reviews 8 – 10 Junior/Middle continued


colony with a predictable penchant for


outrageous glasses and disco dancing-is successfully rescued and the evil Jabheart is thwarted. The story is vividly realised, with


close attention paid to the smallest detail and brought colourfully to life by the enchanting illustrations. The cover is colourfully embossed, providing a tactile and tempting experience. There is a Top Secret SPEARS file at the back of the book, which describes animals at risk in the Atlantic Forest and invites readers to help in saving them through a variety of activities which are clearly described. This book would work equally well at home or in school – an absolute winner. VR


in. Hope gets her family on board and researches alternatives to cleaning products and other household items they can use instead.


But in her


enthusiasm Hope is grounded for disobeying her mother and going to the supermarket on her own to protest. A meeting with the CEO and the


marketing team at the supermarket head office is disappointing as they prefer to put profit before the environment. But Hope inspires her school to become greener and is interviewed for a local news website and becomes almost a local celebrity. Written in the style of blog this story


is full of great ideas to cut down on plastic. Hope is a feisty, resourceful and determined child and shows that it is possible to make changes by starting small and being persistent. She grows in confidence throughout the story and is a wonderfully positive role model. The black and white illustrations add warmth and humour.


Although the


story is perhaps a touch didactic in places it would be an excellent book to inspire children in schools and to show it is possible to make a difference. JC


Anisha: Accidental Detective HHH


Serena Patel, ill. Emma McCann, Usborne, 219pp, 9781474959520, £5.99, pbk


Anisha has an enormous family: countless


aunties and uncles all


cousins, grandparents, live in the


Hope Jones Saves The World HHHH


Josh Lacey, ill. Beatriz Castro, Andersen Press, 172pp, 978 1 78344 927 9, £6.99 pbk


Along with spiders, ten-year-old Hope Jones’s major worry is global warming. Hope is upset by the amount of plastic in the world after watching a video at school showing the pollution of the oceans and how turtles and other animals can ingest plastic and die. So, for her New Year’s Resolution, she decides to do something about it and give up plastic. She soon finds this is almost impossible to do but she is determined to do her best. She decides to start with the local supermarket as that is where she notices that vast amounts of plastic are used in almost everything from yoghurt pots to wrapping vegetables. Hope sets up a blog and makes a


huge banner and begins a protest outside the supermarket. She writes to the manager who tries to move her away and claims she is annoying the customers. Gradually her protest gains


momentum. The local café decides to reduce their use of plastic and become more


environmentally responsible.


The protest outside the supermarket grows as friends and customers join


neighbourhood, and each of them is gearing up for the social event of the year...Aunty Bindi’s wedding to Uncle Tony.


This would be more than enough


for any story, as there is great drama and comedy to be found in Bindy’s struggle to juggle all the hair-dying, mehndi-applying, dress-fitting and food-prepping


(live lobster kidnapped and Anisha curry,


anyone?). But Anisha hasn’t time to involve herself with any prenuptial excitement, as her Uncle Tony has been


has


found the note! Determined not to add to Bindi’s stress, Anisha grabs her best friend, Milo, and sets about finding the culprits before it’s too late to save the wedding. Through some smart thinking and


plenty of luck, Anisha and Milo soon deduce that the kidnapper


be a member of the family, and, as you might expect from such a big, dramatic family, there are plenty of suspects! Readers will find Anisha easy


company and will enjoy spending time with her. She knows her family are crazy and weird but loves them all. Even when she’s accusing her grandma of kidnapping, she does it with warmth and affection! As she makes her way through her list of suspects, she treats readers to an insight into her family’s favourite traditions, and even translates a few words in Gujarati and Punjabi. Impressively, Anisha and her family


must simultaneously feel totally normal


and utterly extraordinary. As Anisha desperately tries to find


Uncle Tony before the wedding starts, she is forced to confront the fact that someone in her perfectly bonkers family has betrayed everyone for their own selfish gain. As someone who holds ambitions to find the world’s first cure for meanness, this does not sit well with Anisha. Anisha’s kindness is nearly matched by her curiosity and, despite the title,


it’s


clear that she’s hooked on detecting and that more Anisha stories will be coming along soon. SD


Wilde HHHH


Eloise Williams, Firefly, 224pp, 978 1913102180,£6.99 pbk


This is a wonderful story of finding one’s place and accepting who you are.


