The Dragonfly Pool reads like two stories in one: the tale of Delderton and the children who learn to be themselves under such teachers as Matteo, whose biology classes can take place at 4am; and the story of Bergania and unhappy Prince Karil, who finds secret solace by the pool of the title, hidden in the forest. But the parts are knitted together by their celebration of humanity NICOLETTE JONES
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Just Henry reviewed in Guardin too
Part of the pleasure for the reader lies in the well-loved themes of overcoming difficulties, of making do (for instance, in a wonderful description of making a doll's cot and bedding out of an orange box) and of knowing that all the young people's dreams are going to come true and that love will triumph. ADELE GERAS
see previous entry for Amazon link
Just Henry reviewed by Amanda Craig
Despite its length (at least 200 pages should have been pruned off) this is a thrilling, richly detailed story that rips along to a hair-raising climax in which Henry and his sister are imprisoned in a cellar and about to be murdered. Several times, I found myself crying; only the greatest authors of children's fiction share this ability to touch the heart.
Diane Samuels reviews Toby Alone by Timothée de Fombelle, translated by Sarah Adams
A big story about tiny people, this first volume of Timothée de Fombelle's award-winning two-part French saga takes the notion of discovering the universe in a grain of sand and applies it to a tree. Toby, the eponymous hero, is 13 years old and only a millimetre and a half tall; for him the distance from root to topmost leaves is an epic trek. This Lilliputian world is the setting for an ecological allegory, a microcosmic exploration of humanity's relationship with nature and a rites-of-passage adventure story...
Philip Ardagh reviews Chicken Dance by Jacques Couvillon
It's a rare skill to be able to bring a fictional family so convincingly to life, and with such humour, too. This is what puts Jacques Couvillon in the ranks of Frank Cottrell Boyce and the Australian writer Martine Murray. By the end of the book we've been so completely and convincingly drawn into Don's world - his family, his on-off relationship with his friend Leon Leonard, his dreams and ambitions - that he lives on beyond the story.
Goof family read, says Adele Geras
Parents are being urged to read to their children, and the chapters here are exactly the right length for this. This is a perfect family book because the adult reader will share the pleasure of the listening child....
Adele Geras reviewing The Battle For Gullywith by Susan Hill
Sunday Times Children's Book of the Week
Once Upon A Time In The North by Philip Pullman
an exquisite object, finely produced, with skilled and handsome woodcuts [by John Lawrence] of the streets and harbour of "Novy Odense" on the Barents Sea, which has the atmosphere of a frontier town in a western... NICOLETTE JONES
Kathryn Hughes on Before Green Gables by Budge Wilson
Anyone who loves Montgomery's original books (she went on to produce a whole series) will probably be able to read this prequel without minding the occasional jarring note. What may grate, though, is the cover design in which the UK publishers have clothed this Anne of Green Gables for a new generation. While the story works hard towards achieving historical and geographic authenticity, Puffin has given us Anne as a deracinated figure in what appears to be modern dress.
Doesn't 'grate' with me :)
What do you think?
