With plenty of photos and several questions to test comprehension along the way My Favourite Animal: Dogs is a non-fiction book marketed towards 4 to 8 year olds. Readers will learn some interesting facts about dogs including which are the smallest and largest breeds (measurements are in feet, inches and pounds), how they communicate and how exceptional some of their senses are.
Whether you’re reading this book to a child or whether they’re going it alone they may need a little help with some of the words used. There is a glossary at the end which should help explain more difficult words such as vocalisation or threatened.
Did you know that dogs “can hear sounds from four times as far away” as people can? I knew their hearing was better than ours but didn’t realise it was that much better. This is now my favourite dog fact. My family used to joke that our dog knew when our car was several suburbs away because she’d always get up (even if she’d been snoring seconds earlier) and look through the living room blinds at the road five minutes before the car would drive up the road.
The font is suitable for young readers, with nothing swirly to add unnecessary confusion about what each letter is. There are large areas of empty space around most of the text which gave me the impression the layout may not have been finalised. I would have personally been inclined to use a larger font and/or made adjustments to the spacing to address this. Although to be fair I should acknowledge that I used to be responsible for the layout of a community newspaper so I may be looking at this from my editor’s point of view.
Stock photos are used throughout this book and feature a range of breeds. I adored the brown pup with the floppy ears and head wrinkles who’s intrigued by some daisies. I feel bad (sort of) for laughing at the dog being groomed. They seemed to be trying to get the message across to their human with very intense eyes that they never agreed to anyone putting a pink elastic band in their fur.
When I checked out Victoria Marcos’ Goodreads page I discovered that she has written plenty of other My Favourite Animal books, from sharks to groundhogs. This is the sort of book I would have borrowed from my local library to use as a reference for school projects but I don’t think it would have been part of my personal library.
Thank you to NetGalley and Xist Publishing for the opportunity to read this book.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4 out of 5.
Once Upon a Blurb
Learn all about dogs in this informational picture book. Kids ages 4-8 will enjoy learning about dogs through beautiful photos, engaging text and fun questions to test comprehension throughout the book.
I wanted to love this book and feel like I should’ve, with the main character a young girl with an imagination bigger than she is. She annoyed me so much though! I liked her imaginary monsters but I’m siding with her older siblings here.
RASCAL IS DRIVING ME CRAZY!
I did like the illustrations, especially of the monsters. The product placement of the Nuggyo’s and Gobble Crackers were clever as they showed where the kids got the names for evil Mrs Gobble Gracker and Mr Nuggy, Rascal’s fairy godmother.
Perhaps it would’ve helped if I wasn’t an only child but the desperate need for Rascal to hang out with her older siblings bugged me. She’s got so much of an imagination she doesn’t even need anyone else in the room to entertain herself. I got the feeling she did most of her irritating behaviour simply because she knew it would drive everyone nuts.
Also, if I had a six year old daughter I would be asking some pretty big questions if she pretended to be a dog in a doctor’s office then proceeded to stab the nice doctor with a lollypop stick and who chucks tantrums like Rascal does. Maybe things are different these days but I knew how to behave well before I was six.
May I put this kid in time out until she wakes up to herself please? I guess this book is just another example of why I should never become a parent.
⭐⭐
Rating: 2 out of 5.
Once Upon a Blurb
As the youngest in her family, Dory really wants attention, and more than anything she wants her brother and sister to play with her. But she’s too much of a baby for them, so she’s left to her own devices – including her wild imagination and untiring energy. Her siblings may roll their eyes at her childish games, but Dory has lots of things to do: outsmarting the monsters all over the house, escaping from prison (A.K.A. time-out), and exacting revenge on her sister’s favorite doll. And when they really need her, daring Dory will prove her bravery, and finally get exactly what she has been looking for.
With plenty of pictures bursting with charm and character, this hilarious book about an irresistible rascal is the new must-read for the chapter book set.
