The Sisters Grimm The Fairytale Dectectives by Michael Buckley

I have to confess this quaint looking hard cover book has been on my reading pile for many months. Not sure why I waited to read it. This is a terrific book if you love references to fairy tales and nursery rhymes and other famous literary characters.

A good example of these references is when Mayor Charming (yes he is really Prince Charming of those famous tales Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty and Rapunzel) hosts a special ball. Our heroines Sabrina and her sister Daphne attend the ball disguised as the Woodsman and Mama Bear.

“A car pulled up in front of the house and a blond woman in a blue bonnet and puffy dress got out. She reached into the back seat for a long white staff with a curled end. Before the attendant could close the door for her, half a dozen lambs tumbled out and eagerly followed the woman inside.”

Sabrina and Daphne are the Grimm sisters. Granny Relda Grimm has been kidnapped by a giant after someone plants a bean stalk seed. Is Jack (of Jack and the Beanstalk) the best Everafter character of Ferryport or is that Fairyport to employ to save the day or have Sabrina and Daphne just made the most terrible mistake possible?

This is book one of The Sisters Grimm and I am keen to keep reading. This book would be a great family read-a-loud.

Freddie the frightened and the wondrous Ms Wardrobe by Pamela Shrapnel

This is a very old book (1988) with a fabulous title and terrific illustrations by Terry Denton.

Freddie has a huge number of goblins, gremlins, zombies, and things that go bump in the night to contend with and his mum and dad are absolutely no help as they spend the critical time each evening from 7.30pm watching a favourite television soapie and oblivious to Freddie and his fears.

Up til now poor Freddie has had to battle these horrors all alone but as luck would have it the Wondorous Ms Wardrobe arrives and immediately helps to sort out these problems. Ms Wardrobe is Freddie’s cousin Penelope and she has bought her special kit of monster fighting tools (actually it is a fishing tackle box with Penelope’s name in silver across the lid) which include a sugar sachet, a whistle, a gold glitter glue pen, a magnifying glass, penknife, chewing gum and several different sized band aids.

Penelope systematically attacks the Cardigan Zombie, the Troll in the Hall and finally the dreaded Googyman who lurks in the garden tapping the window each evening trying to get into Freddie’s room.

This book is a little like One Night At Lottie’s House by Max Dann which is an all time favourite read-a-loud of mine. Penelope is a lot like Lottie, a special girl with heaps of daring, common sense and most importantly someone in whom you can have great confidence.

I bought this book to re-read and was not disappointed. Children in Junior grades who like books about monsters will really devour this little chapter book.

Cicada Summer by Kate Constable

We all judge books by their covers and this is exactly why I picked up Cicada Summer. The cover is lovely, the story quite magical and the title a perfect one to read during an Australian Summer.

El for Leather, El Dorado, Ella Fitzgerald, Elementary, Elbow Grease, Elephant, Electric Chair, El’s Bells, Elf Ears, Electron Microscope. “ ‘Um Dad’, said Eloise shyly. ‘Would it be okay it you just called me my name?’ … ‘ Yeah sure,’ he said after a minute. 'I guess so. I thought you liked all my funny little nicknames.’”

Eloise is totally lost following the death of her mother. Her father is caught up in schemes to make money as a way to avoid really helping Eloise who has become mute in her grief. In the latest scheme Stephen, her father, has decided to bulldoze an old house that previously belonged to his mother Mo and build a modern convention centre.

Eloise stays with Mo, who has her own suffering to overcome, while her Dad heads back to the city to organize the finances. Luckily for Eloise and Mo the Durrani family live next door. They are newly arrived immigrants from Afghanistan and I found myself wishing to know more of their story they are such special people who generously help Mo and Eloise and even her dad.

Left to her own devices Eloise heads back to the old house. In this timeslip fantasy everything goes still and cool and Eloise finds the buildings and garden transformed with a green lawn, flower beds, a neat white fence and fresh paint work. The noisy cicadas and strong heat of summer signal her return to real time. Eloise may not be able to talk but she really needs a friend and in this other time she finds one but who is Anna?

This is a gentle story of healing and true friendship. It is so easy to read it is like a long cool drink on a hot summer day. I would recommend this book to girls in Middle Primary grades. I think some children in my school might have contributed to this set of reviews.

A Rat's Tale by Tor Seidler

This book could be called a rats tail. In fact as I read this book about rats and their lives on the edge of the human world found myself wishing I also had a tail, they are such useful and desirable appendages. Tails are also a good indicator of character. Our hero Montague has nice long tail. Randal Reese-Rat, on the other hand, does not. In a scene reminiscent of The Paperbag Princess by Robert Munch, we meet young Randal. “Although his tail was a bit on the scrawny side, Randall was a handsome young rat. His fur was always perfectly in place, never ratted, and he always smelled good.” Later when Isabel, his intended, arrives home in a very disheveled state we see Randal’s true nature. “Marry you! Are you crazy? Do you think a Reese- Rat would marry something like you!” Horray we know Montague is her one true love.

The rats need to raise money for their survival. Each year they present their human landlord with a barrel full of money but now the stakes have been raised even higher and the rats must find one hundred thousand dollars.