Wilde has been expelled from


school yet again and arrives in an unprecedented heatwave to stay with her aunt in the village which she has not


child.


visited since she was a young Her mother and aunt had


grown up there and Wilde is hoping to find out more about her mother who had died some years previously. The village has a terrible history of witch trials and local legend has it that a witch called Winter has cursed the village. Wilde has always felt different and she appears to attract trouble.


She


joins the local school as her aunt wants her to make friends but when birds start following her, she wonders if she will ever fit in anywhere. And to make matters worse she sometimes finds herself in impossible places such as rooftops and has no idea how she got there. And


then


throughout legend


the


Jemima and her remarks


are putting on which happens be the


the of


Dorcus, Disturbing notes are left


bullying starts. friends begin a


relentless campaign of taunts and snide


class


which escalates play the


the Witch, Winter. for each


person in the class threatening to curse them. Wilde does make one friend,


but when Dorcus


betrays her she is devastated. It is up to Wilde to put the record straight and retell the legend as it should be told. In doing so the class comes together in support to lift the curse and Wilde not only learns some family secrets but begins to accept her own destiny. Intense, brooding, and atmospheric this is an beautifully told


illustrations to carry the story along the wavy way. This is a story about a magical school under the sea. It’s perfect for fans of school stories and it offers something a little different with its watery setting. The story centres around Marnie


Blue, a young mermaid who is about to start secondary mermaid school. She has a famous aunt who, of course is good at singing as presumably all successful mermaids are so she is a little worried about letting people know about her connections on her first day at school. Her Aunt had a bit of a troublesome reputation at the Lady Sealia Foam’s Mermaid school so Marnie has to try and swim her way through various tricky situations with teachers and classmates in the story. There are classic friendship issues


in the book and some very interesting teacher characters not least the headmistress herself - Miss Foam. She loves brushing her hair and looking into the mirror. There is some lovely gentle humour and lots of puns and really funny ideas about this underwater world. There’s lots of imaginative scenes which will make the reader smile-a pesky goldfish pet, an angry sea-horse who needs mucking out and a clam fish bed which actually sounds really comfortable. The mixture of inserted pictures and mini images make the book easy to read and add something to this land beneath the sea. There are some nods to traditional


images of mermaids in there too and a proper page turner at the end thanks to a parallel plot involving Marnie’s aunt and a lost love. Never fear, there is a second book on the horizon, Mermaid School: The Clamshell Show. SG


The Story of Inventions HHHHH


Catherine Barr and Steve Williams, Amy Husband ill, France Lincoln Children’s Books, 40pp, 978 1 84780 485 3


This non-fiction picture book is a great source


of introductory information


about significant inventions for young readers. It covers fifteen different discoveries


which have radically story of


friendship and betrayal. Wilde’s voice is pitch perfect, quirky, determined and a little bit prickly but as she begins to understand why she is like she is she begins to believe in herself and realises she has made friends after all. JC


Mermaid School HHH


Lucy Courtney, ill. Sheena Dempsey, Andersen Press, 120pp, 9781783448302, £6.99 pbk


A super fishy tale with lots of


changed how we live and is arranged in chronological order starting with the invention of the wheel through to the arrival of the internet. Within each of these fifteen areas, the information has been loosely arranged in its own timeline for example, within the pages detailing the invention of the wheel, the reader learns about their first use in the Bronze age and the format of the page leads the reader through the text and illustration to the Ancient Egyptians using them on chariots, to Romans building roads and adding suspension, to the tyres used on the Mars Rover. The book will appeal to all young readers due to


its nuggets of


interesting information and its fun and lively illustrations. There is just enough information both written and visual to spark interest and foster an appetite to find out more. KF


Books for Keeps No.242 May 2020 27


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