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Laura James’ love of storytelling began at an early age and led her to undertake a degree in Film Studies and an MA in Writing for Young People at Bath Spa University. The Adventures of Pug are based on the antics of her own very silly dogs, Brian and Florence. Together the three of them live in a tiny cottage just outside of Bath where they have lots of adventures and eat lots of jam tarts – all in the name of research of course! Laura’s first book, Captain Pug, was shortlisted for the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize in 2017.
Author photo © Red Rabbit Photography
Gizmo the dachshund has moved to the country. He didn’t really want to, but where Grannie goes, he goes. However, life in the village of Puddle, unprepossessing as it sounds, turns out to be rather exciting. He makes friends with next door neighbour Jilly the Irish wolfhound and before you know it is helping her find new owners near to home for her four puppies. It’s a real challenge, and the other village dogs can’t come up with a solution, but then Gizmo has a brilliant idea, one that uses his unique skills, learned at the foot of Grannie’s typewriter (she was a journalist). It’s highly entertaining, the illustrations – in full colour – are very appealing and this is great for children ready for solo reading.
Fabio the flamingo and Gilbert the giraffe are the animal Holmes and Watson, solving mysteries from their office on the banks of the Laloozee river. A trip in Gilbert’s new plane leads them off the beaten track to a small town where there’s something fishy going on with the water supply. Red herrings are scattered all over the place before Fabio solves the case, identifying the culprits. It all makes for fun and flamboyant reading (love Emily Fox’s illustrations and the fluorescent colour scheme). Fabio and George are a great comic double act and there’s real satisfaction to be had as they work out the crimes too.
For those of you who don't know, Fabio is indeed the world's greatest flamingo detective, a kind of pink, long-legged Hercule Poirot. He's assisted in his work by his friend Gilbert, a giraffe, who is very well-meaning but mostly at least one step behind Fabio when it comes to solving their cases. This story concerns the dramatic theft of a priceless jewel from a passenger on the Ostrich Express and, as detective stories go, it's very satisfying indeed, with a twist in the tail that readers won't see coming, while Fabio, Gilbert and their various animal co-stars are delightful characters. Illustrations on every page - in flamboyant, dayglo pinks and oranges, make this as interesting to look at as it is to read, and this is a perfect book for readers just enjoying reading on their own.
With a cast of characters as colourful as the day-glo pinks and greens of its illustrations, and a plot that’s just as bright, Fabio the World’s Greatest Flamingo Detective is going to wow young readers. Guests and staff are stunned when a talented hippo disappears right in the middle of her performance in the Hotel Royale’s talent competition. Fortunately Fabio is on hand to solve the mystery, and a couple of others in the process. Children who enjoy detective stories will love following the clues with Fabio, and children and adults alike will delight in the lush setting and in the comedy provided by Fabio’s co-stars, including hapless assistant Gilbert the Giraffe. For another quirky, satisfying animal detective series see Alex T Smith’s new Mr Penguin books.
When pug is woken suddenly in the middle of the night by Lady Miranda shouting about lions, he begins to think they mustn’t be very nice and a teeny bit scary. However, Lady Miranda believes the only way to overcome a fear is to stare it straight in the face and so the next day they go to the local safari park. Unfortunately the ticket lady doesn’t believe a sedan chair to be the safest vehicle to take through the lion enclosure, no matter how fast footman Will and footman Liam are! And so they decide to visit some slightly less dangerous animals instead: animals such as penguins, meerkats, sloths, monkeys and even a young lion cub called Florence! But someone with a sinister plan to steal the lion cub is also visiting and Pug finds himself IN the lion enclosure itself, trying to help his new friend, Florence escape their captor’s evil clutches. It would seem however that the big lions are rather less friendly than Florence, but before long Lady Miranda is on her way to rescue her beloved Pug. A wonderfully humorous story with engaging two colour illustrations. This third title in The Adventures of Pug series is perfect for dog lovers and a brilliant introduction to chapter books for young readers. ~ Shelley Fallows - You can also find Shelley here.
