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Lissa Evans |
Doubleday |
9780385618007 |
May 2011 |
278 pp |
Whole book read |
Yes Yes Yes |
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What makes me like this book so much? Is it that it concerns a collection of old threepenny bits, those belovedly brassy coins of childhood? Is it because it is such a well-formed object of a physical book, a beautifully proportioned small hardback with pleasingly designed dustjacket and chapter heading illustrations (both by Temujin Doran)? Is it because it reads so smoothly, with not a word wrong-footing the inner ear? Of course these things help, but novels ultimately have to make their impact by virtue of characters and narrative, rather than style, form or inanimate objects. Stuart, very short for his age and with a surname (Horten) that doesn’t help matters, is 10 years old when he has to move away to a new town, leaving all his friends behind. His new neighbours, the Kingsley triplets, do not believe him when he tells them how old he is. These neighbours are highly entertaining creations, as is Stuart’s father, a writer of crosswords, who always chooses the longest words to describe things. Perfect reading for children aged 7-10, and highly recommended as a readaloud class novel for teachers of Y4 or Y5. The author is a radio and television producer. She has written two or three adult books. This is her first children’s novel. It ought not to be the last.
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Archives for May 2011
Beautiful Malice
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Rebecca James |
Faber |
9780571255238 |
July 2010 |
353 pp |
Whole book read |
Read On? Yes, but… |
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This book had a lot of publicity when it came out last year, so I am not going to waste too many words on it here. Suffice to say that I was led to believe it was a a debut novel by an Australian author that shouldn’t be missed. From the recommendations I had remembered reading I was expecting a psychological thriller of the highest order. Well, it isn’t that. It’s highly readable in a trashy kind of way, and I read it from cover to cover while on the train to Glasgow. I think it could work quite well as one of those 3-parter TV thrillers, but whoever turned it into a screenplay would have to make the ending far less easy to predict.
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Between Shades Of Gray
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Ruta Sepetys |
Puffin |
9780141335889 |
April 2011 |
344 pp |
Whole book read |
Read On? YES |
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Ruta Sepetys discusses her upcoming novel, Between Shades of Gray from Penguin Young Readers Group on Vimeo. As the author herself says in the book trailer above, the war crimes of Hitler are well known and well documented both in histories and in fiction. The war crimes of Stalin and the sufferings inflicted on the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia are not so widely known, especially amongst the young.
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