I expect this review is going to show you why it is imperative to write your review, or at the very least some notes about how the book makes you feel, within a day of finishing the book. That way you’re not stuck trying to find the words to tell anyone who will listen what an incredible book it was that you finished reading almost seven weeks ago! So here goes …
I found The Year of Lightning sort of by accident. I was so interested in the blurb for Ryan Dalton’s The Genesis Flame that I couldn’t request a copy through NetGalley quickly enough. It was only once I was approved (YIPPEE!) that I realised I’d just been given a review copy of the third book in the series (OOPS!). Once I’d read the blurbs for the first two books I decided that I’d be missing out greatly if I didn’t read these in order, so I bought The Year of Lightning. I mean, we’re talking about a time travelling super villain here! What’s not to love?!
I had this brilliant idea that I’d read the first book and then contact the publisher to beg/plead/grovel for a review copy of the second book. Begging/pleading/grovelling are not beneath me and as I hadn’t had an income for over three months at that time I could make a pretty pathetic poor me case. Why do I tell you that? Because I was so enthralled by this book that before I’d even made it a quarter of the way through it I bought the sequel, ignoring the fact that I didn’t know how many more months I’d have to wait to see another dollar. That’s how much I loved this book!
Even this long after I finished reading, the story and characters have stayed with me. I loved the mystery of the house across the street that has no doors and may have some strange connection to the over abundance of lightning nearby.
Outside, a dark figure drifted down the street, cloaked in shadow. Approaching the house with no doors, it touched the rain-soaked wall and melted through in a flash of light.
How can you read that quote and not want to read the entire book?!
I loved the relationship between fifteen year old twins, history geek Malcolm and science geek Valentine, and the gentle exploration of their grief, particularly how it’s affecting them personally and in their relationships. I love that when describing herself and her twin Valentine comes up with “Loner, bookworm, geek”. These are my people!
I loved their new friends – conspiracy aficionado Winter, supposedly superficial Fred (the party’s at his house!), bubbly Brynne, holder of the gossip Carly and John, man of mystery. I love that we don’t have to suffer in the presence of the cool kids in this book. In this book we hang out with the newspaper team!
I loved that the kids go to Emmett Brown High School! The Back to the Future obsessive in me adores that cute time travel Easter egg. Maybe I was looking for BTTF references that weren’t intended after learning the name of the school but I also came across references including a clocktower and Copernicus, plus the obvious one – countless bolts of lightning with their glorious 1.21 gigawatts striking all around the town.
My favourite characters were the oldies. Oma Grace is practically your dream grandmother; supportive, adorable and beyond cool. I loved their crotchety neighbour, Walter Crane. Walter became (and remains) my absolute favourite character.
I enjoyed the adventure and mystery, I felt part of the friendships, I laughed and I ugly cried. Glancing through my highlighted passages I’ve gotten hyped up about these characters and their adventure again. I can’t believe I haven’t started the second book yet. I have to know what happens next because … holy cliffhanger, Batman!
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 5 out of 5.
Once Upon a Blurb
When 15-year-old twins Malcolm and Valentine Gilbert moved to a new town, they never imagined that the old house across the street could bring them so much trouble. A secret machine has reawakened inside, with the power to pierce time itself.
Meanwhile, lightning storms are breaking out all over town. They’re getting worse every week, and seem to enjoy striking kids who just want to pass science class and mind their own business. When Malcolm and Valentine discover a connection between the house and the storms, their situation goes from mysterious to crazy stupid dangerous. Someone is controlling the great machine, and their purpose is nearly complete.
In a race against time, the twins must uncover the chilling plan, the mastermind behind it, and the force that’s driving the deadly storms. They’ll hunt a powerful enemy that threatens their town’s existence, and the only clues are written in the sky.
Rory Branagan was three when his father left. He’s now ten and no one tells him anything. Rory lives with his mother, older brother Seamus who kind of looks like a banana with stick figure arms and legs, and Auntie Jo who isn’t really an Auntie.
Rory’s best friend is Wilkens Welkin, a sausage dog owned by elderly neighbour/babysitter Mrs Welkin. Rory is also friends with Corner Boy who stands on a corner, spear in hand, ready to hit you with it if you go near him without asking first. Corner Boy’s father seems to make a living by selling unpackaged goods that may have fallen off the back of a truck.
