Tag Jenny McLachlan

Fairy vs Wizard

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Fairy vs. Wizard
Jenny McLachlan
Farshore

Eleven year old Danny, has just started at a new school and, so he writes in his diary, he’s desperate for people there to think he’s cool and funny. The problem is that when he opens his lunch box what does he discover inside but fairy, Stink. She says she’s returned to the Humanyworld for a short break and will go home the following day.She does so but only briefly; next day when Danny returns from school there she is sitting on his bed crying. Danny decides to let her stay till the weekend and so begins another spectacularly silly story.

With an agreement by Stink to keep three simple rules, off go Danny, his friend Kabir and Stink to school next morning and almost immediately on arrival Stink breaks one of the rules causing embarrassment to Danny. Then comes news from Danny’s teacher, Miss Nichol, that his form group is to do an assembly and she has written a play for them to perform. It’s called Nelly the Element and the Wizard of Doom and everybody wants to be the wizard.

However a Stink initiated disaster happens in a different assembly and Danny gets labelled as Disco Danny by his classmates, as well as a lot of others when a video of his dance goes viral. As compensation, Miss Nicol tells Danny he’s to play the wizard and by so doing earn a new title, Danny the Wizard. Then comes an announcement from Stink: her good deed is to invite her wizard friend Rufus Nobeard, to come and give Danny wizarding lessons.

With the revelation that Rufus has changed, and on account of crimes committed is now a wanted wizard, things get increasingly chaotic. (I won’t spoil things and reveal what happens thereafter.) Amazingly though, everything ends happily, but I hope, not, ever after, as the series is such fun. I found myself giggling at every turn of the page and so will primary school readers of this second hilarious book of daft diary entries liberally sprinkled with author Jenny’s comical black and white illustrations.

Dead Good Detectives / The Lizzie and Belle Mysteries: Drama and Danger

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These are exciting detective stories recently published by Farshore – thanks to the publisher for sending them for review.

Dead Good Detectives
Jenny McLachlan, illustrated by Chloe Dominique

Here is something completely different from the author of the fabulous ROAR series and it’s way more than ‘dead good’, this is dead fantastic. It features twelve year old Sid Jones who lives with her dad who runs the miniatures museum in the the town of Fathom. Sid has a terrific imagination, a liking for maps and spends a lot of time hanging out in the graveyard with her best friend, the clever, eccentric Zen. Sometimes though she gets embarrassed by his behaviour and slowly starts to avoid his company particularly when she accidentally calls forth a 300-year-old pirate ghost, Bones, by means of a Crunchie bar and a red gel pen as her town prepares for its annual Pirate Day extravaganza.

Bones starts to follow her around, calling her magical for releasing him from his imprisonment in Halfway House, and irritatingly talking of his lost treasure. The peculiar establishment is full of lost souls in limbo trapped by landlord Old Scratch, a truly menacing character and now Sid’s help is required to assist Bones in his search for the treasure, thus allowing him to leave the world of the living at long last.
Time is running out: can Sid and Zen help Ezekiel ‘Bones’ Kittow before it’s too late.

A super piratical adventure – in the words of Bones, ‘a rollicking caper’ it certainly is, but it’s also a tale of being strong enough to be your true self as you grow up, however unconventional that may be. The dead good news is that there’s more to come of the DGD soon, meanwhile chips with curry sauce are the order of the day.

The Lizzie and Belle Mysteries: Drama and Danger
J.T.Williams, illustrated by Simone Douglas

Set in London towards the end of the eighteenth century, this is a riveting tale from author J.T. Williams who is new to me,. It’s particularly unusual as the two main protagonists are black girls, Lizzie Sancho, age twelve, and her new friend from an aristocratic family, Dido Belle. We follow the girls as they try to discover who attempted to murder Lizzie’s father, Ignatius, as he was about to make his debut as Othello at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. (Both Dido Belle and Ignatius Sancho were real people.)

