Andrew Peters - Ravenwood - Book Review

                                           

• Pages 392
• Published By Chicken House
• Date 5th May 2011
• Age 11+
• ISBN 9781906427467

Fourteen year-old Ark has the squittiest job on Arborium, the last forested island in the future. A poor plumber's boy, he unblocks toilets in the city where he lives a breath-taking, mile-high world carved out of the vast upper branches of a giant canopy of trees. Protected by a poisonous shield, he believes his forest kingdom to be the safest place on earth. But while at work, he over hears a plot between a powerful councillor of the island and a secret spy from Maw, a superpower of glass and steel, that intends robbing Arborium of its wood, a natural resource now more precious than gold Ark is plunged into danger and soon he finds himself on the run, fighting for his life. Together with new found friends, he must travel from the highest tree-tops to the darkest roots of Ravenwood to save his home and his people.

This year, there has been a distinct lack of magical/fantasy books that have been published. Within the UK, they are especially few and far between - perhaps this genre is now considered to be out of fashion or perhaps the current standard of writing (in this particular genre) is not considered high enough to be published. However, whatever the reasons, Ravenwood (thank goodness) has found enough light between the trees to grow into the hands of the public. Although I recognise that some readers may find this book hard to understand, for me, it leads to a tantalising rush of the imagination. 


The story has a secure footing in the reaches of a magical experience. It is a fantasy ride set high in the tree tops of a parallel world. This last surviving place is a mysterious world of people and creatures, who all go about their daily life secure in the knowledge and understanding of each other. That is, until one dark day . . . . . .


Ark Malikum, the main character of the book, reminds me of Mario. He finds himself well and truly knee deep in the brown stuff, when he happens to overhear a plot to destroy the city. As a result, an action-packed adventure begins full of danger, discoveries and new found friends. 


This book has a witty charm running through it. The author has cleverly woven wood-related themes through the story, as timely interjections, such as "buddy holly" and "totally conkers" which made me chuckle along the way. I was also able to appreciate the religious theme; giving the story a vivid past and enhancing the cleverly structured world of Aborium.  


The book is a really good read. It encompasses events such as unblocking drains to danger, within the blink of an eye. It includes everything that a reader needs to become hooked and is a great debut novel into the world of fantasy. The author has a talented craft to writing, by making the unbelievable seem very real - a definite magical language seeps from within.


The second book to be published in this trilogy is entitled "The Glass Forest" which will be published in August 2012.

+++ Will Hill - Department 19 Guest Post Day Five Blog Tour +++

I feel both privileged and honoured that Will Hill has requested a visit to this particular blog site as part of his brilliant Department 19 tour. Having written such an appropriate blog post for this site, I have been incredibly excited to be able to share this with everybody. 

As the author of the brilliant debut horror book 'Department 19', which is centred around the classical Victorian world of Vampires, I feel that this is one of the best books to be published this year.

I would like to thank both Will and HarperCollins for organising this blog tour and for choosing this site as one of the stops. 

                                                

Here is Will explaining why the North East has been a great inspiration for the setting of Dept 19. . . . . .

When I was seven years old, my mother and my stepfather and I moved from a tiny market town in Lincolnshire called Spilsby to Gateshead, the squat, grey city that faces Newcastle from the other side of the River Tyne. When I was twelve, almost thirteen, we moved again, to the only place apart from London that I’ve ever considered home.

On the north sea coast lies a small town called Tynemouth, which is lovely and sunny and full of surfers and holidaymakers in the summer, and freezing cold, grey and desolate in the autumn, winter and spring. I spent endless long, dark afternoons beneath the cliffs that separate the town’s long beach from the bay beneath its priory, on a vast, uneven landscape of rocks and freezing pools. It was where my friends and I would hang out, where we could be pretty confident of being undisturbed; the rocks were treacherous underfoot, and the cliffs were overhanging and crumbling. We huddled in the caves at the feet of the cliffs, shivering as the wind blew hard off the open sea. For a teenage mind that was reeling from its first exposure to Clive Barker and, particularly, Stephen King, it was a fertile breeding ground.

