Claude On The Slopes

I did a little whoop of delight when I came into work after a day off and discovered that the new Claude book was on the shelf. To say I was excited was an understatement. I danced a small jig and ran around the shop showing my colleagues who were no doubt fatigued by my giddiness, but they managed to humour me despite their probable overwhelming desire to sit on me just to keep me still.
Anyhow onto the book and it doesn't disappoint. I did things properly and sat down with a pot of tea (leaf assam of course) and a red velvet cupcake and tucked into Claude. The by now familiar opening settles you for another fun and exiting adventure. Claude On The Slopes starts the day before the actual adventure when Claude and Sir Bobblysock visit the library. Claude turns up to the library wearing his One Man Band outfit... But the very kind librarian, Miss Hush, explains to Claude how to behave in a library. So after being quiet, Claude needs a LOUD day and so uses his OUTDOOR VOICE a lot. It has snowed overnight and so Claude and Sir Bobblysock don their snow outfits and head off to the local winter sports centre. There's lots of fun with a snowman competition, meet Sidney Snood, a mountain rescuer with a quite splendid moustache, and Claude learns an important lesson about when to use his indoor and outdoor voice.
It's a lovely book, full of those original touches that make something really special. Adults will delight at some of the book titles in the library and the look on the face of the poor chappie who is rescued during the mountain recscue operation is priceless. Add to this the superb asides of Sir Bobblysock (bunions!) and, oh it's just wonderful. Buy it for any four, five or six year olds you know and enjoy it.
Just a small note. I discovered yesterday that Claude is going to be made into a television series. Part of me is elated, and part of me is worried. I hope that they do Claude justice, he deserves it and it will be wonderful to see him reach as wide an audience as possible. However I worry that the charm of the books will be lost in translation, that the inevitable spin off stories will be inferior to the originals and that overfamiliarity will breed if not contempt, then a little indifference. A television series initially did wonders for both Charlie and Lola and the Octonauts. A year later and they languish, rarely asked for on my shelves. I have no Wibbly Pig books in regular stock despite him being a regular on CBeebies and I have very few Kipper titles. I would hate for this to be Claude's fate, the books are too good for this to be allowed to happen.
One final point. I do hope that when the television series does come out some very clever marketing people make a soft toy of Claude, preferably with a removable beret, and one of Sir Bobblysock with his Larry Grayson glasses. That prospect truly excites me!

The One Hundred and One Dalmatians.

Nostalgia is a dangerous thing. Some things are never quite as you remember them, and when they are revisited you are left feeling disappointed and almost short changed that something you remember so fondly isn't actually at all as you remember it.
I'm rather pleased to say that The Hundred and One Dalmatians doesn't fall into this category. I first read it just shy of about 30 years ago when I was 7 or 8 and I was instantly entranced by it's language and it's wonderful inventiveness of the dogs world.
Very briefly the plot starts with two dalmatian dogs. Pongo and Missis who are recently married, and their pets, Mr and Mrs Dearly, who are also recently married. Shortly after this marriage Missis is due to have puppies. She has 15; a huge amount. Then we come to one of the greatest villains of children's literature. Cruella de Vil is a truly nasty piece of work and positively scary. Reading this again only last night, she still made me shiver slightly. Cruella loves furs. All sorts of furs, and she'd rather like a spotted dalmatian coat. As nasty a thought then as it is today.
In a distressing scene, the puppies are abducted. This leaves the adult dogs the task of launching one of, in my opinion, the greatest rescue missions ever written. Pongo and Missis guided by the twilight barking are able to discover the whereabouts of their puppies and make an epic journey to the place they are hidden. But are they able to get not only them, but 82 other puppies back to London in time for Christmas and avoid the horrible Cruella? Well it's a children's book. What do you think?
If you've only ever seen the Disney films, then I feel a little sorry for you. The book is umpteens times better, with more characters and a far scarier villainess, but it is the little touches that make this book so good. We only ever find the names of three of the puppies, but when the Cadpig is being revived by Mr Dearly, you really are rooting for the tiny pup.
It's a lovely book, full of period charm and yet even though it was written over 50 years ago, it's fresh and exciting. Egmont have also released a lovely hardback edition of the book which is rather splendid. The only disappointment is the illustrations. The current edition has a cartoony style which I dislike. I had a copy as a child with original editions and the images were far lovelier. Anyway that's a small complaint. Buy it, read it, love it. It really doesn't matter how old you are there's something in there for everyone.

More Than This

I was very, very excited when a proof of the new novel by Patrick Ness fell into my lap. I had seen pictures of it on Twitter and the book looks stunning, a black and white cross hatched book with a cut out on the front resembling a door where it is bright yellow and the title sits. My proof was just bright yellow and it looked striking and I wanted to dive right in and read it.

It came with a letter, where Ness says how writing about waking up abandoned had intrigued him for a while now. I rather got the impression that this book is rather personal,which makes me feel slightly bad for what I am about to say.

Anyway I started it and it was interesting, for about a couple of dozen pages. Then it got hard. Hard to read; hard to maintain interest; hard to stay with; just hard. The first part of the book deals with Seth who dies in the prologue. He drowns. He's of British origin but moved with his family to the Pacific Northwest. I was initially interested into how or why he drowned, but the book cuts away to how he is now, after he died and he's in an abandoned world which resembles his former home in the UK.
I'm not sure if it was this bleakness or the fact that it was the constant switching from Seth's life before he drowned to his "life" after he died, but it shames me to say that I lost interest. I found that I just didn't really care. I think the point was to be intrigued, alas I wasn't. Normally I fear that I would have given up at this point, but I really wanted to like this book; I wanted to carry on, even though I was struggling with it. Anyhow I battled on past part one and into part two, By now I took the hard decision to scan read. This was a hard decision because I was missing out on the prose which is so worth reading as it was quite beautifully written, but I just wasn't making any headway with the book. I'm not proud and willingly admit that beautifully written books are rather wasted on me. By scan reading I did miss out, but as I am very much a plot driven reader, I found the book far easier to engage with. 
I'm not going to say much else about the plot, except that it turns into more of a dystopian thriller in the middle and looks at some rather deep concepts. Seth's own story is in the end rather heartbreaking, and beautifully evoked. For me however it was just a little too long. In time I was intrigued with Seth and his story and I blame myself for not giving it my all.
In conclusion I would say More Than This is a book you really need to invest in if you are to read it; you really have to give it your all and if you do that I think that you will be richly rewarded. I fear that it is my own fault as a reader that I just didn't give enough to the book to get everything back. 

