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Find out moreWritten by Horatio Clare
Illustrated by Jane Matthews
Part of the Aubrey Series
Branford Boase award winning Aubrey returns in this exciting quest to avoid environmental disaster. The humorous and characterful insects and animals are a real delight
Longlisted for the UKLA 2018 Book Award
A sequel to the award winning Aubery and the Terrible Yoot, Horatio Clare tells an entertaining new story about his hero Aubery, who this time wants to get away from his parents’ fighting – and gets involved in trying to save the world while he is about it. Aubery’s special gift is that he can talk to animals and understand everything that they say so, when a spider invites him to help her save the world, he sets off on an amazing adventure across time and space. From the animals Aubrey learns much about relationships the vagaries of and about how everyone must share if the world is to be a better place.
Julia Eccleshare's Picks of the Month for June 2017
Aubrey and the Terrible Ladybirds by Horatio Clare
Adventures of John Blake, The: Mystery of the Ghost Ship by Philip Pullman
Axel Scheffler's Flip Flap Ocean by Axel Scheffler
Maisy Goes to the Bookshop by Lucy Cousins
Tender Earth by Sita Brahmachari
Old Hat by Emily Gravett
The Cow Who Fell to Earth by Nadia Shireen
A Piece of Passion from editor Penny Thomas: Children’s stories like Aubrey and the Terrible Ladybirds don’t fly in and land on my desk too often. Horatio Clare is absolutely brilliant at writing about animals, people, travel and adventure. This superbly written story tackles our relationships with each other and with the natural world around us, and brings a desperately needed dose of good sense, warmth, tolerance and fun to our uncertain times.
A review of the first in this series, Aubrey and the Terrible Yoot, from Michael Morpurgo Well, this was a joy! Here is writing and storytelling at its best. Here is a wondrous tale, from a writer who loves language, makes music of it, frolics with it, who knows the wild world of his fellow creatures about him so well, loves this world so well that it is nothing for him to talk to the animals and listen to them too…Here is a tale that sweeps you along inside its magic, and its hope… A daring book, beautifully conceived, and supremely well written. Horatio Clare has the voice of a great storyteller. As I said, a joy, a sheer joy!
Aubrey returns in a post-Brexit epic adventure that tackles environmental, migration and relationship themes.
The ladybirdz arrive in Woodside Terrace, and Aubrey's Easter holidays get complicated. Ariadne the spider asks Aubrey to help. Something Must Be Done, but first Aubrey sucks the swallow stone which makes him small enough for daring flights on the back of Hirundo the Swallow and amazing adventures in the Web of Time and Space. Add in Bernardo the bee, Eric the earthworm and a whole conference of ravens, and you have the start of an epic tale in which a small boy and a house spider try to save the world!
Kids love to read and so in addition to the review by one of the Lovereading4kids editorial experts some of our Lovereading4kids Reader Review Panel members were also lucky enough to read and review this title. You can read their full reviews by clicking here.
‘Horatio Clare writes about animals as well as T. H. White.’ ‘stood out from the beginning’ Branford Boase Award Judges
‘Horatio Clare has the voice of a great storyteller. As I said, a joy, a sheer joy!’ Michael Morpurgo
‘A jewel not to be missed’ Nicolette Jones
ISBN: | 9781910080504 |
Publication date: | 15th May 2017 |
Author: | Horatio Clare |
Illustrator: | Jane Matthews |
Publisher: | Firefly Press Ltd |
Format: | Paperback |
Pagination: | 212 pages |
Suitable for: | 11+ readers, 9+ readers |
Genres: | Family / Home Stories, Fantasy / Magical |
Recommendations: | Books of the Month, Julia Eccleshare's Picks, eBooks, Reviewed by Children |
Other Categories: | UKLA 2018 |
Horatio Clare’s first book, Running for the Hills, an acclaimed account of a Welsh childhood, won a Somerset Maugham Award, was longlisted for the Guardian First Book Award and saw Horatio shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year. His subsequent books include Truant, A Single Swallow, The Prince’s Pen, Down to the Sea in Ships (winner of the Dolman Travel Book of the Year) and Orison for a Curfew. His essays and reviews appear regularly in the national press and on BBC radio. Aubrey and the Terrible Yoot was Horatio’s first ...
More About Horatio Clare