achukareviews tag:www.achuka.co.uk,2008-06-19:/achukareviews//5 2010-09-01T20:22:42Z Movable Type Pro 5.01 The Land of Long Ago tag:www.achuka.co.uk,2010:/achukareviews//5.4590 2010-09-01T20:04:50Z 2010-09-01T20:22:42Z Elsa Beskow Floris 978086315771 September 2010 This is one of a large selection of titles by Swedish author-illustrator, Elsa Beskow, made available in English translation by Floris Books. According to the publishing details page this title has not been... achuka http://www.achuka.co.uk Elsa Beskow Floris 978086315771 September 2010 This is one of a large selection of titles by Swedish author-illustrator, Elsa Beskow, made available in English translation by Floris Books. According to the publishing details page this title has not been previously available in English. It was first published in 1923 as Resan Till Landet Langesen. The name of the translator is for some reason not given.
At first sight Beskow's artwork may come across as somewhat naive and dated, but it is undeniably charming and very simply accessible, as is the story. Two children are playing imaginatively on a dead tree trunk. They use a broken umbrella as dragon wings. While they are riding the pretend dragon a mischievous gnome makes it real, and away they actually fly. Floris Books certainly champion this author, calling her 'the Beatrix Potter of Scandinavia'. They even publish an Elsa Beskow calendar. If you haven't heard of Beskow before, visit this website: http://kampanj.bonniercarlsen.se/beskow/meny1.htm



]]> Dragon Feathers tag:www.achuka.co.uk,2010:/achukareviews//5.4564 2010-07-29T10:11:27Z 2010-07-29T11:20:03Z illustrated by Olga Dugina & Andrei Dugin, retold by Arnica Esterl Floris 9780863157745 September 2010 The well-known traditional tale about a woodcutter's son on a mission to pluck three feathers from a dragon's back. The book was first published... achuka http://www.achuka.co.uk illustrated by Olga Dugina & Andrei Dugin, retold by Arnica Esterl Floris 9780863157745 September 2010 The well-known traditional tale about a woodcutter's son on a mission to pluck three feathers from a dragon's back. The book was first published in German as Die Drachenfederen in 1993, and Floris Books is to be congratulated for bringing it to an English reading audience (translation by Polly Dawson) because the illustrations by the husband-and-wife illustrating team are exceptionally good and, on some of the spreads at least, medieval in their attention to detail.


]]> The Glass Demon tag:www.achuka.co.uk,2010:/achukareviews//5.4545 2010-07-10T07:31:50Z 2010-07-10T07:59:59Z Helen Grant Penguin 978-0-141-32576-7 May 2010 At times I had to keep reminding myself that Lin and Michel are both in their late teens (indeed, Michel drives them both around in his car) because their manner is not the... achuka http://www.achuka.co.uk Helen Grant Penguin 978-0-141-32576-7 May 2010

At times I had to keep reminding myself that Lin and Michel are both in their late teens (indeed, Michel drives them both around in his car) because their manner is not the teenage manner as more usually portrayed in contemporary young adult literature, and also because the adventure that unfolds is, for all its menace and melodrama, very much in the mould of younger children going out and attempting to solve a mystery without adult intervention.

This all works to the book's advantage and results in a novel that is at one and the same time an older children's mystery and a chilling, Hawthornesque tale of murder and malevolence for adults.

Lin's father, an academic driven by an idee fixe, uproots his family to Germany, determined to discover the long lost Allerheiligen stained glass. Even before entering their rented property they stumble upon the first body - an old man apparently fallen dead while picking apples, small shards of shattered glass noticed only by Lin at the time. Not long afterwards the family is all but completely unravelled when Lin's younger brother comes close to being impaled by a spear while sleeping in his cot.

The local police so closely follow protocol and procedure that the family themselves feel under suspicion.

Just as she did in her first novel, The Vanishing of Katharina Linden, Grant cranks up the drama and excitement with impeccable pace and timing. The story would make a fabulous two-part BBC thriller, expecially because each of the characters is so well-realised, from the ineffectual young stepmother, to the darkly dashing priest. And there would be wonderful bit parts for the stonewalling police.