My parents and I would holiday in Northumberland, in places that feature in Department 19 and its sequel – Alnwick, Bamburgh, Dunstanburgh, old, wild places full of history, much of it violent and frightening. Castles stood along the coast, staring out at waters that are grey and calm now, but that once held the constant prospect of danger. 

Down the coast in north Yorkshire, the fishing town of Whitby stands proudly as the place where Count Dracula first landed in England, leaping down onto the sand in the shape of a dog, leaving behind him the empty Demeter, its crew missing, apart from the captain, whose body is lashed to the helm. Inland from that legendary place lies the vast, otherworldly radar complex of RAF Fylingdales; the enormous ‘golf balls’ that were visible from miles and miles away when I was a child are now gone, but the place still feels secret, and spooky. It was no surprise at all to me when I realised I was going to place the Northern Outpost of Department 19 there.

When I started writing Department 19 I knew where it started (the Prologue and the first three chapters were the first things I wrote) and I knew how it was going to end. Well, that’s not absolutely true – there were aspects of the ending that didn’t occur to me until later. But what I absolutely did know was where it was going to end. It was always going to be Lindisfarne.

I only visited the small tidal island a couple of times when I was young, but that was more than enough to capture my imagination. I couldn’t get my head around the idea that the causeway that links it to the mainland was submerged for long periods of each day; the sense of isolation, of being cut off from help, which I would eventually have the villain of Department 19 exploit so cruelly, was palpable, even then. I changed the geography of the island, which is one of the most beautiful, picturesque and friendly places you could ever visit in real life, and rebuilt the monastery that had once stood there to suit the horrors that I knew were going to take place there. 

Lindisfarne had seen horror before. The Viking raid of 793AD was described as follows by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle:

In this year fierce, foreboding omens came over the land of Northumbria. There were excessive whirlwinds, lightning storms, and fiery dragons were seen flying in the sky. These signs were followed by great famine, and on January 8th the ravaging of heathen men destroyed God's church at Lindisfarne.

More than a thousand years later, I wanted to bring that fear, that sense of the unnatural, of invasion by the unknown, back to the small island that loomed large in my imagination when I was a child. It doesn’t deserve what happens to it in Department 19, but the world isn’t a fair place. 

It’s dark, and cold, and there are monsters. Here is my Book Review

                                                                                                                            

John Connolly - Hell's Bells Samuel Johnson v The Devil Round II

Samuel Johnson - with a little help from his dachshund Boswell and a very unlucky demon named Nurd - has sent the demons back to Hell. But the diabolical Mrs Abernathy is not one to take defeat lying down.

When she reopens the portal and sucks Samuel and Boswell down into the underworld, she brings an ice-cream van full of dwarfs as well. And two policement. Can this eccentric gang defeat the forces of Evil? And is there life after Hell for Nurd?

Published - 12 May - Hodder & Stoughton, 2011

Mr Ripleys 100 Great Books To Read In A Life Time.......

                                               

This is a list of books, both new and old, of some of the best books that I have enjoyed reading over the years. These aren't in any order of preference and I have deliberately only chosen one book by each author. I'm sure that there will be many books that I have missed and there'll be some titles that you feel should have made it that I haven't referred to. Therefore, this is your chance to leave a comment and let me know what you think should be added to the list and what you have enjoyed reading over the years.