Claude in the Country

I'm not sure I've thoroughly communicated my deep love of the Claude books by Alex T. Smith. I simply adore them. They just tick so many boxes as they are ideal for the job that they do. They are funny, they have enough reading in them to satisfy confident readers, there is enough adult content to keep adults entertained without them getting bored through a staid story.
All the Claude books start in the same way be introducing Claude, Sir Bobblysock and Mr and Mrs Shinyshoes. As Claude In The Country starts our two chums are stuck inside because it had rained all day the day before. Sir Bobblysock has been writing his life story. I'm not convinced I can do this image justice, but he is sat at a typewriter wearing glasses on a chain. Just to remind you Sir Bobblysock is a sock. I regard this as complete and utter genius.
Our daring duo make it to the country where they meet a rather lovely farmer called Mrs Cowpat. Here Claude does all sorts of tasks for Mrs Cowpat. I particularly like the part where Claude goes horse riding but Sir Bobblysock decides to sit down and eat a chocolate eclair instead.
It is the day of the country fair and Claude has to wash Mrs Cowpat's pigs so that they are ready they go to the country fair. The pictures of the prizewinning vegetables and their winners are worth the price of the book alone. This is the sort of page that is innocent to children and rather amusing to adults. It's cheeky but rather fun.
The remainder of the story concerns a prize bull and a judge. Will Claude manage to be a hero again? Well I think that's a given, but they way it happens is so utterly charming and filled with fun that it really doesn't matter. Claude is a wonderful creation that I really can't recommend highly enough.

His Dark Materials

I fear that this post will say far more about me than it does about the books themselves and I know that I will get into a rather large heap of trouble from a certain friend if she ever reads this post. She'll know who she is, so if you are reading this, stop now! I'd also advise you to stop if you liked this trilogy.
It was over ten years ago when I first became aware of His Dark Materials. It was during the BBC's Big Read of the nation's 100 favourite books. It finished third which is a very impressive feat, only beaten by two books I feel very differently about; Lord of the Rings, which I can't begin to tell you how much I loathe, and Pride and Prejudice, which might, in my opinion, be just about the perfect book. I did little with this information except file it away until I was in a position to read it, shortly after all the hoo-har had died down. So shortly after I commenced my bookselling career, 10 years and counting, it was one of the first books I borrowed off the shelf and started to read.
It started off very well. I was entranced by the thought of Lyra hiding in the cupboard with her daemon as it shifted it's form next to her. I was on edge wondering if she would be caught. Then as the slide show began the magic word was uttered. Dust. At this point I lost all interest in everything that had gone before and put the book down in disgust.
About a year later I felt a little ashamed of myself so I tried it again with exactly the same result. I should point out that I do have form with this. I tried to read The Hobbit when I was ten or thereabouts and I never made it past the first sentence, there were just too many problems in those nine words for me. I still haven't got past the first sentence of The Hobbit to this day.
Anyway to cut a long story short I decided to read Northern Lights again before the film of the Golden Compass came out (I haven't seen the film and really don't want to). I finished it this time and got much further. It's over six years ago and since I have no intention of reading them again, some of my memories may be a little hazy, but instead of a review, here are a few of the thoughts I have marshalled together.
Lyra is one of the most annoying children in literature. She's a spoilt little brat who I couldn't stand and even though she is the main protagonist of the Northern Lights I couldn't wait for the story to move on so she wasn't in it. Mrs Coulter was about as threatening as a blancmange. Her daemon was slightly more so, but only slightly. I did however like the Polar Bears, and normally I dislike Polar Bears. The initial meeting was quite good and the battle was very scary and intense, That was the highpoint of the book. Everything else was just a little Meh. I just didn't get the supposed big themes. They were obviously just too subtle for me, or I was disliking the book so much that I was just in a rush to get to the end and couldn't be bothered to look deeper at the book and what it was trying to say.
I then did try to read the Subtle Knife. I can remember even less about this book than I can the first. I do sort of remember Will, a new character in this volume, used his knife to open a door to a new world where I think there were no children. That sounded rather blissful.
That's it for the second instalment. It seriously made that much impact on me. I did finish it though, even though I was getting steadily more vexed with it, but I made it and did get the the Amber Spyglass.
I was determined to read the whole lot. However, I was reading The Amber Spyglass in the bath,a pleasant image there for you, and this woman, who I can't remember who she was or where she came from, somehow travelled to a world where she met some creatures had a wheel for legs. This was the point that I threw the book across the room, where it hit the radiator and lay there for at least the next month. I was just too angry to even touch it.
So I never finished His Dark Materials. I don't feel ashamed to say that though I probably should. It's just not a series that is for me. It made me so angry when I read it that I couldn't look at the books without wanting to hide them away so I, or anyone else couldn't see them. I'm cross with myself as much as anything, but I maintain that the books are not as good as everyone says that they are.
It's been a long time since I read them and my hatred for them has slightly subsided over that time to a point where I am more indifferent about them. If you've enjoyed them I'm very happy for you. Alas, my abiding memory of His Dark Materials is one of frustration and anger.
Oddly I do still have my copies somewhere. I just don't know why.

Catch That Rat

I don't like saying bad things about picture books. I really don't. Picture books should be joyful things that entrance children and make them want to love books for the rest of their lives. There a many examples I could give of this, anything by the Ahlberg's or the wonderful Judith Kerr, Mick Inkpen and the timeless Eric Carle to name just four, I could easily go on and on and on.
Caryl Hart has written many children's books. I really liked one recent one, The Princess and the Peas, but I want to talk about her latest book, Catch That Rat.
It is a rhyming book a little bit similar to the Grande Dame of rhyming Children's books Julia Donaldson. It opens with a small white rat, dressed in rags running over a little girl's toes. After a little tippety tappety rhyming text the first spread ends with the words "Catch That Rat!" This refrain is used over the next half dozen pages at the end of the rhymes. It's nice for children to join in with. I can imagine a lot of children I know shouting this really rather too loudly. The little girl chases the rat through the house joined by her grandma then the postman and a builder and finally they end up in space where an alien points out the main problem of the entire book. The rat is scared. It is being chased for no reason whatsoever. This poor little rat has been chased over the course of the book for pretty much nothing. Which is why I don't like this book. It's a little thing, but it annoyed me a lot.

