Who doesn’t love a hole in a book? I love the idea of the hole, and I do wish it were possible to make the holes part of every illustration! I’m sure the illustrator would probably find that rather restrictive, but even so, I delighted in each picture that used the hole in some way. […]
Top Ten: Young Adult Books
Being a young adult is to inhabit a complex and confusing world. When books address this phase of life beautifully, they can be breathtaking. Here are my top ten YA books of 2019. Stargirl Writer: Jerry SpinelliPublisher: Laurel Leaf Thinking about Stargirl makes me smile, for the character of Stargirl is impossibly sweet, impossibly wonderful. […]
Top Ten: Middle-Grade Books
Narrowing down to my top ten middle-grade books is always the hardest of all! Some of these books are younger than others, as always, because age ranges are hard to define. A few of these would be borderline chapter books; a few would be borderline young adult. The Racehorse Who Wouldn’t Gallop Writer: Clare BaldingIllustrator: […]
Top Ten: Chapter Books
Calling all the books that I’ve listed here ‘chapter books’ is perhaps unfair. Some are quite a bit longer than others. I’m uncomfortable defining books on the basis of age too, as reading levels differ widely even within one school, let alone across schools, areas and countries. I think, broadly, this list comprises books that […]
The Racehorse Who Wouldn’t Gallop
Ooh! That’s Polly! Let me wave out to her!Oops. I’m at an auction and I just ended up buying a horse for a thousand pounds. No, I’m not quoting, but this is the lovely premise of a heart-warming story of a racehorse who refuses to gallop. Ten-year-old Charlie Bass loves horses, but she has only […]
After Tomorrow
Flawed narrators make me squirm. When I read a story from the point of view of a character who does not make the right decisions, I often don’t know whether to read on. Fictional friends are important to me as a reader. I read to befriend the characters. What if the protagonist doesn’t seem like […]
The Island at the End of Everything
Amihan lives with her nanay on Culion, the island at the end of everything. Unlike most of the others – who came by boat to this beautiful, lush green island with blue skies – Ami was born on the island, an island of lepers. Except that they don’t use the word ‘leper’ on Culion; instead, […]
The Boundless
The Boundless starts slowly; I almost did not read it. But that’s what made me realise once again how important reviews are: I read on only because Katherine Rundell was quoted as having said, ‘WHAT A BOOK!’ And though there were parts I skimmed over, and parts that irked me (like the tiny peculiar sentence in […]
Pig Heart Boy
Cameron’s heart is weak. He does not know how long he has to live. But there’s a doctor who believes that a heart transplant from a pig will give him a chance. And Cameron decides to take the chance. Pig Heart Boy is an incredible story, overwhelming me with all the ideas it encompasses. Life and death, […]
Making Millions
Nicholas wants to go for a masterclass, but his parents refuse to shell out the money he would need. What do real friends do when a friend is in need? Even though Cass thinks that yet another class is strange, this masterclass is what her friend Nicholas wants. So, of course, Cass and the Bubble […]
Radhika Takes the Plunge
A little over a year ago, I read the picture book Clumsy! by Ken Spillman and I enjoyed it. It is a sweet, heart-warming story about a girl who is often called ‘clumsy’, ‘careless’, ‘butterfingers’. That becomes her identity until her grandmother gives her a box of paints. I loved the simplicity of the story; […]
A Place Called Perfect
I was a bit apprehensive about reading a book that promised to be ‘Perfectly Creepy’. I’m not a big fan of creepy stories. But I loved the cover and the title intrigued me, so I picked it up and started reading. And before I knew it, I had finished the book. A Place Called Perfect is the story […]
The 1,000-Year-Old Boy
“References to historical dates, places and words in old languages are accurate only in the sense of being ‘not very’. Ross Welford in his Author’s Note to The 1,000-Year-Old Boy Isn’t that a promising note to an imaginative story? The 1,000-Year-Old Boy is about Alfie Monk, who has been eleven years old for a thousand years. To some, this […]
Mockingbird
Several years ago, I read The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. That was when I came across Asperger’s Syndrome for the first time. I read up bits and pieces about it, and was overwhelmed by the power of the brain and the ways in which it processes information. I picked up Mockingbird without knowing that it was written from the […]
Stargirl
Sweetness is such a wonderful ingredient, and so rare in a YA novel. When Stargirl joins regular school after having been homeschooled most of her life, she is something of a phenomenon. She dresses strangely and does odd things. She seems to know everybody’s name and everyone’s birthday. She strums her ukulele and sings ‘Happy […]
Diamonds and Daggers
When Piotr’s father is suspected of having stolen celebrity actor Betty Massino’s diamond necklace, the boy’s world seems to fall apart. For Piotr, the UK is home, but his father is fed up of being treated with suspicion simply because he is Polish. He is suspended from his job as a security guard, though he […]
Catching Up: MG and YA Books
So many wonderful, wonderful books and so little time! Here are a few middle-grade and young adult books I read in the last couple of months. Gorilla Dawn I know a little about gorillas being endangered because I began to read up bits and pieces about it when I saw articles linking the fate of […]
Seven Fictional Teachers I Love
It’s Teachers’ Day – the day when every teacher goes home with a mountain of cards. As a writer and teacher, how can I not celebrate all the fictional teachers I love? When I started writing this post, I thought, first, of all the teachers I’ve created in my stories. The Story-Catcher has very few; offhand, […]
Touching Spirit Bear
I’m usually not one of those readers who sits and finishes a book in a day. Unless a story is really compelling, I get distracted easily. I have a hundred other things to do each day, and I do them without being drawn back to my book. I also usually keep track of a storyline, […]
The One and Only Ivan
I just went onto Goodreads and saw that The One and Only Ivan has over 110,000 reviews. I’m not surprised, though. It’s exactly that kind of book, the kind that makes you want to tell everyone about it. It’s achingly sweet: a lovely story that leaves you sad, happy and everything else in between. Things aren’t perfect, but somehow, […]