Reviews

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Global by Eoin Colfer, Andrew Donkin and Giovanni Rigano

Comics have had a lot of bad rep over the years, but hopefully as a society, we’re coming to recognise how important they are as a reading medium. Comics require reading skills, of course,* but they also require a visual literacy that translates wonderfully to the critical reading of advertisements. As someone who has always loved the medium, I’m really thrilled to see graphic storytelling being treated with increasing respect, and being employed for increasingly important topics.

This incredible graphic novel, Global, follows the lives of two children – one impacted by melting ice, the other by flooding land. Eoin Colfer, Andrew Donkin and Giovanni Rigano have done an absolutely amazing job of communicating the climate crisis in a personal, sympathetic, and beautiful way.

I found the afterword particularly affecting; throughout the book I felt as though I was reading about a point in the near-future, a time that was coming if we continue to do nothing. But the afterword made it clear that these were events were taking place in the present. The sheets explaining climate change following this were also fantastic, and really made the information accessible.

As someone who’s just coming out of a degree and so is used to citing everything, I also appreciated that this book had employed a research consultant (Vivien Francis). This is – sadly – not as common as you might think in non-fiction books, so to see it in a fictional work was particularly nice.

And for those, like my youngest, who might be concerned about the fate of the dog in this book, I’m happy to report that the dog is still alive at the end.

Overall, this is a fabulous book for humanising the climate crisis, and for engaging empathetically with the world around us. The two very different plots really help to bring home how multifaceted an issue this is, while still working within such a visual medium; comics don’t give you a lot of space for footnotes, or whole paragraphs dedicated to exposition, so this was such a clever way of exploring the interconnectedness of environments across the earth.

Of the various children’s books I’ve read which touch on climate change/the environment, this is by far the one I’ve liked best so far. If you’d like to investigate others, check out:
– Terra Electrica (Middle Grade)
– Feast of Ashes (Young Adult)
– This Book is Not Rubbish (Non-fiction)
– Plant the Tiny Seed (Picture Book)
– We Travel So Far (Picture Book)
– A Swift Return (Picture Book)

What are your favourite books about the environment and climate change for children? I would absolutely love some more recommendations!

Fran xxx

I’ve set up a ‘bookshop‘ of sorts, over on Bookshop.org, so that I can point you to somewhere to buy that isn’t Amazon. I get a small commission for any sales made there. This helps to support me running this blog. If you’d like to get your copy of Global this way, please just click here. Thank you for your support.

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* If you’re not familiar with reading comics, I’d recommend conceptualising them as reading a play with images instead of stage-directions. And if you’re unfamiliar with plays, do yourself a huge favour and go and read The Importance of Being Earnest – it’s free on Project Gutenburg! It’s Oscar Wilde’s greatest gift to theatre kids the world over.

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Fishfolk by Steven Quincey-Jones – Review Copy via NetGalley

Fishfolk by Steven Quincey-Jones is a challenging book, both in terms of language and story. I think it’s probably easiest if I just take a few points in turn…

Language:
This is almost like reading prose poetry. Which is nice, if that’s what you’re into. I enjoyed it, but neither of my children – both of whom can (and have) read classics – read past the first few pages. It’s not that the vocabulary is difficult, but it’s playful – it lends an ‘otherness’ to that tale that really, really helps with worldbuilding. But that strong voice isn’t easy to read – words are conjugated unusually, idioms are muddied, and the actual reading process requires work as a result. If you’re not used to working for your stories, then I can imagine this feeling like a slog (though like I said – I enjoyed it, and the voice really lent itself to the mood of the world).

In short, it doesn’t feel like language for children.

Story:
Aside from the general, all-purpose hardship of life on a sinking land, after a flood, there are some REALLY dark moments in here. A toddler dies and children are left to bury him. An abusive Grandfather is left to sink in quicksand after having gaslit the main characters for the whole of their lives.

In short, it feels like a book about children, for adults.

Overall:
It’s an objectively brilliant book. It tugs on memories of dark fairy-tales – HC Andersen’s Little Mermaid, rather than the Disney one. It feels like it could take place in the uncertainty of a climate-crisis future, but there are shades of Michelle Paver’s Chronicles of Ancient Darkness to it too – like it might be the journey of ancestors. But as above, this story feels so grown-up. For a book labelled ‘middle grade’ I definitely felt like the content was perhaps a bit too old for the audience.

I loved the quirky layout. I loved the mythic quality. I loved the voice, and the mood. The artwork was brilliant. The whole thing felt like folk horror and I’d be quick to recommend to fans of Tom Cox’s ‘Help The Witch’. There’s a Gothic undertone which my Frankenstein-fan heart just found delicious. But. 