Siege and Storm

This is the second instalment of the Grisha trilogy which started really promisingly with Shadow and Bone which I blogged about a few days ago. Well, I've now finished the second volume and I eagerly await the third.
I never like saying too much about books which are the second in a series. When reviewing books I try to give an introduction to the book that makes a potential reader whetted and with enough information to make the book sound interesting but to not give any information away. With this book, I'll undoubtedly give spoilers for Shadow and Bone, so I'm going to say very little about the actual plot.
What I will say about Siege and Storm is that for a second book it is very, very good. Middle books of trilogies are hard. The first book has the glamour; It sets the scene, it delivers the characters, it entices you in. The third book has the climax, the grand finale, which (if the series is any good at all) should be satisfying and leave you feeling rather contented (not like Breaking Dawn. Yes, I know Twilight isn't a trilogy,  but this is just a note that the last book was dire and left me feeling angry that I'd bothered reading the saga to begin with.). The middle book has to make the leap between enhancing the first book and setting up the third. I thought Siege and Storm did that extremely well indeed.
There are some thrilling scenes of fights and daring escapes. The political aspect of the first book is developed further and the whole thing rattles along at a cracking pace. Even when the action stops there is enough going on to keep you entertained. Add to this the new characters that are introduced and the old ones which are enhanced and you've got a super read here.
I said in the post about Shadow and Bone that the book is similar to Twilight, and it's something I would maintain here. I think that if you enjoyed Twilight you would enjoy this, however I think the Grisha trilogy is far better then Twilight, which had four books with very little happening. There is action in wheelbarrow laods here, but sadly because it's not about Vampires I don't think it will have the same mass market appeal.
Perhaps oddly I also think that even if you loathed Twilight, then you would love this series. Given the current trend for dystopian novels and real life teen stories, this series really does stand out as an excellent example of what can be achieved in teen fantasy.
Just a note about the jacket. The turquoise colour with red onion domes is far more visually appealing than the grey, but after a conversation today when the phrase "onion dome" went straight over someone's head, I sadly don't think that they scream out to be picked up. They are books that you really have to sell to people. I'll do my best!
One final point, the books are labelled as teen, as indeed they are, however I think that they are suitable for quite young teenagers. there's a little bit of violence in there, but nothing worse than a Bond film and the romance isn't graphic in any way.
In summary a lovely second book with a thrilling and exciting end that sets up a finale wonderfully.

Lion vs Rabbit

Picture books are one of my favourite format of books. Good ones are able to move me, sometimes far more than a big chunky adult book that is supposed to be a tear jerker Sometimes I find then a little too calculated. I love how Picture Books have a kind of innocence that hangs over them.
I also love how authors are able to draw parallels, sometimes obscure ones between what is going on in the picture book and with real life. This book by Alex Latimer isn't obscure at all but does deal with a situation that many children, unfortunately will face.
Lion is a bully. A big, nasty bully. He does all sorts of mean things. He gives Buffalo a wedgie; he sticks a sign on Zebra, that says "I am a horse". He is mean and needs teaching a lesson.
Sadly it appears that there is no animal in Africa capable of teaching him this lesson. so the animals put out an  online advert for the strongest animals in the world to come and sort him out.
Moose comes from America, and challenges Lion to a fencing bout(!). Moose loses, Lion is triumphant. Bear comes from Russia, and Lion beats him, and Tiger comes from India, and Lion trounces him. The animals are distraught.
Then, from Europe,  Rabbit turns up. He's small and Lion is almost kind. He lets Rabbit choose the challenges that they will undergo. Rabbit is smart. The rabbit chooses a marshmallow eating contest. Who wouldn't? Rabbit wins. So follows a series of challenges where Lion and Rabbit go head to head. Lion knows he can beat the rabbit, but Rabbit has other ideas.
This book is one of my favourite picture books this year. It has a lovely moral, that even if you are stronger than everyone else, you don't flaunt it, you respect others and you do not bully other people. Shamefully I didn't get the plot twist until right at the very end. My excuse is that I was enjoying the book so much.
Lion vs Rabbit is a wonderful book, it is very funny and the images are rather wonderful, the look on Lion's face when Rabbit challenges him to an art contest is superb. It's the little touches too that abound in the book that really make it an absolute riot. It's a lovely addition to a young child's library.
Please buy it, read it and love it!

Peep Inside The Zoo

This is such a lovely, lovely book. It's essentially a very simple board book. What elevates it into a lovely book is the beautiful illustrations, the clever flaps and the die cutting which show tantalising hints of the next spread.
We are taken through a trip through the zoo. What I really liked was the text, which is informative and more of a reference book than a story, informing for example, how the penguins use their flippers to fly under water. My favourite spreads are the butterfly house where you open a butterflies wings to reveal a brilliant cobalt blue butterfly, and the gorilla house where you open the mother gorilla's arms to reveal her baby.
The final pages are lovely too, as they show the zoo at night and the flap where the keeper's flashlight illuminates the tiger is just lovely.
Beautifully illustrated by Simona Dimitri, this is a wonderful book to share.

The Brilliant World Of Tom Gates

This is one of the books, or series of books that causes most disagreements between children and adults in the shop. In case you haven't seen a Tom Gates book, they are bright and gaudy and rather eyecatching. Written by L. (Liz , but initialised so that boys won't realise a GIRL has written the book) Pichon, they are based around the notebook of the eponymous hero Tom Gates. As I have just stated, they are written in notebook form and are illustrated in the form of doodles around the pages, sometimes within sentences to draw attention to sweets or pop groups or other things that catch Tom's eye. The font used is unusual too and it looks like rather scruffy un-joined handwriting. which is part of the appeal of the book.
Tom is a normal boy, he has an older sister he likes to dislike, a best friend, a classroom enemy and a girl he is trying to impress. Much of this first book is devoted to his favourite band Dude3 and his own band Dog Zombies. It's nice stuff. I'm not convinced that the stories are great, but I'm 25 years past the target age, so I'm quite happy to go with the popularity of the books. Children from 8 and 9 upwards love them so much that they have won the Roald Dahl Funny Prize and the Blue Peter book award. High praise indeed.
The point of consternation comes with the style of the books, the hand written font style is very spaced out and the illustrations appear quite basic. This is what adults see and they have complained to me that there is no reading in there.
Here I have a difficult line to tread; there is actually a fair bit of reading to be done in these books, not as much as in a "traditional" style book, but that is the point of the whole Tom Gates series, they are different. They appeal to children because they are not a "traditional" book. If you stripped out the images and printed the font in Times New Roman, then adults would be rather happy, but the charm of the books would be lost completely, and I suspect that they would not be as widely read. They also appeal to children as the stories are normal; there's no magic, little adventure, nothing set in the past or the future, in space or within a broken family, it's a story about a boy who goes to school and his home life. Children can relate to these stories.
I had one rather upset adult thrust a book upon me saying "look at it", meaning it looked shabby and with little content, I head another saying "You aren't reading that, it looks dreadful" both opinions based on the style of the books rather than the substance.
I have a very simple answer to these comments. The child is wanting to read. Celebrate that fact; your child is wanting to read a book. They are not wanting to idle away hours on a games console, or watch mindless cartoons, or do whatever else your average 10 year old does these days, but your child is wanting to read a book. That itself is a marvellous thing. Read it with them, find out why you kid likes it. Bribe them, tell them "you can read this book, if afterwards you read something I think you should read", something classic, something you approve of, but don't turn them off reading. Let them read something they will enjoy, let them discover that reading IS fun, because let's face it, it is. To stop a child reading something they want to read and forcing them to read something they won't like, is the quickest way to them losing an interest in reading full stop.
So if your child wants to read The Brilliant World Of Tom Gates, please let them.

