Aya and Papaya Meet the Big Little Creatures

Aya and Papaya Meet the Big Little Creatures is the second book about the adventures of Aya and Papaya written by MQ.

it's morning time, the sun is glimpsing through Ayua's window and she slowly opens her eyes and gives Papaya a big hug.

She leaps out of her bed and draws open the curtains. As she does this, she is smiling. why? Because she has remembered that her best friend, Samy, is coming to visit to play.

So it is tht Aya, Samy, Papaya and Bamboo decide to have a bit of an adventure by visiting the big castle which is at the end of the garden.

But how can they get there, safely? For they must be very courageous and walk past the big little creatures who live in the garden.

Whilst they make their journey through the garden the friends learn valuable lessons about treating others with kindness and respect and also they learn about bravery, too.

This fantastic children's book is created by MQ, written by And Abey and stunningly illustrated by Leo Antolini.

It's published by Matador at £8.99 and this charming book should be owned by all parents and grandparents.

Norman Snodgrass Saves the Green Planet

Norman Snodgrass Saves the Green Planet is a book from Sue Bough. It tells the story of Norman. Norman is an ordinary sort of a chap. He is somewhat overweight and a bit clumsy, he usually spends his time avoiding being teased by his Poggle classmates. For they are all Poggles.

He is somehow given the great honour of looking after Spong, the class pet. Who Norman manages to lose. He has to enter the weird Green Planet to attempt to track Spong down and return him to the school.

During his searching he meets up with a strange and mysterious scientist, a professor, and Norman learns that all is not well and that a series of deadly hazards are putting their planet at risk.

So, what's a Poggle to do? This Poggle, Norman Snodgrass, decides that not only is he going to find and save Song, he is going to embark on a dangerous, perilous and highly risk mission to Save The Planet!

Can Norman find Spong? Can he save the entire planet? Will he become a hero to his fellow classmates?

Read this book and find out!

It's an environmentally aware book for children and costs £7.99 and is published by Matador.

Sue has also illustrated the book throughout.

'Cinderella', I Wish!

'Cinderella', I Wish! is a powerful and very compelling true life story from Dominique Deveraux's ife.

As a young black child she was living a very enjoyable life with her white foster parents who loved and adored her.

But then disaster strikes, as Nanny dies and she has to be removed from the home where she knew only love and she enters a new world of heartache and troubles.

She is placed into a new home, but rather than love and compassion she is subjected to abuse and misery.

Her life dissolves into one of trauma and fear. She is subjected to abuse, suffers domestic violence and even witnesses murder.

Can Dominique learn to be her own true self, again? Can she find love in her own heart for not only others but also for her own self, too?

Can she deal with people who lie to get what they want, use violence and threats to control those they pretend to love?

There's a lot for her to contend with, an unexpected but welcome pregnancy, the problems of living with ME and the career changes this creeping, vile disease can bring about (REVIEWER'S NOTE: I have personal experience of this little understood but potentially devastating health complaint)  and a variety of other issues that seem to prove the old adage that what doesn't kill us makes us stronger.

It's an amazing memoir and from an almost little orphan girl without a glass slipper or a prince to an agony aunt and a key manager for 30 years in Children's Social Care Management, I think that Dominique did very well indeed with her life. Just proves that nobody needs a glass slipper, after all!

The book is published by Matador at £9.99.

How to Become a Football Agent: The Guide

This is the second edition of How to Become a Football Agent: The Guide, is written bu Dr Erkut Sogut LL.M, Jack Pentol-Levy and Charlie Pentol-Levy.

The three experts behind behind Football Agent Education have brought all of their experience and their network to put together a guide of critical information that every football agent must know in order to ave any measure of success for his or her clients and themselves.

There are unique insights, detailed information and hints and tips on how to be a successful football agent that you just will not find anywhere else.

It's built on their highly successful first book and now contains expanded chapters, more practical guidance and examples.

There's a highly informative forward by footballing ace legend Robert Pires, plus insightful comments and advice from top working agents who represent the top flights of elite footballers, too.

It now includes the valued opinions of four members on FIFA's select football agent commission. There are also real examples of contracts and a number of relevant case studies for readers to learn from.

