A World Away by Pauline Francis

A World Away tells the story of love, separation and being different.

The book is set in Queen Elizabeth the First's era, it starts off with colonists moving to the USA and trying to start their own colony there.They also try to befriend the natives living there. However their plan doesn't go so well and they end up capturing a young girl called Nadie.

So the colonists make the journey back to England and Nadie soon finds herself living with a priest and his sister in Plymouth. The people living there have never seen a black person before and they are at first wary of her, apart from the young blacksmith of the town, Tom.

Tom and Nadie fall in love but it is impossible for them to have a relationship her being black and because she refused to be baptised (believing in her own gods) mean that she could not be married to him.

But then Nadie has the opportunity to go back to her own land and people, she longs to go but she cannot leave Tom, so Tom agrees to come with her. Nadie is at first disrespected by her people for leaving them (not that she had any choice in the matter) but they agree to take her again but not her loved one.

Will Tom and Nadie ever be able to find love?

A World Away is a brilliant novel and a wonderful, gripping story. I give it an eight out of ten!

Cuckoo in the Nest by Michelle Magorian

This is a fantastic book by the same author who wrote the wonderful novels Goodnight Mister Tom and Back Home.

This book is set in 1946 – 1947. This novel is about how a boy of about seventeen is desperate to become an actor in a real theatre. He used to work in a paper mill with his father until he got sacked, he must get a job as an actor but will anyone take him on?

While Ralph does his best to get the job of an actor he must hide this ambition from his father. Ralph’s father doesn’t approve of the theatre and they already get into enough quarrels without getting into that one – again. It was a struggle for Ralph to get into the theatre every Friday night without his father knowing, never mind this.

Since the theatre isn’t willing to take him on unless his father supplied them with one-hundred pounds and his father would never agree to pay that money, even if they did have it, Ralph must find some other job. He finds one at one lady’s house, as a gardener. Before long Ralph is helping with something to do with her family as well as with her garden. He also makes very good friends with her daughter when she comes to stay.

Ralph still must be as close to the theatre as possible, so he starts to help out every Saturday night clearing the props from the stage after the show. He finds himself falling in love with the assistant stage hand, who unfortunately for him is engaged. Whilst doing this he still tries to get the job as an actor.

So can Ralph keep this up while not letting his argumentative father catch on what is going on? He must also look after his stressed mother, put up with his annoying aunt, whinging cousin, determined to work but still to young brother and his very clever twelve year old sister. Will he ever get a job as an actor? Will anyone ever find out about his love to the Assistant Stagehand? And will he ever get the chance to meet his favourite actor, Basil Duke? Read this amazing book to find out.

This is a truly excellent book and I recommend it to anyone eleven plus. I give it an eight out of ten.

Ithaka by Adele Geras

This is a fabulous book written by Adele Geras. I really enjoy history and I enjoy historical novels even more so this book really appealed to me.
Ithaka is a story about all of the Ancient Greek woman who are left behind while their husbands are fighting in the Trojan War. It tells about how Penelope - Odysseus' faithful wife - is one of the women waiting behind and how she has waited for ten years for her husband to come back and that she has had no word for him. Everyone - except from Penelope and a few others - are convinced that Odysseus is dead - but are they right? She is guided by Athena - a Greek goddess - to wait for her husband as she struggles to do the right thing.

Her young handmaiden, Klymene, is the real main character and she and Penelope have to try and survive while their beautiful Greek island, Ithaka, is destroyed by the disgusting men who have come to marry Penelope.

Will Odysseus ever come back? Will Klymene find her true love? Will the disgusting suitors ever go away and leave everyone on Ithaka be? Read this amazing book to find out!

I really enjoyed this book and I give it an 8 out of 10. I think that you should really be 11+ before reading this book as it has some bad language and "adult themes".

Peter Pan in Scarlet by Geraldine McCaughrean

This book is the first ever official sequel of Peter Pan and Wendy. The Lost Boys and Wendy are now all grown up and have left Neverland. But they keep having strange dreams about it. So they decide to go back to Neverland, they catch a fairy called Firefly who tells the worst lies ever.

