Burning Sky: Codename Quicksilver #3 - Little M's review

Burning Sky: Codename Quicksilver #3 by Allan Jones

 

Burning sky: Codename Quicksilver #3 by Allan Jones

Codename Quicksilver is a series about young teen spies who are in a secret government organisation, Project 17. They track down criminals and help MI5. Burning Sky is the third book in the series. You can read my review of the first two books here.

In Burning Sky, the main character is Zak who has the codename Quicksilver. He is now part of a mission called Mozart. What he needs to do is impersonate a boy to help that boy get to safety.

I really enjoyed Burning Sky because it’s got a whole lot of adventure and action, which I absolutely adore. I have loved every single one of the three Codename Quicksilver books I have read so far.

Burning Sky is my favourite book out of the three I have read because the first one is about Zak getting into the secret agency; the second book didn’t have as much adventure in it.

Action, adventure, crime-fiction, and Codename Quicksilver fans should love this book.

  

Publication details:

Orion, 2012, London, paperback

This copy: received for review from the publisher

 

We sat down for a chat....with Teri Terry

Teri Terry's debut novel, Slated, is a dystopian thriller set in a future London. Slated is one of the titles on our recent Top 20 books list. So we're delighted to have author, Teri Terry on the blog today.

 



Teri Terry's been Slated!

Little M: How did you start writing?

Teri: I've always made things up - including things like really creative excuses for not handing my homework in on time, why I was late, and how something got spilled/broken/forgotten (you get the idea). Writing stories down seemed less likely to get me into trouble.

Little M: What was the first book you wrote?

Teri: Morris: the Life Story of a Beautiful Grey Tabby. I was maybe 11, the story was about my cat, and I did my own, very bad, illustrations. It's about 50 pages long.

 

Little M: What types of book do you like read?

Teri: I read widely, but mostly YA books: it is rare that I read anything meant for adults. I'm immersed in the kind of writing I do, and part of the reason I write YA is because I love it. Also there just isn't enough time to read everything I'd like to! I particularly like science fiction and fantasy, some mysteries, occasional realism but that isn't usually my thing.

Little M: How did you get the ideas for Slated?

 Slated actually began with a dream. The prologue in Slated  - as published - is almost word for word what I wrote early one morning, waking up after dreaming about this girl, running, on a beach. You know that strange thing in dreams sometimes, how you don't know how you know stuff, you just kind of do? It was a bit like that. I honestly don't know where the idea of Slating came from; it appeared on the page in a mad rush.

Teri Terry - not Slated

M: Slated paints a picture of how a cruel future London views teenagers. Did events surrounding the London riots of August 2011 influence aspects of the story in Slated?

Teri: I finished writing Slated in January 2011, so not unless I have a secret time machine! But I must say that watching the riots unfold on TV was a very eerie experience. In fact much of the backstory to Slated seemed to be coming true that year, like the economic woes in Europe. The riots here were frightening to watch in any event - things seemed to spiral out of control so quickly - and it wasn't that much of a leap to see them continue to to do so.

 

 

Little M: When is the next book in the Slated series coming out?

 Teri: Fractured will be out in May 2013! I've just finished the final edits last weekend

(Ed. note: that would have been around 22-23 Sept).

 

*****

 

You can read our review of Slated here.

Fractured will be out in May

Teri Terry's website

 

 

 

Party Disaster - Guest Review by Alice

Party Disater by Sue Limb is reviewed by our 12 year old guest reviewer, Alice.

*******

Party Disaster by Sue Limb

Preview:

Party Disaster is about a teenage girl called Jess and her friends - Flora, Jodie, Fred and Mackenzie. It is called party disaster because Jess invited a few friends over and word gets round which causes a major disaster. Can Jess sort it out?

Favourite character:

My favourite character was Jodie. Although she isn’t the main character she wasn’t selfish and she always thinks of others before herself!

Extra comments:

- this book is part of a series and the beginning doesn’t make sense at first if you haven’t read any of the others

- it takes a while to get into the story

- the first time you read it, it seems rather confusing

Rating:

8/10  - maybe aimed at older people

Recommendation:

12 and over; for people who want close to real life stories

*****

Publication details:

Bloomsbury, June 2012, paperback

This copy: received by We Sat Down for review from the publishers

The Night Sky In My Head - M's review

The Night Sky In My Head by Sarah Hammond

The Night Sky in My Head is a bit of a crime story mixed in with a bit of bildungsroman (coming-of-age story – which usually means when you become a teenager or an adult) and elements of fantasy.