The authors are very clear about the role of the modern agent. Long gone are the days when the agent just turned up, got the contract signed aand went away again to repeat the same performance next season. Now a successful and motivated agent must take active steps to work with their clients all year round, building their client into a top international brand and encouraging them to make the most of their potential as an international athlete.

If you are a footballer, the parent of a young footballer, an agent or a manager of a football team, this is a book that you must have a copy of.

It's published by Matador on 28th July at £13.99.

Mama's Got a Brand New Bag

Mama's Got a Brand New Bag is the debut novel of Hope Lovejoy.

It tells the story of Mama and her brand new bag. It's a stoma bag. She required a stoma bag because a surgeon, who was tasked with the simple job of removing a polyp from her intestines made a catastrophic blunder that caused the rupture of her colon.

So now, after a different and perhaps more competent, surgeon has cleaned her insides up and repaired the damage and inserted a coma, Aki is facing life with a stoma.

It gurgles, it grumbles and causes Aki no end of concerns common to most stoma patients. What if it bursts when I am out? What of the dreadful fuggy smell it gives off? What if I roll over in the night and squash it, causing it to burst? And if this happens at 3am, the clean up crew (husband and wife) have to spring into action.

Although the novel is written in a way that is intended to amuse, it does so in a way that does not take away the dignity of the protagonist, Aki who is Japanese, or her husband, Peter, who is English.

The novel takes  jaundiced look at surgeons who do not make mistakes and who try to blame everyone else  when things go wrong.

If you have a brand new bag, you might find comfort in this highly original and thought provoking book.

It's published by Matador at £9.99

Against the Odds

Against the Odds is subtitled: Elizabeth Studdert, a life in carving. It tells the fascinating life story of Elizabeth Studdert who is  truly original sculptor.

You might not have heard of Elizabeth Studdert I certainly hadn't, but this book, by her sister, author and journalist, Caroline Studdert, sets out to correct this bewildering paradox, a sculptor who is both highly gifted yet, relatively unknowing.

The story of Elizabeth Studdert, from the slightly "regal" Waterford aristocratic society (the family were not actually viewed as fitting in, being 'outsiders') to her marriage to a Roman Catholic which was considered by some as less than suitable, the complications that an Anglo-Irish heritage could bring, to the financial problems that she faced and the problematic relationship with her mother, the book looks at the various difficulties that Elizabeth overcame in order to be what she wanted to be, a sculptor.

The examples of Elizabeth's works in a variety of materials from soapstone to alabaster, to wood, metal and resins are truly remarkable. And they are from sizes tiny to titanic, one might say.

They show a fluidity in style and form that means each piece of art is imbued with its own living soul, raw emotions radiate from every piece.

Some of the sculptures the viewer might want to become, some of the sculptures the viewer may very well feel they already are.

I'd love to own a piece of art from Elizabeth Studdert. The next best thing, however,is a copy of this hardback book from Matador, at a very reasonable £15.00.

You can learn more about Elizabeth by visiting her website, here:- http://www.elizabethstuddert.co.uk/index.html

Courtier in the Royal House of Stuart

Courtier in the Royal House of Stuart this is an exciting historical novel from Leslie Hatton

It tells the story of an orphan boy called Toby Bennet who survives life in the back streets of the Black Friars area of London.

At the age of ten Toby saved the life of the Prince of Wales who was under attack from a maniac with a knife.

The Prince decides that he will reward Toby by bringing him into the royal household. The Prince arranges his education and promises the life of a courtier within the royal household. The House of Stuart.

But Oliver Cromwell has come to prominence and has wrought terrible destruction and caused terrible chaos the length and breadth of the kingdom.

When the king is taken prisoner and put on trial for treason, the prince must flee for his life, abandoning his country.

He spends the next twelve years exiled with his mother or his sister whom is Princess Mary of Orange either in Paris or Holland.

And all the while, loyal Toby is with him. There is romance for Toby, with a young lady's-in-waiting for Princess Mary

But there are several attempts to bring about the premature death of Toby and Toby learns that he is being pursued by a ruthless and secret adversary, someone who holds a dreadful secret and who wishes to see Toby dead.

But who is this person? And what is the secret that they hold?

It's a riproaring historical thriller from The Book Guild at £9.99.