Shadow and Bone

I was lucky enough to recieve a proof of this book, which I am ashamed to say lay on my "to read" pile for rather too long. The first two books in the trilogy are now available so I'm a little bit of a latecomer to the Grisha trilogy, but I did get there in the end, and I'm very glad I did.
This was a difficult book to review, simply because every time I tried to review it I ended up retelling the story. I find that a lot with fantasy books: I feel that I have to try to explain everything about the fantasy land. I'm going to try and not do that now.

I'll say is that it's a fantasy set in Ravka, based on 18th century imperial Russia and it's an excellent setting; unusual and refreshingly different from the usual medieval settings that fantasy authors usually think they have to use. Our narrator is Alina, an orphan, who it is discovered is a Grisha; a person with magical power. Alina's powers are unique and potentially very powerful. She is a Sun Summoner and has the potential to banish The Fold, a terrifying area of darkness that splits the country of Ravka in two and is perilous to cross.

It wouldn't be a teen title without a heavy dose of romance and Alina has two very different suitors. The first is Mal, her childhood companion, who is a tracker in the army. The second is the Darkling, the leader and most powerful of the Grisha. He's the character who sweeps in charismatically and departs almost as quickly, making the female Grisha, Alina included, swoon in his wake. However he has ulterior motives and Alina soon discovers his true intent.

Shadow And Bone is a quite superb book. It's the sort of book that should have huge crossover appeal. Alina is an interesting narrator, she describes herself as far from beautiful and yet has a strength of character which makes her rather attractive. The Grisha are well created. Their different ranks and their political intrigue is well written: informative but unpatronising. 

The book has been likened to Potter, Game of Thrones, Twilight and the Hunger Games. I'm not sure I agree about the Potter reference, but I think if you've enjoyed Twilight and The Hunger Games, then this is well worth a read. I think that it is certainly superior to Twilight, but I sadly don't think that it will inspire the devotion that those books did. Shadow And Bone is pacey and clever and if you read it soon, you can feel pleasantly smug at having read it before the film is made, which is speculated to be coming within the next two years.

I think the only disappointing thing about the book is the jacket. I really like it, but It's grey and has what looks like a Russian Cathedral on the front. Though I rather appreciate an onion dome or three, I'm not sure that they have wide teen appeal. Don't let it put you off. This is a romantic and thrilling read and well worth investing in.

Wonder

If you haven't heard about Wonder yet, then I really think you should have. It's written as a 9-12 book but it has adult cross over appeal.
The story, by R. J. Palacio, is about August, know to his family as Auggie. He's a young boy aged ten who his parents have decided needs to go to school. Auggie however isn't that keen on the idea. This is mostly due to the tact that he has been born with a serious facial disfigurement. One of the opening lines in the book says "Whatever you are thinking, it's probably worse." You are immediately sympathetic to August and his situation. You then find out about his many operations and what August looks like and you just feel for this little boy .
Auggie is invited to school before the the term starts and there he meets a handful of his new classmates who are going to ease him into the school life. This meeting is a double edged sword as one of the students, Julian, is a bully. He thinks that because Auggie is different, he needs to be alienated. We don't like Julian. At all. However there is another boy in the group Jack Wills, who is one of the good guys.
What follows starts as the typical children in fifth grade, child overcoming the odds type of book. Or you think it is. After about a third of the book, told through Auggie's eyes, we change perspectives and we have new voices telling the story. One of the narrators is Olivia or Via , Auggie's older sister. Now this is where I thought the book really got interesting. We hear about how her life has been dominated by August, his surgeries, how their parents always had to put him first. She's not resentful and she loves her brother dearly, but as she's just moved into a new high school, this allows her to be herself and not to be know as Auggie's older sister for almost the first time in her life. We have other narrators too, Jack Wills for one and Via's new boyfriend for another. I found his section is particularly annoying because Palacio chose to use no punctuation or capital letters in this section. It's a minor niggle, but it did annoy me.
As we move through these narrators we follow Auggie's year in fifth grade. There is friendship and heartbreak (not in a romantic sense) and yet the year ultimately ends in triumph for August and his friends
Wonder is a superb book. I must say that I read it after people had raved about it and I'm ashamed to say I was slightly disappointed in it because I merely thought it was superb and not mind-blowingly outstanding.
It's a very mature book for the age range, but it is one that children should be encouraged to read. Through it's pages we learn that August is a bright and sensible and sensitive child, who likes the same things that other children enjoy, It's just that he looks different to them. The more people that are able to read this book the better. It's a little sentimental in places, but that's nothing to whine about really. Just read it and you'll feel a better person. I did.

Osbert The Avenger.