To make themselves children again, as only children can go to Neverland they all get there children's clothes and dress up in them, this makes them young again. Some problems occur during this process, Slightly doesn't have any children and Tootles only has daughters. So Tootles turns into a girl!

When they reach Neverland everything has changed there are no Lost Boys as Peter turned them all out for becoming adults and he's living in the Wendy House which is now on one of the branches of the tree.

Peter and the Lost Boys who came back decide to go on a quest to find Hook's treasure. A lot of things go wrong on the way -from being attacked by pirates to going to the maze of witches. This is an excellent book and I really enjoyed it. I give it an 8 out of 10.

The Silver Blade by Sally Gardener

This is the sequel to the Red Necklace, they are both great books and I loved them. To see my review of the Red Necklace, it is my last review.
This book is also set in the French Revolution , Sido is now safely in England living with her aunt and uncle, however her father is dead. Everybody believes Count Kallovski to be dead, but is he?

Yann is now saving aristocrats who are going to be sent to the guillotine, with the rest of the people at the theatre he used to work at, the Theatre of the Follies, this theatre is owned by Citizen Aulard, a coward. Yann and Didier save people before they can be sent to the guillotine and those people appear as minor characters in the plays at the theatre before being sent to England.

Yann has earned himself the name of the Silver Blade as one night when he was saving people from a prison he put a small Silver Blade over the bed of one of the people working at the prison. So the police in France are looking for the Silver Blade and whenever someone escapes from the guillotine the public say that the Silver Blade saved them.

Sido and Yan are deeply in love with each other and they communicate with each other by letters. Sido's aunt and uncle think that Yann is a spoilt boy who threw away a chance to go to Cambridge university to go to France and become an actor. They have no idea what Yann really does in France.

From the Theatre all being put in prison for suspicion of being the Silver Blade to Count Kallovski coming back from the dead. This is an excellent story and I give it an 8 out of 10.

Enna Burning by Shannon Hale

This is the sequel to the book that I reviewed a little while ago called The Goose Girl. If you want to see my review about the Goose Girl it's just a few reviews ago.
This book is about one of the main characters in the previous book called Enna. One day Enna's brother comes home and there's something strange about him. When he suddenly sets fire on Enna and her friend Finn -also from the Goose Girl - everything starts to go wrong. It turns out that her brother has managed to get the power to be able to set fire from things by pulling the heat from living things and redirecting it at someone or something.

Suddenly a kingdom called Tira wants to go to war against Bayern. Enna's brother - who is on the Bayern side - gets permission from the Prince to use his powers to win the battle. Bayern wins the battle because of the fire, but unfortunately Enna's brother sacrifices himself to the fire and dies.

Then Enna finds the piece of paper that gave her brother the power, by reading this piece of paper she gets the power herself. She has an urge to burn everything and even ends up burning her best friend and queen of Bayern, Isi - also from The Goose Girl. Fourtanetly Isi has the power to put it out with the wind which she can control.

Enna goes around setting alight the Tira camps until one day when she gets caught. Will Enna betray her country or worse will she betray her friends - Finn and Razo - which she has known for years. Read this amazing book to find out! I loved this book and give it a 8 out of 10.

Small Steps by Louis Sachar

This is the sequel to the amazing book Holes which I loved so much that I gave it 10 out of 10. See my first few posts to see my review of Holes.
Small Steps is about Armpit and X-Ray once they have left Camp Green Lake. Armpit sets himself a few small steps to try and make himself a better person. These steps are;

1. Graduate High School
2. Get a job
3. Save his money
4. Avoid situations that might turn violent
5. Lose the name Armpit.

So Armpit gets a new job digging trenches - surprise, surprise- and is quite happy with everything. He is making a lot of money, doing well at school, avoiding by violent situations, no-body knows about his previous nickname and he even got to dig trenches for the mayor.

