Rainbow Grey
Laura Ellen Anderson
Farshore

Having hugely enjoyed Laura’s Amelia Fang series I couldn’t wait to get hold of her new story. and it certainly lived up to my expectations.

It’s set in the brilliantly imagined magical sky world of Weatherlands in the city of Celestia and features ten-year old Ray Grey. who lives with her family – mum Cloudia, Dad Haze and cloud-cat, Nim.

All the other Weatherlings have at their fingertips, amazing magical weather power – be it sun ( I love the glowing sunflower in the sky image giving light to Earth), 

snow or rain, cloud or wind; not so Ray who like her mother, has no weather magic of any kind, though she longs for such magic to appear suddenly one morning so she’s more like her friends Droplet Dewbells and Snowden Everfreeze.

Rumour has it though that until they were all wiped out by the worst tornado in history, there were also Weatherlings who had Rainbow magic, – although most people don’t believe this . 

When Ray attends her first festival for the Eclipse with her friends, it’s the start of an unlikely adventure triggered by a tatty old book. Adventure is something else Ray longs for, wanting to be like her hero, the famous, beautiful Earth Explorer La Blaze Delight whom she meets at the festival.

Young Ray is one determined character and so is prepared to be a rule breaker (hurrah!) leaving Celestia without a grown-up and setting off for earth on a ‘daring quest’ in search of treasures.

It’s a trip that changes her life: a transformation takes place making her not Ray Grey but Rainbow Grey. Now all that’s left to do is to gain control of her powers and save the earth from a mysterious, powerful destructive enemy. 

Can she succeed? Perhaps, with the help of her best pals (and Nim) – surely that isn’t asking too much …

Laura’s storytelling weaves a spell around you from the outset; it’s totally gripping throughout with tension building as the end draws nigh, full of splendid humorous detail (the pigeon named Coo La La, for example) with sprinklings of silliness such as that highly explosive farting cloud cat, and the eat them quick before they erupt, rumblebuns.

This book has all you can ask for and more: teamwork, friendship, an environmental message, being something of an outsider, there’s even a mention of reading problems ( Ray talks of letters being jumbled on the page and later, reading from coloured paper is mentioned). Magicalicious – bring on the next adventure please!