A huge ‘thank you’ to Random Things Tours for sending us this copy of Wolves of Londinium by Kate Cunningham.
This review is by my friendly neighbourhood 11 year old, who volunteered to write about how he found the wonderful adventure story.
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The Wolves of Londinium is a choose your own adventure story where you get to learn more and more about the characters as you go on. Your character is heavily hinted to be from a middle class family of sculptors , but your father died at a young age so your mother is left to raise you.
I really enjoyed the way that the main character is on one mission: to deliver the emerald. Depending on what path you choose you get more context as to why you need to deliver the emerald. To sum it up, you need to get the emerald from a cruisers boat(which you have ordered) before delivering it to your mother because if you don’t, you will lose all your money and possibly starve!
I would whole heartedly recommend for any young readers who might want to jump into an ancient city full of wholesome magic and in some cases peril! I would recommend for any readers from age 8-14 or above as this was a superb read all ages would most likely enjoy or as a good read for children and their parents before bed as a cosy adventure story where YOU choose what happens and what decision you make and where the book goes! Remember: no matter what happens there is always going to be a different outcome and you can always try again!
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This book kept us busy on a long car ride, and because of the re-readability of it, it meant we only needed to take one book with us – a huge plus if you’re travelling with children this October!
As an archaeologist, I absolutely loved the premise of this book. You can tell it’s well researched but also, it isn’t too heavy-handed with the history – a perfect balance. I also really liked the fact that its published in Open Dyslexic font (my personal favourite) so it’s incredibly easy to read. As someone in a household of multiple learning differences, I can very much say that something as simple as choosing an accessible font really does really help.
The blurb is as follows:
You are the main character of this story as you make your own history in this Choose a Timeline story.
It is the year 122
Emperor Hadrian is visiting Britannia, and the Governor is determined to make it memorable. Your mother is an aurifix, a skilled goldsmith, and her statue of a gold wolf will be the centrepiece of the celebrations at the amphitheatre in Londinium.
All you need to do is collect the emeralds that have been shipped from Egypt in time for them to be added to the sculpture.
What could possibly go wrong?
Twenty possible endings – but only one is successful. Will you find it and avoid being thrown into prison or eaten by a tiger?
Author biography
When she was young Kate promised she would never go out with a boy called Sean (too naughty), study history (too boring) or be a teacher (too hard) but she dreamt of writing books.
Luckily dreams can come true and promises are made to be broken.
She now writes books inspired by fascinating stories from history, visits schools using her ten years of teaching experience, and is married to historian Sean Cunningham.
After all life would be very boring if you knew how it was going to turn out.
Kate works with her eldest son, illustrator Sam Cunningham, who creates the wonderful hand-drawn pictures in all the Reading Riddle children’s books.
http://www.readingriddle.co.uk
Social media links
Instagram: https://instagram.com/reading_riddle
Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@readingriddle
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/readingriddle
Substack: https://readingriddle.substack.com
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Why not check out what some other amazing reviewers had to say about this book – you can see other stops on this tour here:
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