Set in July 1936 aboard the Queen Mary cruise ship, Alice is having the experience of a lifetime even though she must defy her father to roam the ship … With her new friend, Sonny, Alice must unravel an urgent mystery when someone is attacked and soon learns that there’s more than one secret to be revealed too.
Finn and Tula Flint embark on a perilous and exhilarating adventure in search of their missing father, which leads to them, along with a group of friends, trying to save the world!
This is the first time I’ve read a book that is printed with a dyslexia-friendly typeface, lots of white space, a bigger font, and black text on a slightly yellow background. I wish more books were printed this way!
Wizard vs. Lizard is the first book in the Fred, Wizard in Training series, and it’s an enjoyable romp for 8- to 10-year-olds. In a family of talented wizards, Fred is an underdog in every way – his magic is so tragically lame, that the best he can do with it is wash dishes and tame worms. Poor Fred is desperate to prove his worth. That’s a situation that many kids can relate to.
This young adult novel was intense and engrossing from start to finish. It opens with a funeral, and you immediately get a sense of Sydney, her best friend Olivia, her mom, and out-of-her-league June Copeland. Sydney thinks that there is more to her therapist father’s death in a car crash. Is there? Or is something else going on? Who is keeping secrets in this small town? And would they kill for it?
This story begins with the Outhwaite family living happily in Australia until they receive both good and bad news. Because of an unexpected inheritance, they decide to move to the Outhwaite ancestral home in London, England. The house is huge and haunted. Don’t open the attic door! Nobody remembers why.
Liberty’s world is thrown off its axis when her parents announce their separation one night, partly due to herfather’s undefined ‘issues’. On that fateful night, Liberty finds and drags home a meteorite that falls near their home. In a Wilson-like scenario, she talks out some of her problems with the rock. Liberty wishes for things to go back to the way they were‘before they fell from space’. Slowly, she understands, and gradually accepts, that life is not that simple. Not even her star maps can provide the answers she seeks, but perhaps there is hope.
Ebenezer Tweezer will do anything to prolong his already extended life by providing difficult-to-get meals for the horrible creature that is living in his attic. In exchange, the Beast vomits up things such as a baby grand piano and a magical elixir. But the Beast is bored with his menu and wants something more interesting to eat. Things don’t quite go as planned when Ebenezer brings feisty orphan Bethany home for dinner.
Zaynab is a twelve-year-old girl from Somaliland travelling with her father to the UK for six months. She is mourning her dead mother and barely speaking to her father. At her new school in Devon, Zaynab becomes friends with Lucas. Together they must work to convince their local community to help them take a stand against the climate-change emergency and a possibly corrupt scheme that threatens her home and people.
Stella is a typical eleven-year-old, who misses her parents, misses living in one place and misses her recently deceased gran. She’s sent to Shetland to stay with her grandpa, whom she hasn’t seen for many years since the family moved away. Nothing is the same without her gran, though. Tempers flare and Stella storms out of the house, which is the catalyst for a magical adventure.