Pug is exactly the kind of hero young children happily identify with: he’s a good friend, sometimes bemused by the grown-up world but a quick learner, and always at the centre of the action. In this story Lady Miranda and he swap a hobby horse for the real thing and before he knows it, Pug is competing at show-jumping (totally accidentally), and developing his cowboy skills including lassoing. It makes for a very enjoyable story and Pug is super-cute in his Stetson in the lovely illustrations. The story is full of incident and surprises with the central friendship between Pug and Miranda the glue that holds it together. ~ Andrea Reece
Julia Eccleshare's Book of the Month May 2016 A deliciously madcap doggy adventure for Pug, the pampered dog of the even more pampered Lady Miranda. When Lady Miranda determines that Pug will be the ship’s captain when they go for an outing on the boating lake and dresses him accordingly, she forgets one important thing: Pug is afraid of the water! But when Pug gets pug-napped as he is foraging in someone else’s picnic he finds himself off on a very watery adventure indeed. Highly entertaining, wittily illustrated and fun to read alone. 6+ ~ Julia Eccleshare Julia Eccleshare's Picks of the Month for May 2016 The Bubble Boy by Stewart Foster There is a Tribe of Kids by Lane Smith Captain Pug by Laura James The First Hippo on the Moon by David Walliams
Gizmo the dachshund has moved to the country. He didn’t really want to, but where Grannie goes, he goes. However, life in the village of Puddle, unprepossessing as it sounds, turns out to be rather exciting. He makes friends with next door neighbour Jilly the Irish wolfhound and before you know it is helping her find new owners near to home for her four puppies. It’s a real challenge, and the other village dogs can’t come up with a solution, but then Gizmo has a brilliant idea, one that uses his unique skills, learned at the foot of Grannie’s typewriter (she was a journalist). It’s highly entertaining, the illustrations – in full colour – are very appealing and this is great for children ready for solo reading.
Tourism research that is inspired by theories of practice is currently gaining in prominence. This book provides a much-needed introduction to the potential applications of theories of practice in tourism studies. It brings together a variety of approaches exploring how theories of practice bridge themes and fields which are usually addressed separately within tourism research: consumption and production; travel and the everyday; governance and policy; technology and the social. The book critically engages with practices as a fruitful approach to tourism research as well as how the particularities of tourism might inform our understanding of practice theories. This book contributes to conceptual and methodological debates providing insights from authors who have engaged with practice theory as an entry point to researching tourism. It offers a solid starting point for researchers and students alike who wish to learn about, and try, this approach, as well as explore its possibilities and limitations in the field of tourism.
Justice is blind, they say, but perhaps not to beauty. In supposedly dispassionate courts of law, attractive women have long avoided punishment, based largely on their looks, for cold-blooded crimes. The Beauty Defense: Femmes Fatales on Trial gathers the true stories of some of the most infamous femmes fatales in criminal history, collected by attorney and true crime historian Laura James.With cases from 1850 to 1997, these 32 examples span more than a century, across cultures, ethnicities, and socioeconomic status. But all were so beautiful, as James demonstrates, that they got away with murder. When Madeline Smith, a Glasgow socialite, tried to end a relationship with one man to date another, her jilted lover proved difficult to shake. She solved the problem, James writes, with arsenic-laced chocolates. And in Warrenton, Virginia, mild-mannered heiress Susan Cummings gunned down her polo-playing husband, Roberto, following a disagreement. While these two women lived in different centuries and on different continents, both of their lawyers argued that they were too beautiful to be killers. And in both cases, the juries bought it. In telling the stories of Madeline Smith and Susan Cummings-and 30 others-James proves the existence of the so-called Beauty Defense and shines a spotlight on how gender bias has actually benefited femmes fatales and affected legal systems across the world.
Fabio the flamingo and Gilbert the giraffe are the animal Holmes and Watson, solving mysteries from their office on the banks of the Laloozee river. A trip in Gilbert’s new plane leads them off the beaten track to a small town where there’s something fishy going on with the water supply. Red herrings are scattered all over the place before Fabio solves the case, identifying the culprits. It all makes for fun and flamboyant reading (love Emily Fox’s illustrations and the fluorescent colour scheme). Fabio and George are a great comic double act and there’s real satisfaction to be had as they work out the crimes too.
For those of you who don't know, Fabio is indeed the world's greatest flamingo detective, a kind of pink, long-legged Hercule Poirot. He's assisted in his work by his friend Gilbert, a giraffe, who is very well-meaning but mostly at least one step behind Fabio when it comes to solving their cases. This story concerns the dramatic theft of a priceless jewel from a passenger on the Ostrich Express and, as detective stories go, it's very satisfying indeed, with a twist in the tail that readers won't see coming, while Fabio, Gilbert and their various animal co-stars are delightful characters. Illustrations on every page - in flamboyant, dayglo pinks and oranges, make this as interesting to look at as it is to read, and this is a perfect book for readers just enjoying reading on their own.
Pug and Lady Miranda are off to the seaside! Pug is dreaming of naps under the beach umbrella, but when a little mishap means he has to wear an eyepatch, things quickly get a lot less snoozy! Soon Pirate Pug and his ragtag crew of friends find themselves on the trail of buried treasure. They have to reach the island where X marks the spot before the other pirates beat them to it. There's just one problem - Pug is scared of water! Pirate Pug is the fourth book in Laura James's joyful illustrated series about a roly-poly pug and his best friend, Lady Miranda. It is perfect for fans of Claude and Squishy McFluff.
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