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In this section we keep you up to date with news of books you might be interested in. The information comes from the publishers' website and we add our reviews as often as we can.
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CHILDREN
Jerry and the Jannans
Ellie Brewer
Bloomsbury ISBN 9780747582137
Recommended age: 8+
 When Jerry falls asleep on the bus to school, he’s incredibly hacked off to wake up and discover he’s on another planet. The realisation that he’s just been sold to a family of aliens by an exotic pet shop, does nothing to improve Jerry’s mood.
Harchi Jannan and his son, Chad, are thrilled with their unique new pet, but Rashila Jannan is so furious with her husband for buying it, she’s ready to shed her tail tip. A situation made worse when her boss decides Jerry is the perfect subject for a high-stakes, top-secret, research programme.
This brilliantly funny story follows Jerry’s bizarre experiences as a pet, tangling with the family — and his surroundings - as he desperately tries to get home again.
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Eight Wild Nights
Brian P Cleary, illustrated by David Udovic
Kar-Ben Copies Ltd ,U.S. ISBN
1580132294
Recommended age: under 5
With humor and rhyme, a Jewish family celebrates and survives the eight days of Hanukkah.
Every family will relate to this roller coaster of joys and adventures as an assortment of relatives and friends descend on the household.
Jimmy Coates: Killer
Joe Craig
HarperCollins ISBN 0007196857
Recommended age: 9+
 Jimmy Coates comes across as a familiar 11 year old boy, living in a north London suburb where he barely knows his neighbours, argues with his older sister and has parents who bicker over the evening news. But this world is overturned by an unexpected visit one evening. Three figures dressed in black have come for Jimmy. Whilst his father attempts to negotiate a deal his mother tells him to run. And so he does and discovers some alarming things about himself and the world. He can out-run anyone, exhibit amazing strength, leap out of a first floor window remaining unscathed and much more. Asking for help through the normal channels won’t help
Jimmy now, as it isn’t clear who he can trust any more. It all links back to a faint memory of a dream, but doesn’t reflect anything that exists in reality...or does it?
Jimmy’s increasingly dystopic world confirms certain things that every 11 years old suspects; your parents, neighbours and even your teacher are all withholding a very significant secret from you; there’s a northern line station platform where pressing the right combination of buttons on the chocolate machine opens up a complex maze of underground tunnels across the city. And the most pertinent truth revealed is that only an 11 year old boy can save the day.
This is an incredibly energetic and compulsive read for readers of any age and raises some important questions about the nature of democracy and the role of the state in each our lives.
Check out the book’s amazing website for a taster. http://www.jimmycoates.co.uk/
Jimmy Coates: Target
Joe Craig
HarperCollins ISBN 0-00-719686-5
Recommended age: 9+
 “Jimmy's fingers were slipping. Smeared with blood, he had hardly any grip. He had to hold on. Mitchell chopped his hand down hard into Jimmy's shoulder, cutting off the nerves to his fingers. Staring up into Mitchell's ice-cold eyes, Jimmy fell into the shredder.”
Jimmy Coates is still on the run – and this time NJ7 are pulling no punches. They’re out for blood, and even though Jimmy has gone into hiding in France, they still track him down.
Jimmy might think that life could hold no further surprises for him – but he’s very, very wrong.
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The Bachelor and the Bean
Shelley Fowles
Frances Lincoln ISBN 0-7112-2001-8
When a grumpy old bachelor loses his last lunchtime bean down a well, he starts to yell. To stop the noise, the Imp down the well gives him a pot which conjures up delicious food. But when a jealous old lady steals the pot, even stranger things happen - and the bachelor's life will never be the same again! A genie, magic and pots and pots of food are just some of the ingredients in Shelley Fowles' lively retelling of a traditional Jewish Moroccan tale.
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The Gingerbread House
Adèle Geras
Barrington Stoke ISBN 1-842990-79-9
Recommended age: 8-10
Mike and his friends watch their neighbours carefully and come to some dark conclusions.
