Children’s Fiction

Christmas Reading

/ Eleanor Jane / 2 Comments

For me, reading at Christmas is all about comfort. Most years I read Little Women and quite often something like Arthur Ransome’s Winter Holiday as well. Last year I exclusively read all of my favourite wintry childhood books throughout December – things like The Box of Delights and The Rat-a-Tat Mystery. It was wonderful.

Part of every Christmas is reading Lucy and Tom’s Christmas. I love Shirley Hughes’ illustrations and I always look forward to this one. This year, I treated myself to her new Christmas book – Snow in the Garden – and I am very much looking forward to reading it!

I started my Christmas reading a little late this year but my first book was brand new (to me). I found this on the book stall in our local market and I couldn’t resist it!

Book Review – Wundersmith: The Calling of Morrigan Crow

/ Eleanor Jane / Leave a comment

For the past year my friend has been telling me how fantastic Nevermoor by Jessica Townsend is but it was only when I booked my Cheltenham tickets that I finally got round to reading it.

Oh my word, I loved it so much! I actually felt a bit bereft after I finished it and not really sure what to do with myself. Imagine how excited I was when a few days later I received a reading copy of book two from Hachette!  By the time I met Jessica at Cheltenham (she was so lovely) I had already devoured this book too.

Publisher’s Blurb

Imagination, discovery and friendship await Morrigan Crow when she escapes her deadly curse and joins the Wundrous Society. It promises her protection and belonging for life – but then Morrigan doesn’t receive the welcome she hoped for…

Has Morrigan’s dream of escaping her cursed life ended before it truly began?

I loved this book. I was having a stressful week and this was everything I needed to relax. I could completely immerse myself in Morrigan’s world and not worry about anything else. It is so wonderful to find a book which will do that.

I very much enjoyed finding out more about Nevermoor and the people within it. When I saw Jessica Townsend at Cheltenham she suggested this might be a nine book series which was fantastic news and I am already looking forward to book three – although as this one isn’t officially published until 31st October I might have a rather long wait!

Book Details

Wundersmith: The Calling of Morrigan Crow by Jessica Townsend

ISBN: 9781510104440

Publisher: Orion Children’s Books

RRP: £12.99

Cheltenham Literature Festival 2018

/ Eleanor Jane / 2 Comments

I am just back from my first ever visit to the Cheltenham Literature Festival where I had the best time.  The whole festival village was amazing and there were three separate festival bookshops – one of them dedicated to children’s books.  I was in heaven.

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I was there for a long weekend and in that time managed to fit in ten events.  It was wonderful to find so many fascinating talks – Sarah Dunant’s on the Borgias was especially interesting (and entertaining, as all the best talks should be).

My favourite events were on the Saturday afternoon.  Two talks about children’s books which were brilliant and after which I got to meet Anna James – author of Tilly and the Book Wanderers – and Jessica Townsend – author of Nevermoor.  They were both lovely people (and their books are wonderful too – go and read them!).

To round off the evening we went along to the lit crawl to take part in the quiz.  It had a classics theme which I obviously loved and we managed to come third which made me very proud, especially as we were the smallest team there.  We received some fabulous prizes too, including two books – Frankenstein and La Belle Sauvage – and four tickets to festival events.  I practically danced my way back to the hotel!

One of the best things about any festival is the amount of reading time.  There were plenty of lovely places to sit and my favourite was the Book Stand – a cosy sitting room set up on the band stand.  I spent some very happy hours there with my book and a cup of tea.

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It was a brilliant weekend and I would definitely love to visit again.

In Praise and Celebration of Book Clubs

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For many years I wanted to join a book club.  The idea of meeting a lot of like minded people to talk about books was wonderful but I was hampered by two things.  Firstly, there weren’t any near me and secondly I was hesitant about committing myself to reading books I didn’t like.  Not that I expected to hate them all – I just knew there would be some I didn’t.

However, when there was an opportunity to set one up at work I jumped at the chance.  I am so glad I did!  Yes, there have been books I really did not like but there have been others that I loved – even some that I would not have picked up if left to myself.

I have also genuinely enjoyed the discussions and it is great to be able to have them with a group of people who love books just as much as me.  Besides, I’ve learnt that if I really hate a book I don’t have to finish it.  That makes an interesting discussion too.

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Side note: this is neither a book I hated, nor one I didn’t want to read. I suggested the group read it for our meeting next week and I am gripped by it. Hopefully they have been enjoying it too!