I must admit I'm in two minds about this book. I absolutely loved it, however I'm not convinced it's entirely suitable for the age range, which is suggested on the back of the book for ages 9+.
Let me elaborate. Schwartzgarten is a bleak place. It's obviously intended as an Edwardian period, German set, slightly steam-punky city state which can only exist in literature. It's one of those places where dark and devilish deeds abound. Born into this city is Osbert Brinkhoff, a child genius. He is granted a place at the Schwartzgarten Institute, a school where only the cleverest pupils are allowed entry; a place where the teachers view it as their job to break the will of the children they teach. With one notable exception, the teachers are all as evil as it is possible for a teacher to be.
After Osbert gains a perfect score in an exam but is denied the prize that should be his, he challenges the Head Teacher. This is a mistake as the Institute is the richest, most influential organisation in Schwartzgarten and they arrange for Osbert's father to lose his job in a bank and his family to lose their home.
Things unravel further for Osbert and after he sees his violin teacher hurt his beloved friend Isabella, he decides to take revenge. Thus starts a series of unplanned and planned murders as Osbert accidentally at first and then deliberately goes about bumping off five of his teachers. It's lovely stuff.
The first victim, the violin teacher, is tied to his bed with violin wire as a punishment. Osbert doesn't know that the teacher's housekeeper has gone visiting for ten days, and so when she returns... Well let's say the violin teacher won't teach the violin, or anything else again. Buoyed by his accidental success, he then plans the murders of the remaining 4 members of the teaching staff. I particularly enjoyed the death of the only female member of staff, who is lured to a disused strudel factory. There she is captured, suspended by a rope and forced to eat strudel until she breaks the rope and falls to her death. Marvellous. The ending is rather exciting too, but perhaps even darker than the rest of the book.
As I said, I really enjoyed this book. I thought it was deliciously dark, frequently thrilling, funny where it needed to be and despite it's darkness the writing had a lightness of touch to it that made reading it a great experience. It also had some great characters. I really liked Osbert's Nanny, who it turns out isn't adverse to bumping off her husbands.
I know it is a fantasy, but I do wonder about a 12 year old serial killer with a fondness for wielding a meat cleaver as an anti hero in a 9-12 book, but there's something so enjoyable about it I can't help enthusing about it.

Next on my list...

One of the rather enjoyable problems of working with books and having conversations with customers on a daily basis is, that with one thing and another, you get a reading list twice as long as your arm, in addition to the stack of books you've already got stacked around the house because you've run out of space on your bookshelves.
Being a children's bookseller is rather nice though as you can read a picture book in 5 minutes and can often read a 9-12 book in an evening, provided the dog doesn't decide that she needs all your attention, which at the moment she does.
Teen books do take a little longer though. I've recently finished John Green's Paper Towns which I really enjoyed, alas, I put An Abundance of Katherine's down after a couple of chapters. I really need to get going with it again. I also really need to read The Fault In Our Stars, but after reading Jenny Downham's Before I Die and before that a book which was far better than Before I Die, (shamefully I can't remember the title, however it involved a teenage cancer patient going to New York, falling in love and eventually succumbing ), I really don't feel that I can read another book like that at the moment. I've also read Wonder, for which there will be a review forthcoming.
So what am I reading next? Well I'm part way through, after putting them off for a long time, The Brilliant World of Tom Gates and I really do need to read Patrick Ness' Knife of Never Letting Go and A Monster Calls. I'm also fortunate to have received two rather exciting proof copies, I'm not 100% convinced I'm allowed to say exactly what they are at the moment, so I'll have to keep those under my hat for the moment. I'm going to revisit some old favourites such as The Hundred and One Dalmatians I may attempt to review the Potters and of course the remaining Claude books. If I'm feeling very, very brave I'll post my opinions on His Dark Materials, but I may need some serious fortification before I attempt that!
I'm going to start and review some more classics, including a few titles which were huge a couple of years ago, sadly I no longer have the books, but I think I can remember enough about them to review them effectively enough.
That's my plan anyway. Of course there may be something that springs up that I just have to read... I'd be very surprised if there wasn't.

Alex

Even though this is ostensibly a place where I review Children's books, as an (almost) adult, I do occasionally need to read the odd adult book to keep me, if not sane, then at least to get the little grey cells working a tiny bit harder.
I love crime novels. At the age of around 11, I made the seamless move from Enid Blyton to Agatha Christie, and to this day I find the intricacies of crime plotting fascinating.
To keep my crime reading up to date, I read Alex by Pierre Lemaitre. Given the author's name you'll be unsurprised to discover that it's a novel translated from French into English and, well, it's pretty darn good.
Alex is one of those novels where you really don't know where it's going until you've got there, and even then it will take you a little while to work out quite how you got there.
Our detective is 4'11'' tall Camille Verhoeven. He's an interesting character, with, unsurprisingly as this is a crime novel and he's a fictional detective, his own demons and quirks. His mother was an artist and he enjoys doodling (my interpretation) all the way through the investigation. He's also traumatised by a personal tragedy, of which I shall say no more, it's not a plot spoiler, but some things you need to discover for yourself.
Which leads us to the case. Alex, the titular character is roughly abducted at the beginning of the book. Her situation is pretty dire, and these opening 10 chapters are rather brutal, she's forced to strip and is suspended in a cage. Oh and there are rats.
I'm not going to say too much else, except there are some huge and extremely impressive plot twists; just when you see where you think the story is going, there's a sudden u-turn which makes you re-evaluate what you have just read and where your sympathies lay. If I say any more then I'll give something away and I really don't want to do that, as I don't think it fair if you are going to read it.
As I said earlier, it's fiction in translation; the translation isn't bad, but it needs a very little effort to keep with it. It's a tiny bit clunky in places, but nothing that is really flawed or that spoilt my enjoyment too much.
If I had to make criticisms, I think the main one would be that it was a little too reserved in places. It will undoubtedly be compared to The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, but Larsson's writing for me is a little more brutal than Lemaitre's so that even though the horrors they write of are equally as vile, Alex just seemed a little more reserved.
Anyhow it's a great book, I'd highly recommend it and though I'd not go quite as far as to say beg, steal or borrow a copy, I do say read it. I think many will really, really enjoy it. I'm looking forward to the next one which is praise enough.

Anna Dressed in Blood

I don't tend to read horror books. I remember being traumatised as a child by a book that belonged to my sister. It was a pulpy trashy horror sort of thing which had people running away from giant crabs (!) and then, slightly later, at what was my sister's 21st birthday and a combined Halloween party, the film Halloween was on and I saw a little too much of it. I still can't watch it to this day and that's nearly 30 years ago.

So I was feeling brave when I picked up Anna Dressed In Blood which is a teen horror title. Very brave indeed.