But when X-Ray suddenly turns up things start to go wrong. X-Ray has a plan to make a lot of money he asks Armpit if he can borrow some money and that if he does Armpit can double all of his money in just two weeks, first Armpit is reluctant but finally gives in.

So what X-Ray and Armpit do is buy twelve tickets for the amazing pop star Kaira De Leon from the station selling them and they get them very cheap, they then sell the tickets at a very high price in a newspaper advert.

So can X-Ray and Armpit sell the tickets? From meeting the pop star to nearly getting X-Ray put into jail, this is a very funny story about trust and loyalty. I enjoyed it so give a 8 out of 10.

Stormbreaker by Anthony Horowitz

I have read this book and the other Alex Rider books many times and I think that they are absolutely amazing!
Stormbreaker is about a boy called Alex Rider who is about fourteen. He doesn't see much of his uncle - who works in a bank - as his uncle is always going away unexpectedly for work. Alex doesn't have any parents as they died when he was young. So Alex lives with his uncle - Ian Rider- when he's around and his uncle's American house keeper Jack Starbright- although Jack has a boys name she's really a girl.

So when the door bell rings at three in the morning Alex knows that something is wrong, it turns out that his uncle died in a car crash. This isn't good enough for Alex so he goes investigating and goes to a car demolishing garage. He quickly finds his uncle's car and discovers that it hadn't been a car crash but had bullets through it.

Then Alex is asked to go to the Royal and General Bank (where his uncle worked) to see the manager there. He discovers that the Royal and General is not a bank at all but MI6 and that his uncle was a spy.

Next Alex gets sent to a training camp where he gets bullied by the men there and he's called Cub as they don't have any names there. After days of training Alex returns to Alan Blunt - the head of MI6- and Mrs Jones - his deputy- and he is told that he must go on a mission to find out exactly what's up with the Stormbreakers. If Alex refuses Jack will be sent back to America and Alex will have to go to a cruel boarding school.

So Alex is sent to Cornwall. This is where Herod Sayle a very rich business man has made his Stormbreakers, a very expensive computer that really helps as education and makes you feel like you are where ever you are learning about. Herod has decided to give a Stormbreaker to every school in the country for free. MI6 think that he's to good to be true and that somethings up. Can Alex find out exactly what's up and save the country? Read the book to find out.

I really enjoyed this book and give it an 8 out of 10.

The Lady in the Tower by Marie-Louise Jensen

I absolutely loved this book as well as it was a lovely, although in some places quite sad book

The main character in this book is called Eleanor and she is the daughter of a Lord. She loves both her mother and her father and her brother as well. But then one day, when she is elven years old, her father comes home, with some of the King's men with him. He claims that Eleanor's mother is a witch. He orders her to be locked in one of the towers of his castle - this book is set in 1540 in the rein of Henry the Eighth.

Eleanor is now fifteen and hates her father. Her mother is still trapped in the tower, and wouldn't be alive if Eleanor and her friends living in the village didn't provide her with food as the food she is given by Eleanor's father is poisoned. They communicate by letter so that Eleanor can tell her mother what she is missing.

Things start to go even worse when Eleanor's father invites many friends over in honour of the King coming to stay. Eleanor is told that she is going to be betrothed to a man that she hates, and according to her father knows all about her mother. She has no way to stop the marriage and her mother has accidentally swallowed some poison and is very ill.

Can Eleanor and her mother escape or not? Read the book to find out! I really enjoyed this book and give it an 8 out of 10.

Stone Heart by Charlie Fletcher

Sorry that I haven't blogged in ages yet again! I've been so busy reading, playing on the Wii and going to school (of course) that I haven't had time to blog!
This is a very exciting book and I loved it - even though this was the second time I read it! It is about a boy called George, who one day breaks a statue outside of a museum, where he has been on a school trip.

Suddenly the statues around him come to life, he finds himself being chased around London by the taints - the evil statues who are often gargoyles. He is saved by the Gunner- a spit which is a statue in a form of a human being, the good statues basically- who helps him on his mission stop the war that George his created between the spits and the taints.

