Showing posts with label November 2022. Show all posts
Showing posts with label November 2022. Show all posts

Wednesday, 16 November 2022

The Best Children's Book Picks November 2022 - US Post - Mr Ripley's Enchanted Books



Jaclyn Moriarty -  The Astonishing Chronicles of Oscar from Elsewhere - Published by 
Levine Querido (November 15, 2022) - 
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1646142026 - Hardback - Age: 9+ 
A unique blend of humor, suspense, and magic, unfolding through the instantly recognizable rivalries, affections and foibles of her characters, from Jaclyn Moriarty 
During a sleepover, a letter comes to five children begging for the urgent assistance of Esther Mettlestone-Staranise, the newly-realized Rain Weaver; she must arrive before 10am on Monday to save an entire town of elves. When they arrive, the children find two incredibly odd things: first, the town of elves, buried under layers of silver; and second, a regular-size boy who, soon after seeing the children, dies.

Oscar is that boy who skipped school in our world on Monday to skate, and found himself in the city of the elves at just the wrong moment: He fled as fast as he could, but not fast enough because the silver wave struck him and he fell down dead.

And that’s just the beginning! At breakneck pace the cousins and friends (and a six-year-old stowaway elf named Gruffudd, who’s a troublemaker) try to stop the clock and rewind the tragedy. Can they do it?

The pleasure is all in the adventure, as only Jaclyn Moriarty can tell it.

ABOUT JACLYN MORIARTY

Jaclyn Moriarty is the award-winning author of uniquely creative and readable books for adults and young readers including The Year of Secret Assignments, the Colors of Madeleine trilogy, The Extremely Inconvenient Adventures of Bronte Mettlestone, and The Stolen Prince of Cloudburst. One of the talented and popular Moriarty sisters (including Liane and Nicola), Jaclyn lives in Sydney, Australia. She is very fond of chocolate, blueberries, and sleep.

Roland Smith - The Switch - Published by Scholastic Press (November 1, 2022) - ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0545803502 - Hardback - Age: 8+

A thrilling dystopic story from Roland Smith about how far people will go to survive -- perfect for fans ofDry and Distress Signal.

On the morning of Henry Ludd's thirteenth birthday, the power goes out. No phones, no news, and planes are literally falling out of the sky. Henry's father was away from the family farm and he has not returned. It's worrisome as people descend into lawlessness.

Four months later, the electricity still hasn't come back. While Henry's family is protected in their walled compound with wind turbines fueling their electricity, the rest of their area has suffered. Henry's father still hasn’t been found. Determined to find him, Henry ventures out with a trading crew to the zoo where his dad was last seen. After the truck is hijacked and Henry is left behind, he's forced to travel alone through the unruly world of the Switch. But his journey home will lead him to cross paths with the people who took his dad and have been trying to take over his family's land and resources ever since.



Esme Symes-Smith - Sir Callie and the Champions of Helston - Published by Labyrinth Road (November 8, 2022) - ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0593485774 - Hardback - Age: 8+ 


In a magical medieval world filled with dragons, shape-shifters, and witches, a twelve-year-old nonbinary hopeful knight battles for the heart of their kingdom. A thrilling middle-grade series opener that explores identity and gender amid sword fights and magic, and proves anyone can be a hero.

When their ex-hero dad is summoned back to the royal capital of Helston to train a hopeless crown prince, Callie lunges at the opportunity to finally prove themself worthy to the kingdom’s "great and powerful." Except the intolerant great and powerful look at nonbinary Callie and only see 
girl. But Callie has always known exactly what they want to be, and they’re not about to let anything stand in their way.

Trapped in Helston’s rigid hierarchy where girls learn magic and boys train as knights, Callie discovers they aren’t alone—there’s Elowen, the chancellor’s brilliant daughter, whose unparalleled power is being stifled; Edwyn, Elowen’s twin brother desperate to win his father’s approval; and Willow, the crown prince who was never meant to be king.

In this start to an epic series packed with action, humor, and heart, Callie and their new friends quickly find themselves embedded in an ancient war—and their only hope to defeat the threats outside the kingdom lies in first defeating the bigotry within.


