A Piddle of Puppies

A Piddle of Puppies You'll be entering an absolutely amazing world of animal rhymes with this second illustrated children's book from Andrea Prior. (You'll find the link to the review of Andrea's previous book, A Parcel of Pigs, here https://thatsbooks.blogspot.com/2017/05/a-parcel-of-pigs.html)

Children aged 5 to 9 (and their adults too, so, please don't be shy!) will absolutely adore this book.

There are odd, interesting and unusual names.

What, exactly would be a mischief of mice? Could you ever see a crossing of zebras? (Well, you can if you read this book!)

What would a shiver of sharks do, let alone look like?

And how could you cope with a piddle of puppies?

The rhymes are equally as good in this book as they were in the previous book and it will be a great book for shared reading.

However, there's a serious side to these books, too. They are designed to help children develop their reasoning skills, their spelling, pronunciation and memory recall, too.

At £8.99 you really cannot afford to miss buying this book.

It's published by Matador.

Princess Areeena and the Crystal Fairies

Princess Areeena and the Crystal Fairies is a book for children and their families that is probably one of the most important books of its kind in recent years. It's aimed at readers aged between 5 to 7.

It's Princess Arebeena's birthday and she is given the task of completing a treasure hunt.

Isabella, her best friend, is accompanying her as they set out on an exciting and thrilling adventure to locate hie missing tiara.

But will she find other things along the journey, too? And if she does, what will they be?

The book is superbly written and is very well illustrated and tells a thrilling tale that all children (and their adults!) will like.

However, there's a serious point to this book, as it is designed to help children have a positive attitude to life and also toward other people and creatures, too.

And shows them that sometimes you just have to be as brave as you can and face up to dangers and difficult situations.Including a lady dragon with purple eye shadow and lipstick!

The book is the first in a new series of books about the Crystal Fairies and it is published by Matador at £6.99. It's ideal for shared reading by parents, grandparents and other assorted adult relatives.

Him or You

Him or You is the third book from N L Collier and it follows on from his novel Home Before the Leaves Fall.

Franz Becker has managed to survive his first months as a fighter pilot and he is joined by his best friend Karl von Leussow. It's now the autumn of 1916.

Karl is soon able to transfer his marksmanship skills to his newer weapon and he is reunited with his older brother. A rivalry soon grows, caused by the increasing scores of Karl.

It is the aim of every German pilot to shoot down enough enemy aircraft tp earn the highly desirable Blue Max, though there's more of a chance of dying with a score of zero enemy kills, to be perfectly honest.

The German pilots are aware that their Albatros fighter planes are far superior to the fighter planes that the enemy possess. But even so the Albatros planes are still fairly fragile and also flammable.

Many pilots are doomed to a fiery death, others are consumed with a fear of facing the enemy in combat.

But how long can Franz and Karl continue to fight through the war, as their experiences begin to tell on their minds? And when will the war finally come to an end?

It's unusual to see the German side of the First World War covered in a fictionalised account and, once again, N L Collier has provided his readers with a extremely readable novel.

It's published by Matador at £9.99.

My Dream Mile

My Dream Mile is a very important memoir. It is written by Charlotte Hagen. She had recently graduated from a teaching college, was enjoying dinner with a friend when she hears a loud bang.

She is rushed to hospital in an ambulance and is in a coma after she has suffered from a devastating brain haemorrhage. The "bang" she heard.

When she awakes from her coma she must undergo months of serious rehabilitation work. He needs to relearn all that she knew. She has to learn how to eat, talk an walk all over again.

It's not an easy process and Charlotte goes through times when she feels deep despair, but also there are times when she feels great hope, too.

The memoir is subtitled My Fight Back to Life and that is exactly what it is, her spirited efforts to regain her life.

Charlotte finds herself helping other people with disabilities such as Kirsten who was 15 and had a broken back, the result of a car accident.

She also falls in love with and marries Stig, the neuro-psychologist doctor involved with testing her in the early days of her recovery.

With the help of her family members, the dedicated medical staff, hospital staff, friends and care workers Charlotte is able to work toward her recovery.

It's a truly inspirational book and it deserves to be owned by everyone who has suffered from a serious life changing incident such as a stroke, plus those who work with such people.

It's published by The Book Guild at £8.99.

Temporoparietal

Temporoparietal is a new novel from Kris Ellis.

It takes a look at the life and times of the protagonist, a young man called Matt Pearce.

Matt has OCD, is something of an educational low achiever, a move buff and a fan of the works of Jack Kerouac.

He finds himself in a bit of a bind. A relationship with an abused teen goes south, north, east and west and in a bit of a panicked existential crisis Matt leave not only his home but also his entire country.

He flees to the USA and decides to take a Greyhound bus trip across the USA.

Why does he do this? To escape from his abused teen called S? In part. But he also feels a desire to make a sort of a pilgrimage to the last resting place of his hero, Jack Kerouac.

Kris is a former Youth Counsellor and bases his novel on "real young people of today."

It's a heady mixture of old school head trips and modern cyber chic.

It's due out on 28th July and is published bu Matador at £7.99/

Adventures of Pepper the Ginger Dog

Adventures of Pepper the Ginger Dog is a wonderful new illustrated children's book written by Jessica Knowles and illustrated by Sophie Cope.

It tells the story of Pepper who is a very adventurous ginger coloured dog.

Ginger has one desire in life. He wants to have a den all of her own. Her owner, Maggie-May who is six and a bit of a tomboy loves the countryside and she advises Pepper to go to Brambeberry Wood. 

Ginger and her animal companions set off across the golf course and some farmland in order to reach the woods.

But they meet with Mrs McClair who is a fiercely territorial farmer who hates the idea of any animals being on her farm! In fact, she chases animals off her farm using her blue tractor who seems as menacing as she does!

Can Ginger and her companions make it to the woods, somehow circumventing the furious Mrs McClair?

This is a charming book for children and every parent or grandparent needs to have a copy.

It's published on 28th July at £7.99, by The Book Guild.

Please Miss, We're Boys

Please Miss, We're Boys is a memoir that outlines what it was like to be a "Miss" (a female teacher) back in the 1960s.

This is the story of Susan Elkin who, in 1968 at age 21, is thrust straight out of a somewhat sheltered teacher training college into the midst of a difficult inner London boy's secondary school.

She has pretty much zero experience, is a somewhat naive young lady with a propensity to wear short skirts and she is facing boys from Deptford, London.

The boys she deals with are typical of inner city boys, they are brash, outspoken, rude, coarse of tongue but also touched with a charming vulnerability.

She concludes that what they would benefit from is some good teaching. And she sets out to make sure that this happens.

With the backing of a group of disparate helpers, colleagues who are honest, open, forthright and a little bit off the wall, she manages to pull it off, finding ways to get the lads to take it easy, to sit down and to get down to some learning and some working.

The book is filled with stuff that has a resonance for me. The children read Erich Kastner's Emil and the Detectives, as did I at about the same time in my secondary school, although we never had a teacher who like Mr O'Riordan who "just blew up."

It's an amazing well-written memoir which tells the reader a good deal about the school but also a good deal about the Deptford of the late 1960s and early 1970s.

It's published by The Book Guild at £9.99 on 28th July.