The run into Christmas and the silly season, leaves me tired, frazzled and depleted most years. This year I’m attempting a calmer, kinder approach. As a first line of defence I started interspersing junior fiction reads amongst my regular reads several weeks ago. I’ve been saving all the interesting looking ones for months now, so that I would have something ‘just right’ for this time.
Great junior fiction is the perfect antidote for the general madness and mayhem of the silly season. It’s (usually) light and easy to read, sometimes interspersed with delightful illustrations and (usually) full of wonderful language. And almost all writers for younger people feel duty bound to end with hope. Bad and sad things may happen to their characters along the way, but there is always hope and wonder and love.
The Slightly Alarming Tale of the Whispering Wars by Jaclyn Moriarty is book 2 in her newly named Kingdoms and Empires series. The name of the series didn’t make an appearance on the first book, so I was curious to see what this might mean for book 2 and any future books.
I loved Book 1 The Extremely Inconvenient Adventures of Bronte Mettlestone by Jaclyn Moriarty and had very high hopes for this one, so I was a little disconcerted to read the first few chapters with no Bronte in sight.
A tentative alliance is formed, a plan of rescue is hatched and Bronte makes an unexpected reappearance. Mystery, adventure and a little bit of magic is the name of the game.
I love this series for mature 9+ readers a lot and I hope that Moriarty has many more books planned for the Kingdoms and Empires. Due to the different time frame and setting in this book, it could be read as a stand-alone story, but you’ll want to go back to see how Bronte came into the story in the first place. It was a savvy move by Moriarty to expand the horizons and history of this series to include the entire kingdom and I look forward to seeing where and when we end up next.
Inheritance by Carole Wilkinson is for slightly older readers – more 11+ through into the early teen years. It’s a fabulous time slip story set in country Victoria.
Nic has been left by her dad at her Grandad’s old homestead property while he goes off with his band to play the cruise ship circuit. With no wi-fi, no friends and loads of attitude, Nic starts exploring the big old home one room at a time. Eventually she discovers a locked room with no key in sight.
The Adventures of Catvinkle by Elliot Perlman is now top of my delightful dog story pile. Officially this is a book about a cat – the secret loving, baby shoe dancing, flying cat, Catvinkle, but it is also just as much about her new found friend (shhh! don’t tell anyone that a cat and a dog are friends!) Ula the dalmatian.
Episode 1 The Bad Guys
Episode 2 Mission Unpluckable
Episode 3 The Furball Strikes Back
Episode 4 Apocalypse Meow
I really like the sound of Inheritance, I'm always after new boos to put on my list to send my niece. I'll slip this into the Spec Fiction round-up next week.
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