The story concerns Cas Lowood, who is a 16/17 year old ghost hunter.  Since the death of his father, he's travelled the world with his mother killing malevolent ghosts; the kind of ghosts that don't stay dead; the kind of ghosts who, upset about the way they died, kill the living. He's essentially following in his father's footsteps, as he was a ghost hunter before him, and to that end he uses his father's knife, a long bladed weapon known as the athame. He's quite successful. 

His latest case takes Cas, his mother and her cat to Canada, and to mysterious Anna Korlov, who haunts the house where she was killed. There's something different about Anna though, she's an incredibly strong ghost, and instead of dispatching her Cas and his new found friends try to discover the mystery behind Anna's death. There's a deeper story here too though and the mystery of just what did happen to Cas' dad becomes a thrilling and unexpected plot twist.

I really, really enjoyed this book. It's worth looking past the frankly appalling cover which appears to have been designed to alienate boys from reading it; the computer generated face of a girl in a red dress beckoning, could have been so much better. Even a knife would have been more appealing.
There are quite a few genuinely scary and chilling moments in this book. Cas convinces a group of his new classmates to take him to Anna's house and what happens to the school jock there is brutal, the ending scenes too are chilling in their unexpectedness. There's also a nice balance of the characters, they aren't all you'd expect them to be. Add to this a touch of romance, not too heavy, but if you like that sort of thing, well you could read more into it than I did! It just all adds up to an enjoyable read.

In summary a great summer teen chiller I would say from 14 upwards, there are enough scares to keep you on your toes and even a scaredy cat like me found it to be a real page turner.

Sticker Dolly Dressing. Edwardian Fashion and 1920's Fashion

And now for something completely different.

I mentioned in my opening salvo that one of the great things about Children's books is the breadth and range that is currently available. Sticker books of course are nothing new, but recently the dolly dressing books have really become very popular. They are aimed at girls, (though recently a whole slew of books on warriors and pirates and the like have emerged with boys as the target audience) and have topics such as sport girls, dancing girls and the like and you dress the doll. Nothing too complicated there, really nothing to review. I don't like or dislike the books, some are mildly educational, as in Costumes From Around The World, but on the whole they provide a couple of hours of fun for a bored tweenager.

However recently 2 books have been published which are a cut above the average sticker dolly dressing book. They are historical fashions and focus on the 1920's and (loosely) The Edwardians.

I think these are wonderful and completely fascinating. They take an aspect of the times, so the 1920's book has pages on amongst other things, flappers, the obsession with all things Ancient Egyptian, a look at Coco Chanel, the crazes for sport and college life, Oxford bags and all. Each of these themes has mostly a two page spread with people posing in their underwear, all of which is quite glamorous. The fun comes in stickering the fashions over the right model! Depending on how much a perfectionist the child is, it will keep them busy for seconds, or hopefully hours!

The Edwardian book covers the up the the end of the First World War, but also looks at the Belle Epoch, Art Nouveau, sporting life and ballroom dancing and the rebirth of the Empire Line dresses from a century early. They really do give a thorough look at the main fashion trends of the day.

The fashions are mostly female, but there's a look at men's clothing in passing. I would honestly say to anyone interested in fashion these are worth a look at. I bought the 20's book for a friend recently who loves it! If you are tempted by them then may I suggest to get 2 as you'll probably want to keep one intact as they are such lovely books, I know my friend did! As I say, these are much more interesting and educational than the regular sticker books and will last a lot longer.

Dixie O'Day: In The Fast Lane

OK, I'm just going to come right out and say it. I don't like books by Shirley Hughes: I don't like Dogger, I don't like the Alfie books and I'm afraid that I don't like Dixie O'Day either.
I'm aware that makes me something of an outcast amongst the Children's Bookselling movement, but I have to be honest about these things. I find her books very staid and samey. Her illustrations are beautiful, but perhaps they are just too much for me. The credits for this book go to Hughes, who has written the text and to her daughter, Clara Vulliamy who has illustrated it.
Anyhow let us get onto Dixie Day and then my issues with him. Dixie O'Day is a dog. He wears clothes and drives a car. He has a friend called Percy, also a dog who wears clothes and likes bow ties. He has a nasty human neighbour called Lou Ella... She reminds me of Penelope Pittstop, but she's not very nice. There's a bit of banter about cars as Lou Ella gets a new car every year but Dixie has an old car he's had for ages. Then there's a minor accident, reminiscent of the last scene of the Italian Job, and the rest of the story is of an all day car race between Didsworth and Dodsworth. There are japes and stalls and tortoise and the hare style issues before we get to the end of the race and, well, you'll have to guess who wins.
In style this book is very similar to the Claude books I adore so much, which may be why I have issues with this book. Don't get me wrong there are lovely things about this book, I like the fact is has seven chapters, one for each night of the week and I enjoyed parts of the story and the 50's retro style of the book has some appeal.
However, there were a couple of things I really didn't like. There is a part of the race where Dixie and Percy are approaching a level crossing and the barriers are going down, so Dixie steps on the accelerator and they get stuck in the barrier only just getting away before the train comes. I'm going to be an old fuddy-duddy here, but I think that is completely irresponsible given all the issues that are had with level crossings these days. I also found Percy to be a bit of a wet blanket. He really didn't add enough to the plot to warrant being there. The whole thing was just a little bland.
I'll finish by saying that it's an OK book for grandparents to buy, as I suspect they are the target market, but to be honest with you I'd buy a Claude book as it will be more entertaining for children and adults alike.

