Ryan Hammond - Villains Academy - Book Review - Mr Ripley's Enchanted Books

 

Villains Academy is Ryan's first author-illustrated book to be published by Simon & Schuster Children's. It is not available to buy at the moment as it isn't due to be published until February 2023. This is the first book in a planned series featuring no cute animals but only bad ones at the school full of villains (or is it?). The book is a really light-hearted and fun read that might just give you a boost producing an upbeat feeling. It is an excellent choice for particularly the younger but also the older reader with a big heart.

On the first day at Villains Academy, we are welcomed into class Z with Master Mardybum and his group of students. Each student is hoping to be crowned VILLIAN of the Week. The book follows a group of things - this is really the best way to describe the motley class of characters. One team is called The Cereal Killers and comprises of A Werewolf called Bram, Mona the elf-witch, Bryan the lion, Shelia the ghost, and Tony the skeleton. The other team is called The Overlords and includes Mr Toad, Spike the Snappy Croc, Jeeves, The Tooth Hairy, and MAL the lost. 

The teams compete in a mayhem plot that fills the reader with joy, sadness, and a rollercoaster of emotions. Bram needs to find his inner badness to become the villain he's always dreamed of being to win. However, everyone has to work as a TEAM which is easier said than DONE! The book is written in a fantasy, dream-like way as the quirky characters take you on the most wicked and nastiest adventure you could ever think of. It's a school adventure where it's always good to be bad or just to be able to leave in one piece. It's a cracking story full of laughs, wit, sarcasm, and huge dollops of bad smells. 

If you dare to enter Villian's Academy be prepared to expect lots of farting as well as illustrations that will delight an explosion of nightmares. It's a fast-page, evil adventure with the most frightening word, are you ready to hear it? "SHUBBLEMEGUMP" .... There, you have been warned. If this sounds like your kind of tasty toes to read then grab a copy as soon as you can. We may see you next time Soony Peeps or will we? 

Simon Packham - Has Anyone Seen Archie Ebbs? - Book Review Blog Tour - Mr Ripley's Enchanted Books

 

I'm delighted to be able to introduce this debut middle-grade children's book by actor and musician Simon Packham. Has Anyone Seen Archie Ebbs? is a fantastic poignant read that will be published this April (2022) by the Welsh publisher Firefly Press. The book starts with the introduction of the main character, Archie Ebbs. Life is brilliant, the summer term has just begun and we find him watching YouTube, eating chocolate brownies, as well as laughing and joking with his friends. The PERFECT life, however, the script does not run to plan just like his recent YouTube hit video The Revenge of the Fruit.

 The story is a really intriguing one. It's very cleverly written and highlights a series of issues that some families and people might relate to. It highlights the devastating effect that homelessness can have on a family and children's lives. In this plot, the subject is tackled in a brilliant and somewhat surreal but imaginatively quirky way. The story cleverly reveals the stark realities of the situation in a sad and funny way. 

The characters really danced and jumped off the page to bring one of the best stories that I've read so far this year. It's a modern and fresh take highlighting an important topic that doesn't feature much in stories. In fact, I loved this book so much that I couldn't help but go through a roller-coaster of emotions with all the characters - each and every one of them. This is a great class read for children to discuss but I would highly recommend it to everyone. 

It's a real pleasure to be on the blog tour for this book. One of the characters you will come to love is Charlie Ebbs's sister Izzy. Her boyfriend is called Clint and he plays an important role in the book. Here we have a little fun character bio that has been put together for the book tour. However, as you're here why not check out all the other stops too by taking a look at the list above (on the right). BUY HERE. 

Lenny Henry (Author), Keenon Ferrell (Illustrator) - The Boy With Wings - Book Review - Mr Ripley's Enchanted Books

Actor and comedian Sir Lenny Henry has written a children's book. The Boy With Wings was published by MacMillan Children's Books on the 14th October 2021. The book has a personal meaning as he wanted to create characters that young children could identify with as this was something he found difficult as a child. As an avid young reader, he often wanted to go on a fantasy journey with a character that looked and felt like him. It’s sad to think that the young Lenny Henry, and of course many other children, have not found this in the characters they’ve been reading. This must have impacted on their engagement with and opportunities to fully immerse in stories because of this. Therefore, we need to make sure that current literature for children doesn't continue to exclude and preclude children but to ensure that there they have a rich diversity to ensure stories are a brilliant place for every reader.  

In this rocket-fuelled adventure, I believe he has nailed every aspect he has set out to do. It starts out with an ordinary kid, Tunde, who is surrounded by characters that most readers will be able to relate to. The book covers subjects of loneliness, friendship and bullying whilst wrapping the plot up with intelligent and fitting humour. This is something that only a great comedian can pull off and he does so with style. The story is imaginative and involves everyday family and school life but it also ventures into a warp-speed fantasy mission about saving the world from a devastating alien war. 

The book is spectacular in that it has a great message, a quirky plotline and lots of stuff that both kids and adults will relate to as the story works on so many levels. There are different interpretations of the narrative through the marvellous black and white illustrations by Keenon Ferrell. There is also an added bonus of a small illustrative comic book included at the back of the book which enhances the creative experience. This has been produced by the wonderful comic creator, Mark Buckingham. 

The book is emotional and thought-provoking. It’s a booster breeze with a winged superhero who runs faster than Usain Bolt, jumps higher than Michael Jordan and scores better goals than Marcus Rashford. It’s a fast-paced adventure with video game-like qualities that will have you immersed with all the baked treats of a Masterchef getting the ingredients wrong. Watch out for the magpies as they have very sharp beaks and the flying feline cats. What more can you want from a read?