Cassidy Corrigan-or-Callaghan (depending on which of the two surnames she uses to introduce herself you believe) and her parents have just moved in next door. Their house was previously empty for three years and this empty home used to be the biggest mystery on Rory’s street. After spotting Rory spying on her parents Cassidy and Rory strike up a conversation and then hang out for most of the rest of the book.
I get the feeling Cassidy is supposed to be strong, smart and mysterious but she annoyed me a lot. She’s a brash know-it-all who seems to do as she pleases, including rummaging through Rory’s mother’s bedroom looking for evidence just minutes after meeting Rory.
What begins as Rory and Cassidy deciding to solve the mystery of Rory’s MIA father turns into their first case as detective and accomplice when it appears that Corner Boy’s father may have been poisoned.
This new series (the first of seven books) is marketed as comedy-crime, but I didn’t find this first book funny. With a lot of series already established that are pretty much half story and half illustration there needs to be something special to make another new series a must-read for me. The illustrations weren’t the type I’d usually pick up a book for. However I was partial to the sharks and the “huge puffer fish that has hair like Donald Trump”.
I didn’t really connect with any of the characters and none of them had that personality spark that makes me want to read the next book immediately. The mystery got solved too easily and while we’re given a hint about Rory’s father at the end of the book, I get the feeling that this mystery is going to get dragged out to the end of the series. I might give the second book a try to see if it gets into a groove but this one felt like it was trying too hard.
⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 3 out of 5.
Once Upon a Blurb
Meet RORY BRANAGAN – he eats bad guys for breakfast. Well, not ACTUALLY. But he IS the best detective in town. First in a hilarious seven-book, comedy-crime series for readers of 8+
Hello. I am Rory Branagan. I am actually a detective.
People always say, ‘How do you become a detective?’
And I say, ‘Ahhhh … you don’t just FIND YOURSELF suddenly sneaking up on baddies, or diving out of the way as they shoot, or hurtling from an open plane towards the ground! You have to want it.’
And what made ME want it? I needed to find out what happened to my dad …
If you are not convinced of the absolute necessity of hiring a stellar editor and proofreader for your manuscript prior to unleashing your book baby into the world, I’d encourage you to read The Evil Trance. I don’t know if it was poorly translated into English or if it was written in English by someone who predominantly speaks a language other than English, but in its current form it should not have made it to publication yet.
Missing words, incorrect use of words, the correct word but incorrect spelling and sentences that only make sense once you figure out the intended meaning make up a considerable percentage of this novella. I usually don’t mention these pet peeves in my reviews because I’m often reading advance copies that will likely have most of the typos cleaned up prior to publication. However, this book was released in July 2017 so the pre-publication editing ship has sailed.
The book had potential, in a Koji Suzuki Ring series rip off sort of way where the videotape is a DVD and USB, where the well doesn’t exist but a graveyard does, and where Well Girl is actually a succubus (Yakshini) hanging out in an ‘adult’ film. Watch this porno and your fate could be explained like this:
“Apparently he masturbated himself to death.”
I wanted to really enjoy this quick read, which turned out to be painfully slow for me. While it’s listed as horror I found it really funny for the first half as I was getting used to the way the sentences were worded. I then felt guilty for finding it funny before comparing it to what would be the inevitable result of me learning a second language and then trying to write a book in, say, Japanese. I expect my sentences would be pretty hilarious as well. The second half of the book dragged on for so long as the novelty wore off and I thought about what I could have been reading instead.
The Inspector in this book is quite happy to threaten to arrest people based on, um, the law?
“Delete it or I will have to arrest you for violating my private space.”
“I could arrest you for demeaning a couple’s privacy.”
Favourite Euphemisms and Sexy Chats
his vital organ was being abused
“He asked me to take time and let him know if I needed any help, in case I needed to get off with a woman, sometimes.”
“My sensuality wished I could do her too.”
“Maybe with a few drinks, and if I had a woman like this the day would come to a blasting end, but before that, a little self-foreplay won’t do any harm.”