There’s high drama indeed as people they know start disappearing; it’s difficult for the girls to know who to trust but they do know there’s a tall shadowy figure lurking and watching them. There are surprises for Lizzie when she discovers things about some of her own family members she wasn’t previously aware of.

Through these enormously likeable, determined people we learn something of the experiences of Black British people in the 18th century, the British slave trade and how some people were striving towards the total emancipation of people of African descent.

A vivid, superbly told historical adventure that is fast paced, unpredictable and filled with genuine peril. With super black and white illustrations by Simone Douglas, I definitely recommend it for older primary readers and beyond. At the end of the book something happens that sets the scene for Lizzie and Belle’s next adventure: I look forward to it eagerly.

The Battle for Roar / A Super Weird! Mystery: My pencil case is a time machine

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Two recent fiction books from Farshore kindly sent for review

The Battle for Roar
Jenny McLachlan, illustrated by Ben Mantle

The superb Land of Roar fantasy series comes to a gripping conclusion in this utterly enchanting adventure that sees twins Rose and Arthur travelling to a group of islands far beyond everything they know: beyond The End.

There’s a storm, a shipwreck, you’ll meet fanged fairies, a possible dragon egg, there are secrets aplenty and prepare to be surprised, shocked even.

To say it’s action-packed is something of an understatement; it’s humorous in parts, pretty scary in others, a wonderful demonstration of the redemptive power of teamwork and a veritable ode to the power of the imagination.

Altogether an absolutely perfect ending to a brilliant trilogy. I gobbled it up in a single sitting, along with a few marshmallows (not magical ones) and a mug of hot chocolate.

A Super Weird! Mystery: My pencil case is a time machine
Jim Smith

Having coped with the Danger at Donut Diner and the Attack of the Haunted Lunch Box, Yoshi and his friends Melvin Pebble and Rhubarb Plonsky have another mystery to solve. If he can manage to tear himself away from his phone that is, for like most youngsters, Yoshi has of late, let his phone take up much of his time, particularly uploading his videos onto Donut Tube.

Enter Yoshi’s dad bringing a shoebox containing the ‘smelly eraser collection’ from his own childhood (we’ve all had them) and thus begin some seriously surreal happenings necessitating some serious sleuthing from the three young detectives.

But that’s getting a bit ahead of things so let’s go back to where the three are in HQ aka Brenda the Hut and Yoshi finds an ordinary non-smelly eraser on one of the shelves therein, names it Brenda too and adds it to other smelly erasers now in his pencil case. Then at Rhubarb’s behest he pulls out a dinosaur-shaped one for her to sniff. Uh-oh! Time slip alert!

Seems the pals have just whiffed themselves back to the age of the dinosaurs and that T-Rex doesn’t look too friendly.

All is not lost though for they’ve still got the rest of the smelly erasers. Perhaps one of those can get them back to their own time but then what? …

Well that would be telling, and I’ll leave Jim Smith’s young narrator to do that in his own inimitable way and merely say that what follows is seriously silly and huge fun especially with daft cartoon style drawings adorning every spread adding to the overall wackiness.

Return to Roar / A Most Improper Magick

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Return to Roar
Jenny McLachlan, illustrated by Ben Mantle
Egmont

It’s half term; Rose and narrator Arthur are excited to enter the folded-up camp bed portal in Grandad’s attic that takes them back to the Land of Roar.

Their first stop is to see Win, a wizard ninja whose wizarding skills leave something to be desired. Rose leaves the two boys together and aback a dragon, heads off to look for her merwitch friend Mitch.

She has no success and returns bringing Mitch’s spell book and tattoo kit.

During the night Arthur is woken by a rather sinister presence and hears a whisper asking, ‘Arthur, take me to Home’ that he persuades himself is a dream. But next morning, painted on the wall outside Win’s cave in letters, still wet, he sees WHAT’S IN THE BOX?

Arthur makes an immediate link to the villainous scarecrow, Crowky and convinces the others that he must be out to find The Box (an old cardboard one containing those things the twins most fear) and thus be able to travel back through the tunnel into Grandad’s house.

