First Lines Friday

Hello, hello my lovelies,

I hope you are all well.

Today is Friday - in fact it's Good Friday so happy Easter to you.

First lines Friday is run by Wandering Words

What if instead of judging a book by its cover, its author or its prestige, we judged it by its opening lines?  If you want to make your own post, feel free to use or edit the banner above, and follow the rules below:

• Pick a book off your shelf (it could be your current read or on your TBR) and open to the first page
• Copy the first few lines, but don’t give anything else about the book away just yet – you need to hook the reader first
• Finally… reveal the book!

So, here we go:

Like a man-made magic wish, the aeroplane began to rise.

The boy sitting in the cock pit gripped his seat and held his breath as the plane climbed into the arms of the sky. Fred's jaw was set with concentration, and his fingers twitched, following the movements of the pilot beside him: joystick, throttle.

Any ideas?

This is The Explorer by Katherine Rundell

Did you get it right?

If you haven't read this yet, I hope this has inspired you to.

Happy reading

Allison xx

First Lines Friday

Hello, hello my lovelies,

It's Friday so it must be time for First Lines Friday.

First Lines Fridays is a weekly feature for book lovers hosted by Wandering Words. What if instead of judging a book by its cover, its author or its prestige, we judged it by its opening lines?  If you want to make your own post, feel free to use or edit the banner above, and follow the rules below:

• Pick a book off your shelf (it could be your current read or on your TBR) and open to the first page
• Copy the first few lines, but don’t give anything else about the book away just yet – you need to hook the reader first
• Finally… reveal the book!

So here is today's snippet ...

I read the sign again, glowing in front of me:

Type of organism: human female

Origin: Earth

 Age: about twelve years

This brand new exhibit will be introduced to the wider Earth Zone exhibition when emotional stability has been achieved.

There you go! Any ideas?

Today's opening is from The Kid Who Came From Space by Ross Welford.

I hope this has inspired you to go and read the book.

Happy reading

Allison xx

Jungledrop book review

Hello, hello my lovelies,

How are you all?

Today I am going to review Jungledrop by Abi Elphinstone



Synopsis

Eleven-year-old twins, Fox and Fibber, have been rivals for as long as they can remember. Only one of them will inherit the family fortune and so a race is afoot to save the dwindling Petty-Squabble empire and win the love of their parents.

But when the twins are whisked off to Jungledrop, a magical Unmapped Kingdom in charge of conjuring our world's weather, things get wildly out of hand. An evil harpy called Morg is on the loose. And if she finds the long-lost Forever Fern before the twins, both Jungledrop and our world will crumble.

Suddenly, Fox and Fibber find themselves on an incredible adventure in a glow-in-the-dark rainforest full of golden panthers, gobblequick trees and enchanted temples. But, with the fate of two worlds in their hands, will the twins be able to work together for once to defeat Morg and her dark magic?

Review

Meet Fibber and Fox Petty-Squabble.
Twins.
Rivals.
Hate each other.
Never hugged each other, loved each other or trusted each other.

Meet Mr and Mrs Petty-Squabble.
Parents -  although I'm not sure you can actually call them that.
Business owners.
Driven by money.

Mr and Mrs Petty-Squabble have raised their children for one thing only - to take on the business and make them millions. Unbeknown to the children they are pitted against each other. The child with the best business plan to stop the family businesses going under and get them back to making millions gets to stay. The other gets sent to Antartica forever.

Nice huh?

Until one day it all changes when they are given the pheonix tear and find themselves on the Here and Now Express being whisked off to another world - the magical, fantastical world of Jungledrop.

There are problems afoot and it is down to the twins to save Jungledrop from the evil harpy, Morg. The trouble is, as I've mentioned before, the twins have been raised not to trust anyone or each other. Not to talk to each other nicely. Not to have manners. Yet, in order to save Jungledrop AND Faraway (our world) they realise that what they have been used to, has to change.

This is the second book in The Unmapped Chronicles, following on from Rumblestar. The world-building is second to none. The scene setting and descriptions are so vivid that the ideas  Abi Elphinstone has are expertly visualised by the reader. I am in awe of how she thinks of her characters names and nouns. Amongst others are Nightcreaks, Witchcrocs, snoozenuts, Doogie Herbalsneeze, flickertug map and my two favourite characters, Heckle and Total Shambles. Pure genius!

The adventures were thrilling. I was caught in the dangers, riskiness, uncertainty and pure buzz as the twins went from one set of problems to another. As the twins flew on the back of Total Shambles, I felt the wind through my hair as I went with them. As Fox hung on for grim death trying not to fall in the pit of hog-nosed vipers, I was willing her to hold on. Just perfect story telling.

However, there is an underlying premise that is for the twins to save Faraway and Jungledrop, they have to work together. Abi Elphinstone delightfully shows how to trust, be empathetic and sympathetic. To have manners, to forgive and accept anyone or anything for what they are. Everyone has a talent. It might not be the same as yours but it is just as amazing as yours. And then finally to be proud. Be proud of your inner beauty and be genuinely proud for those that you love and hold dear.