Sort of Almost Close to Being Correct
Mitra was in the middle of folding his shirt’s handcuffs
he was about to knock the door.
Inspector Feroz and Shukla exchanged their confusion at what the doctors were up to, it was Italian to their profession.
It did smoothen him.
Wiping the tears, he said, “Why are you crying?” She smiled through her tears. “These are not tears, dumbo!”
“I am making tea just so you kick in your brain again”
It pulled her strings of heart.
There are the times where jokes are made by people who are trying to get across that they are not gay. With a renowned psychiatrist, his assistant, a private detective and Inspector as characters I would’ve expected things to be more politically correct. However the women in the book call themselves stupid more than I’d like and who seem to be there mostly to cook for the hungry men, be available for sex and astral walk (okay, that one’s pretty cool). Women are also put in their place:
“You could have had better jobs, modelling or being a film actress. Or you could have been a rich man’s wife!”
This book needs to make its way into the hands of a publishing team who can make it more readable for an English as a first language audience, make the transitions between scenes less jumpy and give the characters more depth.
“There are so many things going on my mind right now”
like why they didn’t just call Ghostbusters to deal with everything.
Thank you to NetGalley and BooksGoSocial for the opportunity to read this book.
Once Upon a Blurb
A seemingly innocuous adult film grabs the attention of a young lad. But the store owner, who also finds himself drawn to it, pays the price for it, with his life.
Enter Dr Mitra, a man of science. He finds his very basic grounding in science threatened, as uncanny events around him propel him to question what he has learned and held onto so far.
Gopi, his junior, and Shukla, a private detective, hop onto the scene even as Feroz, an inspector, is busy chasing the many suspicious events from the purview of the law. Murky waters must be charted to understand the myriad ramifications of what they have stumbled upon.
And this is no mean adventure. It is, but an Evil Trance.
How can a novella with such a brilliant concept and deliciously creepy execution wind up with such a blah ending?! I feel like I was taken on a trek up a treacherous mountain with the promise of an incredible view at the summit only to find out that someone built a wall blocking the view.
I was hooked from the first two sentences:
Turn left at the screaming woman with a collapsing face. Turn right at the kneeling man with bleeding sore the size of teacups.
What a wonderful hedge maze! What an amazing house, with its artwork of silent screams, wings of human fingers, headless figures on stained-glass windows, faces distorted and malformed.
What an intriguing story! A governess who is hired to teach a young girl who “isn’t coping well with this new phase of her existence.” A governess who comes with her own baggage.
I came to this house to escape empty rooms.
A generous employer who ensures their employees’ comfort with luxuries including eighty-four-inch high definition televisions in their rooms. Parents who catered to their daughter’s every whim.
There was such a foreboding atmosphere permeating this novella. There’s something not quite right with the characters and with the information the governess is given. There’s a sort of queasy uncertainty throughout the story, where the line between what’s real and what isn’t blurs for the governess and the reader alike, exacerbated by the unsettling dream sequences.
I was captivated by this story until the very end when I realised that not one of my bazillion outstanding questions were going to be answered for me. I know there are authors that don’t like to spoon feed their readers, preferring them to actually use their brain and imagination to reach their own conclusions, and I’m okay with that up to a point. This didn’t feel like that sort of ending. This felt like there was a strict deadline and about ten minutes before the deadline, realising that there was no way all of the questions could possibly be answered satisfactorily, the author just said, “Yeah, that’ll do.”
I wanted to learn more of the backstories for each character. I wanted more emotion when outrageously weird things happened rather than a ho-hum response. I wanted to know minor, possibly insignificant things like why Mr and Mrs Evers shouldn’t be phoned after 7pm. I wanted to know the details of the ‘accident’. I wanted to know what it was that Mrs Evers was really experiencing throughout the story. I wanted to know the significance of some of the details of the dreams. I want to know which characters are currently alive. I wanted to know what happened after the final sentence! And so much more.
