Halloween book recommendations 2024
Phil Hickes: The Haunting of Aveline Jones (Usborne Publishing 2020) Aveline Jones is an ordinary twelve-year-old girl who is particularly interested in ghost stories. She lives with her mother in Bristol, who often tells her that sometimes she should read about other things too, because that way she only creates nightmares for herself. October promises to be particularly cold this year. In addition, Aveline has to spend the autumn break in a sleepy seaside town, Malmouth, with her aunt, whom she hardly knows, because her mother has to go to visit her grandmother in Scotland and would rather not take the little girl with her on such a long trip. However, Aveline doesn’t know yet that she won’t be bored, as she finds a new friend and a mystery to solve. Victoria Schwab: City of Ghosts (Scholastic 2018) Cassidy Blake’s parents are a successful pair of authors who write investigative…
Nameless
Luca Dorottya Kaszab: Nameless* (Maxim Könyvkiadó 2024) Many thanks to Maxim Könyvkiadó for sending me the book! Does our name define us or do we decide what they will remember about us when they hear our name? Once upon a time, in a country called Country, a bored king decided to bring a little excitement to the lives of his bored people and determined the names that could be taken and the corresponding professions. However, there were those who remained nameless in the end. Five hundred years later, the protagonist of our story, Nameless, is enjoying a peaceful day on the shore of a lake, when fate throws his nephew – also Nameless – into his path and Mildred, the little girl who has a name, but is not satisfied with it and the life that belongs to it. Willingly or unwillingly, the task will be waiting for them to…
The symbol
Charles Waters – Traci Sorell: Mascot (Carlesbridge Publishing 2023) In Rye, Virginia, an English teacher gives eighth graders a special assignment. ‘Write a poem about yourself and your feelings.’ Based on the poems, it turns out that the newly arrived Native girl feels very bad because of the school’s mascot, a tomahawk-wielding Indian. Added to this is the battle hymn chanted at sports competitions and matches. Upon further research, it turns out that the caricature is hated by at least as many people as it is adored by. We can learn about the events in the form of verse, from the point of view of six children: Callie: Black Cherokee Nation citizen who just moved to town Franklin: Black, but he doesn’t want to know more about his own Black heritage, he prefers football Priya: her grandparents came to the States from India, she wants to be a journalist Sean:…
Fire and ice
Aisling Fowler: Fireborn – Phoenix and the Frost Palace (HarperCollins 2023) Many thanks to Maxim Könyvkiadó for sending me the book! The Hunters left behind their names, their families and their entire lives to protect the clans. Twelve also has a new name: Phoenix, which she chose because of her magical ability. Her friends, Five, Six and Seven, went with her, when the Hunting Lodge was destroyed. But now they have a new task. Their old enemies are active again, but something much more dangerous has set in motion, which threatens the entire Ember. They can only trust Phoenix. In this volume, we get to know the characters much better, who are lovable each and every one of them. However, the world they live in does not spare them. Danger lurks everywhere and they can only count on each other. The main point of the story for me is that…
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.…