomery and David Litchfield
This is the story of a boy and his Grandma. An award-wining architect, Grandma promises to build the boy a special house on a hill over the horizon, over a city and beyond the sea. But Grandma is getting old – too old to make houses. And, one day, she is gone. Without Grandma, the house is empty. It’s just rooms. But the boy has an idea – it requires a lot of work but the result is totally magical. Full review...
The Demon Undertaker by Cameron McAllister
Fourteen-year-old Thomas has already seen much sorrow in his young life –notably the death of his beloved father and the accidental loss of his own hand. His mother hopes to give him a new start by sending him away from Virginia to join his uncle Sir Henry Fielding, chief magistrate of London, but before the boy has even had the chance to greet his new family he is embroiled in a life and death chase through the grimy back streets of the capital in the hopes of rescuing a young noblewoman. All London is agog: what happens to the people who disappear, never to be seen again, and what exactly does the terrible masked fiend in the hearse want them for? Full review...
A Piglet Called Truffle by Helen Peters and Ellie Snowdon
Living on a farm, with her father who works as a farmer and a mother who is a farm-vet, Jasmine has spent all her young life learning how to care for animals. On a visit to a neighbouring farm, Jasmine is excited to see the new baby piglets. Expecting to see eleven piglets, she is stunned to find one extra - a tiny little runt hiding in the corner. Being smaller than her hand, the farmer has no sympathy and expects it to die by the end of the day. Of course, Jasmine can't allow this to happen. The story is then set for a struggle to save the smallest piglet, called Truffle. Full review...
Writing Lines by Tony Stuart
George Gordon Wentworth (1946 - 2011) lived a humdrum life. He was a barely adequate teacher in a fairly world renowned independent school in Kent and kept a copious diary of his quotidian existence. Most of what he recorded was dross. However, amongst all the utterly uninteresting tailings of his life there were some nuggets and grains to catch the attention. Author Tony Stuart has created these amusing anecdotes, panning them out over twenty six episodes which give us the best of Wentworth - comedy gold. Full review...
The Song Machine: How to Make a Hit by John Seabrook
The popular music business has always been about – well, business – and some might say that music comes a poor second. Ever since the advent of the 78 r.p.m. disc, record companies have competed with each other and sought new ways of marketing their goods. The songwriter, or if you like the person or partnership at the controls of ‘the song machine’, has long been a vital link in the chain. In today’s climate of increasingly free music, how much does this still hold true? Full review...
The Secret Horses of Briar Hill by Megan Shepherd and Levi Pinfold
Megan Shepherd has written a stunning tale, which is exquisitely illustrated by the artwork of Levi Pinfold. Secret Horses tells the story of a young girl and her friendship with a magical winged horse. When Emmaline is evacuated from Nottingham during the Second World War, she enters a fantasy world of discovery behind the silvery glass of the mirrors in her new country home at Briar Hill. An old sprawling mansion once owned by a wealthy family, Briar Hill has become a children’s hospital run by Nuns. Emmaline and the other children are struggling to recover from a serious illness and have been quarantined away from their families. To add to their plight, they worry about their fathers away at war and their mothers left at home to face bombing raids and the scarcity of food. Emmaline and her friends are carefully nursed by the Nuns through the harsh and snowy winter of 1941. This is a story of bravery and fortitude, good and evil and how one small child can find light even in the darkest of places. Full review...
Spinderella by Julia Donaldson and Sebastien Braun
From high above the classroom, Spinderella watches in fascination the classroom activities at Scuttleton Primary School. She wants to be able to do two things: play football and count. However, her family of spiders are only interested in flies, flies and flies. They also have no desire to learn how to count Down with numbers they all cry. Unperturbed by their lack of enthusiasm, Spinderella goes in search of numbers and playing football. Along the way she meets a familiar wish granting character (no spoilers here) and her journey begins. Full review...
The Road More Travelled: Tales of those seeking refuge by David Beckler
The Road More Travelled is an anthology of short stories - and one poem - written in response to the refugee crisis as it exploded across our TV screens and newspapers throughout 2015. To the horror of the authors, the language used by many was aggressive and dehumanising, describing this mass of desperate people as a swarm or a horde. The stories together form a response to this othering. Full review...