1. J.R.R Tolkien - Hobbit
2. Mark Haddon - The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time
3. Arthur Ransome - Swallows And Amazons
4. Roald Dahl - Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
5. Marcus Zusak - The Book Thief
6. Philip Reeve - Mortal Engines
7. Louis Sacha - Holes
8. Darren Shan - Lord Loss
9. Philippa Pearce - Tom's Midnight Garden
10. Robert Westall - Scarecrows
11. Eoin Colfer - Artemis Fowl
12. E. Nesbit - The Railway Children
13. Charmian Hussey - The Valley of Secrets
14. Chris Wooding - The Haunting of Alaizabel Cray
15. Elizabeth Laird - Garbage King
16.  P.L Travers - Mary Poppins
17. Mark Lamb - Farperoo
18. Terry Pratchett -  Going Postal
19.  Julia Donaldson - Gruffalo
20. Cornelia Funke - Ink Heart
21. Brandon Mull - Fablehaven
22. Jonathan Stroud - The Amulet of Smakand
23. Kazu Kibuishi - Amulet:Stonekeeper
24. David Almond - Skellig
25. Robin Jarvis -  The Dark Portal
26 Brian Jacques - Salamandastron
27. Dean Vincent Carter - The Hand of the Devil
28. Paul Stewart & Chris Riddell - Stormchaser
29. Angie Sage - Magyk
30. Frances Hardinge - Fly By Night
31. Maurice Sendak - Where The Wild Things Are
32. Neil Gaiman - The Graveyard Book
33. Frances Hodgson Burnett - The Secret Garden
34. Philip Pullman - Northern Lights
35 J.K Rowling -  Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
36. Joseph Delaney - The Spooks's Apprentice
37 Blue Balliett - Chasing Vermeer
38. G.P Taylor - Shadowmancer
39. Christopher Paolini - Eragon
40. Michael Malloy - The Time Witches
41. Anna Dale - Whispering to Witches
42. Dale Peck - Drift House
43. Eoin McNamee - The Navigator
44. Catherine Web - The Extraordinary and Unusual Adventures of Horatio Lyle
45. Julia Golding -  The Diamond of Dury Lane
46. Eleanor Updale - Montmorency
47. Brian Selznick - The Invention of Hugo Cabret
48. Enid Blyton -  Five on Treasure Island
49. Richard Adams - Watership Down
50. Ian Fleming - Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
51. Jonathan Swift - Gulliver's Travels
52. Leon Garfield - The Ghost Downstairs
53. Jules Verne - Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea
55. Mary Norton - The Borrowers
56. John Boyne - The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas
57. Garth Nix - Sabriel
58. Scott Westerfeld - The Secret Hour
59. Anthony Horowitz - Raven's Gate
60. Anthony Browne - Tunnels
61. Trudi Canavan - The Magician's Apprentice
62. Roderick Gordon & Brian Williams - The Highfield Mole
63. Charlie Higson - The Enemy
64. Lewis Carroll - Alice in Wonderland
65. L.Frank Baum - The Wizard of Oz
66. Kenneth Grahame - The Wind In The Willows
67. Robert Louis Stevenson - Treasure Island
68. Ursula Le Guin  - The Tales From Earthsea
69. Rick Riordan - Percy Jackson and the Lighting Thief
70. P.B Kerr -  Children of the Lamp:The Akhenaten Adventure
71. Sam Enthoven - The Black Tattoo
72. Adam Gopnik - The King in the Window
73. Linda Sue Park - A  Single Shard
75. Isobelle Carmody - Obernewtyn
76. E.E Richardson - The Devil's Footsteps
77. F E Higgins -  The Black Book of Secrets
78. Derek Landy - Skulduggery Pleasant
79. Steve Augarde - The Various
80. Patrick Carman - Atherton House of Power
81. Joanne Harris - Runemarks
82. Mark Walden - H.I.V.E
83. Michael Grant - Gone
84. Tom Becker - Darkside
85. Zizou Corder - Lion Boy
86. Michelle Paver - Wolf Brother
87. Liam Hearn - Across the Nightingale Floor
88. Gareth Thompson - The Great Harlequin Grim
89. Rudyard Kipling - Jungle Book
90. J.M Barrie - Peter Pan
91. Lemony Snicket - The Bad Beginning
92. Susan Cooper - Dark Is Rising
93. Suzanne Collins -  The Hunger Games
94. Henry Chancellor - The Remarkable Adventures of Tom Scatterhorn
95. Tove Jansson - Moomin's
96. Alan Garner - A Bag of Moonshine
97. Herge -  Tin Tin in the Congo
98. Justin Richards - The Death Collector
99. W E Johns - Biggles Learns To Fly
100. Stuart Hill -  The Cry of the Icemark

