Wednesday, 5 October 2016

A tasty and tempting trio of Nosy Crow titles to warm up your Autumn!

Well hello there, lovely books! We're very pleased to make your acquaintance. We've been delving into three new titles from ace award-winning publisher Nosy Crow that are absolutely perfect for a bit of autumnal reading.

Pitched perfectly to arrive just in time for Halloween, our first book is the start of a great little early readers series for a pair of awesome pooches who have already wowed us in their picture book adventures.

Shifty McGifty and Slippery Sam, once cat-burgling dogs (yes, I know, confusing isn't it!) are now bakers extraordinaire. But far from leading a boring baking-soda-fuelled life, Shifty and Sam are never far from adventure or mystery.

In "The Spooky School" the dynamic duo are gearing up for Halloween at a rather strange school. All seems fine until they meet a new nefarious baddie who wants to put paid to their plans for the perfect bake-off. Meet Red Rocket, dastardly fiend and all round bad-egg - the very last thing a baker needs!

This is a great fun title with three fab stories inside that perfectly bridges the gap between picture books and early readers, featuring characters children will already know and love. A fab way to encourage self-reading and get them off to a flying start with an exciting and rather spooky adventure!

"Shifty McGifty and Slippery Sam - The Spooky School" by Tracey Corderoy and Steven Lenton is out on 6th October, published by Nosy Crow. 

Our next book had Charlotte cooing with delight. She is a complete sucker for cute stories with even cuter animals...

Helen Peters has written a new animal-based series, her first for younger readers building on her fabulous characterisations and stories for older kids.

In the first book in the series, "A Piglet Called Truffle", you'll meet Jasmine, a little girl who loves life at home on her farm.

Jasmine rescues a tiny little piglet from certain death. But Jasmine’s parents don’t believe in farm animals being pets and insist that Truffle must be sold as soon as she’s big enough. 

Jasmine is desperate to give Truffle a home for life. And then, one stormy night, disaster strikes!

We really liked the fact that though this is again a title that is designed for younger readers, it's exciting and tense enough to give them a really great first taste of what it's like to see a novel unfold. Hugely immersive and impressive stuff. Helen's second book in the series "A Duckling called Button" is also available soon. 

"A Piglet called Truffle" by Helen Peters and Ellie Snowdon is released on 6th October 2016, published by Nosy Crow. 

We've saved our favourite till last, a tense and brilliant thriller for kids that reminded me hugely of the sort of stuff I'd read when I was a child growing up in the 70s when kids books really didn't pull any punches...

"Murder in Midwinter" by aptly named Fleur Hitchcock is a real roller-coaster ride of a book that - as I mentioned - really will have you literally chewing your nails off thanks to tense and quite dark writing. 

Just a few days before Christmas, young Maya accidentally witnesses a couple arguing violently amongst the christmas shoppers packed onto Regent Street. 

In a fleeting moment, Maya realises that they see her watching. Soon both disappear into the crowds and with the incident playing on her mind, Maya goes to the police, who shrug and send her away. 

Then a body turns up… Now convinced she is a vital witness to a crime, the police send Maya into hiding in rural Wales. 

Maya cannot rest easy, determined to get to the bottom of the mystery but as the encroaching snow strands her in her hiding place, Maya starts to wonder if she's really safe at all.

It's gripping from the get-go, and even I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end in a couple of places as the combined feelings of paranoia and claustrophobia really start to play on Maya's mind as the story unfolds. 

Utterly brilliant stuff. "Murder in Midwinter" by Fleur Hitchcock is released on 6th October 2016, published by Nosy Crow. 

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