Tag Philip Reeve

Croaky: Escape From Crow Castle / Adventuremice: Mousehole to the Centre of the Earth

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Croaky: Escape From Crow Castle
Matty Long
Oxford Children’s Books

Croaky Hopper is different from other frogs; he loves having wild adventures and when he isn’t actually having one, he dreams of so doing. Becoming a member of the Woggle Scouts has unexpectedly helped him find these adventures and as he’s wondering what’s next, Winston reveals that their next trip is to Crow Castle. This super-creepy former home of Count Von Crow, is a place where his ghost still wanders searching for people to scare.

As he, Sheena and Winston discuss this, who should appear but Morag, the Grand Woggler and she insists on joining them on the visit to the castle. Indeed Winston’s leadership of the patrol is at stake and Croaky can’t allow that to happen. The task they face won’t be easy as they must keep under wraps their wild adventuring and act like regular scouts.

Then Croaky presses a crow-shaped mark on the wall and suddenly finds he’s in a secret passage with Morag. The passage leads them to a room with its walls covered in pictures of crows and a message is written beneath one of them. With puzzles not Croaky’s strength, how can they find their way back their friends? And if they do, then what?

With a murder of meddling crows, it turns out that this is an unforgettable adventure in more ways than one. It will certainly entertain readers who will enjoy the ghostly goings on and the change of heart by one of the cast of characters, and of course Matty Long’s colour illustrations are terrific fun.

Adventuremice: Mousehole to the Centre of the Earth
Philip Reeve and Sarah McIntyre
David Fickling Books

The seventh adventure of Pedro et al begins when their breakfast is disturbed by the arrival of Uncle Bernie (aka Professor Quatermouse) with his new invention, the Mechanical Mole, a machine that will enable the Adventuremice to go exploring underground. After a discussion as to whether or not they should try out the invention, they take the Mechanical Mole for a test drive and with Juniper in the pilot’s seat off they go down and down, rather fast, burrowing through the rock far beneath the Mouse Islands.

Eventually they arrive in a cave and begin to look around. Almost at once they discover some very large footprints. Could they belong to a supposedly extinct Hamstersaurus? Then they hear a loud RAWR! and there before them is a very live Hamstersausus rex. However it’s quickly distracted by a small mouse with a bow and arrow firing at it. This friendly mouse invites Pedro and friends to follow her and she takes them to the treehouse of the other cavemice that live in fear of the Hamstersaurus.

Can the Adventuremice step in and save the day? Perhaps with imagination, creativity and especially vital, teamwork they can make not only the cavemice happy, but also the creature they fear.

Interestingly Pedro and friends are able to consider both viewpoints, an ability that is important for young readers to develop too.

Team Philip and Sarah have created another smashing story with lots to offer both verbally and visually.

Agent Harrier Mission Impossib-Hole/ Adventuremice: Mice, Camera, Action!

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These are both additions to popular series: thanks to Little Tiger and David Fickling Books for sending them for review.

Agent Harrier Mission Impossib-Hole
Ben Sanders
Little Tiger

Agent Harrier is back for his third mission of the secret spy kind. However before he can even get going, the bottom falls out of his world – literally – and having plunged downwards, he finds himself face to face with his trusty friend, Mr Mole. Mole informs him of a new case : the case of the Mysterious Holes and our agent is not happy. Holes in his precious book, holes that transport him to different dimensions starting with a strange fairy tale where a princess dances till the clock strikes twelve. Then comes a kind of detective story where he meets a dragon and lastly, a scary sc-fi adventure in outer space.

Time is running out for Agent Harrier: if he can’t uncover the offending hole-maker very soon, not a single one of his books will make any sense and it’s curtains for the entire series. With Mole looking decidedly untrustworthy, – the villain maybe – to whom can Harri look for assistance?
With punny daftness and word play in abundance, this is a hilarious dose of meta-fictive madness that Agent Harrier’s fans will love. If you’ve not met this particular detective before, I suggest starting with This Book Will Self Destruct.

Adventuremice: Mice, Camera, Action!
Philip Reeve and Sarah McIntyre
David Fickling Books

The Adventuremice series gets progressively crazier and this one definitely takes the biscuit – enough said about biscuits.

The Adventuremice are super excited to receive an invitation to Hollybush, reputed to be the most glamorous place in all of the Mice Islands, the place where all the big mouse movies are made. Needless to say, Pedro isn’t too thrilled about this but that’s Pedro for you. Skipper too is unenthusiastic about going, but in the end they all board the Daring Dormouse, Hollybush bound. Apparently however, despite it being called the Adventuremice movie, the team won’t actually be acting; rather they’ve been invited to visit the studio and watch the making of the movie .

