Books

A Christmas in Time

Fun-filled, action-packed adventures in time from best-selling, award-winning author, Sally Nicholls.

When Alex and Ruby fall through the mirror in their aunt’s house, they find themselves in a different historical period, each time with a different task to perform before they can return to the present. From Edwardian crime capers to Victorian Christmasses, their time-slip stories are always exciting and beautifully told. 

This is book two in the series, however the stories can be read in any order.

Who Makes a Forest?

Who makes a forest? A wizard, a giant, an emperor? Come on a walk with Grandpa to discover how a forest is made, and see how a thousand tiny things can come together to change the face of the earth…

In a gentle and elegant story matched by simple, evocative illustrations Who Makes a Forest? helps children explore the multi-faceted ecosystem that sustains the many forests that cover so much of the earth’s surface.

A Julia Eccleshare Pick of the Month October 2020

The Silent Stars Go By

Seventeen-year-old Margot Allan was a respectable vicar’s daughter and madly in love with her fiancé Harry.

But when Harry was reported Missing in Action from the Western Front, and Margot realised she was expecting his child, there was only one solution she and her family could think of in order to keep that respectability. She gave up James, her baby son, to be adopted by her parents and brought up as her younger brother.

The Silent Stars Go By is a riveting read-in-one-sitting experience driven by compelling characters who leap off the page, not least the young woman at its heart, an unmarried secretarial student who’s forced to give up her baby during WWI.

www.lovereading4kids.co.uk

The Great Telephone Mix-Up

When the village wires get crossed after a storm, there’s a lot of confusion and plenty of missed connections.

Margaret can’t run her summer fair, Jai can’t speak to Aditi, and Will is rather happy because no one can tell his mum how much trouble he’s in! Can the villagers learn to love their neighbours and could the great telephone mix-up really be a blessing in disguise? A charming, funny, family adventure bursting with wonderful characters.

The Button Book

Here’s a button. I wonder what happens when you press it? From a singing button to a tickle button, from a rude sound button to a mysterious white button, there’s only one way to find out what they do… A remarkable adventure powered purely by imagination, where the sounds, songs and play are completely up to you and whoever you’re sharing this wonderful book with. 

Bouncy and mischievous, Sally Nicholls’s The Button Book is illustrated with giddy, infectious energy by Bethan Woollvin

Guardian, Children’s Books of the Year

A Chase In Time

A fast-paced adventure full of car chases, arson and cake!

The old gilt-edged mirror has hung in Alex’s aunt’s house for as long as he can remember. Alex hardly notices it, until the day he and his sister are pulled through the mirror, back into 1912. It’s the same house, but a very different place to live, and the people they meet need their help. 

This rip-roaring time-slip novel has a fast-paced plot and entertaining characters. With black-and-white line drawings illustrating each chapter, this first tale in the series is ideal for confident young readers with an interest in history.

The Book Trust

Things a Bright Girl Can Do

Evelyn is seventeen, and though she is rich and clever, she may never be allowed to follow her older brother to university. Enraged that she is expected to marry her childhood sweetheart rather than be educated, she joins the Suffragettes, and vows to pay the ultimate price for women’s freedom.

This was a fascinating and very challenging book to write. It has three main characters and takes place over four years, four years, moreover, filled with many hugely important historical events, both for the world and for the suffrage movement.

All About Ella

Monday’s Child is Fair of Face
Tuesday’s Child is Full of Grace
But Ella is Very Upset.
Ella’s brother Sam is sick, and Ella is sick of Sam. Life revolves around him, and no one has time for Ella. They don’t even know what day she was born on!
Can Ella work it out for herself?

It’s a sensitive and moving story, beautifully told…

Andrea Reece, Love Reading 4 Kids

 

Billy Button

When Charlie the telegram boy breaks his leg and can’t ride his bicycle, Billy Button sees his chance. He has always wanted to be a telegram boy, delivering messages all over the village on the red Post Office bicycle. Soon Billy is zooming about all over the place with news of new babies, sick sisters and sweethearts coming to visit. He even has a chance to put a few things right with a special ‘extra’ telegram or two.