M.G Harris - Joshua Files:BK 4 Dark Parallel - Book Review

                                

• Pages 388
• Published by Scholastic 
• Date 7 April 2011
• Age 11+
• ISBN 9781407111032

One boy. One deadly prophecy. One heart-stopping adventure. This is how the world will end: on 22 December, an electromagnetic pulse will blast through the atmosphere. Technology will fail. Civilization will fall apart. The key to survival lies in a secret Mayan book, protected by Josh and an ancient society. But someone has altered time. To put it back on track, Josh must unravel history itself and face the dangers of a dark, parallel reality. 


We are now on the fourth of Joshua's amazing adventures, with this epic time travel escapade being my favourite, so far. All of the stories feel very fresh, as different worlds and adventures are explored in each book. Whilst there is a little bit of story recapping in each new story (from the previous book) it is just enough to pull the story together. Therefore, if you happen to wander into this book before having read any of the others, you will still have a clear understanding of where the story is and what has happened beforehand.


This is another great action adventure which is oozing with Mayan culture. The book incorporates some amazing places, which Josh and Ixchel visit whilst time travelling from place to place, in order to save the world from the scrupulous villains of the Sect of Huracan. The Snake Kingdom is a particularly amazing historical and mythical place, it is written with such colourful and vivid imagery, that it will leave you breathless. I would have loved to have stayed longer and encountered this place over many more pages but instead, for me, this felt like a very brief encounter.


I really loved the turbulent history between Josh and Ixchel, who is such a great feisty and strong female character. She manages to hide her emotions and true feelings incredibly well. In fact, I found myself wanting to scream at them both,  as I wanted them to tell each other how they felt. However, this tension continually bubbled throughout the book and kept me frustrated until it was finally resolved.


In short, this is another great adrenalin rush of action that will leave every reader wanting more.  A joyous and compelling teenage read like no other. The pace of adventure will leave you feeling mildly exhilarated whilst gasping for breath. The question is, what will happen next to Josh and his friends?  

Will Hill - Department 19 EXPOSED (The Truth Is Out There....)

NEWS: SECRET GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENT EXPOSED

A Downing Street spokesman was today forced to admit to the existence of a secret department within the British government. Rumours about Department 19 have been in circulation for many years, but previous governments have consistently denied its existence. Publication of a “tell all” book today by HarperCollins, which exposes the inner workings of the highly classified department, led to the government’s admission. The book, believed to have been written by a former employee of the organisation, under the pseudonym Will Hill, is called simply Department 19.

According to the author, Department 19’s brief is to investigate supernatural occurrences. Staffed in part by former Special Forces operatives, they are equipped with hi tech weaponry including ultraviolet light pistols, pneumatic guns and advanced explosives. The government spokesman would not confirm the particulars of the work that these special operatives are currently engaged in, but there are suggestions that an unexplained explosion off the north east coast last week can be traced back to Department 19.

Asked whether the Department 19 operatives were trained to track and capture or destroy supernatural beings, including vampires, the spokesman said “I could not possibly comment”.

For more information on www.department19exists.com

G.N Hargreaves - Douglas - Picture Book Choice March 2011

FROM THE HOME OF THE MR. MEN
COMES A BRAND NEW BRITISH HERO

DOUGLAS – A DOG IN A BILLION

Giles Hargreaves follows in his famous father's footsteps
as his first creation is published today

London 28^th March 2011 – Today Giles Hargreaves, son of Roger Hargreaves – the creator and illustrator of the Mr. Men, releases his first children’s book, Douglas.

Douglas is a story about a dog. Not just any old, run-of-the-mill, everyday, ordinary dog, but an extraordinary dog. A dog in a billion. A dog called Douglas.

Douglas doesn’t go for walkies, he would sooner go for a spin in his shiny red sports car. And that is not all. Among his many talents, this sophisticated fellow toots on the tuba, goes skiing and plays a fiendish game of chess. Douglas can do anything. What a dog!

