Andrea Reece - LoveReading4Kids Editorial Expert

About Andrea Reece

Andrea Reece has spent all her working life in children’s books. Her first job was at Transworld Publishers back in the 1980s where, amongst other things, she ran the fan club for readers of the smash hit teen series Sweet Dreams.

She went on to work for other children’s publishers, large and small, and with authors including David Almond, Nick Butterworth, Mick Inkpen and Michael Morpurgo. In 2005 she set up children’s independent Catnip Publishing Ltd., publishing Richard and Judy favourite Scaredy Squirrel in the process, and went on to run Books for Keeps, the children’s books journal.

She is very used to odd looks from people on trains and buses who see her reading children’s books, and is still as excited as ever to discover a new children’s author. Apart from being one of the Lovereading4kids editorial experts alongside Julia Eccleshare she is also director of the children’s and young people’s programme of the FT Weekend Oxford Literary Festival.

Latest Reviews By Andrea Reece

This new episode in The Unmapped Chronicles series plunges readers head-first into heart-stopping adventure deep in a rain forest closely modelled on the Amazon, but thrillingly, magically different. Twins Fox and Fibber Petty-Squabble (fabulous names are one of the hallmarks of Elphinstone’s writing) find themselves in Jungledrop, one of the Unmapped Kingdoms, and in a vital race against time with the thoroughly villainous harpy Morg; for the first time in their eleven years, the two siblings will have to work together if they’re going to secure the future of two worlds. This is a hugely satisfying ... View Full Review

David Solomons is the perfect author to write new Doctor Who books – he’s a sci-fi/comics fanatic, brilliantly funny and a dab hand at creating adventure stories too (all of which you’ll know if you’ve read his My Brother is a Superhero books). This new story sees the Doctor and her companions Yaz, Graham and Ryan come face to face with the Minotaur – yes, the monster from the labyrinth but also in fact a deadly bit of alien software. The adventure takes us to all sorts of settings and via a ... View Full Review

Bursting with ideas and vivid scenes, Philip Caveney’s new adventure is rollicking good reading. Orphan Boy makes his escape from life as a stable-hand (unpaid) to seek his fortune in distant Ravalan with his father’s book of inventions, but immediately runs into trouble in the shame of a pair of unscrupulous crooks. He’s saved by a girl called Lexi and her father’s band of travelling players. Together they make their way to Ravalan where the stories converge with suitable drama. The actors are as colourful as you could want, and there’... View Full Review

Not since Adrian Mole opened his diary have the thoughts and innermost feelings of an adolescent boy been examined so precisely or with such heart. Stan is twelve, shy and a worrier, so the thought of a holiday in Italy with his friend Felix and Felix’s family freaks him out. He’s going though: we meet him at the airport drawing up a ‘duck-it’ list of things he hopes he’ll never have to do. Little does he know that he’ll tick off six out of ten of them on his holiday, ... View Full Review

Lucky Isadora – she’s won a holiday in the sun for herself and her family in an art competition. At first everything seems perfect – a bit bright for her vampire dad but he loves the hotel spa – but a surprise meeting with her mermaid friend Marina shows Isadora what her mum suspected: the sea is full of litter. Fortunately, working as a team, fairies, mermaids and vampires can clean up the mess and persuade the humans to change their ways too. This is another lively and engaging story in this excellent series, mixing a fun ... View Full Review

Laura Dockrill packs a really big story into this compact little book and though she tackles some big issues too, she keeps them specific to her set of characters, so that even quite young readers will understand. Sequin’s mum is a dressmaker, sewing gowns and fabulous outfits for the stars. She never takes any credit though, preferring to stay in the background and in fact, she’s literally hiding herself away in the family’s flat at the top of a tower block. When Sequin does a school presentation about her mum, no-one believes her. It ... View Full Review

It’s exactly fifty years since the infamous Apollo 13 space mission took off for the moon. For any young person who doesn’t know what happened – and indeed for those that do too – David Long’s retelling will keep them on the edge of their seats, awed by the challenges of space travel, and by the ingenuity and determination of those who work in it. Survival in Space describes with just the right level of detail, how a broken electrical wire led to the explosion that left astronauts Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert and Fred Haise ... View Full Review

Secrecy is a big thing for super-heroes (ask Batman) and so far, the Heroes’ Alliance have been keeping the world safe and their identities unknown. But now all that has changed: evil Nicholas Knox has blown their cover and is working to destroy them forever, and take over the world (of course). All that’s standing in the way is one normal eleven-year old, aka Murph Cooper, aka Kid Normal plus his very special friends. This series is hugely popular with readers, deservedly so, and it ends as it began – in style! There are bizarre baddies, lots ... View Full Review

Ben Miller cleverly mixes real science and observations of real life into a mind-expanding story, and gives it something of the feel of a fable too. Harrison is generally a good boy, but he does have trouble with his temper. He loses it spectacularly at another boy’s birthday and, to make a point, the party entertainer sends him home with – wait for it – a black hole. It’s useful for getting rid of things he doesn’t like, but when he accidentally loses things that matter, he needs science, determination and the help of ... View Full Review

At the age of 22 Laura Bingham set off to cycle through South America from Ecuador to Argentina, a journey of 7000 kilometres. Hard enough, but she did it alone and without any money. The cycle ride was to raise awareness of charity Operation South America. This book describes her journey through Ecuador and is part of the fund-raising effort. Laura’s story will inspire young readers and conveys the enormity of the challenge, as well as a sense of freedom and adventure. The love of her family kept Laura going through the hardest times, and she had help from strangers ... View Full Review

This bright, inspiring information book shows just how fascinating bugs are and will convince even the most die-hard creepy-crawly-phobe that they’re lovable. Lively double-page spreads feature a range of familiar insects including bees, worms, ants, spiders and grasshoppers and then via attractive cartoon-style illustration and integrated text tells us all sorts of facts about their bodies and lives. Some of it is vital statistics-stuff but there are some amazing facts too. Did you know that worms have up to five hearts, or that snails are deaf? Children will absorb a great deal of information and the bugs themselves ... View Full Review

Wherever we live, there are birds all around us and this beautifully illustrated book will enable readers to identify them and is also full of facts and information about the way our native birds live. It features 140 different birds, each one is illustrated in colour and alongside a paragraph of text are fact boxes with bullet point information on size, habitat, food and the bird’s song. It’s a good size to pop into a bag on a trip to the country or local park, or even to take out into the garden, but will make for ... View Full Review