First page: “My name is Mike. I want to tell someone about Fairytale Drive, and what happened last year. If I don't, it will all be forgotten, like the hot weather we had - remember that? Fairytale Drive wasn't really called that, of course. It's proper name was Farradale Drive. Here is a map of it. I love stories that have maps to go with them. I've put in all the houses so that you know where everything is. I live just through a little passageway we call The Alley in North Road ...”
Rebecca’s Passover
Adele Geras
Illustrated by Sheila Moxley
Frances Lincoln ISBN 0-7112-1959-1
Rebecca is getting ready to celebrate Passover and she is helping Granny Sarah make the special food needed for the Seder. As Rebecca and her brother work, Granny Sarah tells them the story of Passover: how God sent the ten plagues to the Egyptians and how Moses led the freed Israelite slaves through the Red Sea and across the desert. This is the delightful and informative story of modern day celebration, told from the perspective of a child living through the festival.
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The Year the Gypsies Came
Linzi Glass
Puffin ISBN 0141382783
Recommended age: 12 +
 12-year-old Emily Iris looks forward to the house guests that her family take in from time to time to diffuse the tension in their unhappy home. One summer a family of wanderers – an Australian couple and their two boys – comes to stay, and Emily and her beloved sister Sarah form warm but delicate friendships with the boys. But then tragedy strikes and their lives are changed forever.
Set in late-1960s South Africa, this exquisite, beautifully written novel will enthral teenagers and adults alike.
Linzi Glass was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, and moved to the United States as a young adult where she now lives with her teenage daughter. She studied at the Lee Strasberg Theater Institute before joining the UCLA Writer’s Program, and has worked as a freelance reader and as Literary Coordinator at Creative Artists Agency. She is now a full-time writer, and has co-written three adult screenplays, and two plays. The Year the Gypsies Came is her first novel.
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Once
Morris Gleitzman
Puffin ISBN 014132063X
Recommended age: 9+
Once there was a boy called Felix, who had a big imagination and a whole heart full of optimism.
Once, his Polish/Jewish bookseller parents left him in an orphanage before being wrenched away by the Nazis. Once he set out to find them, and, in the process, saved someone’s life.
Once Felix’s whole world changed forever.
Let this deeply moving and engaging new novel, inspired by a true story fill you with hope, compassion and the feeling that, just once, we all have to follow our dreams.
Morris Gleitzman is one of Australia’s most successful writing talents. With UK sales of 260,000 copies, he has penned the critically-acclaimed bestsellers, Two Weeks With the Queen, Bumface, Toad Rage and, in collaboration with other Aussie giant, Paul Jennings, Wicked! and Deadly!
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The Most Magnificent Mosque
Ann Jungman
Illustrated by Shelley Fowles
Frances Lincoln ISBN: 1-84507-012-7
Visitors to the mosque at Cordoba are plagued by the tricks of three naughty boys: Rashid, who is Muslim, Samuel who is Jewish and Miguel, a Christian. One day they go a step too far, and as a punishment they are forced to work in the mosque gardens where they learn about the building's beauty.
Resistance
Ann Jungman
Barrington Stoke ISBN 184299047-0
Recommended age group: 8 +
Do you ever disagree with your parents? Jan is ashamed when his Dutch father sides with the Germans during the Second World War. No-one will talk to him at school. Only Elli is his friend. Can Jan find a way to defy his father and help the Resistance?
Siege
Ann Jungman
Barrington Stoke ISBN 1-842993-35-6
Recommended age group: 10 +
What if your whole world was turned upside down in one day? One moment Ivan is daydreaming in class, the next he’s fighting for survival. The German army have surrounded his home city of Leningrad. His father’s gone to fight and his mother is at the hospital looking after the sick. There’s only Ivan to look after his sister and his baby brother. As the Russian winter gets worse and the Nazis get even closer the city is cut off from the outside world. No electricity, no food, no hope? Will Ivan and his family make it to the end of the siege?
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Sobibor
Jean Molla
Aurora Metro Publications ISBN
0954691245
Recommended age: 15 +
 Emma should be a happy girl: her parents lead a comfortable life in a French provincial town, her father is a renowned doctor, she adores her grandparents and has a lovely boyfriend. Yet Emma is seriously anorexic (a word that comes only quite late in the book but an easily identified condition). To make things worse, her adored grandmother is dying of cancer. As all the family’s attention is focused on the old woman, nobody notices her grandchild fading away. She has understood her parents are afraid of what’s happening to her but don’t know how to address it and avoid discussing it.