Can't wait for novel number three!


]]> Roxy tag:www.achuka.co.uk,2010:/achukareviews//5.4527 2010-06-10T05:55:26Z 2010-06-10T06:19:47Z PJ Reece Tradewind Books 9781896580012 January 2010 There are some things not quite right about this novel: the ending is so overwrought I had to read it twice to make sure I understood what was going on; the main... achuka http://www.achuka.co.uk PJ Reece Tradewind Books 9781896580012 January 2010 There are some things not quite right about this novel: the ending is so overwrought I had to read it twice to make sure I understood what was going on; the main first-person character's pregnancy (revealed very near the beginning of the book, so this is not a spoiler) is never convincingly portrayed, even to a male reader, and I imagine will ring even less true to a female reader; the 'romance' that develops between Roxy and a Greek local also scores low on believability. Despite these weaknesses the book can be recommended as a riveting read, about a 17-year-old who travels to Greece to discover the truth about her ancestry from her eccentric Scottish grandfather. The author's background is in the film world -mainly as a cinematographer, but he has written screenplays as well. And this is one of those books that reads very cinematically, which is why the thinness of the characterisation, including Roxy herself, would be perfectly OK if the plot were ever filmed - and I can see it being made into a very diverting 100 minute foreign location cine drama, with several cameo roles for older actors, and opportunities for exotic flashbacks. Reece writes excellently. His sentences roll smoothly, and it was only at the very end that I had to stop and re-read, as described above.




]]> The Heart And The Bottle tag:www.achuka.co.uk,2010:/achukareviews//5.4524 2010-05-30T09:40:42Z 2010-05-30T10:13:02Z Oliver Jeffers HarperCollins 9780007182305 March 2010 Top marks to HarperCollins for the way they have designed and produced this fine work of art (guided by the artist himself, no doubt). Jeffers is exactly that, an artist who works in... achuka http://www.achuka.co.uk Oliver Jeffers HarperCollins 9780007182305 March 2010 Top marks to HarperCollins for the way they have designed and produced this fine work of art (guided by the artist himself, no doubt). Jeffers is exactly that, an artist who works in many formats, picture books being just one of them. A visit to his website - www.oliverjeffers.com - is recommended.

As for this particular title, I believe I love every single thing about it, from the shade of yellow on the book jacket, to the hand-written author/illustrator name, to the charming opening endpaper drawings, to the opening spread with its high horizon, wide treetrunked landscape with thinly growing flowers, a man with a walking-stick looking on as a young girl bends inquisitively towards the flower in the foreground... all the way though to the final endpapers and their biology-lesson-style drawings of a human heart.

This is an impressively moving story about the loss of childhood wonder and its eventual rediscovery. We see the girl, never named, taking delight in all she encounters, until one day she comes upon an emblematically empty chair. Suddenly her whole world becomes empty and heartless. She shuts her heart away in a bottle, lives safely but unfeelingly in a humdrum world.

I like particularly the two pages that Jeffers creates to show us how hard it is for the girl to get her heart back. She is shown at a workshop table, all possible tools at hand, but none of them will smash the bottle and free the heart. She is shown atop a high brick wall, dropping the bottle from a great height, but it just bounces.

It takes another girl, as alive and full of wonder as she once was, to help her free the heart and put it back where it belongs. She ends the book sitting in the high-backed emblematic chair, reading, a pile of books at her side, and a big thought cloud rising above her, teeming with a splatter of differing images.

This is a very fine book, ready to be enjoyed on many different levels, by many diferent ages.