"Young readers will find a worthy hero in Callie, who displays boundless courage in defending both their convictions and their friends...In clear and simple terms, Sir Callie assures readers that, no matter what anyone else might say, a real fairy-tale ending means finding the space and support to thrive exactly the way you are."
Bookpage



Marthe Jocelyn (Author), Isabelle Follath (Illustrator) - Aggie Morton, Mystery Queen: The Seaside Corpse - Published by Tundra Books (November 1, 2022) - ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0735270824 - Hardback - Age: 9+ 


For young detective Aggie Morton and her friend Hector, an opportunity to dig up fossils becomes even more thrilling when a corpse washes ashore in this fourth book in the Aggie Morton, Mystery Queen series, inspired by the life of Agatha Christie as a child and her most popular creation, Hercule Poirot. For fans of Enola Holmes.

After an invigorating but not exactly restful trip to a Yorkshire spa during which she survived a near brush with death and foiled a murderer, aspiring writer Aggie Morton and her friend Hector are thrilled to have the opportunity to stay at a camp by the sea and watch real paleontologists at work. The famed husband and wife team of the Blenningham-Crewes are about to become even more famous with the recovery of the fossilized bones of an ichthyosaur from the sea by Lyme Regis. This news has already caught the attention of an American millionaire, a British museum and a travelling circus owner, who each want the bones for their own collections. Tensions are running high throughout the camp, from the cook, to the collectors, to the Blenningham-Crewes themselves, and become downright dangerous after Aggie and Hector make a discovery of their own: a body on the beach. Not a fossil, but a 
human body. 


ISABELLE FOLLATH has been a freelance illustrator for advertising agencies, magazines and book publishers for over fifteen years, but her true passion lies in illustrating children's books. She uses pen and ink, watercolor and pencil alongside digital techniques to create her work. She loves drinking an alarming amount of coffee, learning new crafts and looking for the perfect greenish-gold color. Isabelle lives with her family in Switzerland.

Wednesday, 9 November 2022

New Children's Book Picks November 2022 - UK Post - Mr Ripley's Enchanted Books

 

Fleur Hitchcock - Murder at Snowfall - Published by Nosy Crow (3 Nov. 2022) - ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1839945908 - Paperback - Reading Age: 8+

A gripping thriller for readers who like danger and mystery and chills and spills from the comfort of their sofas... Unputdownable.

When Lucas and Ruby find an abandoned trunk covered in snow, Lucas says there's bound to be a body inside. Ruby laughs but what if he's right? Nervously she starts to open it, and immediately wishes she hadn't. From that moment on, they're drawn into a thrilling mystery, one that they have to solve before the falling snow smothers all trace of wrongdoing...



Katharine Orton - Mountainfell - Published by  Walker Books (3 Nov. 2022) - ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1529503296 - Paperback - Reading Age: 9


There is nothing more dangerous than magic... 
Eleven-year-old Erskin is used to danger; she lives in the shadow of Mountainfell, a place of wild creatures and dangerous magic. When the most powerful and deadly creature of all – the fearsome cloud dragon – snatches Erskin’s sister away, Erskin must face her greatest fear and journey onto the mountain to bring her back. A terrible power is stirring, and it is up to Erskin to save both her family and her home.



Allison Rushby - The Ghost Locket - Published by Walker Books (3 Nov. 2022) -ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1529505993 - Paperback - Reading Age: 8+


A classic Christmas ghost story set in a haunted historic house - for fans of Emma Carroll and Lucy Strange.

It's Christmas, and eleven-year-old Lolli must return to London and break a promise she made to herself ― to never again step foot in the Victorian historic house in Spitalfields managed by her family.

There, Lolli must face up to what she saw in the house several years ago and make things right for two ghosts - one friendly and one decidedly not - opening her guarded heart to people in both the living and twilight worlds.



Alex Bell (Author), 
Tomislav Tomic (Illustrator)  - Explorers at Stardust City -  Faber & Faber  (3 Nov. 2022) - ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0571359752 - Paperback - Reading Age: 8+


Directly below was a sight none of them had ever seen before - a kind of spiral, with glowing ruby-red lights that curved outwards like tentacles.In the middle was a dark circle, inky black. It had the look of a really, really deep well.

Ursula and her friends are in a race against time. The Collector has taken Stella captive, and is hungrily snatching up all the beautiful places of the world in her snow globe prisons. She needs to be stopped, but first they must find her.