At the dark core of the book is the extermination camp in Poland which was totally erased when the Nazi started losing the war. Emma has discovered a secret past in her grand mother’s life, something the old woman refuses to discuss and even seems to lie about, destroying Emma’s trust in her. Emma will have to come to terms with some horrible facts and address issues of justice and memory.
A short book we recommend to all –families and schools- for heated discussions.
Sobibor was shortlisted for the Wingate Prize and here are the judges’ comments:
This book is an unusual page-turner that links modern neurosis to past trauma. It does so in the most gripping way, using a clever idea to show how the past affects the present. Molla interweaves the smaller individual trauma of modern-day anorexia, with the broader collective trauma of the Holocaust. He shows that even if the past is not your own, it can still have a devastating impact on your future. Mesmerising.
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Waiting for Anya
Michael Morpurgo
Mammoth ISBN 0749746882
Recommended age: 10+
This novel is set in a village on the French/Spanish border during the German occupation of France in the Second World War. It is the story of how Jo helps Benjamin to smuggle children over the border to safety. When he discovers that German soldiers are on guard at the border he has to work out a way of getting word to his friend to warn him of the dangers. The children are trapped, and a small mistake could cost them their lives. This gripping tale keeps the reader in suspense until the final page!
Singing for Mrs Pettigew: A Storymaker's Journey
Michael Morpurgo
Walker Books ISBN 1406300764
Recommended age: 8 to 108
 A truly original collection of short stories, essays and commentaries by Michael Morpurgo. In this book he illuminates the craft of storytelling, analysing all aspects of writing and where it comes from within the writer and within himself.
This collection includes stories about suffering, imagination, creativity, inspiration, truth and love. There are some well-known, such as I Believe in Unicorns and some brand new stories such as The Mozart Question.
Michael says of the book, "I am a grower of stories. I farm them as surely as a farmer does his corn. I am a weaver of dreams: a teller of tales. I have, through my mother reading to me, through my own reading, through inspired teachers, through my great mentors, Robert Louis Stevenson, Ted Hughes and Sean Rafferty, through years of practice, discovered my way of doing it. Every writer’s way is unique I am sure, though perhaps we all have much more in common than we believe. My way may not be the best way, but it is my way, and I thought it might be interesting and maybe even useful and encouraging to tell the story of how I became the writer I am."
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Animated Menorah : Travels on a Space Dreidel -- Eight Stories for Hannukah
Rony Oren and Ephraim Sidon
Urim Publications
ISBN 965-7108-80-2
Recommended age: 4-11
 Two children travel through time and space on a magic dreidel. Their adventures with Judah the Maccabee, George Washington,
a Russian refusenik and many others, tell the story of Hannukah.
Illustrations created in clay by Rony Oren. From the series The Animated Holydays (claymation).
Wishes For One More Day
Melanie Joy Pastor
illustrated by Jacqui Grantford
Flashlight Press ISBN
0972922571
Recommended age: 4 to 8
 The smell of pancakes in the morning usually signals a special day. Well, today is special, but not at all happy, because dear Poppy has passed away. When Anna and her little brother hear the sad news, they wonder how Poppy could have died before they had a chance to say goodbye. If they only had one more day...
They begin to think about the joyful, exciting things they would do if they did have one more day together with Poppy. Setting to work on a list, Anna writes and Joey draws the many ways they would spend one more day. They smile thinking about Poppy’s crazy birthday hat, they giggle remembering the silly songs Poppy plunked out on the piano, and they laugh out loud at the chicken soup game they played weekly at the deli.
Anna and Joey’s list grow into a pile, and the pile becomes a book – a book of wishes for one more day with Poppy – or, as their mother explains, a book of memories of the love and fun they shared with him.
Death is never easy for young children to understand or cope with, especially the death of a close, beloved relative. Creating a book of wishes provides Anna and her brother, and any child who has experienced loss, with a comforting outlet for their feelings, helping them understand that their loved one is still with them in their memories and hearts.