Letter to Pluto by Lou Treleaven
Letter to Pluto is a story told through an inter-planetary pen-pal friendship. Set in the year 2317, writing with a pen and sending letters has certainly become a dying art-form. However, Jon’s teacher, Mrs Hall, decides it is important to keep the art of letter writing alive. The only difference is that Jon’s pen-pal lives a long way away. 75 billion km to be precise. On Pluto. At first the idea of writing at all is bad enough, but when Jon finds out that his pen-pal is a girl he nearly quits the programme. Encouraged by his teacher’s bribes of merit awards for his best writing, Jon soon learns that Pluto is not as boring, small and smelly as he first thought. Full review...
The Readers of Broken Wheel Recommend by Katarina Bivald
The USA is an odd place at times, and not just during election season. There are all sorts of nooks and crannies, places that time forgot, places that ‘’people’’ forgot. Broken Wheel, Iowa is one such place. You’d have no reason to go unless you knew someone there. And Sara does, her pen-pal Amy. Invited by Amy to come for a visit, and with time on her hands due to a recent redundancy, Sara packs her bags (and her books) and buys a plane ticket from her native Sweden to the US of A. Full review...
Tell Me No Lies by Lisa Hall
Steph, husband Mark and son Henry have just moved into a new house. That always leads to a fresh start, but even more so here as there are a few dodgy incidents in the past they are trying to move on from. Fingers crossed it’s all going to work out well. As a freelancer, Steph doesn’t have regular colleagues, but the neighbours seem nice enough even if some of the other mums at the school gate are a little stand offish at first. With Mark away a lot with work it’s up to Steph to make the house a home and get Henry settled in the run up to Christmas. Full review...
Conquest: Daughter of the Last King by Tracey Warr
Princess Nest ferch Rhys is the only legitimate child of Rhys ap Tewdr (there's a surname to make hist-fict addicts smile!), the last king of Deheubarth, Wales. Playing on the beach with her brother one day she's captured by Norman soldiers. From there she's held hostage by the noble Montgomery family, loyal to King William Rufus. The standard of captivity in which Nesta is kept isn't bad. Lady Sybil is particularly kind to her, realising that Nest is still mourning the deaths of her father and most of her siblings at the hands of men from that same household. There is an ulterior motive though. The object of Sybil's attentions is to make Nest a suitable wife for English nobility but she's already promised to a Welsh prince. Who will Nest actually marry and, more importantly, will Nest have any say in it? Full review...
Good People by Nir Baram
Thomas Heiselberg's self-focus pays off when he attracts the best clientele to the American advertising firm he helps establish across Europe from his German home. Meanwhile in Russia Sasha Weissberg is struggling with being in a literary, free-thinking family that doesn't go down too well with Stalin's regime. As World War II arrives, both of their worlds are shaken. As a result both decide to become collaborators rather than resistance fighters for different reasons and with far reaching effects. Full review...
Grass to Grace by Daniel Eyisi
Odin Ndukaku was the last of four children to still be alive and he was an orphan. Life had not been kind to him, but he was strong and could do odd jobs to earn enough money for food. He had no thoughts of what he might do in the future: it seemed like a waste of time as he had no skills. He was simply surviving. All this changed one morning when he was eating his breakfast in his small hut and it began to rain. The rain came in through the roof and ruined his breakfast. It struck him that at the age of 29 he had very little. His only friend in the town of Agibi, Ndu, came to see him and Odin was cross, accusing Ndu of failing to help him. Ndu was husband, father, owner of livestock - all the things that are of importance in Igbo society - whilst Odin had just the few possessions which could be seen in the hut. Had Ndu ever given him advice? Full review...
The White Fox by Jackie Morris
Sol had never been happy in Seattle. It wasn't just that he was bullied at school: being Inuit he looked different and that always makes you a target. Sol's heart was somewhere else - in the Arctic, where he felt he belonged and where he had grandparents whom he'd not seen for such a long time. Everything changed when his father told him about the white Arctic fox which had been seen on the docks and Sol set about finding the fox - and then feeding it. But what would happen to the fox when it was trapped? And how would Sol handle the situation? Full review...
The Date-A-Base Book 2017 by Dave Haslett and Kate Haslett
So here's a question for you: how do you go about reviewing a list - especially a list that runs to 3,800 entries and 544 pages? No, I'm not sure either, but I'm going to give it a go. Full review...
The Storykiller by Humfrey Hunter
The first rule of Super Injunctions is that you don't talk about Super Injunctions. These powerful legalese prevent the likes of you, me and the papers talking about certain stories. The rich, powerful and meaningless use them to stop the type of tittle tattle that fuels a million conversations at work, but what do you do if you are not rich, powerful or meaningless enough to afford a Super Injunction? Perhaps you can hire someone called a Storykiller who specialises in quashing rumours Full review...