To aid them in their quest, the explorers seek help from new allies, including a Pirate Queen, with a ghost ship that can defy time and space, and then take to the skies in a galaxy fairy rocket. But their journey is fraught with danger, as the future of the planet hangs in the balance.

Escape into a sensational world filled with space moles, sea goblins and giant sharks, all covered with a sprinkling of moon dust!

Saturday, 5 November 2022

Philip Caveney - STAND AND DELIVER - Blog Tour (Top Five Adventure Books Post)


Mr. Ripley's Enchanted Books has been running for over fourteen years now and from the very start, Philip Caveney has been a big influence on this website. We have read and loved every book both he and his alter ego have written and published. Every story is different, unexpected, and thrilling, and Stand and Deliver is just another example of how great a writer he is. 


It's a wonderful privilege to be on this blog tour celebrating the publication of Philip's new book. This post covers his top 5 adventure books which are all classics that have shaped the landscape for future writers. Just like Philip's books will also do in the future. What would be your choice?


I should perhaps apologise for the fact that my choices are not recent releases. Like so many writers, I have been an avid reader since early childhood and I genuinely believe that it’s the books you read as a youngster that stay with you forever. Of course I still read. All writers begin as readers and it’s important to keep doing it, but these days I’m reading a lot of different kinds of fiction  And the focus here is on ‘adventure,’ so… here goes.




Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson. 


This is pretty much the book that set the template for the public perception of what a pirate says, does and thinks. It features pretty much all the qualities we identify with such men - and yet, only a little research will confirm that they tended to be more complex than this gives them credit for. No matter, it’s a classic tale of scurvy dogs and buried treasure from Scotland’s greatest writer. What’s not to like?


20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne. 


Verne’s brilliant undersea adventure, written in 1871, is one of the first adventure stories I ever read, along with A Journey to the Centre of the Earth and Around the World in 80 Days.  20,000 Leagues is both thrilling and prophetic. Captain Nemo’s famous submarine, The Nautilus is powered by sodium/mercury batteries, something that wouldn’t widely be used until the 1940s! It also features incredible underwater battles with terrifying creatures of the deep.



War of the Worlds
by HG Wells. 


People will argue that it's actually an early sci-fi novel, but this account of a martian invasion, first published in 1897, soon develops into a fast-paced adventure story. The main protagonist (known only as ‘the narrator’) struggles to survive in a transformed world where the squid-like Martians and their giant fighting machines lay waste to everything they encounter. Its scenes of the disintegration of society have rarely been equalled.


Lord of the Flies by William Golding.


Published in 1954, this is the dark and troubling tale of a group of schoolboys whose plane crashlands on a remote desert island. They are compelled to organise themselves and find ways to survive, but they soon break into two separate factions, who consequently find themselves at war with each other. It may be a comment about the nature of mankind, but it’s also a thrilling tale of adventure, brilliantly written.


Brazilian Adventure by Peter Fleming


Not fiction this time, but a fascinating account of a real life adventure deep into the heart of the unexplored Amazon. In 1932, the author, Peter, Fleming joined an expedition to look for the lost explorer, Colonel Fawcett who, with his son Jack, had disappeared on a similar trip seven years earlier. Reading this book inspired me to write my third novel, The Tarantula Stone.



Book published by UCLan Publishing 03.11.2022. Book Cover Illustration by Jill Tytherleigh. 

Synopsis: Ned is awkward, a little shy, and just trying to find his place in the world. He also happens to be the assistant to the nation’s most feared highwayman, The Shadow . . .
In a time when highwaymen ruled the roads, Ned is reluctantly swept up into a whirlwind of adventure. Whilst escaping the grasps of the thief-takers, Ned soon finds himself stepping into his Master’s shoes and an unwanted life of crime. The pressure is building with new friends and enemies galore when Ned stumbles upon a long-infamous gem, The Bloodstone, which forces him to make an important choice. Can he ultimately escape this new threat and finally free himself from the grips of The Shadow?

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Mr Ripley's Enchanted Books - Favourite Children's Book Picks - FEB 2026 UK

  Philip Reeve -  Bridge of Storms (A New Mortal Engines Novel) - Published by  Scholastic Press ( 3 Feb. 2026) -  ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎  978-154613...