Excellent Reads

SAFARI ADVENTURE By Willard Price 240 pp. Red Fox. £5.99. (Ages 9 and up) ISBN 9780099482284 Rating: ? Stars     This book was kindly sent to me to review by the Guardian because my cousin enjoyed reading this series. I finally read it after Michelle Paver recommended it. When I first got it I thought it would be full of drama and was concerned that it would be like 'Running Wild' by Michael Morpurgo. It turned out completely different and brilliant.     'Safari Adventure' is about two brothers called Hal and Roger who fly to an African park to help get rid of the poachers and especially Blackbeard. On the way there the pilot is shot by a poison arrow. When they get to the camp a suspicious judge tries to cure him, but while doing so he nearly kills him. The brothers suspect the judge to be bad, but he could be someone they would never imagine him to be...     Even though it was a brilliant book I didn't understand w...

THE AUSTERE ACADEMY A Series of Unfortunate Events: Book the 5th. By Lemony Snicket. Illustrated by Brett Helquist. 224 pp. Egmont Books Ltd. £6.99. (Ages 9 and up) ISBN 9781405266116 Rating: ? Stars     I have actually read this book before, but back then I didn't review it. I have read it again and I am now reviewing it. I have decided to read this book again because Snicket is completely absurd - a word which here means he says contradictory things in a clever way. Lemony Snicket is a very interesting writer because Lemony Snicket isn't his name, it's a pseudonym. No one knows who he is as he keeps that a secret. I don't blame him as I would probably do the same if I had all that fame.     This book is about the three Baudelaire children when they go to boarding school. Because they didn't have parents or a guardian they had to live in the orphan shack. Inside the shack, fungus dripped from the walls, crabs crawled around and they slept...

MY STORY: TITANIC By Ellen Emerson White 176 pp. Scholastic. £6.99. (Ages 9 and up) ISBN 9781407131412 Rating: ? Stars     I haven't read or reviewed one of these books for a while but don't worry around twenty of them are still coming. I decided to read the 'Titanic' in particular because of a girl called Lily who I played with for a while in my old school. She always wanted to play act the Titanic and after pretending to be on a giant boat with her I wanted to read the book.     This book is about a girl called Margaret who is an orphan at an orphanage. One day she is lucky enough to be chosen as a rich american lady's companion on the Titanic. While on the Titanic she makes friends with her steward Robert. Sadly on the way to New York they hit an iceberg and the impossible happens. The Titanic sinks. Luckily Margaret is saved on a lifeboat, but sadly her friend Robert drowns.     Ages 9 and up should read this book be...

Aine, Thank you for having me here today! People always ask me where I get my ideas from. The vague shrug of… um… no idea, doesn’t usually satisfy them so I’ve tried to come up with a better answer over the years. The real answer is no book is the same. The first Clanless novel, Senior Year Bites came from a dream. A really short dream about a girl who got turned into a vampire her senior year of high school. A friend of mine and I both decided to write a page based on that story prompt to see how different they came out. The answer is quite different. Mine ended up turning into a novel, and then a series. The idea for the second novel came from lots of brainstorming with my writing buddy about what could happen next. I’d been reading myths and said hey, this will be fun. I don’t want to give too much of a spoiler but there are shape shifters and vampires and sidhe in this one. I didn’t plan the first novel out when I wrote it. At the time I was simply writing for fun. I did have to pl...

When I was growing up, there weren't very many young adult books. Especially compared to now. In late elementary school, I read every Sweet Valley High book I could get my hands on. But that was about it. I didn't read much in middle and high school, but when I did read, it was adult fantasy. To be honest, I hated reading for a while. The books we had to read for school never kept my attention, and I felt like reading was dull and pointless. I rediscovered my love of reading in my college years. I owe it all to Kelley Armstrong's Women of the Otherworld series. I went on to discover Kim Harrison, Laurell K Hamilton, PC Cast, and MaryJanice Davidson. For a few years I read somewhere between one and five books per year. I got burnt out on Laurell K Hamilton's Anita Blake series and MaryJanice Davidson's vampire romance, and my reading slowed a bit. But then I started reading YA. Around the time I started reading Kelley Armstrong, I started reading Harry Potter. And I ...

THE WINDVALE SPRITES By Mackenzie Crook 224 pp. Faber and Faber. £6.99. (Ages 9 and up) ISBN 9780571240722 Rating: ? Stars     I read this book because I found it interesting that someone who is best known as a bad pirate that is always pulling his eye out and eating it could be a respectable writer. It would surprise you to see what completely different people he could be.     This book is about a boy called Asa, who after a huge storm finds a sprite (fairy) in his garden. Determined to find out if anyone else knows about these sprites he looks through old books in the library. While looking through books he finds one about a madman called Benjamin Tooth who said he saw sprites. It also tells him about a trunk and a lost key. While going outside he trips over a bird case and finds the lost key inside the bird. Then he gets himself locked inside the trunk and looks through it until he finds out that the sprites live in the Windvale Moor...

If you follow my blog or follow my reviews on Goodreads, then you know that I absolutely love Sarah Diemer's work. I can't get enough of her stories. It's some of the most unique stuff out there. It's very original, and I find that very refreshing considering so many YA books are similar to other YA books. I was lucky enough to score a little interview with Sarah! 1. What inspired you to become an author? I've been writing books since I was six years old when I illustrated an EPIC VOLUME about a unicorn with a rainbow horn (and by EPIC, I mean RIDICULOUS). I was deeply influenced by my mother, and my Polish grandmother, Donda, who were constantly putting books into my hands or reading to me--at my insistence--almost constantly since I launched from the womb. My earliest memory is sitting in my grandmother's lap, being read to about a unicorn. You know, which explains everything about me. :D 2. You release books as both Sarah Diemer and Elora Bishop. How are...