Melanie Pastor is a kindergarten teacher and has been teaching elementary school for the past 10 years. She is involved in many children's projects including Kid Alert, a series of booklets dedicated to children's safety, and the Write Start Handwriting Program, a children's video for handwriting.
Melanie is also a lifeguard and swimming instructor and lives in Southern California. This is her first picture book.
In 2005, Jacqui Grantford was crowned “Grand Dragon” at Dromkeen Museum, the home of Australian children's book illustration, and she is the winner of the 2003 Monsalvat Salon des Refuses People’s Choice Award.
Totally Wonderful Miss Plumberry
Michael Rosen
Walker Books ISBN 0744561825
Recommended age: 4+
It's a totally wonderful day and Molly is taking her grandma's crystal into school to share. Everyone wants to see it ... until Russell gets out his pink and green water-spurting dinosaur. But wonderful Miss Plumberry knows just what to do to make everything wonderful again!
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How I Live Now
Meg Rosoff
Puffin ISBN 0141318015
Recommended age: 12+
Winner of The Guardian Children’s Fiction Award and shortlisted for the Whitbread Children’s Book of the Year, Meg Rosoff’s breathtaking debut novel of love, war and a summer blown into a million bewildering pieces will leave you breathless.
‘[It] will, I hope, be read by many adults. It’s the first book I have read in a long time that transported me so completely I forgot I was reading a book’ – Mark Haddon, author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Meg Rosoff was born in Boston, USA. She has worked in publishing, public relations and most recently, advertising. She moved from New York to London in 1989, where she currently lives with her husband and daughter.
Just In Case
Meg Rosoff
Puffin ISBN 0141380780
Recommended age: 12 +
Every minute of every day, a million things could happen.
A butterfly flaps its wing in Tokyo and – what? Will you step out in front of that bus? Win the lottery? Stand just where a plane is crashing?
Who controls it all?
Fate? And what if Fate doesn’t like you . . .?
An unforgettable voice. A daring, powerful and utterly compelling novel.
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Horrid Henry’s Headscratchers
Francesca Simon
Illustrated by Tony Ross
Orion ISBN 1842555766
Awesomely artful activity and puzzle book for HORRID HENRY fans and new readers everywhere.
Illustrated in full colour with TV stills and Tony Ross's distinctive art each 24 page book is packed to the brim with brand new HORRID HENRY treats.
There are cunning crosswords, wily word searches, perplexing puzzles, clever codes, ingenious quizzes and skilful spot-the-difference pictures.
Answers at the back of each book!
Horrid Henry’s Evil Enemies
Francesca Simon
Illustrated by Tony Ross
Orion ISBN 1842555383
 Ten brilliant stories about Horrid Henry's evil enemies - Moody Margaret, Sour Susan, Stuck-Up Steve, Bossy Bill, Perfect Peter and Rabid Rebecca the Bogey Babysitter, to name just a few - and how he schemes to outwit them, sometimes successfully, sometimes not.
Alongside these much-loved and laughed-over stories there is lots of new material, such as Horrid Henry's Top Secret Plan to Rule the World, Rules for a Secret Club, a Wanted poster, an exchange of rude notes between Henry and Moody Margaret, diagrams, battle-plans and recipes for Glop.
With many pictures in colour, including some new ones, this is a gorgeous treat for all Horrid Henry fans, just as funny and inventive as HORRID HENRY'S BIG BAD BOOK and HORRID HENRY'S WICKED WAYS.
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A Series of Unfortunate Events (The End)
Lemony Snicket
Egmont Books ISBN
1405226730
Recommended age: 8 +
 Like an off-key violin concert, the Roman Empire, or food poisoning, all things must come to an end. Thankfully, this includes "A Series of Unfortunate Events" by Lemony Snicket. The final installment in Mr Snicket's baker's dozen of books will answer readers' most burning questions: Will Count Olaf prevail? Will the Baudelaires survive? Will the series end happily? If there's nothing out there, what was that noise? Then again, why trouble yourself with unfortunate resolutions? Avoid the thirteenth and final book of Lemony Snicket's international bestselling series and you'll never have to know what happens.