 

The Night Sky In My Head - Sarah Hammond

Mikey is fourteen and has a big scar down the back of his head. Since the accident that caused this scar, shadows come alive for Mikey. Now, he can see into the Backwards (which is the past) but he also goes to a special school now. He gets on really well with animals and he has a wonderful best friend who you meet in the first few pages of the book.

The Night Sky In My Head is about Mikey piecing together bits of story from what he sees in the Backwards. It’s rather frightening for him because his dad’s in prison, there’s been a murder, another crime’s been committed and there might be more to come. Who’s done what and will they do it again?

Crimes are committed and there is danger in the story. It’s definitely a bit frightening in parts but overall it’s a gentle story that explores what a ‘good un’ is and what a ‘bad un’ is. Is Mikey good or bad? Is – or was - his dad? And his new mates?

Not everyone in the story believes Mikey about the Backwards. Some of them think he is a bit ‘backwards’ because he speaks and moves more slowly than he used to and he needs help understanding writing. I was a bit confused about how the Backwards happened and why and could it really happen in ‘real’ life. So, while this is a fictional story about things that do happen in real people’s lives, there might be an element of fantasy in it too. Either way, Sarah Hammond (the author) gives you more information about the Backwards at the end of the story. But don’t read it first because it will spoil the story.

This is also a bit of a bildungsroman (coming-of-age story). Mikey’s fourteen and is starting to notice the way that other people treat him, he’s starting to ask questions about his dad when he didn’t really before, he’s trying to make new friends and there’s a girl.

The Night Sky in My Head is a lovely story. It has parallels with Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog In the Night-Time but The Night Sky In My Head is told more softly and will appeal to younger readers. Animal lovers will likely enjoy this novel. 

Publication details: Oxford University Press, July 2012, Oxford, paperback

This copy: received for review from the publishers

The book love was spread

On Sunday 7 October, we hosted our Spreading the Book Love event at Ilkley Literature Festival's Wordsfest afternoon for young people aged 12-18.

We shared over 40 books in lots of different ways with a buildingful of teenagers: bookswapping, book battleship prizes, sticks of candy rock, posters, postcards, bookmarks, our Top 20 books  - and a fair bit of chat!

Apart from browsing through two tables of books, other highlights seemed to be the games of book battleships (thanks to Scholastic for the inspiration), sticks of The Twice-Lived Summer of Bluebell Jones rock (thanks again, Scholastic!), and receiving interest from people for starting up a teen bookclub. All of the books that were swapped are registered on Bookcrossing, so you can look here to see which books are travelling.

And the book that both Little M and I thought was browsed most? Katya's World by Jonathan L Howard (Strange Chemistry).

Here are some pictures from the event:

Our bookswap

Chatting and sharing

 

 

Celia Rees and Walter Swan who were part of the Wordsfest afternoon

 

Some school teachers and librarians who brought teens from afar and chatted with us about books, blogs and the Carnegie.

 

Hot drinks

An Ilkley Literature Festival assistant

A label in one of our books

 

 

Thank you to Otley Courthouse for accommodating us. And thank you to the following publishers who offered books as prizes and swaps: Hot Key Books, Random House Children's Publishers, Strange Chemistry and Hodder Childrens.

Our Top 20 Books (Feb - Sept 2012)

Our Top 20 books for February to September 2012 were revealed this afternoon amidst a frency of teen bookswappers and bookbattlers at our Ilkley Literature Festival fringe event. In the spirit of Spreading the Book Love (the name of our event) our Top 20 supports the aims of Booktrust's Bookstart20 where we pledged to share 20 books in 2012.