On arrival they’re greeted by Scoot McHairy, Mr Cheezeburger’s assistant. The film set is certainly a glitzy place but Pedro is confused by all the fakery including an exceedingly large mechanical otter

and it’s not long before he ruins a scene making Mr Cheezeburger furious that his precious film will never be finished in time to be shown at the film festival. Can the Adventuremice team come to the rescue and save not only the movie but a real live baby creature too?

Established Adventuremice fans will certainly be cheering them on and the team will likely gain lots more followers too.

Adventuremice: The Ghostly Galleon

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Adventuremice: The Ghostly Galleon
Philip Reeve and Sarah McIntyre
David Fickling Books

In this the fifth Adventuremice story, the team are sitting telling ghost stories as they drink their bedtime hot chocolate. When there’s mention of the Ghostly Galleon, a ship named the Piranha owned by dastardly Captain Cheeseboard that sank one stormy night and still reputed to sail around Bramble Island when the moon is full, young Pedro expresses the hope that he’ll never be so unlucky as to see this ship. However, come the following morning he accompanies Fledermaus to the sparsely populated Bramble Island to try and find out what’s behind the story..

On the island they meet Farmer Wheatley and his daughter mouse, Rye; the former somewhat reluctantly accepts the visitors’ offers of help with harvesting various fruits. He warns them to steer clear of the bay on the far side of the island and always return by nightfall. However after chasing a large blackberry, Pedro and Fledermaus find themselves right where they’d been told to avoid. Suddenly, what should appear but a ghostly galleon crewed by ghosts – or are they?

Back at Mousebase once more, the two recount their ‘ghost’ sightings to the other Adventuremice and Skipper decides there’s something fishy happening on Bramble Isle.

Can they find out exactly what?
Another delightful addition to the series with just the ingredients to keep young readers turning the pages: amusing, striking visuals, a dramatic plot with a wonderfully inventive and positive resolution and an interesting cast of characters.



Adventuremice: Mice on the Moon / Dream Weavers: Roar of the Hungry Beast

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Adventuremice: Mice on the Moon
Philip Reeve and Sarah McIntyre
David Fickling Books

Strap yourselves in ready to blast off into space for another Adventuremice experience.
It begins one spring night as Pedro et al are sitting on deck watching the moon rise when suddenly a beetle arrives with an important message from Millie’s uncle, Professor Bernard Quartermouse summoning the Adventuremice to his laboratory right away. Off they go to Scrabble Island and almost before you can say, ‘space capsule’ Pedro, Millie and Fledermaus are in a rocket shooting into the sky, destination the moon. Supposedly, but that’s not quite what happens.

Instead they crash land on what they learn from Pontiki, another mouse who crash landed months earlier, is the minimoon, and was helped by those she calls starmice. These mice are welcoming; unlike Earthmice, they have green fur and pointy ears and offer their visitors a delicacy they call moonflower cheese as well as singing to them.

However, this place does not appeal at all to the Adventuremice who soon despair of ever seeing their homeland again. Then a realisation dawns: perhaps there is a way back after all … Time to make contact with Ground Control and inform them of their possible return to Earth. Will they make it safely back to Mousebase?

Another immersive addition to a super-silly series characterised by not too dangerous, pacy adventure told with gentle humour by Philip Reeve and delicious colour illustrations by Sarah McIntyre.

Dream Weavers: Roar of the Hungry Beast
Annabelle Sami, illustrated by Forrest Burdett
Little Tiger

Tito and Neena are now firm friends and Tito loves to spend nights dreamweaving with Neena. He enjoys seeing how his dreams come to life – they seem so real. But now something isn’t right. The teachers at their school are acting strangely and are uncharacteristically cranky. Could this be anything to do with that dastardly Bhoot. Should the friends enter the dreams of a teacher to find out why school is becoming nightmarish? Yes they decide and first it’s to be Ms Branberry’s dream – and it’s not a good one, as they find out; neither is that of headteacher Mr Tulley. In both there’s a very loud growling and the appearance of a huge, wolf-like beast.

After Tito’s encounter with the beast and his head injury, it seems to him that the veil between the dream world and the waking world has started to break down, which is exactly what the Darkweavers want. Nevertheless Tito knows that it’s up to him to face up to the beast and make sure it goes back from whence it came? Can he do so? Possibly, with the help of Neena and her cousin in Pakistan, a portal could be created.