Oksa Pollock - The Last Hope

So far I've only reviewed books that I've really enjoyed. Oddly, I find it harder to review books I've liked as I find it difficult to explain quite why I've enjoyed something. For me it's very much a case of the overall experience of a book which makes it good and enjoyable.
In Oksa Pollock The Last Hope it's far easier for me to say why I didn't enjoy it.
In case you don't know Oksa Pollock is a huge bestselling series across Europe, The authors, Anne Plichota and Cendrine Wolf, are French and the book has been translated into English by Sue Rose. It's very much your typical 9-12/teen standard fantasy book. A young girl discovers she has powers and she is vital to reclaiming her own land. It's set in the modern day and the book was set in London, as the authors thought this was a far more interesting city to set the book in. It's been called the French Harry Potter, which is high praise indeed.
Oksa is the last in line of the Graciouses, the female rulers of Edefia, a hidden magical realm. Her family were forced to flee when her Great Grandmother, Malorane was overthrown and her Grandmother, the current gracious and her followers have been hiding out in Russia and then in France for the past 50 years or so. They've now moved again to London in order to keep Oksa safe. Discovering her powers, which include firing fire balls from her hands and the ability to fly, Oska then has to deal with her new powers and a teacher, who isn't all he seems, in many escapades.
This book isn't really that bad, (it's by no means brilliant) but for me it just doesn't live up to the hype, partly because I think it has been let down by very ordinary translation. It's almost as if the book has been translated word for word, where what it needed was to be translated and then reworked by a children's author. Some of the phrases and terminology just sounds wrong in English; the power of Cameraeye, where the Gracious looks at a wall and projects her memory from her eyes for example, just sounds a little too literal. In J.K. Rowling's magical world this ability would have been latinised just to make it sound a little more magical. I also can't remember the last time i read the word "chums" in a book for this age group; it just doesn't sit with the rest of the story. And there's a whole section on objects called granok shooters, which I'm afraid I failed to fully comprehend, I believe them to be a little like a pea shooter, but they propel magical effects. The "science" or reasoning behind these is explained at very great length, which really just upsets the flow of the book and bored me somewhat. And the whole evil teacher malarkey has rather been done to death now.
There are lovely moments and characters though. My favourites are the goranovs, hypochondriac plants, which are rather funny and the back stories of the characters are interesting in places. Just a couple of notes in case you decide to give this to a child, there is one case of bad language and one example of casual racism, where a boy with Chinese ancestry is called a rude name by another child. It did stand out when I read it, as it seemed to be at odds with the rest of the book.
On the whole it's worth a read, but I'm not sure I'd be interested in reading the whole series, which I fear is rather damning in itself.

Wanted: The Perfect Pet

It has come to my attention that so far I have reviewed three books and all of these books are written and illustrated by men. This is no political statement, just a kooky fact. Now as unlikely as it is that this blog will be inundated with feminists demanding that I give equal pegging to female authors, there is the slim chance that it could happen, so let me right the wrong that I have so far committed. Today I am going to review two books; they do follow on from each other and share an author. Her name is Fiona Roberton.
Wanted: The Perfect Pet is a bold red jacketed book with a picture of a  boy called Henry on the front of it. Henry looks a little bit like Bod, for those of you of a certain vintage, though without the quirky music or the odd way of walking, as this is a book and not a seventies television programme.
Henry, more than anything wants a pet. A pet dog. However he's not allowed to buy one so, he does what any self respecting child would do and puts an advert in the paper. He only gets one response and it's not from a dog. It's from a duck.
This poor duck is all alone, and it's possibly the saddest thing I have ever read. So in order for Henry to accept him, the duck disguises himself as a dog. It is beautiful. Henry is delighted when the strange dog arrives on his doorstep and they go and play. However the duck slowly loses his disguise and it jeopardises their budding friendship.
This really is a beautiful book, the illustrations are simple and all the more lovely and moving for that. In the same way that a tear on Miffy's face is the epitome of sadness, the you really do feel the despair and the elation that the duck feels through the really moving illustrations. My favourite part of the book though, is the final illustration of Spot (the duck) laying flat out on Henry's bed, it is the ideal image of boy and duck.
In the follow up book Wanted: The Perfect Present, this time with a blue jacket, it is fast approaching Henry's birthday and Henry and Spot are playing a guessing game as to what Spot has bought for his friend, these images are really sweet and show a lovely domestic relationship. On Henry's birthday his grandparents have bought Henry a puppy. This throws Henry and Spot's relationship into turmoil and when Spot is starting to feel ignored, well it launches a chain of events where we discover just what the perfect present really is.
These are two really special books examining friendship and feelings in a gentle way. I really do highly recommend them. The story's are told gently and lovingly and as I've stated already the line drawings have a complexity and depth of emotion that belies their apparent simplicity.

Annuals...

Just a brief note to remind myself, the first 2014 annuals arrived in yesterday...

I don't think I need to say anymore.

The Terrible Thing That Happened To Barnaby Brocket

I wasn't going to post today as I had some pretty nasty work related news which made me really rather cross and upset. However, knowing what I am like, and I'm afraid this is selfish, as soon as I stop writing, I won't want to carry on, so I decided to write about an old-ish favourite. 
I adored The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas, despite the fact it was so bleak, it had a innocence which was in its own way charming and which made the ending even more devastating.
So knowing that I picked up The Terrible Thing That Happened to Barnaby Brocket with a minor spasm of trepidation, especially as the title tells us that a Terrible Thing is about to happen.
The story is set in Australia, and after a rather nice introduction telling us how Barnaby's *normal* parents met and how after two perfectly *normal* pregnancies his *normal* older siblings are born, it moves on to tell of Mrs Brocket's difficult pregnancy and the abnormally painful birth which resulted in Barnaby being born and him floating straight up to the ceiling of the delivery room. Barnaby, therefore is abnormal and because of this his parents, especially his mother, are embarrassed by him and fearful of what other people will think of them. The book then follows Barnaby's formative years, including his escapades through being sent to school, his parents now controlling his inability to follow the law of gravity by making him wear a weighted backpack which in turn make his ears hurt. At school he meets his first friend, a boy with no hands but who has rather cool hooks instead. Here they help each other get out of a near death experience. One day shortly after, while out walking with his mother, the Terrible Thing happens and Barnaby floats away.
Immediately upon this happening it launches a remarkable set of adventures which are quite magnificent. The first people Barnaby meets after the Terrible Thing are two older ladies who rather handily are flying over in a hot air balloon. Now it's never stated but heavily implied that these ladies are a very happy couple. They live in South America on a farm, and after a few days there, where Barnaby helps to solve a couple of problems he hops on an overnight train from Rio to New York, an oddly believable event in the course of things. As Barnaby travels the world in his quest to get back home, he meets all kinds of people, none of whom would be described as *normal* by his dull and disappointing parents. Oddly, the only unbelievable part of the story comes at the end, when Barnaby floats up into space, its not a bad sub plot, and it really does set up the finale rather well, but it just didn't feel quite right to me, but that's my only minor quibble with this outstanding book.
The book is slightly reminiscent of Matilda, in the sense of a very intelligent child is let down by his parents and the wonderful motto "there is no such thing as normal" rings out loud and true from the pages. It's illustrated by than man again, Oliver Jeffers, who  has hand written some splendid postcards that Barnaby has sent to his family back in Australia. It also contains one of the most magnificently named pet dogs in children's fiction, well that I have read anyway.
I've had it described to me as a sad book. In many ways it is, but at the same time the wonderful adventures and the uplifting nature of the book make it a triumph.

