The Wide Awake Loons has been in my Kindle since February 2015. I suspect I got it in a free or reduced price offer, possibly a Kindle deal. I apologise to Katherine Holmes for taking so long to get around to
Book Review | The Wide Awake Loons

The Wide Awake Loons has been in my Kindle since February 2015. I suspect I got it in a free or reduced price offer, possibly a Kindle deal. I apologise to Katherine Holmes for taking so long to get around to
Lockdown may be easing in many countries, but it is still big news. Maybe it helps children to read about kids in other countries, or other situations from themselves. If so, Clare O’Beara’s two books featuring kids in lockdown in
The Mostly Invisible Boy was a Great Middle Grade Reads book of the month – for June! I managed to read it before the end of July, which is a vast improvement on my recent performances. This was the Group’s
Umbrella Mouse to the Rescue came to me from the publisher via Net-galley early in the year, when it was scheduled for publication around June. I saw a new date for July and one for September, so I’m publishing the
Monstrous Devices was a net-galley book from the publisher. I got it very close to the publication date listed, although it seems to have been published earlier, maybe in different formats, or it’s been picked up by a bigger publisher.
The Seed Savers series by Sandra Smith has been one of my joys to read over the last few years. I didn’t really understand Sandy’s use of the Bible as a teaching method in book 1, but now I realise
Salt has been in my kindle for at least three years (on my list for four!). It’s not the first I’ve read by Helen Laycock, whose Mandrake’s Plot I featured at the end of 2018. Helen gets over the ‘absent
A Girl Called Justice is for middle graders who like a good mystery. And Elly Griffiths (Ruth Galloway series, Brighton Mysteries) is READING IT ON FACEBOOK! She started 1st May, with the aim of finishing it May 14th when a
I’m delighted to announce a third ghost: IT’S OUT TOMORROW… Voyagers: The Third Ghost An Insecure Writer’s Support Group Anthology Journey into the past… Will the third ghost be found before fires take more lives? Can everyone be warned before
The Star Agency is book 1 in the series of the same name by R E Weber. If you find it sounds vaguely familiar it’s because I reviewed book 2 in the series, The Voyages of the Seven, over two
What Stars Are Made Of came from Penguin Random House Childrens UK, via Netgalley. I absolutely loved the blurb and was delighted to be granted a review copy. It’ll be published on Thursday next week. This is the NetGalley blurb:
My Book of the Year for 2019 is… one of the following. Book of the Year 2019 long list I long list nearly all of those I’ve given five stars on Goodreads during the year. So those are (links to
The Earthkeepers: I thought it might have survived a few passes of Down the TBR Hole, as I knew I had the cover in my system here. It turns out I uploaded it in 2014 for a blog tour. I
Today is a book review on Justine Laismith’s blog tour for Secrets of the Great Fire Tree. I ‘meet’ Justine on the GMGR Goodreads group, and I’m delighted to host her today. The tour organiser is Aurelia Leo. Secrets
Chronicles of Marsh hits the online bookstores today! Join in the celebrations by getting your own copy, reading the interviews, and entering the giveaway! If you have your own blog, you still have time to make your own post –
Cosmic Colin: Hairy Hamster Horror and The Witches both came from my library. MG means middle grade, a period of schooling in the US that translates into the roughly 8-12 age group in the UK. I regularly peruse the childrens
Witchbone Book One ~ The Goblin’s Winter: a paranormal fairy tale is a very long title for a book. Several other things make me wonder whether the author took heed of editorial advice for MG tales [also demonstrated by the
Castle Hangnail is the GMGR Book of the Month selection for October, Halloween month. I’m very grateful to the Amazon resellers for getting a copy to me in time. It arrived around 12, I started it at 3.30, and finished
Witch Week caught my eye as I was browsing the mobile library shelves. The GMGR and other book of the month choices eluded me, so I hunted for something else that fell into the categories MG and suitable for Halloween
After Zero was published on 1st September. I got a pre-release copy from the publishers via Net-galley on August 31st. Had I not have been in the middle of something else, I might have got this review out by the
Dreamwood is my book review for today. This fantasy adventure for middle grade readers takes place around the north-west coast of a settler-era America. What’s so #30DaysWild about that? Well, with all the things going on with the trees, I thought
Shadows from the Past is an MG historical time travel mystery suspense adventure series by Wendy Leighton-Porter. Wendy has won several awards in the last year. These are thoroughly deserved, as it’s an excellent series, which gives you a real
The Company of Eight was a book I requested on Net-Galley, so I thank them and the publishers for allowing me a review copy. As usual, my review is my honest opinion of the book. The Company of Eight Harriet
The Girl Who Drank the Moon was a Book of the Month from the Great Middle Grade Reads group on Goodreads; it was an excellent choice. It’s won various awards, which can sometimes be off-putting, but I thought it deserved
I got Journey to the River Sea from my library. It was recommended at the conference I went to in 2011, which started me off as a self-published MG author. I read one of Eva Ibbotson’s (many) other books a