I can’t remember the last book that had me so psyched and then stole the hope of a satisfying resolution from me. Based on the ending alone I’d be giving this novella 2 stars because I was so disappointed. Based on everything that lead up to it I’d be inclined to give it 5 stars but that was when I thought the questions I had would wind up with weird and wonderful answers. So I’m splitting the difference and rounding up to 4 stars with the hope that at some point the author will do a Q&A session to fill in some blanks. I came really close to giving it 3 stars but I loved too much of the story to able to go through with it.
I also have to say that the creepy hedge maze and that amazing house were so extraordinary that I need to move in immediately (after evicting the current tenants, of course). I would also buy and read an extended version of this story if it ever became available and I am keen to read about more of the weird and wonderful things living in this author’s imagination.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4 out of 5.
Once Upon a Blurb
When Isabella died, her parents were determined to ensure her education wouldn’t suffer.
But Isabella’s parents had not informed her new governess of Isabella’s … condition, and when Ms Valdez arrives at the estate, having forced herself through a surreal nightmare maze of twisted human-like statues, she discovers that there is no girl to tutor.
So, here we are again at Camp Crystal Lake for another fun game of Who’s Going to Survive This Massacre? The first of five Friday the 13th young adult novels, we appear to begin our killing spree somewhere after Jason Goes to Hell in the Voorhees-verse timeline, with our mate Jason safely tucked away in Hell, a great place for slasher movie villains to hang out, have a barbecue and plan their next outing.
After all, there was safety in numbers.
Our victims contestants in this Mother’s Day special are:
Carly – good girl, tragic background, overprotective mother, token virgin.
Suzanne – friend of Carly, hippie tie dye meditative type, one half of Kyleandsuzanne (one word).
Kyle – drives a dented Volkswagon van, hippie tie dye meditative type, other half of Kyleandsuzanne (one word).
Billy Boone – known for wild parties and drinking, older brother of Kelly, bad boy with a motorbike.
Kelly Boone – captain of the varsity basketball team, Carly’s friend since she joined the team, younger sister of token bad boy.
Monique – transfer student from Paris, has a talent for making guys drool, token tease / is she or isn’t she going to sleep with every guy she meets?
Paul Sexton – winner of the Most Appropriate Surname award, brings a different girl back to the dorm at Brown each night, tanned, athletic, no one could ever love him as much as he loves himself. The girls love him almost as much though, as evidenced by the following quote:
He was so handsome, it was hard to look at him directly. It was as if he were this bright light and you had to shield your eyes.
Albert – loveable nerd who appears to live his life in the friend zone, Paul’s unfortunate roommate who’s designated to the couch whenever Paul is entertaining the ladies (so always), token fat kid who is bullied for his weight (I seriously have no idea why this kid is at this weekend away when he could have been enjoying some quality alone time while he packed his stuff and changed dorm rooms).
Our contestants are so white they may glow in the dark (well, except maybe Paul who probably does glow in the dark, but from his tan instead) and they’re all hormone laden heterosexuals. So where’s the diversity? My thoughts are that everyone from the LGBTQIA community and those who don’t glow in the dark, along with every other human who doesn’t fit our stereotypical cast, were all too smart to apply to be contestants in this blood bath.
“The only time you’re safe – really safe – is when you’re dead.”
So who has a chance of surviving?
Carly – As the token virgin she should be a shoo-in, except she did drink some beer which lowers her chances significantly.
Suzanne – As one half of Kyleandsuzanne (one word) she has sex with Kyle so she’s a goner.
Kyle – As the other half of Kyleandsuzanne (one word) he has sex with Suzanne so he’s also toast.
Billy Boone – Bad Boy. Enough said. Start digging his grave now.
Kelly Boone – She’s at home sick so doesn’t venture anywhere near Camp Crystal Lake … until the second book which I haven’t read yet. As she appears to play the lead in the second book I guess we’ll assume she will survive this one.
Monique – Considering how much of a tease she is, how much she whinges and how readily the guys fall into a drooling mess at her feet, we can be fairly confident she won’t make it. However, as she’s of the ‘is she or isn’t she going to sleep with every guy she meets’ variety, there is the question of whether she’ll be having sex or not when she meets her maker.
Paul Sexton – Sorry, buddy. You’ve had too much sex and love yourself too much to have a hope of surviving this game.