But there is one thing Douglas can’t do. One thing he desperately wants to do, but can’t, no matter how hard he tries. Douglas cannot wag his tail, poor chap. And this makes him feel glum. Very glum indeed.

Can a little bird called Basil help Douglas make his dream come true?

David Riley, Managing Director of Egmont Publishing Group said, “We are delighted to be working with Giles Hargreaves to help bring Douglas to the attention of the world: his trials, tribulations and achievements should be celebrated. It’s been forty years since the launch of Britain’s best-loved children’s book series The Mr. Men, and now the Hargreaves family brings us another classic British character.”

Douglas is published in traditional picture book format on the 28^th March at £5.99. 

It features beautiful full-page illustrations and quirky vignettes, plus a sheet of utterly adorable stickers so you can take Douglas with you wherever you go!

Kirsty McKay - UNDEAD -Mr Ripley's Most Wanted Book

                                                                                                             

Being new at school bites. But at least it doesn't kill you. Mostly.

Bobby thinks she might well be on the School Trip from Hell. Too bad she's a noob, too bad her classmates don't rate her weirdo accent and too bad that Scotland is having the worst blizzard since the Ice Age. Looks like she's going to be on this school bus for a quite a while; could things get much worse?

Yep. They could.

Inexplicably, her classmates start dying...and then they come back to life again...and what's more, they're very, very hungry.

With nowhere to run and no contact with the outside world, Bobby is thrown together with a raggle-taggle group of survivors at a roadside café. There's indie kid drop-out Smitty, the class beauty queen Alice, dweeby Pete and two near useless adults: a half-conscious bus driver and a volatile petrol station attendant.

The frenemies struggle to stay alive - through explosions, deadly battles and a breakneck chase through the snowbound wilderness. Somehow they have to make it to safety - and get some answers - no matter what the cost. Can they survive the Undead? And each other? 

Undead released September 2011, published by Chicken House.

C T Furlong - Killer Genes (Arctic 6,book 2) - Book Review

                                      

• Pages - 208
• Published - Inside Pocket
• Date - 1 Feb 2011
• Age - 8+

The US President is fighting for his life! Mysterious lights, an inexplicable illness and a deadly plague plunge the ARCTIC6 into another exciting adventure. When the friends stumble across a research facility hidden deep in the Suffolk countryside, they discover an insane plot in which the lives of millions are at stake. As they work to unravel the secrets of the facility, a deadly countdown is ticking. Can they prevent a global disaster? Do they have time to save the lives that hang in the balance? Will they even have time to save themselves??


This is the second installment in this series of books. In this edition, we find Iago, his cousins (Cam, Tara and Renny) and his younger sister Aretha, wrapped up in another gripping adventure. In my opinion, this book has a more substantial and gripping storyline than the first. The author has really established the tone through a direct approach to the telling of the story, which I thought was a really good feature. I felt that I was reading a classic adventure, even perhaps in the vain of the Famous Five books, but with a modern twist. Bringing it right up to date, it incorporates both modern style issues and modern day technology. 


I loved the idea that different elements of the story were told through the blog entries of two characters. This created an interesting and different perspective to the ongoing story, which again, I felt worked really well. 


The children (all established friends) find themselves having to work together once more, when something strange happens whilst camping in the woods. Miles from home, and in fact miles from anywhere, their adventure starts when they stumble on a strange light . . . . . . 


Renny, the techno buff, is a particularly well written character that I feel a lot of young people will relate to. He will encourage young readers to follow this adventure right to the very end. 


This is a really easy book to read - full of action and heart stopping moments, it carries you towards the very explosive end. It's a cool read for young people that can be read as a stand alone book or as part of the series. 


The next book in the series is Killer Star - I am definitely looking forward to reading this.