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]]> Monster Day At Work tag:www.achuka.co.uk,2010:/achukareviews//5.4523 2010-05-30T09:05:49Z 2010-05-30T09:28:56Z Sarah Dyer Frances Lincoln 9781847800695 February 2010 Wonderfully amusing illustrations in this join-dad-at-work-day story. Rush hour has everyone skating to work in a double-page-spread that will have children lingering over each of the different scooters. The 'morning meeting' spread... achuka http://www.achuka.co.uk Sarah Dyer Frances Lincoln 9781847800695 February 2010 Wonderfully amusing illustrations in this join-dad-at-work-day story. Rush hour has everyone skating to work in a double-page-spread that will have children lingering over each of the different scooters. The 'morning meeting' spread is fun too, with dad's arm around Monster and the table festooned with an assortment of memos, coffee cups and plates of biscuits and cakes. To be frank, not a lot happens during the rest of the day, so the trick to enjoying this picture book will be in savouring the pictures and improvising the telling. The ending teeters on a working-dad housewife-mum stereotype, perhaps not sufficiently compensated for by the irony of the final words, accompanying the picture of mum, broom in one arm, hoover in the other: "Who has it easy too."




]]> Pretty Bad Things tag:www.achuka.co.uk,2010:/achukareviews//5.4481 2010-04-15T08:56:53Z 2010-05-30T09:29:56Z c. j. skuse Chicken House 9781906427252 March 2010 The proof copy of this first novel carried a recommendation by Kevin Brooks, which was enough to push it ahead of other reads. Make no mistake, this is a fabulous debut... achuka http://www.achuka.co.uk c. j. skuse Chicken House 9781906427252 March 2010 The proof copy of this first novel carried a recommendation by Kevin Brooks, which was enough to push it ahead of other reads. Make no mistake, this is a fabulous debut and if I fail to give it five stars it is only because of a couple of caveats. Skuse, female, writes with a lot of balls. The two main characters, Paisley and Beau, are brother-and-sister twins. At the start of the novel Paisley is receiving counselling at the Immaculate Conception Academy for Girls. The book is narrated by each character in their own voice (alternating a chapter at a time), and it has to be said that Paisley's chapters are by far the strongest. Paisley is the life and soul of this novel. She has the drive, the imagination, the guts, the energy, and the mouth. My word, does she have a mouth. Skuse makes that mouth utter lines of colourful confrontational dialogue that are an absolute joy. As a first novel Pretty Bad Things has no doubt received a good deal of editing. Like Lucy Christopher (another exciting debut author), Skuse is a graduate of Bath's creative writing MA, and the novel is the result of long gestation. The shame for me is that its narrative momentum dips slightly at that very crucial midway point in a novel. I would have to read it a second time to put my finger on precisely where the flagging occurs and where some ratcheting up or streamlining could have been beneficially applied. It's just a shame that after a scintillating opening, followed by a movie-worthy confrontation with a fortune-hungry grandmother, the pace starts to drift once brother and sister arrive in Las Vegas on their mission to be reunited with a father they haven't seen for more than a decade. When at last they devise a plan to get themselves noticed by staging a series of mall robberies, the momentum, and more importantly the character chemistry are re-established. Paisley is re-energised and the contrast between her and the more nervous, cautious Beau is well-handled. The novel's backstory (death of the mother when the children were three years old, father in prison etc.) is never wholly believable, but that does not materially matter. What matters is that Skuse has arrived on the scene with a voice that I for one will be longing to hook up with again.




]]> The Biggest Kiss tag:www.achuka.co.uk,2010:/achukareviews//5.4427 2010-02-07T11:50:09Z 2010-05-30T09:31:29Z achuka http://www.achuka.co.uk Joanna Walsh & Judi Abbott Simon & Schuster 9781847384362 January 2010 Joanna Walsh's verse text and Judi Abbot's [Giuditta Gaviraghi's) illustrations combine very satisfyingly in a book that will appeal to both very young children and, I suspect, smoochily sentimental adults looking for a Valentine gift that doesn't cost much more than a card.