Together Montague and Isabel will save the day using their unique and special talents. Montague is an artist and Isabel is adventurous and the new rat vocabulary you will learn in this story is an extra bonus. The illustrations by Fred Marcellion are wonderful. A little like the style of Lemony Snicket and Chris Van Allsburg in The Mysteries of Harris Burdick. We have a picture book by this illustrator in our library called I, Crocodile – check it out today. You can read more about the author too!

This book was first published in 1986 and so it seems amazing that it escaped my notice until now. If you loved The Tale of Desperaux, Tumtum and Nutmeg, Mrs Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, The Borrowers, and the Travels of Thelonious then this is certainly the book for you! On the back cover one review says “I hugged this book to me when the final page was read.” Me too! Now I have discovered there is a second book Revenge of Randal Reese-Rat! Time to go shopping.

The Old Willis Place : a ghost story by Mary Downing Hahn

This is one of the books I bought home from my school library to read over the summer holidays. It was one we purchased in 2009 and right from the opening scene it proved an intriguing book. If you really like scary ghost stories this one might be for you but be warned this book really is very scary. In fact I think this plot will linger with me for a long time. Diana and her brother Georgie live near an old run down mansion. Quite regularly new caretakers arrive to guard the mansion but this time it is a man and his daughter and right away Diana is excited at the prospect of a new friend.

The mystery of Diana and Georgie unfolds very slowly and all the questions I had as a reader kept me glued to the page. Who are these children? Where do they live? Where are their parents? What do they eat? If you have read any of my other blog entries you will know food is often one of my favourite parts of a book yet there is no mention of any food eaten by Diana and Georgie in The Old Willis Place only strange references such as the one on page 13 “It would be so lovely to sink our teeth into hot juicy food again.” Then on page 81 “ ‘You haven’t drunk your lemonade’, I pushed the glass away. ‘I told you I wasn’t thirsty. In fact I don’t even like lemonade.’ " and page 150 “Before I could protest, Mr Morrison set down two bowls and fixed a third for himself. The fragrance reminded me of my mother’s soup…. ‘I really can’t stay. I’m sorry.’ ”. These are some of the tantalizing hints that Diana and Georgie might not be just a couple of children from the local housing estate who like play in the manor grounds. This is a ghost story after all.

This is a book for very senior readers. The fate of Diana and Georgie is truly awful and so this is not a book for very sensitive readers. This author has lots of other titles so take look at her web site.

Stuart’s cape by Sara Pennypacker

Stuart wants to have an adventure. He knows superheroes have great adventures but superheroes wear capes and Stuart has no cape until he finds a bunch of men’s ties in one of the unopened boxes in the hall way of his new home.

Stuart has lost all his good stuff – a mannequin arm, an oven door, a dead Christmas tree, a cracked toilet seat, a box of bent coat hangers, false teeth – all wonderful stuff that it had taken years to collect. These treasures were picked up by the trash collector and not the moving van but Stuart now has the perfect materials for a cape – ties, a stapler and one purple sock. One hundred ties makes a wonderful cape and the sock is a perfect secret pocket.

This is how Stuart’s adventures begin with lots of fun, puns (warm as toast) and one surprising good friend – the trash collector! All these events lead up to the second book Stuart Goes to School. Stuart has so many fears about school and it seems all of them might come true – trouble making friends, embarrassing situations in the classroom, being locked in the toilet or being the shortest kid in the class.

My favourite scene comes during show and tell which is called “Our big interesting world”. Stuart stands tall ready to show is marvelous cape. “Stuart whipped open his cape very dramatically. He had practiced this in front of the mirror a lot. He waited for the kids to say ‘Awesome!’ or ‘Wow!’ or 'Cool Stuart!’. He waited for a long time. The room was so silent Stuart wondered if his ears had stopped working. He felt an odd breeze. He looked down and froze in horror.”
I am once again sad to discover Stuart’s cape is out of print and our library copy is very worn. I guess I need to investigate the world of used copies because you certainly need to read these two books in the right order. Both would be enjoyed by younger readers in Grades 1-3. By the way we have our own Cape in the library made by a kind mum out of old ties. It is fabulous!

The graveyard book by Neil Gaiman

Many people have said to me how much they loved The Graveyard Book although perhaps loved is not quite the best word. This is simply a marvelous and compelling story. It says in the back that Neil Gaiman spent 20 years thinking about and writing this book and yet the highly skilled writing seems so effortless. Gaiman is such a descriptive writer and if you have ever visited a graveyard you will certainly be able to really see this one through the writing and your imagination.

Bod (Nobody Owens) lives in the graveyard with a colourful cast of characters from the past. This cemetery is no longer in use and so the ‘inhabitants’ are all from a bygone era. Bod is in real danger. His life has been seriously threatened and so the dead souls agree to offer their protection and they grant Bod the Freedom of the Graveyard. Luckily for Bod there is one nondead soul who dwells in the graveyard – Silas. It is Silas who will go into the world to get food and later clothes for Bod and it is Silas who will offer important advice and friendship to Bod as he grows to the teenage years.


Bod could have a surprisingly pleasant upbringing in the graveyard with all these souls to care for him but all through there is the underlying threat of danger from the one who wanted to murder him when he was just a tiny child. This man Jack literally stalks the pages of this gripping book constantly waiting for the right moment to strike.

With amazing illustrations by Chris Riddell this is a book to savor and enjoy, it is a book to read and re-read, it is a book I would not hesitate to recommend to a senior primary student as one of my top books of 2009. No wonder it was the winner of the Newbery Award.