I’d probably only recommend to adults or older children – 14+. 

I would absolutely love to hear your take on darker stories for younger children.

I’ve set up a ‘bookshop‘ of sorts, over on Bookshop.org, so that I can point you to somewhere to buy that isn’t Amazon. I get a small commission for any sales made there. This helps to support me running this blog. If you’d like to get your copy of Fishfolk this way, please just click here. Thank you for your support.

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Undine’s Blessing by Tessa Hastjarjanto – The Write Reads Blog Tour

Huge thanks to the Write Reads blog tour team for sending us a copy of Undine’s Blessing by Tessa Hastjarjanto.

This story follows Marella as she heads to sea with her father, after her mother is forced to travel to receive proper medical care. Marella’s mother’s illness reads a lot – to me at least – like chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) and given the author’s experience, this would make sense (see bio below).

The fact that Marella is a young carer is dealt with sensitively and sympathetically – she doesn’t resent her mother’s condition or the amount of work she has to do in comparison to the other children she knows. She works hard to protect her mother, and in the world that Hastjarjanto has created, disability seems to be looked on in a much kinder light than modern-day Britain. It’s an incredibly refreshing thing to read.

The worldbuilding of Undine’s Blessing is something that really struck me from the outset. As someone who has spent a lot of time in fishing communities in rural Scotland, the descriptions of Marella’s daily life felt real and familiar, and the descriptions are beautiful. I can see people arguing that the plot takes a while to get going, but I didn’t mind spending a few chapters with Marella and her mother in their home, before she sets out to sea with her father.

My main criticism of this book is small; some of the language seemed jarringly modern at times. It’s one thing having a character use the word ‘kids’ to describe a group of children, but it alters the tone of third person narration when it happens in the main body of the prose. This is a small complaint, but it did make the story feel slightly less immersive for me. And this is a ‘unique to UK-English speakers’ problem, but the same happened when I read the word ‘Mom’ (albeit to a lesser extent).

Overall though, this was a lovely book – absolutely full of magic.

Blurb

A dutiful daughter, a mystical archipelago, and a hidden power waiting to command the tides…

Marella spends her days caring for her sick mother and selling her father’s fish. Bound by duty and love, she dreams little of adventure. But when her mother must travel to the city for treatment, her father takes her out to sea, despite her fear of water.

A storm steers them to Emberrain, home to a tribe of magical nymphs and a place of secrets, where Marella discovers a startling truth: her father is a frequent visitor to these mysterious islands. Soon she learns that Emberrain isn’t the only secret he had kept from her.

Marella has the power to control water and communicate with aquatic animals.

Overwhelmed by the magical but dangerous islands, and the secrets of her father, Marella must learn to harness her powers to save herself and her new aquatic friend before they are separated from their parents forever.

Undine’s Blessing is a journey of wonder, where fears are faced and mysteries unravel, and a young girl learns that true adventure begins when you dare to embrace who you truly are.

Book Details

Length: 298 Pages

Genre: Fantasy

Age Category: Young Adult

Date Published: January 27, 2024

Amazon Link: https://a.co/d/3A6CTUC (Canada) https://a.co/d/cFNzg3k (USA) https://amzn.eu/d/iR6Injk (UK)

Goodreads Link: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/199001923-undine-s-blessing 

The Story Graph Link: 

https://app.thestorygraph.com/books/acdc824e-225e-40be-9778-03566593b1cb

Author Bio

Tessa Hastjarjanto is a Dutch/Indonesian writer from the Netherlands. She writes speculative fiction, and blogs at narratess.com about books, fountain pens, and writing.

From a young age, she imitated popular stories and games in creating her own worlds. This love eventually led to a master’s degree in media and game studies at the University of Utrecht. However a mundane desk job was enough to inspire her to follow her creative passion. The first fanfics were written in lunch breaks and soon original fiction followed.

With the support of her husband, she now focuses on her writing career while battling chronic pain. Swiss white shepherd, Shiro, acts as a therapy dog to keep her healthy and reduce stress through extensive cuddle sessions.

You can find her on Twitter (@endalia), Instagram (@tessa.hastjarjanto), or on Bluesky (@endalia.bsky.social).

Undine’s Blessing was the 12th place finalist in BBNYA 2024!

About BBNYA

BBNYA is a yearly competition where book bloggers from all over the world read and score books written by indie authors, ending with 15 finalists (16 in 2024) and one overall winner.

If you want some more information about BBNYA, check out the BBNYA Website https://www.bbnya.com/ or take a peek over on Twitter @BBNYA_Official. BBNYA is brought to you in association with the book blogger support group @The_WriteReads. 

