Tag: 4 stars

Cici’s Journal: The Adventures of a Writer-In-Training – Joris Chamblain

Illustrations – Aurélie Neyret

I feel like cheating with this review and just telling you to check out the review Lola wrote, which you can find here. Thank you Lola for already articulating so well what I wanted to say. 😊

So, onto my ramble.

I quite liked the stories of Mr Mysterious in Part One and Ms Mysterious in Part Two. The initially unseen depth of their sweet but sad stories were unexpected, although to be completely honest I felt Cici had no business playing Nancy Drew and interfering in their lives in the first place.

I loved Cici’s inquisitive nature but wasn’t a fan of the sneaky way she went about her investigations. I loved that she cares about people and wants to help once she solves their ‘mystery’ and understands what she can do to help (not that she was asked to help in the first place) but I hated that she spends the rest of her time lying to her mother and using her friends.

Because Cici is so Cici-centric all we know about one of her friends until the very end is that they are a whinger. Seriously, would you want to be friends with someone who can only describe you as a complainer, even if they’re right? It’s not that I hated Cici. A lot of the time I found her endearing and sweet but she really irritated me too. Thankfully she does learn lessons along the way about the way she’s treated her friends and mother.

My brain went a little nutty during the first story when all of the kids are lying to their parents and sneaking off to go hang out in the middle of the bush with a strange old man. Granted, he was a lovely but sad old man and I doubt he would slap a mosquito actively draining all of his blood. He could’ve been a creepy old man though. I know it’s just a story but my adult brain is practically hyperventilating (no, I don’t know how that’s physically possible either) at the thought of sending a message that it’s okay to lie to your parents to secretly meet a stranger in a remote location! Nuttiness aside, I adored the old man in the first story. He was an absolute sweetheart.

Naturally I loved that the scene of the second ‘mystery’ was the local library. Woohoo! Cici manages to solve Ms Mysterious’ mystery the first time she checked out the book that Ms Mysterious has been checking out every week for many years (of course). There’s no romantic hiding in the depths of my icy cold heart but I admit I really liked the love story of Ms Mysterious and her beau.

The illustrations were gorgeous and I loved the soft warm colours used throughout the book. The layout was really well done, with layers showing crayons, pencils (with pencil shavings) and pens laying on top of pages in Cici’s journal that made it seem as though the reader is peeking over her shoulder at the page she’s working on. She’s also pasted in relevant bits and pieces, including postcards from her friends, newspaper articles, letters and photos. The creativity of telling the story through graphic novel format interspersed with journal entries and drawings makes this visually a really interesting book.

I wouldn’t mind revisiting this book again in a few months. I wonder even as I’m writing this if I’ve been a bit harsh on Cici’s Cici-centricity. I’m interested to know if I’ll find her more endearing and less irritating next time. I hope so because the stories are quite good. I’d probably give the stories alone 3.5 stars but because I loved the illustrations so much I’m rounding up.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

Cici dreams of being a novelist. Her favourite subject: people, especially adults. She’s been watching them and taking notes. Everybody has one special secret, Cici figures, and if you want to write about people, you need to understand what’s hiding inside them. But now she’s discovered something truly strange: an old man who disappears into the forest every Sunday with huge pots of paint in all sorts of colours. What is he up to? Why does he look so sad when he comes back?

In a graphic novel interwoven with journal notes, scrapbook pieces, and doodles, Cici assembles clues about the odd and wonderful people she’s uncovered, even as she struggles to understand the mundane: her family and friends.

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Grug in the Playground – Ted Prior

By now you should know that Grug books are one of my favourite series that are supposedly for children. It doesn’t matter what Grug gets up to; Mum and I always want to know about it. So, today Grug decided to go shopping and in his travels he came across a playground.

Being a curious animal that began his life as the top of a Burrawong tree, Grug is always keen to explore his surroundings. Naturally, upon discovering the playground Grug investigates. What follows is a cross between a comedy of errors and a whirlwind exploration of all the playground has on offer.

While I love all Grug books I did wish Grug’s best friend Cara was in this one. I adore Cara. I could imagine the expressions on her face as Grug flew through the air between each piece of equipment but wondered if she would have joined in or watched from the sidelines.

This is one of the earliest Grug books so the playground equipment actually looks like some of the slides and swings that made up a pretty significant chunk of my childhood. I got all nostalgic looking at the illustrations of Grug’s playground equipment so my review will now morph into me reminiscing about the good ol’ days.