There’s only one thing to do: they must find the box before Crowky and so begins their next adventure.

What a thrilling, sometimes dangerous, one it is as they encounter a number of their old friends including the Lost Girls (lovers of loom bands and rather wild). There are dragons, unicorns – some more obliging than others – pirate baboons, honey badgers, orang-utans; and eventually Mitch; plus a fair few spells, wolves and a rather unpleasant character, Hatai Skoll.

Readers will certainly feel frissons of fear at times as they become swept up in the dramatic events as they root for the children and their real friends.

Can they find the Box or will it be Crowky? Will Rose and Arthur get back to Grandad’s before their parents arrive to collect them?

Like this reviewer, young readers will find it well nigh impossible to put down this superbly written book, before they’ve discovered the answers. What a testament to the power of the imagination in children it is. Superb too are Ben Mantle’s illustrations – sometimes scary, sometimes gently humorous; and the front cover is truly powerful.

Fear not, a thrilling finale to the Roar series is promised – coming soon.

A Most Improper Magick
Stephanie Burgis, illustrated by Hannah Peck
Piccadilly Press

This reissue of the first of the ‘Improper Adventures’ of twelve-year-old narrator, Kat Stephenson is set in Regency England. It’s a blend of Jane Austin and Georgette Heyer, together with magic and adventure.

Rather than doing what proper young ladies should, Kat eschews embroidery, chops off her hair and decides to go to London. But then Kat is not an ordinary young lady: although her father is a respected clergyman, her late mother was a witch whose magical powers, her youngest daughter seems to have inherited.

Then she discovers her mother’s magic books and mirror, which is not your everyday kind of item; this golden object has powers of its own. Now for sure Kat is determined to learn how to use her magical talents for the good of her own family, no matter what her Stepmama says.

How will she deal with the decidedly sinister Sir Neville, her elder sister’s intended fiancé, as well as her other sister Angeline with her own style of witchiness, not to mention a highwayman?

Can the indomitable Kat succeed in saving her entire family from ruin and win her sisters the true loves they so much desire?

Bursting with charm, mystery and humour, this tale of high drama will appeal most strongly to confident female readers around the age of its chief character.

The Chocolate Unicorn / Crumbs!

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Here are two recent releases in Bloomsbury Education’s series Bloomsbury Young Readers

The Chocolate Unicorn
Jenny McLachlan, illustrated by Sarah Lawrence

Olive Brown worries a lot, so much so that she misses out on all kinds of wonderful opportunities.

Then one day her Grandpa gives her a present containing chocolates of different shapes. Wanting to make them last as long as possible, she eats one each day until only her favourite is left. It’s the chocolate unicorn with fudge hooves and a glittery horn and it seems too magical even to nibble. The unicorn remains in the box and Olive looks at it every morning and evening until the day it’s no longer there.

Following a trail of footprints, she discovers its hiding place and so begins a series of learning experiences through which the unicorn shows Olive how to be, first a little bit brave and then more so,

until she’s no longer holding herself back at all.

A while later, Olive, her mum and the unicorn visit the seaside where she meets a little boy. Could it be that it’s time for the unicorn to start working his magic on somebody else who needs to find some courage?

With gently humorous illustrations by Sarah Lawrence, this is a charming story for children who are growing in confidence towards becoming independent readers,

Crumbs!
Ben Bailey Smith, illustrated by Sav Akyüz

Ben Bailey Smith, actor and rapper has written this story of Farmer Dan’s missing lunch in rhyme.

When the farmer discovers the sandwich he’s been so eagerly anticipating is no longer in his lunch box his wife – a much brighter character – suggests an animal is responsible. But which one? Is it Harry the horse, Bridget the chicken

or perhaps, Bill the pig?

Dan is absolutely determined to track down the culprit that’s gobbled up his favourite egg mayonnaise sandwich and left him with a few crumbs.

A funny tale with spirited illustrations by Sav Akyüz, that should go down well with young readers whether or not they share Farmer Dan’s penchant for egg mayonnaise sandwiches.