by

Protect the Mountain or else.

Living in the shadow of Mountainfell, Erskin is used to danger.  Mountainfell is a wild place with tall mountains and deep caverns.  It is also a place of wild creatures and dangerous magic.  It has been years since any of the villagers have been taken by the monsters of Mountainfell and Erskin’s family is in charge of keeping the villagers safe.  Then one day the most powerful creature of all, the cloud dragon, snatches Erskin’s sister away and destroys part of the boundary wall. Erskin knows she has to do something.

She sneaks out of the village and starts to climb the mountain.  Her greatest fear is facing the monsters on Mountainfell but it is up to her to save her sister.

She soon finds out there is more to the story than just the dragon.  Terrible secrets also live in Mountainfell.  Secrets she cannot imagine but ones that she must conquer to save not only her sister but the whole village.

This was another amazing story by Katherine Orton.  Kept me reading to the very end and I read way past my bedtime to finish it.  After you read this one you will be wanting more so also check out Katherine Orton’s other books – Nevertell and Glassheart.

5 out of 5 ZZZZZ

 

Orton, K. (2022). Mountainfell. Walker books: London, Great Britain

by

When are you old enough for Big Magic?

Tulsi lives in a circus.  She has grown up with the circus folk as her friends and family.  Her mother does magic in the circus and Tulsi wants nothing more than to follow in her footsteps and do magic too.  There is just one problem.  Her mother wont teach her to do magic. Not even small magic but it isn’t small magic Tulsi wants to do, she wants to do Big Magic.  Big magic is dangerous and thrilling and holds power beyond belief and Tulsi’s mother refused to teach her until she was older.

There was another big problem.  The circus was losing money and the owner was threatening to close it down.  The only thing that could help would be some really big magic.  Tulsi knew her mother was planning a new act.  Something big that would draw big crowds every night and save the circus.  She used to go out and practice and would never tell anyone what the act would be.

One night when Tulsi’s mum was practicing the new act she mysteriously disappears.  It was big magic that took her away and it is only big magic that can bring her back and it appears that it is only Tulsi who can do it.

But how?

Tulsi doesn’t know magic.  Certainly not enough to rescue her mother from an unknown place.

Who can help her find her mother?

Will the only people that can help Tulsi be more dangerous than she could ever know?

Will Tulsi ever find her mum again or maybe will Tulsi be lost forever too?

This was a great story with action, adventure and mystery and a lot of really cool magic.  I really enjoyed this story and it made me wish for a little bit of magic for myself.

4.5 out of 5 ZZZZz

 

Armstrong, S. (2022). Big magic.  Hardie Grant: Victoria, Australia.

by

Witchlings

What would you call a group of young witches?

Witchlings of course!

Every young witch can’t wait for the day they are joined in a circle as a coven of their own.  This is when a young witch becomes a fully fledged witch and can start doing magic all on their own.  It is a very exciting day that takes place during the Black Moon Festival every year.

It is finally Seven’s turn this year and she has done everything she can to make sure she gets into a really good coven.  She wants to join House Hyacinth but she would be happy to be in any coven really.

The festival was amazing and finally it was time to name the Witchlings covens.  Seven couldn’t wait.  That was until, she wasn’t named in House Hyacinth.

She wasn’t named in a coven at all.  She was a spare!! The most dreaded thing of all.  No coven to join, just her and two other spares left behind and disowned.

You would think things couldn’t get any worse, wouldn’t you? but they did.

It gets worse.  One of the spares was the girl that always bullied her and when they tried to perform the magic circle to seal them as a coven it didn’t work! They were doomed.

To save them all from being exiled and rejected, Seven invokes an ancient ritual called the Impossible Task.  It is three tasks that all need to be completed for the Witchlings to be able to stay.

Will they three girls work together to solve the tasks?  They aren’t called the impossible tasks for nothing.

And more importantly will they learn to trust each other and become friends.

I loved this story.  It is different to many other stories I have read.

Try this story if you like Harry Potter or Magic.

4 out of 5 ZZZZ

 

Ortega, C. (2022). Witchlings. Scholastic Press: New York, New York

by

The Smiling Man is back!

Until next time, was the chilling promise the Smiling Man left with Ollie, Coco and Brian.  So when things don’t feel quite right or as they seem, there is only one conclusion to make…

He is Back and a new frightening adventure is at hand.

The next two instalments of the devious games the Smiling Man plays are here.

Dead Voices and Dark Waters.

In Dead voices the kids are looking forward to a relaxing winter break but when the lights begin to flicker they fear the worst.  Their fun filled trip quickly turns into another terrifying game with the Smiling Man as they fight through a storm and for their lives.  It is not just a voice in their heads!

