The previous volumes in the Ava Lee series sketched her character as slightly as the silhouette in the striking cover designs* but The Red Pole of Macau takes Ava into new emotional territory; it is a worthy addition to the series and has reignited my interest in this character's adventures.
A cult figure. A "genuine anti-hero; an impossible character yet impossible not to like". Random House Canada, 2012Trans. Don Bartlett That's how the author's site describes Harry Hole, who is at the heart of Jo Nesbø's popular series. 'Hole' is pronounced Hoo-leh, by the way, although the Australians in
Sixteen-year-old "Mouse" Bradford feels like a monster, with her companion, Alice, her humpback. How fitting, then, that there are bars on the windows of Bath Ladies' College, the boarding school to which she is sent in late 1963. "My God! It looks like a prison," her father says, driving up
The events of Darkest Light unfold sixteen years after Hiromi Goto's Half World (here, I spell out the reasons why I fell under its spell). Penguin - Razorbill, 2012 Melanie is off-stage and readers know little of her story, only what Gee, knows, that "...something had happened to Older Sister. Something bad."
As one of my Must Reads (it's also in the 1001 Children's Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up), this classic had the feel of "homework" when I first picked it up, but soon became a pleasure to read. Brian Jacques' Redwall (1986) The Redwall series began when I was more interested
