This week we had a rare reviewing treat: poetry! Cookonthebrightside wrote a wonderful review of Michael Rosen's A-Z: The best children's poetry from Agard to Zephaniah. This anthology - composed by Michael Rosen - is an alphabetically guide to poetry from the very best children's poets.
"All the poems are about different subjects but they are easy to understand for kids today… I recommend this book because you can dip in and out. The poems are all like little stories so you feel you are reading lots of short books, very quickly."
Meanwhile ellathebookworm wrote a terrific review of Gilt by Katherine Longshore. In this historic novel, Kitty is best friends with Catherine Howard – King Henry VIII's fifth wife. When Catherine marries Henry VIII, Kitty is thrust into a world of gowns, balls and elegant parties!
"It's complex plot and mysterious characters are all mixed together to create what cannot be denied is an amazing read. I was literally up into the late hours of the night reading this, when I should have been doing my homework … I also read in the car (which makes me very sick), but I didn't care, because I just wanted to find out what happened next. If you like historical fiction then I would recommend it entirely."
A few weeks ago in one of our reader roundups, SophieScribe wrote a great reviewof Maggot Moon by Sally Gardner. Maggot Moon is a dystopian novel in which Standish Treadwell lives in an alternative 1950s London. In this novel there is a ruling society called 'The Motherland' who manipulative and deceive the population.
This week, Lydia took issue with SophieScribe's assertion that the novel was a 'story of real life'. In her brilliant review, Lydia thought the teenagers were an unrealistic age for their behaviour.
"I had one problem with the book – the characters' ages. I pictured Standish, Hector and his friends to be ten or eleven, maybe twelve, but then we are told that they are in fact a class of fifteen year olds. This didn't sit well with me because their actions and speech were those of much younger children… Of course, this is a minor issue – in fact, the story was a lot better when I told myself it was an eleven year old as the main character rather than a fifteen year old, as it was more believable."
Lydia also wrote a touching review of Ways to Live Forever by Sally Nicholls. This book is about an eleven year old boy with leukaemia who wants to make the most of his life.
"This is, in a weird way, a refreshing book… It's so convincingly Sam's fresh, young voice in the text and Nicholls is so brilliantly blunt about the facts of life and death that you can't help but admire the book, no matter how old you are… I didn't think that a book with such a serious subject matter could be so light and easy to read but I have been proved wrong … It's great to see a new, different perspective on the market which is accessible to younger readers, an easier way of coping with the big things in life."
On a similar theme of grief and loss, Lottie Longshanks wrote a great review of A Dog Called Homeless by Sarah Lean. This story is about Cally and her family dealing with the death of her mum. Cally volunteers to complete a days sponsored silence – but her silence ends up lasting for over thirty days!
"This is a story about coping with the death of someone very precious… At first I thought I would not love it as much as I loved these books but it gets better and better the more you read I had no idea about what would happen in the end. I hope that lots of children read and enjoy it as much as I did."
Meanwhile IolantheWrites sent in a superb review of False Notes (Nancy Drew) by Carolyn Keene. This book follows Nancy Drew on another exciting detective mystery.
"I have always enjoyed the Nancy Drew books because not only is she part of my favourite genre (detective and crime) she is also one of my main female heroines in books - combining brains and adventure… Nancy Drew has a similar appeal to other sleuth series like Sherlock Holmes or Agatha Christie – her charm can be appreciated over many books."
And that concludes this week's roundup. Thanks for all your fab reviews, as always - if any of your reviews were mentioned drop us a line at childrens.books@theguardian.com and we'll send you a book from our cupboards!
We hope you enjoyed this week's readers review roundup. Happy reviewing!
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