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Archives for August 2012

Blink & Caution

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Tim Wynne-Jones

Walker

978-1-4063-3741-9

January 2012

349pp

Whole book read

A really great read! I wasn’t a bit surprised to discover, on finishing it and checking the author’s website, that Tim Wynne-Jones was this year’s winner of Canada’s Arthur Ellis Award for best juvenile/YA crime book. The award results were announced earlier in the summer and I would previously have been alerted to them by our Canadian correspondent Andrea Deakin, who is now retired.
I particularly admire the way this book is narrated. The two main characters – both teens on the run – are clearly set to meet and team up but Wynne-Jones follows them in separate narratives for a substantial part of the novel, sometimes giving Blink in particular teasing stageproddings.
Both characters, and what we discover about why they have left home to live by their wits, are entirely believable and convincing.
Blink witnesses a staged kidnapping and the cellphone left behind sets in motion a fast-paced sequence of events that become steadily more dangerous and chilling.
Highly recommended.

Blink & Caution by Tim Wynne-Jones – trailer from achuka on Vimeo.

My Pop-Up World Atlas

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Anita Ganeri and Stephen Waterhouse

Templar

978-1-84877-398-1

July 2012

16 pp

Whole book read

Young Olympic watching children wanting to know more about competing countries and where they exist geographically will find this new pop-up atlas packed with information. Anita Ganeri is very experienced in creating information books for children and Stephen Waterhouse has illustrated in a lively and colourful picture atlas style. They make a good team.
Adults may find some of the information snippets a trifle trite and simplistic, but let a curious 7-9 year old pour over this for a few hours and they’ll emerge with a substantial body of general knowledge.