My favourite thing to navigate at the park was this ugly but incredibly fun chunk of climbing heaven that consisted of four huge wooden frames that supported and held together four tyre bridges that were all connected by chains. There were no steps or easy access so you had to find a way to climb up this monstrosity that was probably built by an awesome bunch of local dads.

Some of the tyres weren’t quite as connected to the chains as they should have been. Half of the fun was knowing which tyres posed the biggest challenges and working out how to get past them without falling several metres to the very hard ground below. I’m fairly sure this type of fun would be banned by the safety police these days but it was brilliant!

Fun Fact: I was trying to think of the way to describe the metal climbing frame elephant that Grug encounters in this book so naturally I asked Google. When I came across a picture that was the closest to what I was looking for and that most resembled what I used to play on as a kid in the local park, the description accompanying the photograph included the word vintage. So apparently I’m now old enough for my childhood to be vintage. That’s fun! Sort of … 😜

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

Playgrounds are full of fun and challenges for Grug! This classic Aussie hero is back from the bush to enchant a new generation of youngsters!

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They Say Blue – Jillian Tamaki

This is one of those books where adult me and child me would have been at opposite ends of the reviewing spectrum. Adult me thinks that this book is simply beautiful. As the main character ponders different colours and imagines herself as a tree weathering the seasons I felt this lovely sense of tranquility.

As she and her mother gaze out her bedroom window and wonder what the crows are thinking when they see them I paused and thought about all of the native birds I feed. I often wonder myself what they’re thinking and whether they’ve named me like I’ve named them. I wonder what my name is in bird world.

I loved Jillian Tamaki’s illustrations that capture the joy of playing in the ocean, the diversity of a school playground and the majesty of birds in flight. The exploration of colour in the illustrations complements the girl’s musings about various colours along the way.

Adult me has read this book three times already but still thinks there’s depth to the story I’m probably missing.

Child me (and I’m not ashamed to admit this) would have liked the pretty and colourful pictures but would have wondered where the story was and asked why the girl turned into a tree. Yes, I was a very literal child and I loved my Roald Dahl books so if a story didn’t come with a defined plot and interesting (hopefully interesting and quirky) characters, I’d be a bit “meh” about the book.

However, it’s adult me reviewing this book so I’m calling it gorgeous.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

Caldecott and Printz Honor-winning illustrator Jillian Tamaki brings us a poetic exploration of colour and nature from a young child’s point of view. They Say Blue follows a young girl as she contemplates colours in the known and the unknown, in the immediate world and the world beyond what she can see. The sea looks blue, yet water cupped in her hands is as clear as glass. Is a blue whale blue? She doesn’t know – she hasn’t seen one.

Stunningly beautiful illustrations flow from one spread to the next, as time passes and the imagination takes hold. The world is full of colour, and mystery too, in this first picture book from a highly acclaimed artist.

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Inky the Octopus – Erin Guendelsberger

Illustrations – David Leonard

Inky the octopus lived at the National Aquarium of New Zealand for two years before his great escape. Museum workers discovered mysterious prints on the floor one morning in 2016 and Inky was no longer hanging out with his tank mate Blotchy. Workers believe that after the lid on Inky’s tank wasn’t secured properly the night before Inky took the opportunity to escape through a drain pipe in the floor that led to the sea. Inky the Octopus is a sweet rhyming children’s book that tells this true story from Inky’s perspective.

When I first saw this book I was cautiously optimistic. I had previously read Rosie the Tarantula: A True Adventure in Chicago’s Field Museum and found it disappointing so I wasn’t sure what to expect from Inky’s story. While I thought that Rosie’s story wouldn’t really be of much interest to anyone that hadn’t bought the book at the museum’s gift shop (sorry, Rosie!), I was delighted to discover that Inky’s story would have a much wider appeal.

Erin Guendelsberger’s rhyming is lovely. It flows well and is fun whether you read it aloud or to yourself. I expect children will enjoy seeing Inky embarking on his adventure and if other adults are like me they’ll enjoy making up new imagined adventures and friends for Inky.

I plunge. I swim. I breathe. I whirl.

I float. I spin. I glide!

I’ll follow my heart wherever it leads.

I’ll travel far and wide!

Whether Inky is peering through a spyglass he’s holding with one of his tentacles, pleading with Blotchy to join him on his great escape or whirling with a blissful look on his face once he’s in the open sea, all of David Leonard’s illustrations bring Inky’s character to life. The expressions of joy, astonishment and horror of the various residents of the Aquarium as Inky sneaks past on his way to freedom are fantastic as well. I adore the great use of colour throughout the book.

