Shifty McGifty and Slippery Sam by Tracey Corderoy and Steven Lenton

Shifty McGifty and Slippery Sam are two robber dogs but they're not very good at it. They concoct a plan to steal from their neighbours by luring them to a party and so have to bake lots of yummy food for the neighbours to eat. Once again their plan goes wrong but perhaps they'll stumble across a possible career change instead...

I really adore this book! It's such a happy and fun tale and the illustrations are superb! The characters are so expressive (look, there's even an angry penguin!), the colours are bright and the cakes look delicious!

The use of rhyme works really well and there's the added bonus of spotting the spider on every double page spread - it's not always as easy as you'd think! It's a good story for looking at right and wrong and it really cheered up my colleague who was having a bad day. Nosy Crow have also included a QR code that links to a free audio recording of the book which is pretty good and includes a ping sound to tell your child when to turn the page. It's a really great way to start to introduce the digital element to reading as well as giving you that little something extra. 

The only negative point I can raise is that my colleague accidentally misread the first word of the title as a rude word but hopefully this isn't something children are likely to do as in theory it shouldn't be in their vocabulary!

Overall this is a brilliant picture book and one I'm definitely going to be recommending! It always puts a smile on my face every time I read it :)

I give it 9/10!

Title: Shifty McGifty and Slippery Sam

Author/Illustrator: Tracey Corderoy and Steven Lenton

Publisher: Nosy Crow

Children's Picture Book

Torn by Cat Clarke

Taken from Waterstones.com:
"Four girls. One dead body. A whole lot of guilt. Alice King isn't expecting the holiday of a lifetime when she sets off with her classmates on a trip to the Scottish Wilderness, but she's not exactly prepared for an experience beyond her darkest nightmares... Alice and her best friend Cass are stuck in a cabin with Polly, the social outcast, and Rae, the moody emo-girl. Then there's Tara - queen of mean. Powerful, beautiful and cruel, she like nothing better than putting people down. Cass decides it's time to teach Tara a lesson she'll never forget. And so begins a series of events that will change the lives of these girls forever..."

To tell you how good this book is, let me set the scene for you: It's a Friday night after a long and hard week at work. I've finally succumbed to a bad case of hay fever and have picked up a nasty cold on top of that which has left me feeling wrecked but I have a long day at work ahead of me on Saturday and so I want nothing more than to go to bed and try to sleep it off but I'm not yet sleepy as it's only 7pm. I'm reading another book but tonight I just can't face it because it's been so predictable so far. I spot Torn on the top of my reading pile and decide to start that instead, intending to put it down by 8pm to finally get some rest. As it starts I'm intrigued as Clarke doesn't jump in and tell you what happened on the trip straight away. Suddenly I find that I've run out of pages and it's after midnight. And I'm a little disappointed as I want to know what happens next! Do they all get arrested?! Does Alice make it up with Jack?! It was a true gripping page turner that somehow made me forget just how truly terrible I was feeling!

Clarke's style of writing is really easy to get carried away in. The whole book is fast-paced and done well. The characters are all brilliantly written too. Rae is a girl who keeps to herself and this comes across really well as instead of mentioning that she's like this at relevant points, Clarke doesn't mention her at all or if Alice is thinking of Rae she doesn't suddenly see her standing alone in a quiet corner or something in the way that some authors use to try to portray this type of character. It makes it much more realistic and it really is like you're in Alice's head.

With regards to Alice's head, I had quite an eerie experience whilst reading this novel. Alice was scarily like me! I've never identified with a character so strongly and so it was weird getting an insight into how things could be if I did one or two things differently and was bothered about popularity. (Just to clarify for any friends who read this, I wouldn't have gone along with the prank and would have gone for a teacher!) I love how Alice loves to go and hide in the library. It really was one of my favourite places to escape to and I highly recommend it!

The sequence of events flow really well and until Alice finds out the truth of what happened you can't quite work it out either. The whole way through you really get a sense of Alice's anxiety and it really is easy to imagine that this could happen in real life. You know what Alice is probably going to do in the end as you can tell what kind of girl she is really, but this doesn't take anything away from the story and the way it ends really does keep you hanging and wanting to know more (in a good way!).

This book should appeal to teenage girls (and grownups!) who are looking for a book without fantasy but that remains gripping and full of tension. There is a bit of sexual tension with the adorable love interest but it isn't anything too explicit. It's like the film Mean Girls but with a darker twist. It also contains the warning to be wary of the quiet girl who everyone puts down all of the time as when opportunity comes they might just find a permanent way to get revenge...

I give it 9/10!

Title: Torn
Author: Cat Clarke
Publisher: Quercus
Teenage Fiction

Out of the Easy by Ruta Sepetys

Josie Moraine is the daughter of a brothel prostitute living in 1950's New Orleans. She works in a bookshop whilst dreaming of escaping The Big Easy and would love to go to college, if only she could get accepted and afford it, but girls like her don't find it that easy to break free from their social situation. When one of her more charming customers is murdered on New Years Eve it sets Josie on a path that threatens to suck her further into New Orleans' underworld.

This book managed that rare thing where it took me by surprise! I had assumed that it wouldn't be that tense or exciting but I found it really difficult to put down. Sepetys writing style really draws the reader in and the short length of the chapters means you find it really easy to keep turning the pages, frequently saying to yourself "just one more chapter before bed." The pacing of the novel is quick but not so much that it rushes through the plot making you feel like you're missing details. You can never be sure what is lurking around the corner! Sepetys creates distinctive characters and weaves them into a vivid world threaded with realism. Right and wrong become slightly blurred as the characters operate in a darker world than most of us are accustomed to and so has slightly different rules. Josie is trying to straddle both this darker world and the high society one that she aspires to, creating a slight moral dilemma that she manages to deal with well and without flinching. Sepetys also creates some very strong female characters which is not something I would initially have expected from a piece of writing set in this time period when men are often presented in history as being much more dominant.

'Out of the Easy' contains all of those elements that help to make a great novel: great characters, a realistic world, love, mystery, betrayal and danger. Each one is crafted very well. It's definitely one I'd recommend reading although it isn't suitable for younger readers. There aren't any explicit sex scenes, swearing or extreme violence but the theme is much more adult as it talks about brothels and prostitution as well as death, illness and the mafia.

I give it 8/10 :)

Title: Out of the Easy
Author: Ruta Sepetys
Publisher: Puffin