There are some amazing new releases arriving on our shelves this week, but one of our favourites is, for obvious reasons, A Child of Books by Oliver Jeffers and Sam Winston.
In this beautifully illustrated book, a young girl and boy travel through a landscape of words and books, and find that your imagination, inspired by classic stories, can make anything happen.
Look closely at the illustrations and you might find you recognise some of the sentences: lines from stories like Alice in Wonderland, Swiss Family Robinson, Pinocchio and Peter Pan. It’s the perfect book for a book-loving family.
Wild Things staff member Genevieve, who runs the Wonder Club book club, has just read the October book club book, The Roman Quests by Caroline Lawrence.
Juba and his siblings are fleeing the Roman Emporer. Born into a rich artisan family, their parents are arrested and their lives ruined. Juba has to lead his siblings to Brittania and on their travels they are challenged with robberies, betrayals and the question of their future. A fast paced historical fiction for 8+ that totally sucks you in. It has excellent characters, fascinating friendships and challenges readers to consider their responsibilities. I really enjoyed this story and can’t wait to do it with The Wonder Club as our October Book club book.
Genevieve has also read The Girl From Everywhere by Heidi Heilig.
The Girl From Everywhere is a celebration of pure adventure. Nix is the navigator of a time travelling pirate ship. They can travel to anywhere through maps. The place need only exist when the map was made for The Temptation’s Captain to be able steer her over the stormy wild borders of a map into a new world. The crew are time-refugees from little known cultures and absurd times. The father-daughter relationship is messy and painful. I really enjoyed this story and it twisted me in ways I wasn’t expecting. An excellent fantasy for 14+