"A mind-blowing finale" The JC
Vampirates:Tide of Terror
Justin Somper
Simon & Schuster Childrens Books ISBN
1416901418
Recommended age: 10 +
 Connor Tempest may only be fourteen, but he's taken to the life of a pirate like a duck to water. But his loyalties are divided between his shipmates and his sister. Grace Tempest isn't finding the pirate life so appealing. She cannot shake the feeling that all is not well on the vampirate ship she left behind. Dare she try to return to it? Sidorio may have been expelled from the vampirate ship but his dark deeds are just beginning. In this sequel to "Vampirates: Demons of the Ocean", the seas are rougher than ever and a new tide of terror sweeps up Connor, Grace, their allies and their foes.
Justin Somper has firmly established himself as one of the leading children's books publicists in the UK. Now living in North London, Justin combines his full-time time PR job with his newly forged career as the author of the Vampirates.
Visit the Vampirates website.
You’re a Bad Man, Mr Gum
Andy Stanton
Egmont Books ISBN 1405223103
Recommended age: 6+
Weird, wacky and one in a million! Mr Gum is a truly nasty old man. He’s absolutely grimsters. But this book’s not just about him. There’s also a little girl called Polly, an evil butcher, heroes and sweets and stuff, and Jake the dog WHO MUST BE SAVED FROM TERRIBLE, TERRIBLE EVIL. And that’s not all … this is only the first in a series of stories about the evil Mr Gum. Stay tuned...
Andy Stanton lives in North London. He studied English at Oxford but they kicked him out. He has been a stand-up comedian, a film script reader, a cartoonist, an NHS lackey and lots of other things. He has many interests, but best of all he likes cartoons, books and music (even jazz).
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Hitler's Canary
Sandi Toksvig
Doubleday ISBN 0385608896
Recommended age: 10+
Sandi Toksvig has created a fictional tale that combines stories of the period her Danish father told her. We witness the experience of Bamse and his family. Bamse is ten, the youngest in his family, in 1940, when the Germans arrive and occupy Copenhagen. We feel his half understanding of the situation, but at the same time, sense, through his observations, the foreboding and growing fear in the air. Gradually as Bamse grows older, his older brother, Orlando, gives him and his Jewish friend, Anton, jobs to do to help the resistance. They help distract German soldiers in a bar while Orlando steals one of their guns, they distribute illegally produced underground newspapers, and tape them to the underside of railway carriages bound for Sweden.
We witness the struggle of the individual members of Bamse’s family in deciding whether or not to join the resistance. Orlando, the young hot- head, is angry with his father for not joining up immediately. Parents however will understand the father’s reluctance to see his son put himself in such danger. Anyone who has ever experienced young love will understand the anguish of older sister Masha and her young German soldier. The actress mother, who changes her dress according to what role she is playing, brings some light relief.
There are reports of good deeds done by some Germans and bad deeds done by some Danes, confirming what Ms Toksvig was taught by her journalist father: not all Germans were bad, and not all Danes were good. We read how finally almost all the Jewish community of Denmark was saved by the rest of the population. What adds to the pleasure of reading this uplifting tale is that the book is beautifully produced, with many fine small drawings by Sandy Nightingale. This is a fascinating story of courage, both gripping and fast-moving, that will captivate readers of ten and over, as well as their parents.
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Elsewhere
Gabrielle Zevin
Bloomsbury ISBN 9780747577003
Recommended age: 12+
A novel of hope, love and redemption told in a brilliant and unusual style, so astoundingly original and carefully crafted that its complexities become common place and the common place resounds with poetry.
In this delightful novel death is a beginning, a new start. Liz is killed in a hit-and-run accident and her 'life' takes a very unexpected turn. At nearly sixteen she knows she will never get married, never have children, and perhaps never fall in love. But in Elsewhere all things carry on almost as they did on earth except that the inhabitants get younger, dogs and humans can communicate (at last), new relationships are formed and old ones, sadly interrupted on earth, are renewed.
Full of the most ingenious detail and woven around the most touching and charming relationships this is a novel of hope, of redemption and (literally) of re-birth. It is a novel that tells of sadness with heart-breaking honesty and of love and happiness with uplifting brilliance.
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