Waiting for Christmas
L. D. Lapinski: Stepfather Christmas (Orion Children’s Books 2023) Harper and her brother Will got used to their living room turning into a winter wonderland when Christmas approaches, as it is their mother’s favorite holiday. But this year they will also have a surprise: they will meet their mother’s boyfriend, Nick. Harper immediately realizes that he is Father Christmas. The others say it’s impossible, but then why are there holiday ‘miracles’ appearing around Nick? Harper is determined to find out what the truth is. Not that it would be a problem if Nick were Santa Claus, but the girl doesn’t want her mother to be hurt. The 25 chapters of the book can be read as an Advent calendar: one chapter every day, but I was too curious and read it all at once. I really liked it. It was light and yet touched serious questions. In my opinion, the…
Father Brown
G. K. Chesterton: Father Brown Investigates * (Harmat Kiadó 2019, short stories from The Complete Father Brown Stories) Gilbert Keith Chesterton was an English writer, philosopher, playwright, journalist, rhetorician, theologian and critic. He would like to be an artist when he was young, but he soon changed the brush to a pen and then used it only until the end of his life. He was considered a man of contradictions. One of the recurrent characters in his works was Father Brown, who is, of course, English, but Catholic, with an insignificant appearance but a captivating personality, and while he performs his priestly duties with great professional competence and love, his other passion is investigating crimes. His purpose is not to overtake the police, but to save the human soul. He doesn’t pursue the criminal, but the crime. Chesterton discovered Christianity as an adult and it also influenced his stories. He…
Bookshops, booksellers and customers
Jen Campbell: Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops (Constable 2012) Jen Campbell: More Weird Things Customers Say in Bookshops (Constable 2013) Jen Campbell is an award-winning poet and writer who works in non-fiction and fiction genres, and has also published volumes of poetry. She has worked in the book publishing industry for over fifteen years, initially as a bookseller and now as a freelance editor, content creator and disability advocate. She writes book reviews and runs a YouTube channel where she talks about books, the history of fairy tales, and the representation of disability. She also holds online writing workshops. The Weird Things Customers Say in Bookstores series grew out of a blog where, over the years, booksellers have uploaded their funny and not-so-funny experiences about customers who have wandered in. In the book, we can read the witty phrases heard in the Edinburgh Bookshop and the Ripping Yarns bookshop…
Murder is icing on the cake
Jessa Maxwell: The Golden Spoon (Simon & Schuster 2021) Many thanks to 21. Század Kiadó for sending me the book! Jessa Maxwell is the pseudonym of Jessica Olien, who works as a writer, illustrator and journalist. She is the author of several children’s books and in 2020 wrote a comic about how people can cook during the pandemic. According to her own admission, she loved to bake and cook even before Covid, but she developed her skill a lot during the isolation. The Golden Spoon is also the fruit of that period…or rather, the cookie of it. If this book were a cake, it would be layered, seasoned with lots of characters and covered with mystery like fondant. The Bake Week has been having mesmerizing viewers on TV for ten years now, with Betsy Martin, America’s Grandmother, at the helm. However, this year will be different… In addition to the…
Turtle in Paradise
Jennifer L. Holm: Turtle in Paradise (Random House 2010) In June 1935, Turtle has to move in to her aunt, whom she has never met, because her mother got a job as a housekeeper in a place where they don’t like children. Turtle therefore travels to Key West, Florida, to live with a family she has never seen for who knows how long. Compared to her dreamer mother, who always waits for the true love and the happy ending, Turtle is very much on the ground with both of her feet. She knows people and doesn’t think children are any different from adults. So far, she has only had bad experiences with both age groups. But now she has to learn to live with her three cousins, who are very lively boys. Will their story have a happy ending? The book is set during the Great Depression, when there were…
Hallowe’en party
Agatha Christie: Halloween Party (Originally published in 1969) ’Old sins have long shadows.’ One evening, Poirot is called by his dear friend, Ariadne Oliver. She was visiting a friend in Woodleigh Common when a tragedy happened at a Halloween party for children. Joyce Reynolds, a 12-year-old girl, was drowned. The police suspect a mental patient, as the number of crimes against children has already increased. However, something worries Mrs. Oliver: the child declared during the evening that she had already seen a murder. Apparently no one believed her, but at the end of the evening she was found dead. Was anyone scared by what she knew? Poirot is nearing the end of his career (he will only have two cases after that) when he sets out to investigate this case. As usual, he starts from the personality of the victim and the testimonies of eyewitnesses, but here he will also…
Evernight
Ross Mackenzie: Evernight (Andersen Press 2020) Ross Mackenzie is a multi-award winning author. His most famous book is The Nowhere Emporium. He currently lives near Glasgow with his wife and children, but often spends his time in other worlds. Stories have always played an important role in his life: he still vividly remembers when, in his childhood, he looked forward to the next exciting adventure in the evenings. He became a children’s book writer because he always loved great stories and hopes that one day his books will evoke similar feelings in readers. Evernight definitely has a chance for that. Shadow Jack is an ancient djinni who hunts witches. Mrs. Hester is the king’s chief adviser and a witch herself who wants to rule the world. Larabelle Fox is a tosher who searches the city’s sewers for lost things. Joe Littlefoot is also a tosher, second best after Lara by…
Nancy Drew and her friends
Carolyn Keene: Nancy Drew Diaries Holly and Kelly Willoughby: School for Stars Stacey Gregg: Pony Club Rivals Many thanks to Digitanart Studio for sending me the books! The Nancy Drew character was invented by publisher Edward Stratemeyer as a counterpart of the Hardy Boys detective series. The stories are written by a group of ghostwriters under the collective pseudonym Carolyn Keene. She first appeared in 1930 in the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories series, which lasted until 2003 and included 175 novels. In the meantime, the character and stories changed to suit current American tastes. In the 80s, an older and more professional Nancy appeared in the pages of the Nancy Drew Files series. In 2004, the protagonist of Nancy Drew: Girl Detective already drove an electric car and had a mobile phone. This series ended in 2012 and in 2013 the first volume of the new series Nancy Drew Diaries…
Classics – Persuasion
Jane Austen – Narinder Dhami: Persuasion (Hodder and Stoughton 2022) Jane Austen published four novels during her lifetime: Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park and Emma. Northanger Abbey and Persuasion are posthumous works, and her unfinished novel, Sanditon, was recently republished, from which a series was also made. There are many adaptations of each of her books. In the Awesomely Austen series, the stories were rewritten for the younger age group. Persuasion can be read in the interpretation of Narinder Dhami, whose favorite is Jane Austen and who is also the author of many children’s and young adult books. Anne Elliot spends her days quietly reading in the company of her family. She doesn’t even need to say much, as her father and sister do enough of it… Anne is still sad that she broke off her engagement years ago to the man she loved so much, but…
Autumn Chills
Agatha Christie: Autunm Chills (HarperCollins Publishers 2023) After the Bible and Shakespeare, Agatha Christie’s books have sold the most in the world. She was a very fruitful writer: from her first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, which was published in 1920, until her death in 1976, she published a total of 66 novels, 14 volumes of short stories, 17 plays, 3 books of poetry and 2 autobiographies. She was one of the authors who made the mystery genre great. Her literary importance is shown by the fact that her books are still read with the same enthusiasm as when they were first published. Her works have been adapted into numerous TV shows and movies, radio plays, comics and even video games. Since 2020, thematic collections of her short stories have been published in English by HarperCollins Publishers and in Hungarian by Helikon Publishing. In 2019, the collection of short…