Albert – If anyone other than the main character is going to survive, my bet’s on nerdy, loveable, overweight, friend zoned Albert. He’s adorable. The only thing standing in his way of survival is his ability to whinge.
“Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean there isn’t an enemy hiding behind every tree.”
Unfortunately Jason doesn’t even get a cameo in this book but his hockey mask and its supposed power (which comes from who knows where) plays a starring role, complete with thick white worms crawling out of the eyeholes when we first see it. Our psycho killer is a hunter who makes the poor decision to hunt when it’s not hunting season (hasn’t he ever seen Bugs Bunny?) and ends up finding a soggy cardboard box that contains the head of Mrs Voorhees, who proceeds to direct him and he does as he’s told. Would you dare say “no” to Mrs Voorhees’ animated head, especially when Friday the 13th is two days before Mother’s Day?
This turned out to be one of those guilty pleasure books for me. As a young adult book from the 90’s there was kissing (but not enough to be nauseating), sex (but off the page) and violence (but not drawn out and graphic like a Saw movie). It reminded me of maybe a step up from a young adult trashy romance novel combined with what I remember of the Point Horror books I used to devour (and probably should reread as I bought a whole pile of them while doing some nostalgic op shopping a few years ago).
They had done nothing wrong, nothing to deserve this brutal horror.
That is, except for applying to be a contestant in a slasher novel. I did have a few disappointing moments while reading in addition to Jason’s no show.
It failed Horror 101 by having a character say, “Be right back” and then returning alive.
After the initial slaughter I had to wait around 100 pages for more bloodshed.
I can’t imagine Jason ever wanting to use a gun to kill people but our hunter does.
My biggest disappointment was a scene that could have easily been mistaken for having taken place in Psycho-world rather than the Voorhees-verse. I’m not specifically calling it plagiarism but if you’ve got a grown man talking to the corpse of his mother it can’t bring to mind anything other than the Bates family.
This book was never going to be a literary masterpiece but it was a lot of fun and I look forward to reading the rest of the young adult series. When I started reading I thought I’d aim to read the second book on the next Friday the 13th but because of the guilty pleasure I felt with this short, kinda trashy read (I mean that with no disrespect), I want to keep reading.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4 out of 5.
Once Upon a Blurb
With Mother’s Day just around the corner, Billy Boone and his friends set out on a camping expedition to Crystal Lake, unaware that Jason’s mother continues her quest for revenge and that a hunter is stalking the teenagers at the camp.
This book! I finished reading this itty bitty book about two weeks ago and I still don’t really know what to say about it. It’s not that I didn’t feel anything. I felt eight soggy tissues worth of anguish and heartache. I felt so mad, wanting to scream at Raylene until she finally did what I told her to. I felt this righteous anger bubbling up inside me as an entire community failed this young boy and his father.
I felt inspired, wanting to reach out to child protection workers everywhere, urging them to make this book required reading. I felt drained, knowing that all too often voices that need to be heard are silenced. I felt like I needed to read a book about sunshine and daisies and unicorns dancing through rainbows after finishing this one because I needed to remember that the world doesn’t just suck.
This is one of those books where you know almost immediately that you’re walking straight into a crime scene. The title gives you a hint – Boy In The Shed. In case you have any illusions that this is a lovely story of a boy who loves to play in a shed, stop right there. This boy lives in the shed. This boy is beaten brutally for merely existing. This boy has no formal education. This boy has not heard his name for so long that he can no longer remember what it is.
This is not the kind of book that you can finish and say you enjoyed it. It’s the type of book that will haunt you and get under your skin, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing because we should be affected by child abuse. If you have children I hope this book brings home how vital it is to have tough conversations with them, about what they can do and who they can tell if they or a friend of theirs is being abused. It sounds so clichéd saying that evil triumphs when good people do nothing but this is what abusers rely on from you in order to continue getting away with it – silence, looking the other way, pretending you don’t know what’s really going on.