In Dark Waters, the friends finally have a chance to relax on a boat cruise on the lake until a sinister fog rolls in.  The captain doesn’t remember a fog so bad.  It was then that the mythical sea monster of the lake decides to show up crashing their boat and stranding them on an island no one knew existed.  How could this island never have been marked on any of the map or charts?  If the sea monster wasn’t scary enough there is always the axe man in the woods to frighten you a little bit more.

I love these scary stories! They follow on from the first book in the series – Small Spaces.  I can’t wait for the fourth and final Small Spaces story to arrive in the library. 

Read it today but make sure you finish it before bed!!!

Tried not to read these books to close to bed but it was so good I had to finish them.

Read them today if you dare.

5 out of 5 ZZZZZZZZZZZ

 

Arden, K. (2022). Dead voices. Putnam: New York, New York.

Arden K. (2022). Dark waters. Putnam: New York, New York.

Arden K. (2018). Small spaces. Putnam: New York, New York.

by

Where are the Outwilds anyway?

Dusty’s family is pretty cool.  They own a really cool bushland property where her Grandmother lives.  The house holds lots of mysteries.  There is a room where the door is always locked and Dusty so wants to know what is in there.  Her father tells her it’s nothing special, just storage, but Dusty thinks it is the room that belonged to her long lost Aunt Meg.  No one talks about Aunt Meg.  They just say she went to the Outwilds but what does that even mean.

Dusty thought it was the house that held all the secrets, but it was the land at the bottom of the hill, near the creek, that held the real mysteries.

When Dusty’s rich Uncle Buck arrives at the house and wants to sell it, Dusty decides the only way to keep the house and the bush it sits on, is to find the missing Aunt Meg.

What she finds is not what she expected and certainly not what she was hoping for.

What she finds is the Outwilds and the animals that live there.

What she finds is an adventure she could have only imagined.

Travel with Dusty into the Outwilds and have adventures in a truly surprising world.

3.5 out of 5 ZZZz

 

Williams, R/ (2022). Dusty in the Outwilds. Hardie Grant: Victoria, Australia.

by

A dragon used to live here.

Thomas and Emily live in a castle.  They loved exploring the grounds but there were loads of places they weren’t allowed to go.  They also loved practicing their archery and it was this activity that changed their life.

One day when shooting arrows, the angle was wrong, and the wind blew the wrong way and Thomas missed the target altogether.  The arrow landed in the tangled bushes, so Thomas and Emily went to find it.  They crawled through the bushes to find a window they didn’t know existed. Did his arrow go into the window? Emily called through the window but no one answered.  The only thing to do was to try the door to see if they could get their arow back.

Little did they know the tower the window belonged to was not a friendly place.  No one would let them in and the lady was very rude. Very, very rude.  Thomas tried to use their mother as a way to get inside, she did own the castle after all, but not even that helped.

The rude lady did say something very interesting though.  She said she knew their mother even before the DRAGON lived here.

DRAGON? Yes, dragon and that is where the real story begins.

Follow Thomas and Emily as they find out all sorts of things about their mother and the Dragon that used to live in the castle.

So many secrets to be unraveled.  So many adventures to be found and so many new things to learn that a good Nobel should never do!

A funny story with my favourite things ever, dragons, which make it even better.  The words aren’t too hard and are spread out with some pictures.

3.5 ZZZz out of 5

LeBlancCate, Annette. (2022). A dragon used to live here. Candlewick Press: Somerville, Massachusetts,\.

by

Runt small but mighty.

Do you have a pet?  Are they well trained? Are they so close to you that only you can make them do certain things?

Runt is like that.  He was a scrawny stray that the local town members hated and the police had tried to catch for years.  He was scared of people because of the way he’d been treated. Until he met Annie.

Annie sits alone in the playground but when she sees Runt hiding in the bushes near the school fence she decides he’s a little bit like her.  Annie eventually adopts Runt which infuriates most of the town but Annie loves him and trains him to herd the sheep as well as other things.

Annie controls Runt like a magician.  She just has to wave her fingers and Runt obeys.  It is really quite amazing.

When a greedy Landowner decided he wanted to buy Annie’s farm if they couldn’t pay the money he wanted, Annie tried to think of a way to help.

Maybe Annie could get Runt to help? But how, because there is one big problem with everything she could come up with.  Runt would only do what Annie asked when no one else was there.

I absolutely loved this story.  Annie and Runt were the best of friends who would do anything together.

This book was funny, surprising and wonderful.  I read way way way past my bedtime to finish this one!