This dramatic tale ends on a cliff-hanger indicating that Tito and Leena will be back to continue the fight against the Bhoot.

Adventuremice: Mice on the Ice

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Adventuremice: Mice on the Ice
Philip Reeve and Sarah McIntyre
David Fickling Books

This is my first encounter with the Adventuremice and it mattered not that I wasn’t familiar with their back story. Mice on the Ice is an immediately engaging tale of camaraderie and problem solving, and this book has a decidedly chilly feel to it as overnight snow has transformed Mouse Islands into a sparkling white world. Not only is it white but the sea has already frozen over. Relative newcomer to the group, Pedro, is somewhat confused and finds it difficult to negotiate the icy world. However he is looking forward eagerly to the upcoming Frost Fair for which preparations are underway..

Then comes bad news from the Frost Fair organising committee; the group of mice that had gone to the mainland to collect all the treats for the fair have been stranded on account of the frozen sea and cannot return.


Should they cancel the event or is there perhaps a way that a rescue operation might be staged, after all problem solving is the Adventuremice’s forte. Pedro has an idea … could it possibly save the Frost Fair and bring seasonal joy to the entire town?

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They’ll certainly have to outwit the cat, Fluffykins with her viciously sharp claws and teeth.


Both author and illustrator know just what works with children just starting to fly solo as readers: exciting, sometimes quirky plots with innovative outcomes, main characters that are brave and kind, and illustrations full of fanciful details. This story has all that and more.

Kitty and the Great Lantern Race / Kevin and the Biscuit Bandit

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The welcome return of favourite characters in two series from Oxford University Press

Kitty and the Great Lantern Race
Paula Harrison and Jenny Lovlie

At the annual lantern festival young Kitty, superhero in training, returns in a fifth adventure, ready to enchant young solo readers with her nocturnal catlike superpower.

Kitty is pleased with the lantern she’s created for Hallam City’s Festival of Light but as the parade is just beginning, a mysterious burglar is at work among the crowds. Having spied a shadowy figure, Kitty knows that she’s going to have to call on her feline superpower as she turns investigator.

Now her mission is to prevent the festival being spoiled and without the assistance of her firework fearing cat crew, she must summon all her superhero skills and bravery to chase the fast-moving thief.

As always Paula’s words and cast of cracking characters, combined with the plethora of Jenny’s arresting two-coloured illustrations are a delight. This tale of friendship, family, building self-confidence and being brave is an ideal read for Kitty’s countless established followers, as well as others just starting out on chapter books.

Kevin and the Biscuit Bandit
Philip Reeve illustrated by Sarah McIntyre

There’s a crisis in Bumbleford. For a whole week, somebody has been slowly but surely stealing the town’s entire stock of biscuits. Make that two crises for now Roly-Poly Flying pony Kevin, stands accused of the crime of stealing said biscuits – all the evidence seems to point in his direction – despite his not remembering eating the biscuits, which he surely would have, fig rolls and all.

The only ones left anywhere (and that’s in the next town), are some speciality Sprout Squashies, good for you but tasting disgusting and fart-inducing, especially when sampled by a certain RPF pony.

To avoid arrest, and hence removal from Max and family, poor Kevin is forced to go on the run – or rather the wing – from the local police constabulary. With Kevin already being dubbed as the Biscuit Bandit, it’s the Horse Prison for him unless Max and Kevin’s friends can help find clues to clear his name.

The search is on: can they unearth the real culprit (not forgetting the biscuit stash) before the police track them down?

Once again team Philip and Sarah have created a hilarious and enthralling adventure – a whodunnit – with its wealth of wordplays and asides, ensuring that readers giggle their way right through to the final reveal.

Never let it be said that Sprout Squashies don’t have their uses.

Kevin’s Great Escape

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Kevin’s Great Escape
Philip Reeve and Sarah McIntyre
Oxford University Press

Roly-poly pony Kevin returns in a new adventure with Max and his family; he’s still as biscuit-obsessed as ever, his particular penchant remaining custard creams.

In this story Max’s sister is totally obsessed with pop idol Misty Twiglet, so much so that she persuades Kevin (guess how) to take her to see Misty’s new abode about thirty minutes flight time from Bumbleford.

Misty seems to be a charmer, but the consequence of this visit is that Kevin is pony-napped. That leaves Max and Daisy to devise a rescue operation – aided and abetted by some of Kevin’s magical creature friends perhaps.