Otherworld Chills by Kelley Armstrong
I came to Armstrong's Otherworld quite late in its development and it seems that she's now wrapping it up to move on to other things. Billed as the 'final collection' of stories Chills allegedly completes several storylines of her best loved characters. I'd disagree. If Sherlock can survive Reichenbach then I'm sure Werewolves, Vampires and demi-demotic Angels can survive whatever state they may have been left in. Full review...
The Last Night by Cesca Major
Spring 1952: Two best friends; Abigail and Mary, sit together on a bench, looking out to sea. They have big plans, but know that whatever happens they will always be together. They dream of a new life in America, each with a handsome husband and a happy family. When Abigail's mother dies unexpectedly, however, she is sent to live with her estranged sister in Devon, and the friends are torn apart. Little does she realise that tragedy lies just around the corner, and that the last night will change everything forever. Decades later, in 2016, a shy furniture-restorer called Irina has been given an unusual commission: to restore an old bureau containing many hidden secrets. As the two stories merge, curious Irina tries to piece together exactly what happened on the Last Night. Full review...
A Poem for Every Night of the Year by Allie Esiri
Poetry can feel a little intimidating, to children and grown-ups. All those school lessons of dissecting poems in order to ascertain exactly what the poet intended with every word and stylistic form tend to kill the beauty of a well-written poem. This collection is a year-long tour through a vast history of poetry, and gives the reader a new poem to try every night, with everything from Michael Rosen to Shakespeare to Christina Rosetti. Full review...
Pugh's New Year's Resolutions by Jonathan Pugh
If there's one thing that's for certain, it's that the world is changing. We're dating online, we're communicating in ways that make email seem redundant, and when we're shopping we just tell a website where and when it can be delivered, and how much leeway they have to swap our wishes for whatever it is they do bring us. But those changes are also supposed to be affecting us – we're supposed to use a smart watch to tell us if we're moving or not, we have to keep up with the latest fads, and we're supposed to prick our ears up and take note when the proverbial 'they' change their minds about what we're supposed to eat. Full review...
Tales of the Peculiar by Ransom Riggs
A fork-tongued princess. A boy who can control the currents of the sea. Cannibals who feast on the limbs of a village of peculiars. These are just a few of the brilliant stories to be found in Tales of the Peculiar, all of which hold mystical information about the peculiar world - a place familiar to many of us since its first introduction by Ransom Riggs in Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. The stories in this collection explore peculiar history and folklore in a wonderfully imaginative way, and also include some beautiful illustrations to accompany each of the tales. Full review...
Rockadoon Shore by Rory Gleeson
Cath is worried about her friends. DanDan is struggling with the death of his ex, Lucy is drinking way too much and Steph has become closed off. A weekend away is just what they need. They travel out to Rockadoon Lodge, to the wilds in the west of Ireland. But the weekend doesn't go to plan. JJ is more concerned with getting high than spending time with them, while Merc is humiliated and seeks revenge. And when their elderly neighbour Malachy arrives on their doorstep in the dead of night with a gun in his hands, nothing will be the same again for any of them... Full review...
The Fox and the Ghost King by Michael Morpurgo and Michael Foreman
Considering how bizarre the stories in juvenile literature can sometimes be, it's weird to think that occasionally it's the actual source material that inspired it that is even more unusual. Whoever would really credit writing a book where footballing underdogs, and firm favourites to be relegated, defied odds of 5000 to 1 to win the Premiership? But that's what happened in the 2015/16 season, in a certain town in the East Midlands of England. Despite every worry directed their way, they sustained their fine form long enough to win the league, in a run that some people soon realised had started when said city had had another momentous event, namely holding the proper burial accorded a lost King of England. Like I say, completely unusual and unexpected events – surely too odd to be turned into fiction? Full review...
Reckoning by Magda Szubanski
In her memoir, actress, comedian and activist Magda Szubanski describes her journey of self-discovery from a suburban childhood as an immigrant child, haunted by the demons of her father's espionage activities in wartime Poland and by her secret awareness of her sexuality, to the complex dramas of adulthood and her need to find out the truth about herself and her family. With courage and compassion she addresses her own frailties and fears, and asks the big questions about life, about the shadows we inherit and the gifts we pass on. Full review...