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]]> Tender Morsels tag:www.achuka.co.uk,2009:/achukareviews//5.4335 2009-10-21T20:11:22Z 2010-05-30T09:32:37Z Margo Lanagan David Fickling Books 9780385613231 July 2009 At the start of this book (the first I have read by Lanagan) I was totally under its spell, immediately gripped by the bawdy and earthy lyricism used to describe the... achuka http://www.achuka.co.uk Margo Lanagan David Fickling Books 9780385613231 July 2009 At the start of this book (the first I have read by Lanagan) I was totally under its spell, immediately gripped by the bawdy and earthy lyricism used to describe the abuse suffered by Liga at the hands of her father, an appalling and horribly believable character. But at the halfway point (it is a book of roughly 500 pages) I realised my interest in Liga and her daughters had been fatally undermined both by the way the plot takes sudden trips into an alternative reality and the way Lanagan's wordiness begins to grate. So I closed the book, unfinished, recognising that this was largely the result of personal taste (I have seen Lanagan compared with Angela Carter, another writer I have never been able to settle into) rather than any reflection on the quality of the book and its likely appeal to readers who relish lushness of style and structure rather than spareness.




]]> 1001 Children's Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up tag:www.achuka.co.uk,2009:/achukareviews//5.4333 2009-10-20T20:03:08Z 2010-05-30T09:33:38Z edited by Julia Eccleshare Hodder 9781844036714 October 2009 This lovely whopper of a reference book weighs in at just under 1000 pages. The first thing to be said about it is that has been splendidly designed and presented, as... achuka http://www.achuka.co.uk edited by Julia Eccleshare Hodder 9781844036714 October 2009 This lovely whopper of a reference book weighs in at just under 1000 pages. The first thing to be said about it is that has been splendidly designed and presented, as well as printed to a high quality. The typeface is sharp and easy on the eye. The page layouts are straightforward and uniform throughout the book. For the most part the illustrations used are the book jackets from a title's first edition. Indeed, much pleasure can be derived from 1001 Children's Books without reading a single entry; just admiring the book jacket designs and (for an older consumer such as I am) taking a trip down memory lane is delight enough. Of course there are omissions. That goes without saying. Each of us might have found room for titles not included here if we had been the book's editor. I would have wanted a place for Robert O'Brien's Z for Zachariah (in addition to his Mrs Frisby and the Rats Of Nimh, which IS included here), for Make Lemonade by Virginia Euwer Wolff, for at least one book by Joan Bauer. But to be honest a couple of dozen changes out of the 1001 would probably be sufficient to bring the selection closer into line with my own editorial preferences, and I daresay the same would be true for everyone. Achieving a 98% satisfaction level should more than please Julia Eccleshare. A fine book currently available at a cutdown price.




]]> Don't Dip Your Chips in your drink, Kate! tag:www.achuka.co.uk,2009:/achukareviews//5.4324 2009-10-10T11:15:47Z 2009-10-10T11:31:05Z Caryl Hart Orchard Books 9781408304976 October 2009 When I first picked up this picture book and flipped through its pages I was ready to dismiss it as a blatant Lauren Child ripoff, but then I realised the illustrator is... achuka http://www.achuka.co.uk Caryl Hart Orchard Books 9781408304976 October 2009 When I first picked up this picture book and flipped through its pages I was ready to dismiss it as a blatant Lauren Child ripoff, but then I realised the illustrator is Leigh Hodgkinson, creative director of the first Charlie and Lola animation and the stylistic presentation of Caryl Hart's rhyming story about table manners made sense. I like Hodgkinson's 'Colin' titles, but here the ambivalent storyline strikes a rather strange note with Hart's verse being neither funny nor rhythmically assured enough to carry conviction. Worth looking out for if you want a picture book about table manners.


]]> This Is My Book tag:www.achuka.co.uk,2009:/achukareviews//5.4323 2009-10-10T10:55:07Z 2009-10-10T11:04:27Z Mick Inkpen Hodder 9780340989623 September 2009 The Snapdragon does something very impish and rude at the beginning of this picture book. He swoops down, bites off the 'k' from the word book, and then takes away the lower part... achuka http://www.achuka.co.uk Mick Inkpen Hodder 9780340989623 September 2009 The Snapdragon does something very impish and rude at the beginning of this picture book. He swoops down, bites off the 'k' from the word book, and then takes away the lower part of the letter 'B', leaving behind the word 'Poo'. I can't wait to read this picture book to a group of 5/6 year olds, but I know just as surely as Mick Inkpen obviously does that that opening is going to have them squealing with glee. They won't laugh quite as loudly on any other page in the but the story of how Bookmouse manages to retrieve the missing parts of the word 'Book' is entertaining enough, and Snapdragon as illustrated by Inkpen is a very endearing rogue.