I think you can guess that I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I would highly recommend this for children to read but I would also urge KS2 teachers to have a copy in their room. If you can't read the whole book, you could easily pick out excerpts for children to analyse and explore how Abi Elphinstone makes her writing so descriptively believable or how she creates tension. How the twins show feelings and also how their feelings and behaviour change over time. What would have happened if they didn't change? What effect did Fox showing forgiveness have on the reader? I could go on and on.

I could easily waffle for hours about this book and to be honest I've wanted to say so much more, but I've had to really reign myself in so as not to give any spoilers. I could burst holding on to what I know and not be able to share it! 

You have to read it!

A super easy ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ from me.

Happy reading,

Allison xx

First lines Friday

Hello, hello my lovelies,

I hope you are all well.

Today is Friday - in fact it's Good Friday so happy Easter to you.

First lines Friday is run by Wandering Words

What if instead of judging a book by its cover, its author or its prestige, we judged it by its opening lines?  If you want to make your own post, feel free to use or edit the banner above, and follow the rules below:

• Pick a book off your shelf (it could be your current read or on your TBR) and open to the first page
• Copy the first few lines, but don’t give anything else about the book away just yet – you need to hook the reader first
• Finally… reveal the book!

So, here we go:

There was a man made of midnight and his name was Shadow Jack.

The name suited him well; his clothes were dark and his hair was darker. His eyes were pools of shadow. As he slipped through the winding labyrinth of the slums on the night our story begins, his intentions were darkest of all.

Ooh, I think this is a really good one. Any ideas?

This is the fantastic Evernight by Ross Mackenzie.

I haven't read this yet but how good is that opening paragraph! 

Hope this has inspired you to read it.

Happy reading

Allison xx

March Reading Journal wrap up

Hello, hello my lovelies,

This is going to be a new monthly post from me where I will share my reading journal with you. You will get to see what I put in it and what it looks like and also how it develops over time. In fact some pages have already changed since I took the photos but that's the beauty of it.

Do you keep a journal? I don't know about you but I am a stationery addict. Give me a notebook and pens and I'm happy. At one time, my dream job was to work for W H Smith as they sold books AND stationery. What more could a girl want!

But I love to make notes about things and keep lists. I'm a list fanatic. Do you write things on a list just so you can cross it off so it looks like you've done something? I do - but not in my reading journal though.

First up is all the books on my kindle.

You can see that I've been using different colours. As I've started this way, I will keep going, but next year I am going to limit the colours I use. I also started putting the yellow highlighter for Arcs but I've stopped that now as you can see in the picture below.

I absolutely adore physical books but when I'm reading at night, I have to use my kindle as my eyesight isn't great and I can't see the text very well when I'm in bed. So most of my books are read on my kindle but then I buy or am gifted the physical books as well.

When I have read a book, I put a black line through it and on my kindle I put in a folder of finished books. I'm not sure how many books a kindle can hold but if it gets to the point where there isn't much memory left, I will delete books from here first or those I have a physical copy of.

Now, I'm not getting on with Goodreads AT ALL. I know some love it but I'm finding it infuriating but I'm obviously doing something wrong. For instance if I'm on the APP it tells me my challenge fine, but I can't access as much as I would like to and I don't find it very user friendly. On my PC, the challenge is different. Grrrr.

I am not a fast reader and after a day teaching, followed by marking and everything else, I'm generally shattered. I do read every night in bed but the amount can vary from a couple of chapters to a couple of pages. This is why, at first, I set my challenge to 12, thinking that if I read a book a month I'd be happy.

However, I think I met that target easily this month so I had to re-evaluate and with the lockdown, I'm hoping to read much more.

This is a poor photo (sorry) but is how many books I have on my kindle. The previous pages were the titles and authors, this is just numerical. This also doesn't include books in my finished collection folder or my DNF collection folder.

Here is my reading log. Here I jot down the date I finished the books, the title, author and how many stars I gave it.

Still with finished books, I then have pages where I write a bit more detail. I was going to write my actual reviews down, but if you've read any, I tend to waffle a bit and need to work at them being a lot more succinct; so I decided to write the synopsis instead. These pages act as memory joggers when I look back.

Another poor photo alert. This is a new page I've just added. Here I'm going to list the book series I'd like to read. The column at the end is where I can add the number of each book I've read in the series.

Next up is a numerical total of how many books I've read each month.

I've realised I have one more page but I didn't take a photo. It's books which I want to buy a physical copy of.

I absolutely adore my journal and it has soooo many pages left so will hopefully last me a couple of years.

Have you any ideas of anything else I could include? 

If you have a reading journal, I'd love to see it. I follow reading journals on Instagram but I can never get mine to look as beautifully neat as theirs. But this is mine and I love it.

Happy reading,

Allison xx

March Wrap-up

Hello, hello my lovelies,

So I'm here today with my March wrap-up. I'm quite a slow reader (sooo frustrating) so with teaching as well, I tend to read 4 or 5 books a month. Not many, I know, but I can only do what I can do!
However, now that we're in social isolation and I am on a limited rota at school, in theory there is much more time to read. I say in theory, because although I have read more, I haven't actually read as much as I wanted. There's always something to else to do - damn you housework 😂😂

Anyway, enough procrastinating (another of my skills), and on with the wrap-up.

