The Creakers by Tom Fletcher

Just checking under the bed for creakers before I go to sleep...

I was so delighted that Tom Fletcher picked Beetle Boy to be a part of his bookclub, that I immediately set about getting my hands on his newest book The Creakers, and when it arrived I was impressed by what an attractive book it is. As soon as I opened the cover my four-year-old son, Seb, snuggled up next to me, attracted to Shane Devries' wonderful illustrations and he asked me to read it to him.

The story is told in the voice of Tom Fletcher with all of his playfulness, joking and kindness. There are notes from the narrator at the end of each chapter and sometimes in the text, however, despite Tom's warning to the reader about the scary nature of this adventure my little one wanted to hear about Lucy and all the disappeared grown-ups. I have to admit to hiding the book for a week till he forgot about it because I read ahead and realised pretty quickly that this story is a little too scary for a four-year-old. However a six-year-old would love it, and it's a great book to read to kids, because the parent reader becomes the Tom Fletcher narrator, if you see what I mean.

The Creakers is a cross between The Box Trolls and the BFG. It's quirky and funny, with great characters, and a story that races along and causes your heart to beat a little faster. If you have a child who is a fan of scary stories then this would be a good book for them.

Listen to Tom talking about the inspiration for his book in the video below.

Astrid the Unstoppable by Maria Parr

Astrid the Unstoppable by Maria Parr is as perfect as snowfall at Christmas. It's classic storytelling at it's best, both delightful and moving.

Astrid Glimmerdal is a gutsy young girl whose days are spent skiing and sledging down the mountains where she lives. Her best friend is a grumpy old man called Gunnvald, because there are no children in the village. One day she discovers he has a secret and everything begins to change.

Weaving fairy tales and music into a modern story, set in a mountainous winter wonderland with the fierce and passionate Astrid at it's heart. This is a very special story, full of fire, yet thoughtful, it reminded me of Pippi Longstocking and Heidi. I loved it, particularly because of the way it depicts relationships between children and adults.

Astrid the Unstoppable is Maria's second novel, and won the prestigious Brage Prize for best children's book and the Norwegian Critics' Prize.

A Place Called Perfect by Helena Duggan

A Place Called Perfect by Helena Duggan has been one of the more visible debuts this year, what with its being Waterstones book of the month in August and then picked for the Tom Fletcher Bookclub. This, combined with the fact that the wonderful cover art is by Karl James Mountford (who does the internal illustrations for my books, and whom I adore), has caused the book to jump to the top of by TBR pile. Oh and they sent me cool glasses. Presents always help.

I read the book in one sitting because the premise is curious and terrifying. As soon as you open the book you enter a town called Perfect, which has a strange problem, everyone there is blind and has to wear special glasses. Violet's father is an eye specialist and as soon as the family move to Perfect, their vision goes. Violet notices a series of strange things, and before you know it, you're halfway through the book, you heart is in your mouth and you're knee deep in adventure. I don't want to give anything away, so I will not share more. This is a well written book. It's a great read and operates on two levels, there's the surface adventure, which is thrilling, and then the discussion about the questionable nature of a society which vilifies imagination and requires conformity. Helena Duggan has produced a great debut and I suspect we've a lot more to read from her in the future.

You can listen to Tom Fletcher reading an extract from A Place Called Perfect below.

The Explorer by Katherine Rundell

Most people who love books know that Katherine Rundell is an accomplished writer. Her prose is swift to read and littered with seeds which germinate in your imagination. Having just finished writing Battle of the Beetles, which is set in the Amazon rainforest, I was excited and slightly scared of reading her new book The Explorer. I was unable to afford the time or the money to go to the Amazon in person, so all of the research I did for my final beetle book was in libraries, online or in my study. I had read that Katherine actually went to the Amazon in preparation for writing this book, and I was so excited to see how she'd interpreted that experience in words.

The Explorer doesn't disappoint. The story begins with a plane crash and four children being stranded in the Amazon. The lush greenery of the rainforest is evoked deftly and creates a lasting landscape in your head. Katherine loves to describe food in her books, and the food the Amazon provides is unusual and sometimes unpalatable, and these were my favourite bits. The hunger and the unusual meals are beautifully described. It's impossible not to love the baby sloth in the story, but I also really enjoyed the character of the explorer, he was complex, intriguing and a bit frightening in the best of ways.

My favourite Rundell book is still The Wolf Wilder, but The Explorer is a great addition to her rich and varied list of children's stories. If you haven't read her books yet, then you need to.

My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell *****

How I wish I had read this book when I was a child. I am going to read this book to my children, and give it to every human being I ever meet who hasn't read it. It is wonderful.

Gerald Durrell’s My Family and Other Animals was first published in 1956 and is set between 1935 and 1939 when Gerald Durrell’s family move to Corfu.

It’s a work of genius and should be in every child’s bookcase. It’s written by a naturalist, and opens your eyes, providing you with a vocabulary to describe and think about the creatures you encounter in the natural world – no matter how old you are.

The book is divided into three parts – the three different villas in which Gerald and his eccentric family live at various times in Corfu. Durrell manages to capture a child’s point of view of the adult world perfectly.  His observations of his family are similar to his observations of the creatures he collects. It’s not complex language, but it is beautifully expressed. The descriptive prose is shockingly good. The narrative is not held together so much by plot as by humour, which I think is an important ingredient in a children’s book. This book is very funny, with proper laugh out loud moments. There are delightful childish details, like he has these two little dogs called Widdle and Puke, and then there’s the moment with the scorpions…so good. And it’s one of the few books I’ve found that has large sections about beetles in it!

People talk about narrative voice, I think this book has narrative eyes – or a narrative view. We see the natural world as Gerald Durrell did, as a boy and, of course, he grew up to be a famous naturalist. As an adult writer, he could so easily have browbeaten the reader with all his knowledge, but it’s handled with a light touch.

He describes Ulysses, his pet owl, waking up: “He would yawn delicately, shiver violently, so that all his feathers stood out like the petals of a wind-blown chrysanthemum.” I delight in this kind of descriptive prose.

There are some dubious moments, when the young Gerald does things that are now illegal – he steals eggs. That particular kind of exploration can’t happen anymore because of the damage it would do, but the subject does raise interesting questions. When the young Gerald goes out on his expeditions to collect and watch creatures – or to explore — he has a freedom and autonomy that children don’t have today.

If you haven't read this book, you must.

Mold and the Poison Plot by Lorraine Gregory

I read this book back in June when it first came out, but have been too busy meeting my own deadlines to have the time to write a review. However, I believe that it always better to be late with this things than never do them, so apologies for the tardy nature of this review.

Mold and the Poison Plot is the kooky debut middle grade book by Lorraine Gregory. It tells the tale of a boy called Mold who has a very large nose and an extraordinary ability to smell things in detail.

This book is a romp of an adventure that had me crossing all my fingers and toes at some points. The prose is rich with smells and flavour, and Mold is an unusual protagonist, easy to like and champion. At the heart of the adventure is his touching relationship with his adopted mother, who he has to save from wrongful accusation. The story is brutal and stinky in places, but all the best adventures are.

I hope we get to read more books about Mold and find out who his real parents are.