The Top 20

(the list is in a roughishly descending order - but it's not set in stone. Titles that were on both M & Little M's lists have been given priority)

see end of post for covers of Maggot Moon and Code Name Verity

Jointly selected (i.e. appeared in both M & Little M's lists)
1. Wonder - RJ Palacio
2. Slated - Teri Terry
3. Flip - Martyn Bedford

Little M's choices
4. Girl, Missing series - Sophie McKenzie
5. Insignia - SJ Kincaid
6. Maximum Ride series - James Patterson
7. The One Dollar Horse - Lauren St John
8. The Medusa Project series - Sophie McKenzie
9. The Hunger Games - Suzanne Collins (M gives this one a tick too)
10. The Twice-Lived Summer of Bluebell Jones - Susie Day
11. Between Shades of Gray - Ruta Sepetys
12. Laura Marlin series - Lauren St John

M's choices:
13. Code Name Verity - Elizabeth Wein
14. Maggot Moon - Sally Gardner
15. The Terrible Thing That Happened to Barnaby Brocket - John Boyne
16. After the Snow - SD Crockett
17. The Fault In Our Stars - John Green
18. All Fall Down - Sally Nicholls
19. Obsidian Mirror - Catherine Fisher
20. The Giver - Lois Lowry



The narrow misses:

• For Little M - Secrets of the Henna Girl by Sufiya Ahmed
• For M (because they're excellent but harrowing): The Seeing by Diana Hendry, Never Fall Down by Patricia McCormick and Now Is the Time for Running by Michael Williams.

This is how we chose the books:

• Little M chose her favourite books she'd read this year and whittled it down to about 12.
• M chose her favourite books that she'd read for the We Sat Down blog this year.
• Some of Little M's choices are an entire series - because there's almost nothing better than a series you enjoy.
• Books had to be read this year but not all of them were published this year - so there are some oldies too.
• Favourite books definition: books we enjoyed reading.

Cover for Code Name Verity

 

 

Cover for Maggot Moon

Lydia Syson chat

We sat down for a chat...with Lydia Syson

Okay, we didn't really sit down for a chat - there was a bit of the world between us for this interview!

We're awfully pleased to have Lydia Syson on the blog today, author of the incredibly passionate A World Between Us which is published by Hot Key Books on 4 October 2012.

What inspired you to combine a love story with a tale about the Spanish Civil War?

Lydia Syson:

Of course there’s a long literary tradition of love and war, from Homer to Hemingway and beyond.  But ever since reading Jessica Mitford’s Hons and Rebels as a teenager, I’ve associated the Spanish Civil War with romance and passion, so I suppose it was inevitable that A World Between Us would be a love story. 

The men and women who joined the International Brigades to help Spain’s democratically elected government were volunteers for a cause for which they were prepared to die: nobody made them fight.  That fact, and the intensity of emotion involved in this particular war, somehow makes the combination of the two themes unusually potent.  For both soldiers and medics, choosing to go to Spain seems to have been an absolute gut reaction to the situation.  As C Day Lewis put it in his poem:

“We came because our open eyes

Could see no other way.”

In the 1930s, I think a lot of people were first drawn into politics by an emotional response to a dramatically divided world, driven by quite a romantic and idealistic desire for change.  I wanted to reflect both kinds of desire in my story.

Lydia Syson

In your research, were there any particular stories or people who influenced the development of Felix as your main character?

Lydia Syson:

Felix’s character isn’t based on any particular person, but I drew on incidents and events in the lives of a great many real people for my plot, and she is certainly affected by all the different things that happen to her. I was hugely impressed by the down-to-earth, almost nonchalant, courage of all the nurses, relief workers and hospital administrators I read about, particularly Patience Darton, Penny Feiwel, Nan Green and Francesca Wilson, but I was also interested in the different ways in which they responded to the difficulties of their situations. 

The stories told by medics Len Crome and Reginald Saxton and the American ambulance driver/poet James Neugass were also unforgettable.  Some extremely striking images – like cooling off in the Royal Mausoleum at El Escorial, or men in a cave hospital dying with nobody who could understand their language, or the smell of dead horses, or children killed by bombs disguised as chocolates –just wouldn’t leave my head, and they found their way into the book in various ways.

I’ve written elsewhere about the influence of my beloved grandmother, who joined the Communist Party in the 1930s – through her and my grandfather I already had a certain understanding of the world which Felix enters at the beginning of my book - but I also had my other grandmother at the back of my mind when I was writing about the stultifying suburban life from which Felix is so desperate to escape: she never really did get away.

The novel makes comments about the selection and censorship of news by the media. Did your work as a radio producer influence this?

Lydia Syson:

I’m sure it did – not least because it drew me to Paul Preston’s riveting book about war correspondents in Spain, We Saw Spain Die, through which I discovered all kinds of fascinating people.  Several appear in my book, with their real names.  Preston’s book also opened my mind to the difficult moral issues involved in reporting war, and double-edged effects of propaganda and censorship. 

