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A review by gemsj
The Last Firefox by Laura Catalan, Lee Newbery
5.0
I read this with my 8 year old, and he absolutely loved it! He loved it so much he chose to dress up as Charlie for World Book Day at school this year (2025).
The Last Firefox is a heartwarming adventure with a beautiful message of finding your “Inner Fire” and standing up to bullies and ultimately believing in yourself. It has themes around found family and friendship.
The writing style is easy to understand and is very witty and engaging. My son’s teacher actually read the first chapter to the class when my son took it to school for World book day, and the whole class were laughing out loud at the opening chapter.
There are scarier moments which are dark and sinister with a vague looming threat which could be a little too scary for some children or younger children, but it adds to the atmosphere and storyline perfectly. I would say because of this the reading age would be around 8+.
There are also plenty of lovely illustrations throughout the book which helps engage younger readers and my son loved stopping to study the pictures to help him imagine some of the moments in the book.
The blend of magic and fantasy set in our modern world works perfectly and I hope we get to see more of the other world in future books!
We also loved the fact it was set in Wales in a town similar to where we are from ourselves and to see our beautiful landscape, language, culture and people being represented in this way. I also loved the LGBTQ+ and adoption representation in the story, it’s lovely to see.
Cadno is the real star of the show however, and my son had to buy his own Cadno plushie. I read somewhere that the author took inspiration from his love of Pokemon when writing this book, and we definitely got that feeling that finding Cadno was like catching a rare Pokemon, and my son loved this element also as a great Pokemon fan himself!
Thank you Lee Newbery, we will definitely be reading your other books and we can’t wait to read the next instalment of Charlie and Cadnos journey!
The Last Firefox is a heartwarming adventure with a beautiful message of finding your “Inner Fire” and standing up to bullies and ultimately believing in yourself. It has themes around found family and friendship.
The writing style is easy to understand and is very witty and engaging. My son’s teacher actually read the first chapter to the class when my son took it to school for World book day, and the whole class were laughing out loud at the opening chapter.
There are scarier moments which are dark and sinister with a vague looming threat which could be a little too scary for some children or younger children, but it adds to the atmosphere and storyline perfectly. I would say because of this the reading age would be around 8+.
There are also plenty of lovely illustrations throughout the book which helps engage younger readers and my son loved stopping to study the pictures to help him imagine some of the moments in the book.
The blend of magic and fantasy set in our modern world works perfectly and I hope we get to see more of the other world in future books!
We also loved the fact it was set in Wales in a town similar to where we are from ourselves and to see our beautiful landscape, language, culture and people being represented in this way. I also loved the LGBTQ+ and adoption representation in the story, it’s lovely to see.
Cadno is the real star of the show however, and my son had to buy his own Cadno plushie. I read somewhere that the author took inspiration from his love of Pokemon when writing this book, and we definitely got that feeling that finding Cadno was like catching a rare Pokemon, and my son loved this element also as a great Pokemon fan himself!
Thank you Lee Newbery, we will definitely be reading your other books and we can’t wait to read the next instalment of Charlie and Cadnos journey!