Friday, 20 January 2017
ReadItDaddy's Chapter Book of the Week - Week Ending 20th January 2017 - "The Bookshop Girl" by Sylvia Bishop and Ashley King (Scholastic)
There's something about bookshops. Just the smell of the place, the feeling you get when you meander in to browse the shelves, and (if you're anything like us) the happy joyous feeling of coming out with armfuls of books you've just bought because basically you just can't help yourself.
So imagine being found in one as a tiny orphan child. That's the plot of Sylvia Bishop's superb "The Bookshop Girl" published by Scholastic (which nya, nya, nya you'll have to wait until 2nd March for! Rasp!)
We've been reading all about the exploits of one Property Jones (which is such a durned cool name). We loved the fact that the book came from the PR clad in a rather rough looking temporary cover, accompanied by a free cup of tea (well, a teabag with a special tag that Charlotte seized before I even got a look in, and gleefully brewed while taking a quick flick through the book itself).
Property Jones lives in the bookshop and for some (us) it's like a dream come true. Living in a real actual bookshop surrounded by books all day? Who wouldn't want to grow up like that?
Property's life takes an amazing and unexpected turn when her adopted family wins a competition to take over Montgomery’s Book Emporium – the most magical, most magnificent bookshop in the world!
Property is a canny lass though and realises that the competition win is not all it seems.
The bookshop may come with more books than they’ve ever dreamed of (as well as one extremely grumpy cat), but it also comes with a mystery to be solved. As far as Property is concerned, there's only one gal for the job! Her and her book smarts should solve any case in a matter of seconds, surely?
In our jokey prediction about young fiction (we'll stop calling it middle grade because I happen to agree with Phillip Reeve on that score, Middle Grade just doesn't sound like it means anything!) we said we'd really love to read a book that didn't feature a kid moving house and becoming a detective while making new friends at a new school.
Well, we'd easily settle for a very unusual and clever girl who lives in a book store with a nose for a mystery instead. Well done Sylvia, this is definitely shaping up to be a fantastic success and we cannot wait to see what everyone else thinks in March.
Charlotte's favourite bit: Property Jones is one smart cookie and realises that even a gift horse isn't always what it seems.
Daddy's favourite bit: Beautifully fresh-feeling and original with the sort of main character we just can't get enough of. This is something rather special indeed!
"The Bookshop Girl" by Sylvia Bishop and Ashley King is out on March 2nd, Published by Scholastic (and kindly supplied for review).
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