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How to Be Disabled and Proud (or at least kinda sorta okay with it) – Cathy Reay

How to be Disabled and Proud by Cathy Reay was sent to us by the lovely Sally Oliphant for review and we have thoroughly enjoyed this.

It’s not something I tend to talk about often, but there’s a lot of neurodivergent people in my family – I’ve been diagnosed with autism and dyspraxia in recent years, and there are various other family members with their own things going on (though these aren’t my stories to tell).

That being the case, there were lots of excited, willing readers for this.

Let’s start with the intended demographic;

“I only read the part about puberty. It was really good. It was very inclusive and I liked the illustrations, they were eye catching and big, and had speech marks and stuff. And they finished the paragraph’s using a speech bubble.” – Youngest kiddo (10)

“It represented lots of different types of disabilities and it talked about intersectionality too, which was good. There were different sections for different types of disabilities like invisible and visible ones. It uses the author’s personal experience as well so it’s really authentic. I think it’s all explained in a really succinct way. I thought the illustrations were really cute and they’re so bright and lively that you can imagine them in colour, even though they’re black and white. They carried through the representation that was present in the text.” – Eldest kiddo (13)

For me, I wish I’d had this book growing up – which is something of a complicated statement, because I didn’t know about my own neurodivergence until much later. I think, though, that even if I’d found this book without knowing about my own disability, I’d have got so much from it. I knew I was different, even if I didn’t have words for why that was. I knew that I couldn’t do some of the things that the other children could, and the tone is such that even without possessing the vocabulary to describe my brain that I have now, I would have felt seen and valued.

For those interested, here’s the blurb:

“A warm, funny and empowering guide to what you can expect growing up disabled, written by disabled journalist and mum Cathy Reay.

Have you ever felt like you don’t fit in anywhere?

Or like no-one understands what it feels like to be you?

Maybe you feel like you’re the only person in the world who looks, moves or thinks like you do.

Well, I’m here to tell you that you are not alone, and you belong in the world exactly as you are.

In this honest, funny, empowering guide, Cathy Reay draws on her own experiences of growing up disabled to encourage young readers to embrace (or at least, feel kinda sorta OK with) their disabled identity.

This book will guide disabled readers through navigating the move from primary to secondary school, voicing their accessibility needs, finding disabled community and gaining the confidence to stand up for their rights, and for others too. Cathy examines the challenges faced by disabled children, touching gently on issues such as bullying and discrimination, and what to do when people just don’t get it, with comforting and practical advice to help readers through tough times.

How To Be Disabled and Proud empowers disabled readers to value and appreciate themselves for who they are, exactly as they are, and acts as a powerful call to action for both disabled and non-disabled children to advocate for a more accessible, more understanding world.

Featuring interviews from a wide range of disabled changemakers and friends, including Ellie Simmonds, Jameisha Prescod, Nina Tame, Dr Shani Dhanda, Ellie Middleton, Elle McNicoll, Simon Wheatcroft and even a couple of disabled kids.

This is the essential guide to growing up disabled, perfect for children aged 9+ to read together with their families.“

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I’ve set up a ‘bookshop‘ of sorts, over on Bookshop.org, so that I can point you to somewhere to buy that isn’t Amazon. I get a small commission for any sales made there. This helps to support me running this blog. If you’d like to get your copy of How to be Disabled and Proud this way, please just click here. Thank you for your support.

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You’re not going to believe it…

… but I signed a book contract!!

I am so proud, and so excited to say that When The Giants Passed Through is coming out in 2026 with Northodox Press!

I wrote what I affectionately call ‘Giants’ in a month in 2020. I had no intention of trying to get it published – I wrote it for the love of writing. When people asked what I’d been up to, I mentioned it in passing, along with the fact that I’d been doing yoga.

Then friends and family started asking to read it, and eventually, about an hour before the deadline, my oldest friend sent me a link to the Kelpies Prize 2022. In between handing in essays, I threw together an entry and, thinking that nothing would come of it… of course, something did….

During my (amazing) mentorship with the Kelpies team, I worked on ‘Giants’. And eventually, it got to the point where it was ready to submit it to publishers.

But then I stalled.

I’m not really sure why. Perhaps it was due to the fact that university got exponentially more time-consuming as I progressed through my course, or perhaps the pace of life just sped up to the point where I didn’t have the bandwidth to contemplate submission packages.

Either way, not very much happened until Northodox announced they were opening a submission window. Having read and absolutely loved their book ‘Abraxus Elijah Honey’ by Ella Ruby Self, I knew that they’d be the perfect home for ‘Giants’.

And it looks like they thought so too!

I’ll be posting more here as news unfolds – I’m so excited to share this book with you all.

For now… here’s a teaser….