Thankfully this book is also about a beautiful friendship between this boy and 14 year old Raylene. There’s this sweet innocence between the two, which in a way makes the brutality of the boy’s circumstances seem so much more horrific. Raylene brings him much needed food and provisions. She teaches him how to read. She offers him kindness, love and friendship when all he’s ever known is pain. They become family to one another.
The writing style feels young and comes across as though a young teen is writing about her experience. I did feel as though the children in this book acted younger than 14 but that may boil down to their shared innocence.
If you read Boy In The Shed, remember to have a box of tissues nearby and a stash of comfort food. Whatever you do, don’t try to quiet cry in the middle of the night while everyone else is asleep because your body will want to sob and denying it that is how migraines start. I should know. I wound up with a doozy. 😃
This book was recommended to me by Elyse (thanks, Elyse! 💕) and while I don’t imagine that I could endure the heartbreak of a second read through, I am glad I read it. Looking through the blur of tears I also discovered a beautiful friendship and that’s what I want to take away from this experience.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4 out of 5.
Once Upon a Blurb
I hide behind a few trees and make my way to the shed. As I kneel behind it to make sure there is no one in the house, I hear a faint “Hello.” The voice knocks me to the ground and I nearly scream from fright. I steady myself on my knees and look through a hole in the shed. There I see a young boy who must be around my age. He is crouching in the corner of the shed under a dirty blanket. He looks as if he has never taken a bath in his life or had a proper hair cut – his hair hangs in his eyes. I wonder how he can see out of it. The shed is dirty inside with lots of cobwebs everywhere. I can also see mouse droppings everywhere, along with piled-up junk.
“Hi,” he says again.
“Hi, what are you doing in there? Are you lost?” I ask.
I discovered Knock Knock Pirate after devouring Caryl Hart’s The Invincibles series. My local library had this one as well and of course I was going to request a copy because, well, pirates!
What an imaginative counting book! With great rhymes and plenty of pirates to count, our young main character (whose name is not Jim) is Home Alone when a posse of pirates take control of her house and sail it down the street and across the seven seas in search of treasure. I’m extremely impressed by the buoyancy of this home! Along the way the house-ship and its quirky sailors encounter some awesome marine life including a giant whale, giant squid and a group of sharks that look mighty hungry!
Nick East’s illustrations are funny and detailed. They compliment the rhymes so well and there’s just so much to see. I really liked the three granny pirates who arrive in style – wearing shawls while perched on top of cannonballs that crash through the roof.
From the other items visible in her treasure chest of costumes it’s clear this isn’t the first adventure this young girl has taken!
⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 4 out of 5.
Once Upon a Blurb
A visit from a pirate might sound like fun … but when the Captain’s whole crew turn up too – causing mayhem and chaos – it’s time for this little girl to panic. What is Dad going to say when he gets home?!
I live my life in the small place between “uncomfortable” and “awkward.”
I don’t know how to even begin to explain how I feel about Starfish so I’ll start with something easy. That cover!!! Sarah Creech has created one of the most beautiful covers I’ve ever seen! This artist must be an author’s dream come true. The colours, the layout, the design, the awesomeness of it all combined!
I need this cover image available as a print so I can frame it and admire it every day. I also need Sarah commissioned to create artwork of all of the paintings and drawings described in the book because I really, really need a special limited edition illustrated version of Starfish signed by the author and illustrator in my life. Me, me, me, me, me! Argh! I’m a starfish! Moving on …
I don’t know that I’ve ever experienced such a deep bookish connection with a main character before. I felt my name could have been transposed with Kiko’s so many times and yet there were parts of her story that I’ll never understand.
Kiko’s experience of social anxiety is the most honest and realistic portrayal I have ever come across. I would have been right with her attempting to melt into the wall at a party if I’d had the courage to go in the first place. I was impressed by her ability to push through her fear to be in the vicinity of more than one other person at a time sometimes, even though her successes in that area seemed to be fuelled mostly by her need for approval.
People terrify me. I’d probably spend the whole night wishing I had the superpower to make myself invisible. I don’t know how to be any other way.
Her constant feeling of being out of place, weird and different to everyone else hit home for me, as did her pathological need to be ‘enough’ for a person whose expectations are both unrealistic and impossible to meet. I loved her introspection and keen insights into the actions of those around her and her own feelings and behaviour.