I had a wonderful early career working for the World Service, mostly making arts programmes, but when I was taken on as a trainee I think the expectation was that I would work in current affairs.  Although I hugely enjoyed the relatively short time I spent doing just that, I always felt a bit of a fraud – it’s hard to explain why.  Some of that anxiety probably went into the character of George in A World Between Us.

Do you believe in love at first sight?

Lydia Syson:

Such a difficult question!  My instinct is to say, yes, yes, yes, of course I do – but I realise that I believe in love at first sight in books.  I believe in strong emotions at first sight, and I think you can probably fall in love in a flash, but I’m not sure it’s a good idea necessarily to trust those emotions, or that they make for a love that lasts.

You’ve said you enjoy being barefoot. Did you write this novel with shoes on?

Lydia Syson:

Not if I could help it.  Although I do my research in libraries (where I often kick my shoes off under the desk), by choice I actually write in bed.  Very Barbara Cartland– except that I don’t have false eyelashes or a pink negligée or a secretary.  My bedroom is right at the top of our house, with views over London in two directions, and I like to be able to see the sky and parakeets flashing past, and treetops and chimneys, and spread out any books I’m using around me in my nest.

Is there anything you would like to add?

Lydia Syson:

Sadly, only a handful of International Brigade volunteers are now left alive. Penny Feiwel, the last of the British women who served on the side of the Spanish Republic, died in January 2011.   It feels presumptuous, but my hope is that A World Between Us will do something to help the memory and spirit of men and women like Penny live on, and encourage a new generation to find out more about their stories and their lives.

********

You can find out more about Lydia Syson and the research that went into A World Between Us on her website.

You can read M's review here.

The Fault In Our Stars - M's review

The Fault In Our Stars by John Green

John Green has a lot of fans. I’ve never read any of his books. But so many people recommended this book to me. So I checked it out at our local library. They didn’t have it in yet. But then, lovely Zac the children’s librarian from Christchurch, New Zealand sent me a copy.

The Fault In Our Stars by John Green

As it turns out, The Fault In Our Stars is an example of the kind of contemporary YA that I love. Basically, it’s a cancer kid story and a love story all in one. Sounds really icky – but it’s not. It is neither sentimentally gushing nor patronising. It’s not overly despairing either and while terminal cancer stories don’t tend to have wholly happy endings, this is a certainly-not-depressing story. It’ll probably make you cry; it’ll also make you laugh and smile.

Green might say that it’s an alternative cancer kid story (because he picks holes in ‘cancer-kid’ as a genre) but I don’t know because I don’t think I’ve ever read a novel about children with cancer. This is probably more a love story than anything else – and it’s a beautiful one (in a good, non-soppy way).

The Fault In Our Stars is about Hazel whose lungs are shot through with terminal cancer. She lugs an oxygen cart around with her so that she can breathe. And then she meets Augustus Waters at the cancer support group. He is gorgeous, one-legged (well, he has two but one is fake) and he is clear of cancer. The story revolves around them, their everyday trials and tribulations that come with living with cancer, wishing and a novel called An Imperial Affliction (which is written by an author who lives in Amsterdam). Hazel, to put it mildly, is totally obsessed by this novel (which in turn holds the threads of her story).

The Fault In Our Stars would probably be enjoyed best by older teens partly because of some romantic situations in the story but mostly because they’re more likely to want to lap up the philosophical questions about love, life and death that this novel raises. Philosophically, it features both Soren Kierkegaard and Disney, and it blows Maslow’s pyramid of needs out of the universe. If you’ve never heard of these, don’t worry. You don’t need a map for this book and you won’t necessarily come out of it a philosophy geek either. This is also definitely a love story for the blokes too.

Green’s writing is very moreish and I’ll certainly be coming back for more.

Publication details:

Penguin, 2012, London, hardback

This copy: ours; received as a gift from Zac the children’s librarian in Christchurch, New Zealand

Obsidian Mirror - M's Review & Book Giveaway

Obsidian Mirror by Catherine Fisher

Jake is holed up in a Swiss boarding school paid for by his godfather, Oberon Venn. But Jake doesn’t plan to stay there for very long. His father is dead and he thinks Oberon killed him. Jake is on a mission to confront Oberon but little does he know what he’s getting himself into. Is that a tap, tapping on the window….?

A wonderful example of teen fiction, Obsidian Mirror is quite a feast in all sorts of ways.