Cliff McNish - Hunting Ground - Book Review

                             

• Pages - 314
• Publisher - Orion Children's
• Date - 5 May 2011
• Age 13+

When Elliott and his brother, Ben, move into the old and crumbling Glebe House they don't expect to find themselves sharing it with ghosts. But soon sinister events are unfolding. An old diary reveals glimpses of the mansion's past - and of a terrible tragedy. A mysterious woman talks to the dead. And evil lurks in the East Wing - a hideous labyrinth of passageways devised by a truly twisted mind. Can Elliott and his family escape the clutches of Glebe House? Or will they be trapped in the maze of corridors, forever hunted by the dead?

I'm going to count to one hundred, I'm coming after you.........

I'm going to count to one hundred and I'm going to find you....

I'm going to count to one hundred and hunt you down..... 

Let the hunt commence......

In the long distant past, I have read a number of books by this author but unfortunately, I have not really had much to say about them. However, this book, although well written like all the other books really connected with me. The plot is written in the style of an old-fashioned ghost tale. The more you read, the more the author inflicts a dark and chilling sinister world that will leave you chilled to the bone.


The book is delivered in a direct and no nonsense approach. It's very intense - I felt myself being sucked into the vortex of the twisted past of Glebe House and its former owner, Vincent Cullayn. Vincent, is like no other conventional ghost. He is drawn to this world by his desire for the hunt and the final kill of his victims. He feeds off their fear as this enables him to take on a more solid-like appearance. He receives help from a young ghost called Eve, who is particularly scary, as she entices Ben and Elliott into the East Wing - a maze of corridors, scary paintings and a great aura of the past.


I really enjoyed this book. I loved how the author tied up the different elements of the story, and yet continued to lead you further into the twisted realms of the plot. Another aspect that worked really well for me, were the diary extracts, which were revealed in small sharp bursts from the perspective of Theo, who leads you through the mystery of the story. He also brings both the past and the present together.


Perhaps the only small gripe that I have, about the book, is the ending. I felt that this did not fit the complex story as it was too straight forward. Nevertheless, I found the book to be a very enjoyable and captivating read. I would definitely recommend it, especially if you like to be scared to death ..... Beware, you have been warned.

Marcus Sedgwick - The Raven Mysteries (A Frothy Gothic Series)

This is one gothically funny series of books which will have you laughing out loud, or at the very least, making strange 'ark-like' bird noises. 


The story is narrated by Edgar, a Raven, who is the Guardian of Otherhand Castle. A place full of odd ball characters that will have you following in pure amazement. 


These are a great series of books to read to your children. Both young and old will enjoy the crazy antics of Valevine, Minty, Solstice and Cudweed. Each character will have your hair standing on end by the end of each book - they really are that crazy. 


Five books (so far) have been published, with a sixth book due to be published in October 2011. These are great reads to brighten up your day - each book is decked out with superb illustrations by Pete Williamson. A name I wasn't too familiar with but one that I will now certainly be watching out for in the future.


                                    
B.K 1 - Flood and Fang 
Meet the wonderfully weird Otherhand family and their faithful guardian, Edgar the raven, and discover the dark secrets of Castle Otherhand. Edgar is alarmed when he sees a nasty looking black tail slinking under the castle walls. But his warnings to the inhabitants of the castle go unheeded: Lord Valevine Otherhand is too busy trying to invent the unthinkable and discover the unknowable; his wife, Minty, is too absorbed in her latest obsession - baking; and ten-year-old Cudweed is running riot with his infernal pet monkey. Only Solstice, the black-haired, poetry-writing Otherhand daughter, seems to pay any attention. As the lower storeys of the castle begin mysteriously to flood, and kitchen maids continue to go missing, the family come ever closer to the owner of the black tail...


B.K 2 Ghost and Gadgets
Join the wonderfully weird Otherhand family and their faithful guardian, Edgar the raven, and discover the dark secrets of Castle Otherhand. The rumblings and wailings from the Lost South Wing can no longer be ignored, as one by one, members of the castle are being found frozen, 'scared to death'. With mother, Minty, obsessing over her latest fad - sewing - and father, Valevine, busy experimenting with a machine to discover the Lost Otherhand treasure, it's up to aspiring ghost-hunters Solstice and Cudweed to solve the mystery. But as usual, things don't go quite as planned... It's just as well Edgar is there to save the day!