“there are moments of lovely humour, underscored by the delightful illustrations of Sheena Dempsey and the text and pictures marry together beautifully to make this a really gorgeous little tale.”

Making them readers

An Island of Our Own 

Siblings Jonathan, Holly and Davy have been struggling to survive since the death of their mother, and are determined to avoid being taken into care.

When the family’s wealthy but eccentric Great Aunt Irene has a stroke, they go to visit her. Unable to speak or write, she gives Holly some photographs that might lead them to an inheritance that could solve all their problems.

But they’re not the only ones after the treasure …

“…it is impossible not to be moved by what they discover on the idyllic island … It’s understated, and all the more touching for that.”

Annabel Pitcher, The Guardian

Shadow Girl

Clare knows she’s at least partly to blame for her problems at school, but she’s learned that it hurts to make friends when you’re a foster kid and you’ll just be moved on again.

It’s a relief to meet Maddy, who knows exactly what it’s like to be in the system. But then Maddy disappears. Clare has opened her heart at last, and she can’t let it go – will she find her friend?

“I loved this book. There’s a paranormal twist which would normally put me off, but it was perfectly done and totally in keeping with the story. The characters are brilliant too…”

Sue Magee, The Book Bag

Close Your Pretty Eyes

Eleven-year-old Olivia has been in care since she was five, and is just beginning her sixteenth placement. Her new home is a secluded farmhouse, centuries old, where she slowly bonds with her foster family.

But the house holds dark secrets. Olivia discovers that it was once a notorious baby farm, where unwanted children were left to die. She becomes convinced that the place is haunted. She is desperate to save her new family from the ghosts. The danger is real – but does it come from the twisted mind of a very disturbed child?

“…though Close Your Pretty Eyes is a hard read in many ways, because there is a relentlessness to the sadness, it’s a sensitive and powerful novel.”

Martin Chilton, The Daily Telegraph

A Lily, A Rose

Lady Elinor of Hardford has fallen in love for the first time with Dan, her cousin and knight-in-training. But her father has other plans.

She must marry his friend, Sir William of Courtney – and he’s nearly fifty! Elinor must draw on all her skills to work out a solution to her dilemma. Can she change her father’s mind? And will she ever get to marry Dan?

“…the problem is resolved, and in a surprising way that is both realistic and satisfying, even though happiness for everyone concerned is never going to be possible.”

Ann Turnbull, Awfully Big Reviews

All Fall Down

Catastrophic disasters don’t always mean the end of the world…. When Isabel’s village in the Yorkshire countryside is devastated by the Black Death, it seems that the world is ending in horror and fear.

But for those who survive the apocalyptic plague, a freer society will emerge from the destruction of the feudal system that enslaved Isabel’s family. Sometimes hope rises out of the ashes. This is one of those times…

“The reader is given the full range of emotion and thought… This book is by no means a dismal account. There is great joy, humour and hope with the adversity… An incredible story of survival and courage.”

Mary Esther Judy, The Book Bag

Season of Secrets

Things are difficult enough for Molly, with her mother gone and her father distant.

But one day she sees a man running for his life and everything changes. Who is the stranger? Is he connected to the old god of her teacher’s stories? And who is attacking him – and why?

“A dollop of magical realism blends with some real kitchen sink drama in a story where myth blends with a little girl very much of today. Beautifully told, with a clear authorial voice – a voice to look out for.”

Jill Murphy, Book Bag

Ways to Live Forever

Sam loves facts. He wants to know about UFOs and horror movies and airships and ghosts and scientists, and how it feels to kiss a girl.

And because he has leukaemia he wants to know the facts about dying. Sam needs answers to the questions nobody will answer.

This is an elegant, intelligent, moving and sometimes even funny book. Young readers (and brave parents, and teachers) will love it.

Mal Peet, The Guardian