Obsidian Mirror by Catherine Fisher

There’s a black mirror, black holes, a great big house, a murder suspect a lot of people who’re not telling things exactly how they are, a few blasts from the past, and a wood that you really should not enter. It’s a mash-up of action, adventure, fantasy, magic, science fiction, perhaps a hint of steampunk, and a good story.

The cast of characters is plentiful. It includes a marmoset, wolves, starlings, black cats, servants, queens, Swiss boarding school teachers, missing parents, journeyers, reclusive and strange godfathers. And of course, teenagers: Jake Wilde, Sarah, Rebecca and Gideon. I didn’t become especially attached to the characters but I was riveted by the actual plot. Surprisingly, it’s not that fast-paced but the plot is packed full of surprises and disguises. It’s one of those stories where you just want to know what happens next.

While the ending for me is a bit unsatisfying (I'm hard to please) it’s not a real cliffhanger and that shouldn’t put you off reading it. If it is part of a trilogy, it is one that I will be following.

Obsidian Mirror is very entertaining and, set around Christmastime, it would be a very atmospheric winter or Christmas read for confident readers of any age (but there is a bit of Summer in it too!!). I think many 12 year olds would love it and I highly, highly recommend it. For me, it’s a shining example of what I hoped teen fiction would be: a little bit of all good sorts.

This is the first novel I’ve read by Catherine Fisher  but she’s definitely on my radar now for older tween and teen readers. Next on our reading list from her is her previous and highly acclaimed novel, Incarceron. Some of you might even have read it!

Publication details:

Hodder Children’s, October 2012, London

This copy: uncorrected proof received for review from the publishers.

Book Giveaway - UK only

Thanks to Hodder, you can win yourself a copy of Obsidian Mirror just in time for Christmas. Now that's a really good idea.....

To be in with a chance, simply leave a comment and a way for us to contact you if you win (you can e-mail your details to us if you prefer but please leave a comment to be included in the giveaway).

If you're under 13, please get your parent's or guardian's permission to enter. Or they can enter on your behalf.

The competition closes at 5pm on Friday 19 October 2012. The winner will be chosen at random. 

Best of luck!

Katya's World - M's Review

Katya’s World by Jonathan L. Howard

Katya’s World is a futuristic sci-fi novel about artificial and synthetic intelligences. It’s also a real adventure.

It’s set in the future on Russalka, a space colony covered in water. There is no land and there is no warming sun or blue sky. The Russalkans, who came from Earth, live under the sea in pressurised environments. Fifteen year old Katya is on her first submarine trip as the new navigator when they’re forced to take on a couple of unwelcome passengers. From here on, the course of their trip changes dramatically, especially when they think they’ve struck gold. Little do they know that this ‘gold strike’ is about to completely change Katya’s world. And it seems that passenger Kane holds far more keys than he’s letting on.

Katya's World by Jonathan L. Howard

Katya’s World is a page-turning action and adventure sci-fi story full of strategy and puzzles for the characters to solve, and twist and turns for the reader to predict. There’s plenty of action but no gratuitous violence or lashings of gruesome. Where it’s thin on bloody detail it’s heavy on technical and scientific detail. For those of you who like to pick holes in the physics, you’ll enjoy.  Not because there are any holes (I don’t know!) but because there’s plenty of the science in the novel to occupy you.  For those readers where the science doesn’t appeal all that much, there’s plenty of plot and character in the sci-fi too.

It’s not a patronising plot either. Fifteen-nearly-sixteen year old Katya is faced with a situation that frightens and puzzles her just as much as it does the much older cast of war-weary military men and women. Katya is a strong and independent main character.

Published by Strange Chemistry, a new YA imprint from Angry Robot, I think this is a novel that can wear it’s YA label proudly. It’s a pageturner that packs in plenty of sufficient conceptual and vocabulary challenge too.  It doesn’t fall into any of the YA-as-a-genre trappings that so many other Young Adult novels do. I would happily recommend it to any confident reader, young or old.

Katya’s World is written as Book 1 in The Russalka Chronicles. Whether this is to be a trilogy or similar, what is promising is that Katya’s World has an ending which makes it a good standalone novel. There are no cliffhangers. Whether you like the ending or not, for me it was certainly a satisfying end. And I’ll be keeping an eye out for the next instalment.

Publication details:

Strange Chemistry, 1 Nov 2012, Oxford, paperback

This copy: Advance proof received for review from the publisher