Claude in the City.

Right I'm going to come out and say it straight away.

I LOVE CLAUDE AND SIR BOBBLYSOCK!

Now I've got that out of the way, lets talk a little about the complete and utter genius of Alex T. Smith and his timeless creation: Claude.

At the start of the book we meet Claude, a small plump dog, with a fondness for a natty red jumper and a beret. Who can fail to be entranced? If you say me, then I hereby call you a heathen and banish you from my tiny little corner of the blogosphere.
At this point I probably should say that the Claude books are intended for developing and confident readers from the age of around 5 upwards, and are fully and magnificently illustrated on every page in hues of red and grey.
Claude lives with his owners, Mr and Mrs Shinyshoes, who a little like Mammy Two Shoes in the Tom and Jerry cartoons, are only seen from the waist down, and his best friend Sir Bobblysock, who as his name suggests, is a bobbly sock. However to describe Sir Bobblysock as just a bobbly sock is an insult to him. He's a slightly world weary hypochondriac, who has seen and done everything, but he tacks along with his best friend, a young, inquisitive dog, in the hope of a cup of tea or a fruity cocktail (that looks more like something Carmen Miranda might have worn on her head) and some form of pastry. He's a slightly camp character that almost every children's book really would benefit from having.
There are two stories in this first instalment of Claude's extraordinary adventures, both of which are superb. Now, I'm not wanting to give anything away, but almost by accident Claude almost always manages to find himself in the wrong place and yet he has the canny ability to accidentally turn the situation around and turn himself into the hero. The first story is lovely, involving a shopping trip into town and then to the museum where Claude foils a magnificently coiffured thief, yet it's the second where I feel Claude really finds his feet. Sir Bobblysock is feeling a little more listless than usual and so Claude rushes him to the hospital. There a magnificently named doctor takes Sir Bobblysock away for treatment and a wonderful Hattie Jacques inspired nurse mistakes Claude for a doctor. A number of patients including some women wrestlers and a tattooed, bearded biker with a penchant for embroidery, are suddenly taken ill and Claude is their last hope! By careful powers of deduction Claude diagnoses the problem!
There are so many great things about this book it's difficult to know where to begin. It is delightfully modern and yet there's a distinctly old fashioned feel about it which is meant as a compliment! The books is full of puns and japes and there's enough to keep an adult amused which is notable in itself, both with the fun storyline and the jokes which can work on more than one level, the witty illustrations are just sublime and very distinct, which I love.
As a final note, I've made many of my colleagues read this, I do tend to force books on them, but as most of them are reasonably short, they don't seem to mind too much, and all of them now love Claude almost as much as I do. I was paid the very great compliment, that the Claude books are like something I would create. If only I had the talent...

The Day the Crayons Quit

As soon as I saw this book, it looked like something rather special. Books with cover illustrations by Oliver Jeffers usually do, but this one, with it's brightly coloured crayons on a white background just popped right out at me. It is a book that screams "Pick me up and hold me," which is always a good thing.
Picture books by their very definition are a mixture of text and illustrations, and there are numerous books which have sparkling text and dull, verging on dire illustrations or books with the most amazing images but the story manages to be as dull as old pants. In my opinion, The Day The Crayons Quit is one of the best examples of the ideal marriage of words and pictures.
The premise is verging on genius. A boy named Duncan, one day has received a pile of letters from his crayons. This series of letters are sometimes complimentary but more often complaining, about just how Duncan uses them; amongst other things being overused or underused, arguing over which colour is the true colour of the sun, and embarrassingly, having the paper removed from them. There are so many highlights in the book it is difficult to choose one, however if pressed, I think I would have to select the poor peach crayon. It's the crayon which has had it's paper removed and is now nude. Imagine the horror. All this makes Duncan think and the final couple of pages give this book a triumphant finale.
With text as brilliant and witty as this by debut author Drew Daywalt, it demands top notch illustrations. Oliver Jeffers is one my favourite illustrators, and I personally find him at his very best when he is illustrating another authors work. In The Day The Crayons Quit, he manages to capture a childlike quality in the illustrations and in the letters which are hand written by Jeffers, the style is truly wonderful and manages to enhance the words, which is a wonder in itself.
My only minor criticism of this book, is that due to the style of it, having hand written all the crayons letters with illustrations on the facing pages it looks like an Oliver Jeffers book and that Drew Daywalt won't get the credit he really does deserve.
Anyhow that's the only thing I can find to fault with this book, so if you've got a 4 year old, or a child a couple of years older, do them a favour, Buy this book and share it with them. They'll thank you for it. Hopefully it will inspire some creative colouring and even possibly help children to take proper care of their crayons.

Hello!

So, I'm going to attempt blogging. It's a slightly scary experience for all kinds of reasons. The main one is that I am quite terrible at writing; I ramble on too much and I have dreadful grammar. I can barely type, which makes it look like I can't spell at all, and I'm not the best at that anyway, and my syntax is rather ordinary. In addition, I'm far too fond of popping a comma into a sentence where it probably really doesn't need one. No, punctuation isn't a strength at all.
Anyhow, enough of my many shortcomings, my intent is to attempt to review some of the books I read as part of my job. I am a children's bookseller and I read a fair few children's books. Sadly probably not as many as I should, but we can all say that.
There are many wonderful things about children's books, and indeed about selling children's books, and if I started listing them I'd be here all evening and then that would probably turn into an unedifying rant into the worse aspects of bookselling, which I don't want to start, just yet. However I must just say that in my opinion, the best thing about my job is the variety of books that I deal with on a daily basis; from babies books to books for young adults, the sheer range of books that are available for children today is both exciting and inspiring.
So why start a blog now? Well it's something I've been thinking about for a little while, but I've lacked the courage to bother, frankly. However yesterday a book arrived into the shop that just needed shouting about, and though I know a new blog won't get any readers and therefore I'll fail in my task of spreading the joy, every little helps and I'll feel better for having done it!
So I'll be reviewing books, hopefully on a regular basis, attempting to be honest about them. Sometimes I'll despair, sometimes I'll gush. I'll overuse words like "brilliant" and "marvellous" as they are two of my favourite words, so I'll have to dig out my thesaurus, and I'll basically give a 36 year old's view of books intended for people younger than half my age. It's a good job I've never really grown up.
I think I may enjoy this.