There are even some wonderful bits and pieces to enjoy once you’ve finished reading the story. Immediately following Inky’s imagined story you’ll find information about Inky’s life, including a classic quote from the Aquarium’s manager who laments that Inky “didn’t even leave us a message” and a photo of Inky. You’ll also read about some Other Odd Octopuses and learn some very cool facts on the Are You Squidding Me?! pages. You can find out more about Inky’s story here.

Long story short, this is an interesting, informative and fun picture book that I expect you’ll want to read more than once.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

Out of this tank, I must be free.
I must explore the open sea!

Inky the octopus is bored with aquarium life and wants to escape to the ocean! But just how can an octopus in a tank get to the open seas? Find out in Inky the Octopus, the only tale of the mischievous octopus to be officially endorsed by the National Aquarium of New Zealand.

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My Favourite Animal: Dogs – Victoria Marcos

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.

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The Atrocities – Jeremy Shipp

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.

Or is there … ?

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Friday the 13th, Camp Crystal Lake #1: Mother’s Day – Eric Morse

No one comes out here. Ever.

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.

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Boy in the Shed – Tammy Kraynik

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. 

“No I live here.” 

“You live here?”

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Knock Knock Pirate – Caryl Hart

Illustrations – Nick East

☠️ Ahoy, me mateys! ☠️

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?!

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Unicorn Food: Natural Recipes for Edible Rainbows – Sandra Mahut

🦄 Happy Unicorn Day! 🦄

Despite its promising title, Unicorn Food is not a book of recipes to help you feed your unicorn a nutritionally balanced diet, nor does it contain recipes that include unicorns as an ingredient. It’s okay! You don’t need to retrieve your pitchfork! There’s not a single unicorn listed in the ingredients of this book! 😜

Crogue-Unicorn

Instead you will get to marvel at some of the most beautiful food you’ve ever seen. Using natural food colourings like juices, spices or natural powdered food colourings that you can purchase from specialty cake decorating stores or our good friend, the Internet, you won’t find preservatives in any of the sweet or savoury delights in this book.

Blueberry Galaxy Cupcakes

You’ll find such yummies as unicorn poop (pretty little rainbow meringues), unicorn maki rolls, unicorn noodle bowls with the most extraordinary purple and blue noodles, crogue-unicorn (toasted cheese sandwiches with 4 colours in the cheese), and blueberry galaxy cupcakes.

I already thought donuts were out of this world but there’s even a recipe for cosmic donuts, which include edible silver glitter and bright blue icing!

I’m fairly certain that I’ll be indulging in swirly pastel unicorn cheesecake in the near future. I can also guarantee that I will never attempt the unicorn cake with a starring role on the cover of this book. I can only imagine the epic fail that would be the result of me attempting to replicate this one. However if someone would like to volunteer to make one for me I won’t object.

Unicorn Maki Rolls

The photography in this book is sufficiently droolworthy and if you’re my kind of chef it will show you the hilarious difference between what the food was supposed to look like and what your talent for disaster has actually whipped up. I expect the recipes in this book will wind up featuring at many parties in the near future.

Thank you very much to NetGalley and Quarto Publishing Group – Quarry for the opportunity to be one of the first to drool over this book.

Rating: 4 out of 5.

Once Upon a Blurb

This is not a book on how to feed your pet unicorn a healthy diet. But unicorns have magically inspired each of the 32 all-natural recipes in this book, from the show-stopping Unicorn Cake and Cosmic Donuts to Rainbow Veggie Sandwiches and Celestial Swirl Soup.

Add technicolor sparkle to your sushi and fairytale magic to your mocktails. It’s all deliciously natural – no nasty additives or preservatives – just beautiful food colorings made from berry juices and vegetables. All ingredients are straightforward and easily sourced! Astound and delight your family, friends, followers, and kids with these and more spectacular dishes:

  • Croque-Unicorn, a grilled sandwich of rainbow cheese
  • Veggie Noodle Bowl of colored noodles and a rainbow of star-shaped vegetables
  • Rainbow Pancakes topped with melted white chocolate and sprinkles
  • Unicorn Macarons sporting fondant horns
  • Unicorn Milkshakes with twisted marshmallow arches.

Brightly colored, not too serious, and equal parts whimsical and practical, Unicorn Food is shared experience. Create the most unbelievably Instagrammable dishes ever seen. Cook, post, and enjoy – the treats and the likes. Everyone will be drooling over your pastel masterpieces. 

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