I loved that Kiko has a Japanese father and caucasian mother. I desperately wanted her to learn more about her Japanese heritage. I wished that I had siblings but didn’t envy their relationship. I wanted to be friends with Kiko and Emery. I loved Jamie so much that even though I’m anti-romance I wanted Kiko and Jamie to become a couple.
I’ve always felt like I desperately needed to say my feelings out loud – to form the words and get them out of me, because they’ve always felt like dark clouds in my head that contaminate everything around them.
The long term effects of childhood sexual abuse were handled sensitively. The lingering self doubt, guilt and shame were realistic, as were the character’s experiences and internal dialogue as a result of way this trauma was handled by the people they should have been able to trust to protect them.
The physical abandonment by one parent and the emotional abandonment by the other had me getting pretty imaginative with the voodoo doll depiction in my head of Kiko’s mother. Kiko’s fear of abandonment, rejection and of never being enough were all logical but heartbreaking responses to really dysfunctional family dynamics.
I draw a dragon breaking free from its grave and finally seeing what its wings and fire are for.
Kiko finds her voice through her art and the more she explored her feelings through painting and drawing the more I wished I had the ability to translate images in my head to paper and canvas in that way. I’m one of those people who can sort of draw a fairly decent stick figure sometimes as long as they’re just standing there. I loved the use of art as therapy although I did think that the ending was a bit too easy.
I know there were struggles, anguish and angst along the way but Kiko must be made of stronger stuff than I am. If Kiko’s story was my story I am pretty certain there’d be an epilogue that mentioned how well my therapy was going. There was a point in the book where I had to stop reading for a while because some of the responses Kiko experienced were hitting a bit too close to home. If I had to nitpick I’d point out that while Kiko became all about being her own person and making her life her own, she’s not the one who submits the application that gets her on the life path of her dreams.
I felt for sure that Kiko would remain my favourite character but then I met Hiroshi. My candidate for both Father of the Year and Best Mentor Ever, Hiroshi is wise, sensitive, accepting, vulnerable, loving and adorable! I wanted to hug him, take art classes from him and simply sit and listen to him talk about his life and the world for the rest of my life. Hiroshi is one of those people that you meet and hope they’ll adopt you into their family. Everything about him reminded me that family is not defined by blood.
“I want you to tell me a story. Tell me anger. Tell me sorrow. Tell me happiness. Just tell me something that matters to you.”
Akemi Dawn Bowman’s writing is so beautiful and the translation of Kiko’s feelings to artwork was poetic and stunning. I felt a deep connection with so many characters and didn’t want to finish reading because I wanted to continue to hang out with Kiko and Hiroshi. I saw people in my own life in some of the characters I didn’t connect with and gained some insights into their toxicity, which became some of my favourite lightbulb moments in the book. My favourite passage was the story of the sun goddess, Amaterasu.
Thank you so much to NetGalley and Ink Road, an imprint of Black & White Publishing, for the opportunity to read this incredible debut novel. I cannot wait for this author’s next book to be released.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 5 out of 5.
Once Upon a Blurb
A half-Japanese teen grapples with social anxiety and her narcissist mother in the wake of a crushing rejection from art school in this debut novel.
Kiko Himura has always had a hard time saying exactly what she’s thinking. With a mother who makes her feel unremarkable and a half-Japanese heritage she doesn’t quite understand, Kiko prefers to keep her head down, certain that once she makes it into her dream art school, Prism, her real life will begin.
But then Kiko doesn’t get into Prism, at the same time her abusive uncle moves back in with her family. So when she receives an invitation from her childhood friend to leave her small town and tour art schools on the west coast, Kiko jumps at the opportunity in spite of the anxieties and fears that attempt to hold her back. And now that she is finally free to be her own person outside the constricting walls of her home life, Kiko learns life-changing truths about herself, her past, and how to be brave.
From debut author Akemi Dawn Bowman comes a luminous, heartbreaking story of identity, family, and the beauty that emerges when we embrace our true selves.
Schizanthus Nerd 