Another fabulous Australian story you should read right now!

more than 5 out of 5 ZZZZZZZZZZZZzzZ

Silver, C. (2022). Runt. Allen & Unwin: Crows Nest, Australia

by

You thought your name was bad. At least it’s not Corpse!

The map of Elston-Fright shows there are witches on a rock that doesn’t exist.  It doesn’t exist because it can’t be seen by anyone on the mainland.  Only the witches know it is there, as well as those unfortunate souls who are trapped there forever.

Corpse is a girl who is trapped.  She has spent years trying to leave the island but has never found a way.  Her only friend left, but she didn’t know how.  Now it is just her and the witches.

Her hair is made of seaweed and her eyes abalone shells polished blue by the sand. Her skin made of wax and teeth two rows of pebbles.

She knows she has a family somewhere. They would be missing her since the witches stole her away.  Why did they do that? She doesn’t know.

What she does know is that one day she will uncover the truth and escape the island and the witches for good.

There is danger at every turn and an unexpected message sends Corpse on a surprising quest.

Will she come out alive? or is she already dead?

A brilliant Australian story with a twist and turn at every page.  A true gift of the imagination in a world so unexpected it made me want to  read just a little bit more.

I can’t wait for the next one later this year.

5 out of 5 ZZZZZ

Carter, R. (2022). A girl called Corpse. Allen &Unwin: Crows Nest, Australia

by

Would you know how to save a dragon?

Pip didn’t want to go home.  She never wanted to go home.  She preferred to stay out in her secret place. Out in the bush near the waterhole, where she could dig in the dirt with a stick to find treasure long ago washed in from somewhere else.  She new every part of the creek.  Every white rock and bleached tree. Every drop of water in the waterhole.  She told herself she would wait till the sun hit the creek stones, when the riverbed shone and looked magical and then she would go home.

But that was the moment she found it.  Curled up like a snakeskin around a stick or maybe a scrap of fabric. Somewhere deep inside her she knew what it was with its bursts of pinks and golds and greens before she picked it up.  It was a dragon.  A real life baby dragon.

The dragon was in a bad way.  She had rescued animals before, birds and lizards but never a dragon.  She hid it in her t-shirt cradled close to her chest.  How was she going to keep this hidden from her mum and Matt her stepdad?

Now the problems really started.  How was she going to save this little dragon?

How would she keep him a secret form Mum and Matt?  Matt would not approve and Mum would pay the price for that.

What do you feed a baby dragon anyway?

It is all going well and the baby dragon starts to improve on his mashed arrowroot biscuit diet until he spikes Pip with his claw.  The burning sensation gets worse and her whole arm feels heavy.  The doctors give her antibiotics but she knows they won’t help.  Nothing will help. She is changing and she doesn’t know why or when it will stop.

A  book that makes you look for possibilities no matter how small because you never know how one small thing could change your life.

It reminds us that we need to sometimes save things to save ourselves.

4 out of 5 ZZZZ

 

Foxlee, K. (2021). Dragon Skin. Allen & Unwin: Crows Nest, Australia.

by

There is no place for monsters. Especially in Cowslip Grove.

Cowslip Grove was like most other towns in suburbia.  Nice houses, good schools, safe, nothing seemed out of place.  There is no place for monsters in this day and age.  They disappeared with the dark ages, didn’t they?

Tell that to Cindy Fogle who wakes on Monday night with a scratching sound that could only be a monster, but when her parents come to her room there is nothing there.  On Tuesday, a shuffling sound woke Cindy with a scream.  A really tall man, the monster in her dreams but still her parents found nothing.  Wednesday night it was under the bed.  Her parents looked everywhere, but no monsters.

On Thursday night, Cindy’s parents woke to nothing and went back to sleep.  Why would they wake up to anything different?  There wasn’t anyone else that lived there.  It was just them and the empty room Mr Fogle kept meaning to renovate. Wasn’t it?

Nothing seems out of place in Cowslip Grove except that children keep going missing…

and no one even knows they’ve gone.

Levi and Kat remember.  They remember the children who disappear and only they can see the reason every one is in danger.  The tall man with a nose like a beak and fingers like bones.  Only they can see the evil that haunts the nighttime and steals the life from the town.

Can they find the missing children before the Tall Man and his evil destroy the whole town or is it too easy to forget?

A scary story with lost of illustrations and monsters to add to the effect and make you want to stay awake at night.  Not one to read before you go to bed unless you check underneath it and lock the windows first.

I really enjoyed this story even if it did make me listen for bumps in the night!

Are you brave enough for this one?

4.5 out of 5 ZZZZz

Merritt, K. (2020). No place for monsters.  Chicken House: Somerset, United kingdom.