Schools & Libraries Book Reviews

Name: Lizi Coombs
29 July 2015;

Genre: Adventure

This is an easy to understand book that tells the story of Rama and how he defeats the evil king of all demons, Ravana. This is a story shared in many schools as children learn about Diwali and Hinduism - because of this, I'm familiar with a few versions of the story, and find that this particula...

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Name: Lizi Coombs
29 July 2015;

Genre: Adventure

This book has no words; just fantastically detailed images. The book starts with a little boy witnessing a variety of quite distressing events, planes with bombs attached flying over his town, tanks rampaging through the streets, businesses being shut down, soldiers breaking down doors... pictur...

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Name: Kerra Dagley
29 July 2015;

Genre: Adventure

Another amazing social and environmental piece from Gill Lewis, set deep in the African jungle, we are caught in the midst of war, murder, gorilla trading and environmental destruction in the name of progress. Powerful and thought-provoking from the start, I read it straight through to the end, u...

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Name: Melanie Chadwick
28 July 2015;

Genre: Adventure

Philip Reeve's boundless imagination and superb gift for storytelling combine brilliantly once again to produce the amazing Railhead. From the mind that created nomadic, cannibalistic cities in Mortal Engines there now comes a fantastic new world of interstellar trains and dynastic intrigue. Zen...

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Name: Lizi Coombs
21 July 2015;

Genre: Adventure

'Soap - it smells like a flower threw up on you ...' I can think of many, many children I know who will enjoy this book! A sort of barbaric 'Goblet of Fire' for younger readers..., this book is action packed, humourous and easy to access. The historic setting makes it different from many books o...

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Name: Linda Brown
21 July 2015;

Genre: Fantasy

I will never look at a fairy tale the same way ever again! The Last Ever After is the third book in the wonderful The School For Good and Evil series. It's darker and a little more menacing...

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Name: Carol Williams
20 July 2015;

Genre: Adventure

Tanya Landman has written an important book here, one which, as the reviews say, examines the 'true meaning of freedom'. However, it is also extremely readable, and has a main character and narrator with who one immediately identifies, and whose narrative voice is authentic and likeable. Charlott...

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Name: Amanda Allen
15 July 2015;

Genre: Family & Home

I didn't really expect too much from this book. I thought it would be quite a light read but I ended up enjoying it. Iris has grown up thinking that her father, Ernest, abandoned her and her mother; the truth is something quite different. When Iris and her money-grabbing mother return t...

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Name: Sue Wilsher
13 July 2015;

Genre: Adventure

When their headmistress and her brother suddenly die during Sunday lunch, the pupils of St Etheldreda's decide to bury the bodies and carry on as if nothing had happened. Hiding the deaths soon proves to be much harder than they thought it would be and events quickly spiral out of their control....

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Name: Carol Williams
12 July 2015;

Genre: Adventure

I started reading this, thinking how many books for young people there are with 'non-traditional' families: single parents, divorces, families falling apart, and so on. Sally Nicholls' latest has a family of orphans, with Holly (13 and the first person narrator) and Davy (7) being looked after by...

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