B.k 3 Lunatics and Luck
oin the wonderfully weird Otherhand family and their faithful guardian, Edgar the raven, and discover the dark secrets of Castle Otherhand. Solstice and Cudweed are appalled to find their father has appointed a new school master. But things get even worse when the grumpy, viciously mean teacher actually arrives. The Otherhand children are sure there's something more to him than meets the eye - the trouble is, who will believe them? No one it seems. Except, perhaps, Edgar.


B.K 4 Vampires and Volts
Join the wonderfully weird Otherhand family and their faithful guardian, Edgar the raven, and discover the dark secrets of Castle Otherhand. It's Halloween and the Otherhands are enjoying the Annual Pumpkin Hunt. And there are preparations to be made for the Great Halloween Ball. Minty is all a-fluster. Solstice is busy spraying fake cobwebs everywhere. Valevine is in charge of disorganising everyone's carefully laid plans, and Cudweed seems hungrier than ever and oddly preoccupied with 'fresh brains'. In fact when Silas, Valevine's long lost brother, turns up with Samantha, the Otherhands would be well-advised to check out their guests. It's not long before wily Edgar works out that there's a preponderance of vampires and not all of them have false teeth... 


B.K 5 Magic and Mayhem
Join the wonderfully weird Otherhand family and their faithful guardian, Edgar the raven, and discover the dark secrets of Castle Otherhand. A trip to the circus has far-reaching consequences for the Otherhands when Fellah goes missing. Before long the Castle is plagued by a duck, a suspect fortune teller, and several cartloads of lethal cabbages. The family is preoccupied: Valevine is busy inventing a cabbage-counting machine; Minty is waiting to hear the secrets of the universe; and Solstice has discovered that Cudweed is concealing three hundred and forty-two rabbits in his bedroom. When chaos strikes and thieves infiltrate the Castle, it falls to Edgar to extract his family from a very fluffy predicament.


www.ravenmysteries.co.uk
http://www.marcussedgwick.com
http://www.petewilliamson.co.uk

Book Choice For April 2011 - (Books Published In The U.S)

                            
Martyn Bedford - Flip - Published by Wendy Lamb Books - 5 April 2011

One December night, 14-year-old Alex goes to  bed. He wakes up to  find himself in the wrong bedroom, in an unfamiliar house, in a different part of the country, and it's the middle of June. Six months have disappeared overnight. The family at the breakfast table are total strangers.
And when he looks in the mirror, another boy's face stares back at him.  A boy named Flip. Unless Alex finds out what's happened and how to get back to his own life,  he may be trapped forever inside a body that belongs to someone else. 
Questions of identity, the will to survive, and what you're willing to sacrifice to be alive make this extraordinary book impossible to put down.

                                   

Alison Goodman - Eona Bk2 - Published by Viking - April 29 2011

Eon has been revealed as Eona, the first female Dragoneye in hundreds of years. Along with fellow rebels Ryko and Lady Dela, she is on the run from High Lord Sethon's army. The renegades are on a quest for the black folio, stolen by the drug-riddled Dillon; they must also find Kygo, the young Pearl Emperor, who needs Eona's power and the black folio if he is to wrest back his throne from the selfstyled "Emperor" Sethon. Through it all, Eona must come to terms with her new Dragoneye identity and power - and learn to bear the anguish of the ten dragons whose Dragoneyes were murdered. As they focus their power through her, she becomes a dangerous conduit for their plans. . . .

                               

Tray Drago - The Undertakers:Rise of the Corpses - Published by Source Books - 1 April 2011

On a sunny Wednesday morning in October, a day that would mark the end of one life and the beginning of another, I found out my grouchy next door neighbor was the walking dead. When you turn around expecting to see something familiar, and instead see something else altogether, it takes a little while for your brain to catch up with your eyes. I call it the 'Holy Crap Factor.'"
Forced to flee his home and family, twelve-year-old Will Ritter falls in with the Undertakers-a rag-tag army of teenage resistance fighters who've banded together to battle the Corpses.