Attack of the Heebie Jeebies - Review

Hello, hello my lovelies,

I hope you are staying safe and well and managing with the social isolation. I'm lucky as I have a garden but I can't imagine how those of you who don't have one are managing.

So today I have another review for you.

Attack of the Heebie Jeebies by Tom Percival



Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Published: 2nd April 2020

Synopsis:

Erika's had a bad day. But going to sleep upset means bad dreams. She finds herself stranded in the Dreamscape along with a mob of hungry Heebie Jeebies - and to make matters worse, she's being hunted by a terrifying Angermare!

Enter the Dream Team! Can they help Erika overcome her worries and get home, or will she be trapped forever? 

Review:

What a lovely book! 

Meet Erika. Erika is the older sister to her baby brother and has become VERY jealous and feels she is missing out on her parents attention. In fact, this has made her grumpy. VERY grumpy. So much so, she snaps at her brother and parents, she argues and finally, in a fit of rage tells her parents exactly what she thinks and storms off to her bedroom, where she cries herself to sleep.

This is where her adventure begins. She finds herself in another world. One that is full of Heebie Jeebies and she soon discovers that there are other creatures that she can talk to. However, there are bad things in store. Erika and her new friends have to work together, not only to defeat the nasty being, but also to get her back home.

I really enjoyed how the author has sensitively dealt with the problems that Erika has. I thought the illustrations particularly enhanced the story. They are mostly black, white and purple, which sounds boring, but actually depicts Erika's feelings and situations really well. 

I can see myself reading this aloud to my class. The book deals with anxiety, behaviour, jealousy and how to overcome these. It can be easily used within the LKS2 PSHE curriculum, being proactive, or indeed as circle time if you need to be reactive to a situation. In fact, it would also be an ideal book to give to a specific parent and child to read together, to help the child relate to Erika and then come up with their own strategies to deal with their problems.

I'd happily have this on my bookshelf at school but I would also happily recommend this for any parent to read with or give to their child to read. Not only would it help a child that finds themselves in the same situation as Erika, but it would also help those children who are lucky enough to have no worries, understand where Erika is coming from in order to empathise.

My rating is ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Winterborne Home for Vengeance and Valour - review

Hello, hello my lovelies,

How are you all? I keep moaning to myself that I'm really fed up and at times bored. I live on my own so there isn't anyone to talk to or have company with when watching a film. It got to the point where I knew I needed to do something but was too fed up to do it. Does that make sense? Anyway, what I'm saying now, to turn things around, is thank goodness I'm healthy. How are you getting through these difficult times?

Today I have a book review for you.

Winterborne Home for Vengeance and Valour by Ally Carter.



Synopsis:

When 11-year-old April joins a group of kids living at Winterborne Home she doesn't expect to be there for very long. But she soon learns that this home isn't like any of the others - especially when she unearths the secret of the missing-and-presumed-dead billionaire, Gabriel Winterborne, who is neither missing nor dead but is actually living in a basement lair, sharpening his swords and looking for vengeance.

Now that April knows Gabriel Winterborne is alive, she must turn to the other orphans to keep him that way. As a looming new danger threatens to take Gabriel down once and for all, they must use their individual talents to find a way to make sure this home for misfits isn't lost to them for ever.

Because at the Winterborne Home, nothing is what it seems, no one is who they say they are and nowhere is safe. And now a ragtag group of orphans must unravel the riddle of a missing heir, a supposed phantom and a secret key, all without alerting the adults of Winterborne House that trouble is afoot.

Review:

This is author Ally Carter's debut novel in the middle grade category and is going to be the first in a series.

We follow April, an orphan who has moved from home to home and kind of accepts that that is her life. She lovingly keeps a necklace her mother gave to her, feeling that one day this would solve all her problems.She has just plodded on really, until, that is, she accidentally sets fire to an exhibition at a museum. 

Along comes Ms Nelson and takes her and 3 others to Winterborne House. It's not really a house. It's a mansion filled with corridors and rooms and staircases and paintings and valuable things and secret passages. 

Her adventures start as soon as she moves in, when she realises that not everything is as it seems. Her curiosity leads her on many trails until she discovers something that no one else knows. Gabriel Winterborne is actually alive! The trouble is, he doesn't want anyone else to know this. Plus there's a wicked uncle who thinks he is about to get his hands on the house and all it's treasures as he becomes the rightful heir, now that Gabriel has been missing for 10 years and can finally be listed as dead.

All of the orphans had their own qualities and showed a lovely team spirit and sense of family as they worked together to solve different quests. This made them easily identifiable with.

The book has the sense of a modern fairy tale with a Nancy Drew twist. I enjoyed it, although it ended on a cliffhanger. Often books in a series will end and the next book will involve the same characters but in a brand new story. This book ends with questions still to be answered which is intriguingly clever but frustrating at the same time 😮. Good marketing strategy though 😃.

I have to say I also love the front cover. I'm easily drawn in by a front cover and this one is gorgeous.

This book would be good for about Year 4 up. There wasn't too much 'depth' although there was one orphan with a troubled past where the text implies an area that would need careful thought if you were going to read aloud to a class or give to a child to read as it could be a trigger.

This is a fun read and one I read quite quickly (for me). That doesn't mean it's short, it's more that I wanted to keep reading. 

My rating is ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Happy reading,

Allison xx