PICTURE THIS!

There’s something so very special about getting a parcel in the mail – and something else special again when you know it contains books. My library got a lovely little package of books today and I was very tempted just to sit it on the circulation desk and gaze at it adoringly all day long. However (and even better!) both the library assistant and I knew it was full of picture books and neither of us could resist ripping into it and seeing what had been picked out for us.

And, honestly, who can resist reading their way through a stack of shiny new picture books? If you’re able to resist that you’re a stronger-willed person than I, that’s for sure. They were an eclectic collection today, and there were definitely some I enjoyed more than others, but there were one or two that I thoroughly loved and have already recommended to (read: pushed into the hands of) some students.

Title: Me and Moo

Author: P. Crumble and Nathaniel Eckstrom

Published: 2015

Pages: 23

This book has everything that makes for a winning picture book - adorable illustrations, an endearing narrator, and a simple, yet engaging storyline. I thoroughly enjoyed reading about Moo, chuckling along at the small jokes and absolutely fawning over the pictures. A quick read, even for a picture book, I encourage everyone to go and learn about the heart warming relationship between Moo and 'me'. 5/5

Title: Those Pesky Rabbits

Author: Ciara Flood

Published: 2015

Pages: 40

Another example of illustrations that had me delighted - I loved the huge roundness of Mr. Bear, but those little bunnies? So cute. I tried to feel sad for Mr. Bear, being swarmed by these 'pesky' new neighbours of his, but, truly, I knew where the story was going to end up and I was eagerly awaiting his happy new outlook on life. I wasn't disappointed. Charming story, adorable illustrations, beautiful all around. 5/5

Title: The Underwater Fancy-Dress Parade

Author: Davina Bell

Published: 2015

Pages: 32

Normally with picture books, it's the illustrations that really draw me in. I, naturally, always love a good story, but usually it's the wanna-be-illustrator in me that's picking up the book in the first place. This is one instance where, despite enjoying the illustrations, it was actually the story itself that I found myself loving. The central character of The Underwater Fancy-Dress Parade, Alfie, is a young boy with a rather nervous disposition. He's all set to play Captain Starfish in the school play, but at the last minute finds himself unable to go through with it. Alfie is blessed, however, with wonderfully supportive parents, who provide him with the love and wisdom needed for him to make his own progress. I don't know whether it was my own identification with Alfie's fear and anxiety, or whether it was just the virtue of the story itself, but I adored this one and am already looking forward to reading it again. 5/5

Title: Ride, Ricardo, Ride!

Author: Phil Cummings and Shane Devries

Published: 2015

Pages: 32

You never really have to go searching too far for a war-themed picture book. There are some truly fantastic ones out there, as well as plenty of mediocre ones, but I often feel that the sheer number of them out there makes it hard for any new ones to impress. I can't say that Ride, Ricardo, Ride will make it to the top of my go-to list for this theme, but it did have some interesting features of note. I particularly enjoyed that the soldiers themselves are never seen, nor even referred to as soldiers, but simply 'shadows'. I enjoyed the art work, though found the contrast between the highly saturated, almost oil-painting like main pages and the simpler, vintage-looking (think Blyton) line illustrations to be an interesting choice. 4/5

Title: This is Captain Cook

Author: Tania McCartney and Christina Booth

Published: 2015

Pages: 40

I can't quite decide if I liked this book or not, which is an uncomfortable place to be writing a review from. I thought the way in which the story was told (through the format of a school play) was quite interesting and something I'd never come across before. I really liked the quite realistic portrayal of the families, among whose silhouettes the reader is watching the play from, but the story and the play itself was quite dry and not necessarily an interesting read. I wanted to like this book more than I did, but it managed three stars from me on the basis of it's structure. 3/5

Title: Green Tree Frogs

Author: Sandra Kendell

Published: 2015

Pages: 32

Unfortunately this was another example of a book that didn't quite hit the mark. It was an excellent example of alliteration and onomatopoeia if you're looking for something for your classroom, but the story itself fell short - both as an example of a text explaining the development of frogs from tadpoles, and as one relating the beauty of growing up in a nature rich environment. Again, a book I wanted to like more than I did. 2/3

Teaser Tuesdays (11/1)

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

“I could never let that happen to Prim. Sweet, tiny Prim who cried when I cried before she even knew the reason, who brushed and plaited my mother’s hair before we left for school, who still polished my father’s shaving mirror each night because he hated the layer of coal dust that settled on everything in the Seam.”

The Hunger Games (p. 33), Suzanne Collins

House of Night

Marked (House of Night, Book 1)
P.C. Cast and Kristen Cast
306 pages; published 2007


So the good news is that I wouldn't have to take the geometry test tomorrow.

