Books reviewed:
Novelist and Reviewer: Author: The Other Book, The Liberators. The Darkening Path Trilogy: The Broken King, vol. 1; The King's Shadow, vol. 2, and The King's Revenge, vol. 3. The Double Axe, a retelling of the Minotaur story, and The Arrow of Apollo. How To Teach Classics to Your Dog published October 2020. Wildlord, publishing October 2021.
Showing posts with label caroline lawrence. Show all posts
Showing posts with label caroline lawrence. Show all posts
Saturday, 1 June 2019
June Children's Book Round up for Literary Review 2019
Books reviewed:
Thursday, 2 June 2016
Summer Children's Book Round Up for Literary Review
I've done my Summer Children's Book Round up for Literary Review, which features:
The Nest by Kenneth Oppel
Queen of the Silver Arrow by Caroline Lawrence
The Otherlife by Julia Gray
Chosen by Lucy Coats
Eliza Rose by Lucy Worsley
The Dark Days Club by Alison Goodman
Erica's Elephant by Sylvia Bishop
Louie Lets Loose! by Rachel Hamilton
The Dragon and the Nibblesome Knight by Elli Woodward and Benji Davies.
You can read the whole piece here.
Wednesday, 18 May 2016
Interview with Caroline Lawrence for Books for Keeps
Friday, 6 May 2016
Event at Waterstones Piccadilly with Caroline Lawrence, Katherine Rundell, Anthony McGowan and Philip Womack
I'm doing an event with the excellent authors Caroline Lawrence, Katherine Rundell and Anthony McGowan, and Waterstones Piccadilly on the 1st June at 6.30pm. It's free, but do RSVP to piccadilly@waterstones.com.
Sunday, 22 July 2012
Children's Books for the Summer: Magic, wine and butterflies
Wednesday, 28 December 2011
Books of the Year, Day Two: Children's Books (and one Sci Fi novel)
Right, now down to children's books.
1. Life: An Exploded Diagram by Mal Peet
This is an exceptional young adult novel, warm and poignant and entirely absorbing. As well as being a finely written, emotionally mature piece of work, it's also an intelligent enquiry into cause and consequence, a study of class and its hidebound nature after the war (Clem is a labourer's son whose father goes up in the world to work for the local squire; Clem falls in love, naturally, with the squire's daughter.) The Cuban Missile crisis looms large in Clem's imagination, and it also works as a metaphor, layered through the entire text. A sterling book from a well-established author, this should almost certainly win prizes.
2. A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness
A children's book that might have been crafted straight out of a nightmare and made solid: bursting with terrifying images and rooted in the deepest folktalkes, this warped fable also follows an involving emotional arc, and sits as a nice counterpoint to Ness's trilogy, Chaos Walking.
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| An Eck. About to eat something. |
3. There is no Dog by Meg Rosoff
What if God was a sex-obsessed teenager called Bob? Well that would explain why the world is in such a mess, wouldn't it? It certainly makes sense; and Rosoff's quirky, intelligent and very funny tale explores the idea with verve and imagination. Oh, and it also contains the world's sweetest creature - the Eck. You'll want one, I promise. It eats everything in sight - and it's the last one in the universe.
4. David by Mary Hoffman
A marble-veined, beautifully crafted novel which sees a gorgeous young man enter into Florence to seek his fortune. His looks earn him the attention of both men and women; he also becomes embroiled in dangerous game of espionage - whilst, of course, being the model for Michaelangelo's David. Absorbing, thrilling, and full of historical sumptuousness.
5. Naked by Kevin Brooks
A very powerful, thoroughly-imagined fiction, concerning the privileged life of the daughter of an actress; she forms a band with the best looking guy in school, but he turns out to have his own problems; meanwhile she falls for the new Irish bass player, Billy the Kid - but he's tangled up in some dangerous political machinations of his own. Superlative.
6. The Devil Walks by Anne Fine
Suspenseful, scary and absorbing, Fine's novel pushes through pastiche of the late Victorian / early Edwardian ghost story and emerges on the other side (much like Chris Priestley's Uncle Montague series.) An imprisoned, vulnerable boy; a hidden house; a Satanic doll; all these elements combine to make an unmissable tale.
7. One Dog and His Boy by Eva Ibbotson
A true delight, this was Ibbotson's last book before she died this year. It follows a young boy's quest for friendship, which he finds, in bagfulls. It's sweet and funny and charming, and the Pekinese alone is worth it - descended from dogs who guarded the Imperial Palace, he secretly nurses his fiery soul, waiting for someone to notice it.
8. The Case of the Deadly Desperadoes by Caroline Lawrence
An almost perfect children's book, this lovely tale sees a boy with Asperger's syndrome in nineteenth century America, on the run after his family is slaughtered; he becomes a detective and foils some nasty villains. It's witty and moving.
9. Sky Hawk by Gill Lewis
This debut novel augurs well for the future - Lewis writes with a keen, poetical eye, and her story is alive to the wonders of nature, and manages to be sentimental without being crass. One to watch.
10. The Power of Three by Diana Wynne Jones, Flight 714 by Hergé, and The Ropemaker by Peter Dickinson
Three older books I've read (or reread) this year that deserve a mention. Diana Wynne Jones also died this year - her children's books are inimitable. I came to them late - very late, actually, as I was still at university when I read The Dark Lord of Derkholm, and Chrestomanci, a book about a boy wizard written years before Harry Potter. I read The Power of Three this year, which concerns three different tribes who hate and fear each other - one of them, us humans, are known as giants; but when two little "fairy" children have to work with the giants to save their community, they learn that perhaps differences aren't necessarily to be scared of. It's a charming, weird book.
The same kind of weirdness, but magnified, can be found in Peter Dickinson's The Ropemaker; I'd never heard of him, but a chance remark by Marion Lloyd as we discussed writing children's books put me on to it: it should be read immediately by anyone interested in children's books. It inhabits its own world so thoroughly that it's almost impossible to put down; and it has the best grumpy horse in it I've ever come across. And, last but not least, after a wedding conversation I went back to Hergé, and found in Flight 714 all the thrills and humour that kept me enthralled as a child.
Saturday, 9 July 2011
Caroline Lawrence and Andrew Lane: reviews
And finally, Caroline Lawrence's extremely engaging The Case of the Deadly Desperadoes, and Andrew Lane's Young Sherlock Holmes: Black Ice. Read my review HERE.
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