The end of the Story
Anna James: Pages & Co – The Last Bookwanderer (HarperCollins Publishers 2023) The whole world is open to you if you read. Tilly Pages and her friends have even more possibilities, as they are bookwanderers, some of the few who can read themselves into the books and meet the characters. All they need for this is their imagination. All of this is in danger, however, because the Alchemist wants for himself all the magical powers that lie in books and in people’s fantasy. Tilly, Oscar, Milo and Alessia therefore set out on a mission that first leads them to the Arthurian legends and then to the world of Greek and Norse myths. Here they also experience that the old heroes, if you look at them more closely, are less heroic than they seem at first. One of the main points of the final volume of the series is that the…
Back to School – TBR
Phil Hickes: Shadowhall Academy – The Whispering Walls (Usborne Publishing 2024) When Lilian Jones begins her studies at the creepy, cold, and shockingly large Shadowhall Academy, she fears she won’t make friends or being able to navigate the building. If only she knew that these are the least things she should worry about… When strange things start happening at school: knocking on the walls, disturbing stories of missing students and rumors that the school is haunted, Lilian realizes that the stories are not just fiction and that the school hides real secrets. Jill Murphy. A Bad Spell for the Worst Witch (first published by Allison & Bushby in 1974) Future witches study at Miss Cackle’s Academy for Witches. Outside, gloomy gray walls and towers rise to the sky, and inside there are long narrow corridors running between the staircases and the sunlight almost never gets in. The girls who study…
Back to School – Book recommendations
Sylvia Bishop: The Midnight Thief (Scholastic 2021) Freya Robinson is a student at a prestigious boarding school. She doesn’t like it because she doesn’t find it interesting enough. She preferred to live with her archaeologist father, but when he found all seven legendary Eldrida Dragons, the statues featured in Anglo-Saxon legends, he decided that his daughter would receive a proper education. Freya is disliked by both the headmistress and her classmates at school. Her situation is not too rosy, as breaking the rules is part of her everyday life. However, that bat changes everything. Or maybe the Dragons are responsible for this turn of the story? Jacqueline Harvey: Alice-Miranda series (Penguin Books Australia) We all know the protagonists who get into trouble with their every move throughout their history. Alice-Miranda is not like that. She is a phenomenal seven-year-old girl who enrolls herself in a boarding school called the Winchesterfield-Downsfordvale…
Sugarcane Kids
Charlie Archbold: The Sugarcane Kids and the Red-bottomed Boat (Text Publishing 2022) Andy lives in a small coastal town with his mother and her new husband in tropical Australia. His best friend Eli’s cousin Jacob is arrested for stealing jewelry, but the boys know he is innocent. With the help of their friends, the boys must find the culprits before Jacob’s trial begins. One of the pieces of the puzzle is a red-bottomed boat, which lies abandoned somewhere deep in the mangrove swamp. However, the way to get there is through the territory of Sebastian the legendary and gigantic crocodile. The main message of the story is the importance of friendship and the truth. The characters are nice and real. During the investigation, they do not perform neither fantastic nor incredible actions, but use their own strength to uncover the truth. I especially liked that the author depicted the landscapes…
Tomorrow’s End
Mark Shirrefs – John Thomson: The Girl from Tomorrow (Hodder & Stoughton 1990) Mark Shirrefs – John Thomson: Tomorrow’s End (Hodder & Stoughton 1991) „The future of the Earth is in all our hands.” These are the words of the Mother of the Reconstruction that every child must learn in the 31st century. In 2500, they don’t know exactly why, but the Great Disaster occurred and the northern hemisphere became uninhabitable. It was through great efforts that life was saved in the south. Since then, people have learned from their (countless) past mistakes. Now they live in peace with the nature, nothing can be heard except for the sound of birds and insects, there is no hum of engines – internal combustion engines had gone the way of the dinosaurs. That’s when they invent the first time machine, which they want to use to find out the causes of the…
Mysterious sea creatures
Ash Harrier: The Strange Sighting (Pantera Press 2024) The third volume of one of my favorite Australian series. Alice England lives with her father, who runs a funeral home. Her friends are also eccentric, in their own way: Violet is allergic to sunlight, and Cal is a really bad student. Alice has a special ability that allows her to contact the personal belongings of the recently deceased and get to know them better. Being a big fan of scientific facts, she definitely wants to find some logical explanation for this oddity. The trio has already managed to solve two mysteries together before and it looks like they are dealing with another strange case now. After a busy summer, the school year begins at Damocles Cove. Cal is visited by his cousin from Korea, who is thirsty for adventure. Meanwhile, a strange legend is coming to life in the seaside town.…
Cursed excavation
Ash Harrier: The Eerie Excavation (Pantera Press 2023) The second volume of one of my favorite Australian series. Alice England lives with her father, who runs a funeral home. Alice was teased because of this at school, but she still managed to make friends. Both Violet and Cal are eccentric, but in their own ways: Violet is allergic to sunlight and Cal is a really naughty student. Death is almost natural for Alice, because she lived her whole life among funerals, and her own twin was a stillborn. The girl somehow has a special relationship with the personal belongings of the deceased and helps her get to know them better. One of her favorite habits is to imagine what kind of coffin would suit a person. From these details alone, it is clear that this is an unusual and unique story. Alice persuades her friends to participate in an archaeological…
Is it easy to murder or not?
Agatha Christie: Murder Is Easy (first published in 1939) Carla Valentine: Murder Isn’t Easy (Sphere 2021) ‘It’s very easy to kill – so long as no one suspects you.’ This is what Miss Pinkerton, the lovely old lady, says to the surprised Luke Fitzwilliam on the train, when she is about to report a serial murder at Scotland Yard. The man did not think it is important until he saw the lady’s obituary in the next day’s newspaper. The old lady did not make it to Scotland Yard, she was killed in a car accident. The story won’t let the man rest, so he sets out to find the murderer himself. The novel was first published in 1939 and, like many of her other books, exemplifies Agatha Christie’s extensive knowledge in the field of forensic science. Carla Valentine fell in love with the author’s works as a child, and this…
Read Me!
Do You Read Me? – Bookstores Around The World (Gestalten, Berlin 2020) I really like books and, of course, bookstores. In fact, I like books about bookstores. I’ve already written about bookstores on BogiWrites before and now I’d like to share a very nice collection with you again. The German Gestalten Publishing House released the album Do You Read Me? in 2020, which featured beautiful bookstores from all over the world. In addition to the well-known shops such as the Strand in New York and the Shakespeare & Company in Paris, specialties such as the headliner Do You Read Me? bookstore in Berlin focus on international magazines, Powell’s Books, the largest independent bookstore in the world (the largest bookstore is a Barnes & Noble store in New York) or the El Ateneo Grand Splendid in Buenos Aires, which was formed in an old theatre. The book also shows that there…
Breaking test
Judit Berki: Sitting on the Mattress* (Scholar Kiadó 2013) Have you ever broken up with someone who really seemed to be perfect for you? The protagonist of our story is just getting over such an experience and once again turns to the group of friends from high school and to the movies. Of course, everyone has an idea about why this happened the way it did, and what should be done now. However, none of them are reliable advisors, as they all have their own problems. Our heroine is therefore asks for help from matchmakers, fortune tellers, clairvoyants and psychologists for answer to the question why she can’t be normal ? The book disguises with humor that it seeks answers to such important questions as what it means to be normal and whether we should deal with the demands placed on us by the society. The story’s nameless protagonist narrates…