This book is a feast for the senses and one of the best books of the year. Innit? A modern marvel for all the family. Grab a copy and read it today! 

 

Gabriel Dylan Author of Whiteout (Red Eye) - Mr Ripley's Enchanted Books Guest Post

Hello Everybody. It is a pleasure to welcome the debut author Gabriel Dylan to Mr. Ripley's Enchanted Books. He has written a fantastic post sharing his story ideas and some background history to the book. All of which gives a cracking insight into what you might expect when you read it. 

The story is a fantastically scary and thrilling horror adventure which is set in a remote ski village. It has recently been published under the Red Eye imprint which is part of the wonderful Stripes Publishing Company (10th January 2019).  Have a read to see what you think and pop it onto your book list. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

The idea for Whiteout came to me a few years ago, on a hotel balcony, high above the Austrian Alps. 

I stood there, watching the sky fade to black, and I couldn’t keep my eyes off the trees and forests that covered the nearby mountains. There was a huge blizzard forecast, so much snow that it was going to block the roads in out and of the lonely resort for a day or two, and I looked into the woods and thought:

What if there’s something down there, in the trees, something evil, that doesn’t want us to leave?

Whilst this introduction might make me sound like some globe-trotting international man of mystery, that couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, it was the first time I’d ever seen real snow, and soon after the idea for Whiteout popped into my brain I had to abandon my lovely view, start to patrol the hotel corridors, and make sure none of the students I was in charge of were sneaking out after dark, smuggling alcohol into their rooms, or engaged in any other illicit activities.

The real reason I was on that balcony is that I teach English at a huge secondary school in Gloucestershire, and a few months earlier I’d been invited to help run a ski trip for a bunch of sixth formers. As I’d spent my teenage years living by the sea and surfing whenever I had a free minute, snowboarding came pretty easy, and although I’d never been on a ski trip I really fancied the idea of the Alpine lifestyle. So I said ‘yes’, and a few months later I found myself yawning on a hellish twenty seven hour coach journey to a remote corner of the Austrian Alps, whilst the students surrounding me all seemed to be getting some sleep. Getting there was no fun, but the resort we arrived at more than made up for it.

Hochkar, deep in the Austrian mountains, felt like it had been forgotten by the modern world. It was rustic, remote, isolated, and the snow was so deep you could sink in up to your chest in places. It was also somehow very creepy, and perhaps that was what made the idea for Whiteout come to me as I was standing there wishing that something would slip out of the trees after dark and drag away some of the more irritating students on the trip. And with the fact that the impending storm meant we were going to be trapped there, it just really got me thinking.

I’ve always written, although I’d never dared to show my stuff to anyone else (or even tell anyone!), and at the time I was working on an epic fantasy that I just couldn’t get to come together (it definitely wasn’t Game of Thrones). But once the idea came to me that there might be something in the trees, something supernatural, fantasy was dumped in favour of horror. 

I’m a huge fan of the horror genre, and spent lots of my childhood freaking myself out by way of Stephen King, James Herbert, and Richard Laymon. And vampires were always my favourite, but not the handsome Twilight type, more the bald, vicious, long finger nailed Nosferatu of Salem’s Lot. And once I got home from Austria, I started writing Whiteout, and it just kind of poured out of me.

I’m also a huge film fan, and John Carpenter’s The Thing is one of my favourites, with its remote Antarctic setting. 

That definitely played a part, with the isolation and the paranoia and the creature out lurking in the snow. The other film that fed into Whiteout was John Hughes’ The Breakfast Club – about a bunch of mismatched teens locked in a Saturday morning detention. 

I wanted the same kind of ensemble of criminals, outcasts, princesses, geeks, and jocks in Whiteout, but I wanted mine to be in fear of their lives. And once I put them into a situation where they were being hunted down by terrifying vampires in an isolated ski resort, as silly as it sounds the characters just did the rest themselves. 

The other thing I wanted was for people to care about the characters in Whiteout, or at least the important ones who don’t get eaten in the first few pages. There’s two main protagonists, Hanna, a haunted teenage ski guide who finds herself drawn back to the mountains by her tragic past, and Charlie, one of the students that find themselves trapped in the resort. Hanna was the character who arrived first, and she’s my Buffy, Sarah Conner, and Lisbeth Salander all rolled into one feisty horror heroine – I found her a joy to write. And Charlie was based on a lot of different students I’ve taught, the outcasts and underdogs who have had a bad hand dealt to them but still refuse to give up.

It took a few months to get Whiteout written, and once it was done I think I would have probably just put it away in a drawer and left it there. Except for my wife, who hates all things horror and sci-fi, took a peek at the first few pages. Unbelievably she liked it, and she started to chip away at me to send it off to an agent or two.

In October 2017 I buckled and sent Whiteout off. I was sitting at school supervising a detention on the evening I pressed ‘send’. I googled a few agents, and really liked Polly Nolan’s biography, and what she said about needing characters to care about. I just thought ‘why not?’, sent her the first five pages, and never expected to hear back. 

The next day Polly asked for the whole manuscript. 

I was in shock. 

Two weeks later Polly told me she’d finished Whiteout, liked it, and wanted to meet up. Before I knew it, she’d showed it to a couple of publishers, an offer was on the table, and Whiteout, this crazy idea that came to me as I stood on that balcony in Austria, was on its way into the world.

So… if you like snow, vampires, scares, kick-ass heroines, and remote Alpine settings, Whiteout might be worth a look…