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Book of the week
Shadowscent: The Darkest Bloom (14+ Secondary/Adult)
P.M. Freestone
Quest fantasies risk ending in anticlimax, but here tension builds towards a finale where mortal courage is fused with supernatural violence, managed by Freestone with remarkable graphic intensity.
Latest Reviews
Paper Avalanche (14+ Secondary/Adult)
Lisa Williamson
(David Fickling Books)
This is Lisa Williamson’s third novel, and like its predecessors scores highly for sheer readability. Compassionate and understanding, even where silly spoilt Bonnie is concerned, this is YA fiction at its most assured.
Lark (10-14 Middle/Secondary)
Anthony McGowan
(Barrington Stoke)
As with the earlier books, along with the excitement of the adventure, our interest lies in the relationship between the brothers and the emotional frontiers they cross, together and separately. McGowan makes such complexity available to his teenage readers in a social context where day-to-day life can be abrasive and emotion is implicit rather than expressed.
The Key to Flambards (14+ Secondary/Adult)
Linda Newbery
(David Fickling Books)
This book is designed as a sequel to the series by K.M.Peyton known as the Flambards novels. The book is set after the end of the final book in the Peyton series.
I Was Made For You (Under 5s Pre-School/Nursery/Infant)
David Lucas
(Andersen Press)
This delightful picture book has just the right mixture of humour, adventure, jeopardy and sentiment, as woolly Cat sets off into the snowy Christmas night to find out why he has been made.