]]> Where Giants Hide tag:www.achuka.co.uk,2009:/achukareviews//5.4322 2009-10-10T10:42:29Z 2009-10-10T10:49:30Z Mij Kelly and Ross Collina Hodder 9780340959992 September 2009 A very pleasingly designed and presented picture book to read aloud to pre-school children. Ross Collins' large full-coloured double-spread illustrations are really easy for young children to 'read' as they... achuka http://www.achuka.co.uk Mij Kelly and Ross Collina Hodder 9780340959992 September 2009 A very pleasingly designed and presented picture book to read aloud to pre-school children. Ross Collins' large full-coloured double-spread illustrations are really easy for young children to 'read' as they listen to Mij Kelly rhyming words being read to them. A book about using the imagination "to make me go 'WOW' ". I love the end papers, with rows of red silhouetted imaginary creatures.


]]> Ella Bella Ballerina and Cinderella tag:www.achuka.co.uk,2009:/achukareviews//5.4317 2009-10-09T17:26:16Z 2009-10-09T17:45:30Z James MAyhew Scholastic 9781846169267 September 2009 The Cinderella story as revealed in a musical reverie... Ella Bella has gone to her ballet lesson with only one ballet shoe. The teacher lends her a pair from a trunk filled with... achuka http://www.achuka.co.uk James MAyhew Scholastic 9781846169267 September 2009 The Cinderella story as revealed in a musical reverie... Ella Bella has gone to her ballet lesson with only one ballet shoe. The teacher lends her a pair from a trunk filled with beautiful old shoes. "You remind me of Cinderella," says the dancing instructor. "She also lost a shoe." The children dance to a musical box. While the rest of the class go and get changed Ella starts the musical box again and imagines herself into the Cinderella story, where all the familiar elements are mostly present, except for the glass slippers, which here are replaced by silver dancing shoes that Ella finds in the trunk. Mayhew's illustrations are, as always, beautifully fluent. The final page explains that in Prokofiev's ballet of Cinderalla there is also no glass slipper, but instead a pair of dancing shoes. This picture book would make a delightful present for any young girl just beginning to take an interest in dance and music.


]]> Revolver tag:www.achuka.co.uk,2009:/achukareviews//5.4301 2009-09-26T17:19:32Z 2009-09-26T17:58:32Z Marcus Sedgwick Orion 978-1-84255-186-8 July 2009 This book has done something important for me. And it has done it in a way so utterly and compellingly convincing that I shall henceforth consider Marcus Sedgwick a writer of the very... achuka http://www.achuka.co.uk Marcus Sedgwick Orion 978-1-84255-186-8 July 2009

This book has done something important for me. And it has done it in a way so utterly and compellingly convincing that I shall henceforth consider Marcus Sedgwick a writer of the very highest order. I know others have long held him in that regard. I have admired some books of his, but none has registered that complete sense of satisfaction that you get when you read a book by a master of their trade. Let's be honest, few books do this completely. Two of my lodestars that I use when I have finished a book I have enjoyed are Robert Cormier and Sonya Hartnett. Yes, I think to myself, this book was good, but was it that good?

Well, I have to tell you that Revolver IS that good. And for the life of me I cannot imagine the conversation that must have gone on around the table between the judges of the Guardian Prize (to be announced on Thursday 8th October) that led to Sedgwick's book failing to make the crossing from longlist to shortlist. It is a shocking omission. This book should be on the shortlist of each and every fiction prize of the coming year, and that includes adult lists, because the story it tells is entirely unpatronising. If any book deserves to have 'crossover' success, it is this one. Fans of Cormac McCarthy, viewers of Deadwood alike will find familiar themes confronted with a moving, moral grandeur.

Marcus Sedgwick, you are the real deal. Revolver is a very fine achievement. A book that will stand the test of time as surely as one of the late stories of Tolstoy.


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