The bad news was that I'd have to move into the House of Night, a private boarding school in Tulsa's Midtown, known by all my friends as the Vampyre Finishing School, where I would spend the next four years going through bizarre and unnameable physical changes, as well as a total and permanent life shake-up. And that's only if the whole process didn't kill me. (6)


Zoey wants nothing more out of life than to feel like she really belongs… well, that and her vintage VW beetle. Ever since her mother married the People of the Faith Elder, John Heffer, Zoey’s life has been miserable. Her new step-father (the step-loser) is both clueless and controlling, and her mother is growing more distant every day. The routine dramas of school (the self-centred gossip of her best friend and drunken exploits of her almost-ex-boyfriend) have become her refuge in life, her only escape.

Until the day the very dead – sorry, ‘undead’ – man, a vampyre Tracker, turns up at her locker and flips her life upside down. She’s been ‘marked’. She’s now a ‘fledgling’ vampyre and, as such, has two choices: die, or move into the prestigious vampyre boarding school, House of Night, and possibly die anyways.

Informing her parents of her fate didn’t go so well and, feeling abandoned yet again, she heads to her Grandmother’s lavender farm for comfort. While there she falls and hits her head, during which she sees a vision of the goddess Nyx, beloved goddess of the vampyres. She tells Zoey that she has chosen her to be her eyes and ears in the new world she is about to enter.

Coming to, she finds herself at her new school, her new home. How well is she about to fit in a new school where she knows nothing about the students?


Do vampyres play chess? Were there vampyre dorks? How about Barbie-like vampyre cheerleaders? Did any vampyres play in the band? Were there vampyre Emos with their guy-wearing-girl’s-pants weirdness and those awful bangs that cover half their faces? Or were they all those freaky Goth kids who didn’t like to bathe much? Was I going to turn into a Goth kid? Or worse, an Emo? I didn’t particularly like wearing black, at least not exclusively, and I wasn’t feeling a sudden and unfortunate aversion to soap and water, nor did I have an obsessive desire to change my hairstyle and wear too much eyeliner. (3)


Things are made all the more difficult when Zoey realises that the mark indicating her new vampyre status indicates that of a fully-fledged vampyre, not of a fledging. She’s a freak amongst freaks.

Turns out that the House of Night isn’t all that unusual, however: dorms, cafeteria (oops, ‘dining hall’), weird teachers, dorks, cool kids… but if everything’s so ordinary, what is it that Zoey’s supposed to be keeping her eye on? and what is it that makes her so special?

I picked up P.C. and Kristen Cast’s Marked, the first in the House of Night series, as I was leaving the library last. They had a ‘If you like Twilight…’ display in the YA section and the cover looked interesting (tsk, tsk, cover picking). When I started reading it, the first couple pages repelled me instantly – it was full of teenage jargon, all gossipy friends and football boyfriends drinking on the back of a pick up truck. And then the vampire turned up, all imperial and old-world threatening in his speech and I started to gag. There was no way I was going to get through this book. Giving it the benefit of the doubt, however, I decided to keep going to the 50-page mark. Next time I looked up it was 3:30am and I was about 200 pages in. Wait? What just happened? Apparently I was hooked and I read it all in one sitting (well, lying, I was supposed to be asleep, after all).

Vampire books are all the rage at the moment, so when reading (yet another) one, I’m really on looking at three things: the writing, the characters, and something that makes it different.

Written by a mother/daughter team, the authors have created an attention-grabbing Twilight-meets-Harry Potter world. As the first book, Marked introduced an interesting – if somewhat clichéd – set of characters, and setting (the school) that should pave the way for the next few books. Their treatment of vampyres (spelling aside) had great potential – a genetic process bought on by the hormones found in a teen body, one that not everyone survives – but could have benefited from more than just a couple throwaway paragraphs. I hope they look into it further in the succeeding books.

All in all, Marked was a good FIRST book, it set up a lot for the series and left me wanting to read the next one. 3.5/5

Purchase Marked here.

Other Reviews
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Ender's Game

Orson Scott Card

226 pages; published 1977

"I am your enemy, the first one you've ever had who was smarter than you. There is no teacher but the enemy. No one but the enemy will tell you what the enemy is going to do. No one but the enemy will ever teach you how to destroy and conquer. Only the enemy tells you where he is strong. And the rules of the game are what you can do to him and what you can stop him from doing to you. I am your enemy from now on. From now on I am your teacher."

After two invasion strikes from an insectoid alien race, the "Buggers", Earth's reluctantly allied nations and militaries are fearful of the next, and likely final, strike to come. Their best chance of success, they feel, is in the training of a whole generation of amazingly gifted children.

And so it is that, at the age of six, Andrew "Ender" Wiggins is removed from his home (his parents signing him over to the government) and taken to Earth's orbitting Battle School, never to step foot on Earth again until the age of sixteen. Unlike the rest of his extraordinarily peers, however, Ender has caught the eyes of those in charge. He's not just another would-be soldier; in Ender is the potential for so much more. The potential to plan, the potential to lead ... the potential to win.

Ender's days at the Battle School are filled with trial after trial, each worse than the one before as the ones in control hack away at his childhood, sculpting him into the war commander they need him to be. The war commander they need to save Earth. 4/5

Other Reviews
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