There are some terrific new characters to meet, not least a cardigan-loving faun unsurprisingly called Cardigan Faun, a bespectacled mermaid named Iris,

Cedric the centaur, gorgon, Zola (groan) and a tiny dragon, Belling – all captive too.

But we mustn’t forget Misty’s manager, the dastardly, devious Baz Gumption

and her enormous butler Lumphammer; oh! and the character on page 10, Nobbly Nora is definitely not to be missed.

Philip Reeve’s story is just as magical and just as hilariously brilliant (read aloud or read alone) as The Legend of Kevin (another must read if you’ve not done so). Once again Sarah McIntyre’s two-colour illustrations are totally terrific and as yummy as all those biscuits that actually were not why Kevin Goes Pop in the final chapter.

Wintry Wonders

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Nixie: Wonky Winter Wonderland
Cas Lester
Oxford University Press
Here’s one fab. fairy: she has bucket loads of cheek and attitude. With her wonky wand, tatty dress and mischievous ways, Nixie puts me in mind somewhat of Little Rabbit Foo Foo. This instantly adorable character won me over right from the moment when she ‘clambered into her big red clompy boots … shoved her wonky wand into her left boot, so hastily that the red star on the end wobbled about madly, and shoved her trusty spanner into the other boot.’
Then off she goes wreaking seasonal havoc – or rather having fun as Nixie calls it – in fairyland as the other fairies are frantically dashing around going about their preparations for that annual highlight, The Midwinter Midnight Feast.
With its eleven action-packed chapters, bespattered with ZAPs, FIZZLEs, Swoooooshes, and TINGs; and those funky illustrations from Ali Pye aplenty,

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this is such a fun book for newly independent readers ready to take off and fly solo (with just a tiny bit of help from Nixie and her magic perhaps.)
And if that’s not enough there are three suitably magical activities – ‘Tabitha Quicksilver’s Snow-covered Gingerbread Trees’, Nixie’s Swirly Snowstorm in a Bottle’ and ‘Nip’s Winter Wonderland Lantern’ to create; just in case readers haven’t turned to the beginning and started enjoying the story all over again, that is.

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Pugs of the Frozen North
Philip Reeve and Sarah McIntyre
Oxford University Press
A plethora of pugs predominate in this the third author, Philip Reeve/artist Sarah McIntyre collaboration and it’s a stonkingly good book for the young and not so young alike. Hilarious just about sums it up but doesn’t really do justice to either the writing, the illustrations or the amalgam of both, for that’s what it really is, so well do the text and pictures meld: the whole is definitely more than the sum of its parts.
This seems to be a growing trend in books for the beyond picture book stage (not that one IS ever beyond them): the recognition that illustrations can add an extra dimension at any time in a person’s reading journey. And the way Sarah McIntrye managed to draw 66 pugs and make every one have its own name, let alone personality, is in itself something of a feat.
There’s a frenetic pace to the telling and if you’re not careful, it’s easy to whizz along, swept up in the pace of the whole thing and miss some of the glorious visual humour that is so much part and parcel of the whole. Essentially, the book features ex cabin boy, Shen lost when his ship gets trapped in the ocean of the frozen north, Sika, a Po of Ice worker (got it?) who is in urgent need of some dogs to pull her sled in the all important Great Northern Race. (We’re told a wonderful tale of how this came to be by Sika’s grandpa.)

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The arrival of True Winter marks the start of this race, destination the Snowfather at the top of the world for it’s he who will grant the wishes of the winner and Sika truly wants to win on her ailing grandpa’s behalf.
Of course, nobody has ever had a sled pulled by pugs before and just harnessing them is a challenge in itself; but can the Shen/Sika/66 pugs team harness their own courage and determination and see off the competition?
Competition in the form of Professor Shackleton Jones with his SNOBOT and canine robots,

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the bearded Helga Hammerfest and her pair of polar bears (the local favourite)

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and the unscrupulous Sir Basil Sprout-Dumpling and his side-kick butler Sideplate and …

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glamour puss Mitzi Von Primm with her team of pink poodle-primped huskies.
The race takes them over into dangerous parts: through the Night Forest, over the massively tentacled Kraken Deep and then there’s the dreaded Yeti Noodle Bar to contend with.

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And the ultimate winner is … that would be telling.
As I said, the book is truly funny but it’s also a real heart-warmer with just a tiny touch of final sadness; well that’s what I felt, though not Shen. I just turned back a little way and re-read these words of the wise Snowfather: “All old things die in the end, but not stories. Stories go on and on, and new ones are always being born.” … Unmissable!

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