Time Travel is NOT My Superpower Nathanael Lessore, illustrated by Simran Diamond Singh Little Tiger
Sara, the young narrator of the second story set in the town of Walsham where special powers are part of everyday life, is working on improving her recently discovered superpower – teleporting. Thus far she is able to teleport herself but is unable to take any objects with her. However trouble starts when she accidentally teleports not only herself but her best friends, Georgie and Javier, as well as Jock her arch enemy, back in time to 2002. It’s crucial that they don’t interact with anybody, so nothing in the future is changed. However how is that possible when you find you’re at someone’s birthday party, a boy called Herman, someone that you don’t know. They eventually get away though, back to the present day, or is it? If it is, then why is Sara’s Mum wearing flip-flops and her Dad dressed in a parking warden’s uniform? They’re supposed to be superheroes. And as for being fed Brussels sprouts – don’t even mention the F__T word.
Something definitely is wrong, so how will Sara get herself and her companions in this muddle back into their proper universe.
With giggles aplenty both verbal and visual, this will go down well with KS2 readers who enjoy crazy adventures.
The Appletree Animal Agency Collie Chaos Katya Balen, illustrated by Gill Smith Walker Books
It’s winter and we’re back in the village of Mossdale where Appletree Agency have three new clients on their list – Algernon, a ten year old terrapin, Crumpet, a cat that’s something of a diva, and Domino, a dog with three legs. Domino is allocated to Mrs MacDonald but it’s not long before he escapes. The team load up with pet supplies, a compass, snacks and other useful equipment and off they set into the snow: Appletree Agency on the case.
They decide to follow a trail of threepaw prints and thanks to Luca, eventually track Domino down in a field belonging to the curmudgeonly farmer they’d already had a run it with. The dog makes it clear that the children should follow him and he leads them to discover a boy they’d seen earlier but now he’s injured.
Eventually having taken him to safety, the Appletree team learn that the boy, Finn, is staying with his grandpa, the very farmer they’d upset. Moreover he’s an animal lover. Finn was eager for a pet of his own and with Domino forming a bond with him it felt almost like he had one. Then the Appletree Agency members have an idea, an idea that will make everybody happy. But that’s not quite the end of this story …
A wonderfully heart-warming adventure that is perfect for pet lovers who like a touch of humour as well as passion in their stories.
A child with a great affinity for the countryside moves to live in the city. Replacing the wildness, especially the bird with blue wings that sings and the earth full of stories, are grey glass buildings with ‘their fish scale sides’ that cannot be climbed, pavements that cannot show their secrets and skies without any visible stars. The city is lonely, so too is the young narrator who tells readers, “I’ve lost my wild.’
Somehow though, in response to a plea for help in this grey wilderness, the bird with blue wings appears in the dark sky calling to the child. Swooping and looping, the bird leads the protagonist through the crowded city streets to a river. a river that ‘rolls and twists and shows me the secrets hidden under its tongue.’ This is a place where herons wait to catch silvery fish and there’s an abundance of other birds.
The child carries on following the lead of the blue-winged bird and they find leaves, wild flowers and insects.
In a little forest place, the child climbs a tree and can hardly believe the abundance of wild life -: ‘A burst of parakeets colour the air green’ and then as day turns to night a fox appears and stars light up the sky. Now the child realises that there is wildness everywhere’.It’s both within and all around.
Katya Balen’s poetic narrative reads aloud well and accompanied by Gill Smith’s mixed-media scenes of the contrasting grey cityscape and the vitality of the wild places will, one hopes, encourage children to look for and appreciate their own wild areas.
The AppleTree Animal Agency Katya Balen, illustrated by Gill Smith Walker Books
Mattie loves animals and watches those that come to her garden in the evenings, pretending that Quilla the hedgehog, Bertie the bat and Marmalade the fox are her pets. Seemingly everybody in her class at Mossdale Primary School owns a pet and Mattie desperately wants a puppy but despite frequently asking her dad, he insists they don’t have time to look after one.
One night as Mattie stands watching her animal friends she sees a shooting star and makes a wish on it. Almost immediately through her binoculars, she glimpses a scruffy pup moving unsteadily as though hurt, but when she ventures outside to look, there’s no sign of it.
Next day when Mattie’s walking with her best friend, Zoe, and talking about the puppy, Zoe’s own puppy runs off only to lead them to the injured pup from the previous night. Off they head to the vets but find the place in a chaotic state.
A boy introducing himself as Caspar tells the girls his vet mum and he are staying for the summer while the regular vet goes to visit his poorly mum. The three children sort out the chaos while the vet tends to the injured paw. A couple of hours later everything is back as it should be to Dr Polly’s delight and she calls the three her apprentice vets.
So begins Mattie’s volunteering stint at the vet’s surgery – seemingly her dream is beginning to come true, but Luna as she’s now called, still isn’t hers. Then comes the incident of the runaway ferret: it ends happily and sparks Mattie’s brainwave – a pet-matching service at the village fete.. Zoe and Caspar love the idea and the three start working on it the following morning. Come fete day the service is a great success: is it just possible that all the animals will find suitable homes with responsible owners? Even Mattie’s beloved Luna? …
And so Appletree Animal Agency is formed.
Katya Balen’s feeling-centred story is thoroughly enjoyable and will captivate younger readers especially animal lovers. The friendship, determination and teamwork of the child characters is terrific and a great example to her audience.
