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bigbeardedbookseller's reviews
579 reviews
A Box Full of Murders by Janice Hallett
4.0
I was very excited and intrigued when I saw a middle grade murder mystery from Janice Hallett as her murder mysteries for adults are extremely popular and will have instant name recognition for adults buying for their kids.
Ava and Luke’s parent have separated and Ava is with Mum and Luke is with Dad, when Luke finds a box full of secret papers in the loft.
This separation gives the vehicle to show the documents that were found as Luke texts them to Ava, we also follow their text conversations as they discuss the mystery as it unfolds
Well-paced and full of clues and red herrings, but also has a lot of information on how to look at evidence so that younger people can interrogate the text better and learn the conventions of murder mysteries as the book goes on.
Set in 1983 on a Scouts and Guides last camp as the site has been bought and going to be developed into a waste processing plant by what seems like a very dislikable company and brimming with comic characters (Officers Grudge and Grimm for a start), miscreants, obvious suspects, and intrepid investigators.
A great little mystery that had one or two little things that niggled me but wouldn’t be noticeable by the target audience, well-paced, funny, tense, and a great start to reading murder mysteries for the younger audience.
I received this from Puffin Books in exchange for an honest review.
There Is No Giant in This Story by Lou Carter
4.0
We return to the fairy tale lands of Lou Carter and Deborah Allwright, where the antagonists of the tales don’t behave as they are traditionally made to.
Then we see what can happen from this in a hilarious manner.
This time it’s a Giant who doesn’t want to stay in the castle up the beanstalk as it is boring and comes down to play in fairy land.
But he’s loud and destructive, which is very off putting for everyone else, even though he’s only bored and wants to play.
He’s so loud and destructive everyone hides from him and he can’t understand why he’s not liked but after a talk from someone who explained things to him and a lucky accident he became part of the fairy land group.
As always a lovely story with some really great illustrations, love the troll!
Looking forward to trying this out at story time.
I received this from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
The Biggest Dog in the Book by Ben Lerwill
5.0
I’ve been taking the opportunity to read any picture books that I can right now as they are usually so bright and positive, and I’m always on the look-out for new story time books.
‘The Biggest Dog in the Book’ is a perfect story time book as kids always seem to love dogs and the dog illustrations in here are so fun.
It also works really well in that there is very little text on each page and the text is following a path of smallest to biggest which is a nice concept for children who seem to understand that well, and you can play the games of ‘Do you think Holly is the biggest dog?’ with the children to help pull them through the story with you.
The defining of each dog by traits such as waggy tail and speed gives younger readers something to help separate each dog and give them something to play with.
It was also fun throwing in a non-dog for the children to shout ‘That’s not a dog’ at, and each page seems to have little surprises to point out the children as the book is being read.
A great fun read that has lots of potential and family appeal.
I received this from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
The Fib by Pedro Iniguez
4.0
Picture books with clear stories, with a simple moral are always great for kids, especially when they are fun as well.
More so when the story feels as though it’s getting out of hand.
It all starts with Pepe being too embarrassed to share the comic book he had been working on all summer with the class, and it is here where he introduces the fib to the class.
and this is where things start to get out of hand, to defend the initial fib Pepe has to keep adding to the fib.
Initially the fib is a cute little green fuzz ball, but it gets bigger and bigger all the time and gets more destructive as it goes on.
This is a brilliant metaphor for lying and works really well, and the monster is wonderful in it’s growth and, eventually, in its reversal. The reversal is also excellently explained.
Really enjoyed this for its vibrant illustrations and straightforward clear explanation of what can go wrong when you lie.
I received this from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
EC Cruel Universe Vol. 1 by Corinna Bechko, Christopher Cantwell, J. Holtham, Matt Bors, Chris Condon, Matt Kindt, Stephanie Phillips, Cullen Bunn, Zac Thompson, Ben H. Winters
4.0
Earlier in the year Oni Press released Epitaphs from the Abyss, a horror anthology in comic form which I really enjoyed. So when this science fiction anthology showed up I jumped at the chance to read it.
This anthology does what I love about anthologies really well, loads of different art styles and story types that are constantly swapping up the energy of what you’re reading.
As always in any anthology or collection some stories are much stronger than others though there were no real disappointments here.
Some of the stories were short and punchy, a few required more thought and were a bit longer but it was in part this mix that made the anthology so much fun.
There were some I enjoyed more though and these were; The Deleted Man, Behave, Doomsday Particle, Paring Knife, and ORGAN1C, nice fun reads all.
Another great read from Oni Press
I received this from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Kick the Latch by Kathryn Scanlan
4.0
I originally thought this was a collection of short stories and in a way it is, it is an episodic fictionalised account of a woman’s life, but taken from transcripts of an actual person.
The stories of Sonia from Iowa and the track her life took, working with horse for the majority of her life therefore the majority of the short episodes are based on her experiences with horses at racetracks and more.
We start off with some really interesting snippets from her earlier life and her gradually falling in love with horse.
There is nothing sugar-coated in this collection of incidents, they show the hard life Sonia goes through, the ups and downs, the bumps (some massive), and the camaraderie of the backsiders, the behind. the scenes people of horse racing in the US.
With each episode you get to know Sonia and her world that little bit better, the normalisation of the hard life, the rough and tumble, but always that love of horses and the world that circles around them.
Each episode is short and sharp with no fat to soften the blow that the lyricism of Kathryn Scanlan’s words bring to the hard life that Sonia has lived.
I read this so easily, it was a searing story that really kept you hooked from start to finish.