They are joined by a girl called Edie who, to George's amazement, can also see statues come to life, unlike George however Edie has the special talent of being a glint- which means she can see things that have already happened.

As they run around London visiting the other statues the three of them become closer and closer together. When some statues are very helpful and some not so helpful, all of these statues really can be found in London and there is a map in the front of the book on where to find them.

I really enjoyed this book as it was very exciting and I give it a 8 out of 10.

The next few book that I'm going to write about may not be in the correct order as I can't remember what order I read them in.

Judy Moody saves the world by Megan Mcdonald

This is another one of Daisy Locket's posts.




This is a great book by Megan Mcdonald called Judy Moody saves the world . This is not the only one Megan Mcdonald has wrote she has written lots moreI have two more and a new one called Stink The incredible shrinking kid . Judy moody has a little brother called James Moody but he gets called Stink Moody. The main charecters in the story are Judy,Mum,Dad,Stink,Frank,Rocky,JessicaMr Todd Toady the toad and Mouse the cat.

The Black Riders by Violet Needham

This is another book that Michaela sent to me! I actually finished this last week but what with being ill, catching up work and revising for Maths exams I haven't had a chance to blog!

This book is about a young boy called Dick. He is an orphan but he lives with foster parents. This book is set around 1945. Dick has always wanted to be one of the Black Riders, a group of people.
But then one day Dick finds himself with an enemy of the Black Riders, Far Away Moses, who always seems faraway when he's being hunted down.

Dick finds out more and more about Far Away Moses and really likes him. He begins to hate the Black Riders. Dick finds himself wound up in a private war between Far Away Moses' side and The Black Riders.

Dick becomes one of the enemies of the Black Riders and he begins to live with Far Away Moses. He begins to learn about his father and people who knew him. This book has amazing twists and is really interesting! It is very exciting and you never know what is going to happen next. I loved this book and I would give it an 8 out of 10. Thank you Michaela for letting me borrow this book!

Finding Violet Park by Jenny Valentine

Finding Violet Park is another good story, it was really interesting to read and quite funny.


It is about a boy called Lucas who finds the ashes of Violet Park in a taxi place, he takes pity on her and lies to the taxi company saying that she was in his family.

Throughout the book he slowly realises how important Violet is to him and his family.

Lucas has a strange family his Mum is very depressed, his Dad left them five years ago, his older sister Mercy is always getting on his nerves and he has a funny little brother called Jed.

Lucas begins to realise that Violet is linked with his dad and that through her he might find out the whereabouts of his Dad. Loads of his family and friends actually knew Violet or heard of her.

This is a really good book and it is very funny and witty and because of this I'd give it an 8 out of 10.

8/10

Golden Pavements by Pamela Brown

This is the third in the series of The Swish of the Curtain. Again it's a great book!
The book is about the older six of the children in The Swish of the Curtain, these are: Nigel, Jeremy, Sandra, Lynette, Vicky and Bulldog. They have promised their parents that they will make a theatre back at home after they have had their training and the book is about how they all go to live in London and go to an Academy of drama.

It is about how they get on at the Academy and how they all get better and better. At some point they got to theatres to learn how to make a really great one. At one point one of them (no I'm not saying who, that would ruin the story) plans on not joining the others back at Fenchester to make a professional theatre because she is told that she has such a great career.

They all realise how expensive things can be and they have to get used to living off not very much money. There wasn't that much of a plot to this book and most of the important things happened at the end, but I still really enjoyed it.

I would give this book a 8 out of 10.

8/10

Maddy Alone by Pamela Brown

Maddy Alone is the second book in the series of The Swish of the Curtain.


It is hard to say what happens in this book without giving away the ending of The Swish of the Curtain. What happens is that Maddy gets a part in a play about a local historical legend. This is a big achievement for Maddy as she is the youngest of the group as she is only twelve and the others have left so school.

Unfortunately this book is only 125 pages long! It is also a bit expensive probably because it has only recently been re-printed.

I would give this 8 out of 10.

8/10