In total I read 8 books.but I didn't finish the first book in March until the 15th so I've done well!

In order, this is what I read. As usual, I will put links to Waterstones but please support your independent bookstores as well during these difficult times if you can. It is becoming increasingly more difficult to buy books online due to suppliers closing, so if you haven't got a TBR to keep you going for a while, it might be wise to stock up now.

1. The House of Hidden Wonders by Sharon Gosling

• Publisher: Little Tiger Press Group
• Publication date: 2nd April 2020

You can read my review here. This is another I will definitely be buying.  

2. Oh No, Bobo by Donna David

• Illustrated by Laura Watkins
• Publisher: QED Publishing
• Publication Date: 21st April 2020

You can read my review here. This is a lovely picture book for younger children.

3. Winterborne Home for Vengeance and Valour by Ally Carter

• Publisher: Hachette Children's Books
• Published: 5th March 2020

You can read my review here. This is another I'm going to buy. Love that cover!

4. The Nothing To See Here Hotel by Steven Butler

• Illustrated by Steven Lenton
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Ltd
• Published last year

I finished this book with my class just before school stopped. Review to follow.

5. The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse by Charles Makesy

• Published by Ebury Publishing

I was late to the party with this one. Review to follow.

6. BOOT: The Rusty Rescue by Shane Hegarty

• Illustrated by Ben Mantle
• Publisher: Hachette Children's Group

You can read my review here. 

7. The Vanishing Trick by Jenni Spangler

• Illustrated by Chris Mould
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster Ltd
• Publication date: 30th April 2020

You can read my review here.  This is top of my list to buy!

8. Attack of the Heebie Jeebies by Tom Percival

• Publisher: Pan Macmillan
• Publication date: 2nd April 2020

Review to follow.

So there you have them. My March 2020 reads.

I've a feeling that we won't be back to school throughout April so I'm hoping to beat 8 next month. Let's see! 

Happy reading,

Allison xx

Top Five Tuesday

Hello, hello my lovelies,

How are you all?

Today I am taking part in Top Five Tuesday which is run by Shanah over at Bionic Book Worm.

This is what you have to do:

How you make your lists is completely up to you. Want to do authors first names? Go ahead! Want to do last names? Have at it! Want to do a mix of both? It’s your post and I’m not the Top 5 police who will send you to bookish jail or anything….. wait….. bookish jail? That sounds like fun…. can that be a thing? Point is, attack the alphabet as you please. I think I’ll be doing last names for these but I haven’t decided yet.

If you’re lucky enough to have your shelves organized in alphabetical order, then this will be easy! Me – I organize by genre so……. not so easy! I can’t wait for the chance to highlight a few authors I don’t talk about all that often!

Today we are finishing off authors with the letters U, V, W, X, Y, Z.

This is going to be soooo tricky!

U is for Alison Uttely who wrote The Little Grey Rabbit series.

V  has to be for Jules Verne

W is for E B White

X, Y and Z I couldn't do 😒

Have you got any suggestions?

Happy reading,

Allison xx

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

A book for each letter in my name

Hello, hello my lovelies,

How are you all doing stuck at home?

Just a fun post for you today. These are book titles for each letter of my first name.

As usual. I have posted links to Waterstones, however please also don't forget your local independent bookshops at this difficult time.


A is for A Pocketful of Stars by Aisha Bushby





L is for Letters from the Lighthouse by Emma Carroll




L is for The Land of Roar by Jenny McLachlan




I is for The Iron Man by Ted Hughes



S is for Starfell Willow Moss and the Lost Day by Dominique Valente







O is for Orphans of the Tide by Struan Murray



N is for Nevermoor by Jessica Townsend




What books would you choose?


Keep safe.

Happy reading,

Allison xx

Six For Sunday

Hello, hello my lovelies,

I hope you are feeling safe and well.

Today I am taking part in #sixforsunday, run by Steph over at alittlebutalot.

Here's what to do:

If you’re a blogger, you will find the prompts for January to March in this blog post and you can post a blog post with your six choices for that week’s prompt. If you’re not a blogger but want to join in anyway:

• post a tweet with your choices
• a picture on instagram showing us your choices
• reply to my post with your choices

So on with this week's theme which is ...

6 characters I'd like to be like

Oh my this is tricky.

1. Atticus Finch

He seems to come up in a lot of my posts but hey, I want to be like him!

2. Tilly Pages

Who wouldn't want to have the ability to wander into your favourite books?

3. Milou from The Unadoptables

I know she is an orphan and struggles not knowing who her family are, but I love the strength of her character and her drive to find answers.

4. Zinnie from The House of Hidden Wonders

A little bit of a theme here but again, another orphan with a real strength of character.

5. Mary Poppins



I mean I could fly to where I want to, keep everything and more in my bag, talk to the birds, jump into art and dance with cartoon penguins. Who wouldn't?


6. Heidi



Just for where she lives and what she gets to live with and do.

So there you have it. My six for Sunday. What did you choose? I'd love to know.

Happy reading,

Allison xx