Scratch and Sniff Margaret Ryan, illustrated by Nathan Reed Wings of Icarus Jenny Oldfield, illustrated by Bee Wiley Sindhu and Jeet’s Detective Agency Chitra Soundar, illustrated by Amberin Huq Maggie and the Moonbird Katya Balen, illustrated by Pham Quang Phuc Bamba Beach Pratima Mitchell, illustrated by David Dean Ping and the Missing Ring Emma Shevah, illustrated by Izzy Evans Bloomsbury Education
These are additions to the Bloomsbury Readers series: banded book stories that aim to foster independent reading at KS2, all written by award-winning authors and illustrated in black and white and definitely worth offering to children for home or school reading.
The titular Scratch and Sniff are dogs belonging to PC Penny Penrose. Said constable frequently gets given the boring tasks and this is so on the day we meet her counting traffic cones outside the police station while her colleague Sergeant Snide is off investigating a burglary at the furniture store. However when her two faithful pooches learn of this, they decide it’s time for the ‘doggy Secret Service’ to get to work and they too head off to the scene of the crime. There, they decide to look around outside leaving the sergeant to do his detecting inside and that’s when they’re party to something highly suspicious in the form of two men struggling to carry a heavy sofa, something with a very valuable cushion, that they put into a van belonging to the department store and drive off. Time to use those cones and to alert Penny … With plenty of funny drawings this is assuredly, a fun cops and robbers tale for those readers just beginning to fly solo.
Wings of Icarus is Jenny Oldfield retelling of the classic Greek myth about the daring boy Icarus, imprisoned with his dad Daedulus on the island of Crete by King Minos, but determined to make their escape – one way or another. When the sea proves too much for their first plan, Daedulus decides that while their captor might be Lord of Earth and Sea, he certainly isn’t ruler of the skies. Hence their only chance is to take to the air … While Icarus sleeps his father builds wings from feathers collected and next morning after warnings from his father, the boy is so excited he takes off alone … Compellingly told and enticingly illustrated.
As Sindhu and Jeet (along with Sindhu’s parents) leave Chennai bound for London the best friends have different agendas for the holiday. The pair have formed Sindhu and Jeet’s Detective Agency but all Jeet wants to do is relax and be a tourist whereas Sindhu has brought along her young detectives’ handbook – just in case. Before they’ve even boarded the plane Sindhu spots something she thinks is suspicious behaviour. Almost the next minute the two friends find themselves trapped between a wall and two baggage burglars. Time to try some of their Kabadi skills … Will the plane wait even if they can extricate themselves from this and the next very tricky situation? Happily yes, but that’s only the start of their adventures: next stop the sights of London, first off The Tower of London itself. So begins another exciting investigation where again the friends’ ace powers of observation and a liberal sprinkling of imagination, along with determination are called into play. Even then they’re not quite finished with detecting. After a day of rest, they visit the Natural History Museum where Mum has a special interest in the conch collection and one conch in particular. However when they get to the cabinet where it’s supposed to be, there’s a label saying the item has been ‘temporarily removed’.When next they look, there’s a conch back in the cabinet, but is it the right one? Mum doesn’t think so … This holiday is turning out to be anything but boring after all decides Sindhu. There are plenty of thrills and tension to keep readers turning the pages in this one.
Pratima Mitchell’s contemporary story Bamba Beach immediately transported me to some of the many wonderful holidays I’ve spend in Arpora, Goa just off the coast. The setting is a fishing village where young Hari lives with his family. Times are hard with almost no fish left in the bay on account of the tsunami and to catch those further out, the family needs a boat with a flat bottom and an outboard motor rather than their old dilapidated one made from coconut wood. Hari knows full well they can’t afford it but the good-hearted lad is desperate to do something to raise money for his family. He’s not a boy to give up even in the face of village superstitions and family feuds; and when he’s offered a bi-weekly job washing local headteacher, Brother Angelo’s car, it’s at least a start. From small beginnings … though even with several more customers Hari reckons it will take fifteen years to make the capital needed to set up a shop. What else can he do? Seemingly plenty, for it’s not long before unexpected help comes from somebody Hari has helped. A highly engaging and interesting look at a culture most young readers will not be familiar with.
In the same reading band is Katya Balen’s magical moonlight adventure Maggie and the Moonbird featuring a girl who instead of going bird-watching with her dad as she really wants, has to visit the zoo with her aunt and two annoying little cousins. There she sees a bird that despite its information label, doesn’t match her own knowledge or the description of the Silverfinch in her bird book. Nonetheless she picks up one if its feathers and takes it home. That’s where, after she’s in bed with the feather tucked under her pillow, the magic takes flight … Altogether an enchanting and timeless fantasy read that will surely get readers’ imaginations soaring.
The most challenging story is another contemporary one, Ping and the Missing Ring. Ping the protagonist and her family are Thai and live in Bath. The custom is that Thai people are calm, composed and polite, which Ping sometimes finds tricky to maintain. So when she’s invited to stay with her cousins in West London in a house full of traditional Thai furniture and crafts, she promises her mum to be on her best behaviour; definitely no adventures or mystery solving. But, after a visit from Isabelle who has money troubles and a sick husband, Aunty Lek’s engagement ring is missing. She thinks Isabelle has taken it but Ping thinks otherwise: she can’t stop herself going into detective mode. Exciting and with lots of interesting details about the traditional Thai way of life, this like all the others, is an engaging read though herein the illustrations act as chapter breaks, as do those in Bamba Beach.
Red Reading Hub - Jillrbennett's Reviews of Children's Books 