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Joanne Owen - Editorial Expert

Joanne Owen is a writer, reviewer and workshop presenter whose lifelong love of books began when she was growing up in Pembrokeshire, Wales. An early passion for culture, story and folklore led her to read archaeology and anthropology at St John’s, Cambridge, after which she led the UK children’s book team for a major international retailer, going on to market books for Bloomsbury, Macmillan, Walker Books, Nosy Crow and Rough Guides. She now divides her time between writing, travel writing, reviewing and hosting writing workshops.

Joanne is the author of several books for children and young adults, among them the Martha Mayhem series, the Carnegie Medal-nominated Puppet Master, and You Can Write Awesome Stories, a how-to guide to creative writing. She’s also worked on a major community story project for the National Literacy Trust (Story Quest), and a number of travel guides, including The Rough Guide to Responsible Wales and guidebooks to the Caribbean region. In additional, she’s an occasional chair of LoveReading LitFest events, and judge for the 2023 Branford Boase Award.

Latest Features By Joanne Owen

Summer sizzlers for Young Adults – the best YA novels set in summer

20+ Brilliant Books Featuring Unforgettable Deaf or Hard of Hearing Characters for Deaf Awareness Week

Get creative with creatures! 3 awesome animal-themed writing activities for National Pet Month

Christmas creations — four festive writing prompts sparked by the season of sparkle!

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Latest Reviews By Joanne Owen

Dancing with ideas, Pil Van Martin’s The Spick and the Span debut dazzles with storytelling whimsy, a playful spirit and a lively cast of memorable characters, all wrapped up in a fabulously original concept — namely, a chaotic fantasy world in which magic-induced mayhem is contained by a crew of cleaners. “Like an old sponge that has tried to soak up too much questionable brown water from the leaky pipe, the city of Helm was sopping with magic…This had hazardous effects. Leave any household item alone for too long, and ... View Full Review

Radiantly refreshing, Poppy T. Perry’s Dead Real rom-com, zom-com debut revolves around a duo of kiss-ass characters, and a kick-ass concept. Namely, the trickiness (to say the least) that comes of declaring your undying love for your best friend while your hometown is overrun by undying zombies. “I could gaze adoringly at Ruby for ever. But surely everyone feels like that about their best friend, right”? So shares Nora near the start of this feast of fast-paced YA fiction. Brought together by their shared passion for horror movies, and on the cusp of heading to the ... View Full Review

Written in a lucid style that’s both inclusively direct and radiant with emotional resonance, Bali Rai’s Escape from Amritsar is set during the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre of 1919. As Rai explains in his Historical Note, this was “officially the worst specific atrocity committed by British troops against innocent civilians during the time of Empire”. Such is the situation the novel’s protagonist, Arjan, finds himself in: “I have never understood why they rule us. Surely Indians should rule India? It makes no sense — like a fox taking charge over ... View Full Review

Laugh-out-loud hilarious and smartly pitched for younger YA readers, Gill Sims’ Lila Mackay Is Very Misunderstood is sure to make those on the cusp of their teenage years feel totally understood. Fabulously funny and filled with empathy as it relates a 14-year-old’s frustrations and MASSIVE CRINGE moments, it’s sure to strike a powerful chord with tweenagers and oldies alike, as Emily comes to realise that she and her mum might not be so different after all… “I am only fourteen years old, and my mother hates me. She must hate me, because why ... View Full Review

Adventurous, atmospheric, and driven by energetic dialogue, The Cyber Ciphers of Eartha Quicksmith concludes Loris Owen’s puzzle-packed trilogy in exhilarating style as Kip, Albert, Leela and Timmi courageously embark on an expedition to save the world from the grip of the Grittleshank Corporation. This third thrilling quest sees the quartet harness all the skills they’ve honed at Quicksmith's College of Strange Energy to, essentially, save the world, with the stakes heightened by also having to rescue Kip’s mum from the clutches of the malicious Grittleshank Corporation. To that end, the adventure begins when ... View Full Review

Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief (Puffin 85th Anniversary Clothbound Edition)

One of eight in a series of beautiful cloth-bound books published to mark the 85th anniversary of Puffin books, this striking edition of Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief will make the perfect present for any kids in your life who love fast-paced funny fiction, and those who are into myths and larger-than-life fantastical adventure stories. If you’ve yet to meet Percy, when The Lightning Thief begins, he’s a 12-year-old boy at a “private school for troubled kids in upstate New York”. Everything changes when he discovers he&... View Full Review

Supersized Squirrel and the Attack of the Zombears

Supersized Squirrel is back, and in nutterly wacky style! This latest addition to Luke Seguin-Magee’s series of madcap graphic novels centred on a giant nut-loving squirrel and Blaze Bunny, his trusty sidekick, positively blazes with kooky investigative adventure, in this case an adventure that’s intensified by the influence of the duo’s recent movie-night viewing of “Zombie My Valentine”. Propelled by zany peril and lots of laughs, this spooky B-movie-esque book sees the buddies embark on a wild ride to investigate seriously strange goings-on in the forest. Convinced there’s “something ... View Full Review

Written and illustrated by Alex Latimer, Frank is a Butterfly tells a warm, glowy tale of feeling happy in your own skin (and with your own wings!). Think of it as a valuable flipped reinvention of The Ugly Duckling, in that Frank’s story shows how it’s not at all necessary to transform into something showy to feel happy and enjoy the wonders of the world. Illustrated in a gorgeously rich palette, the scene is set with ten caterpillars munching on a breakfast of leaves. Variously stripy and spotty, big and small, long ... View Full Review

Powerfully allegorical, Ross MacKenzie’s The Uninvited melds magic with exploring important issues around immigration and freedom. As such, alongside being a peril-packed adventure, steeped in danger and dark secrets, it also raises pertinent questions regarding a present-day climate that’s hostile to those seeking refuge. Boasting an inventive structure, and a tension-heightening present-tense narrative, the story begins with a “spark in the sky” and a “flicker of magic”, as observed by a family on the Isle of Lewes. And then comes the first moment of the Arrival, when hundreds of &... View Full Review

Black Star, the second novel in Kwame Alexander’s exceptional The Door of No Return trilogy, moves from 1860s Upper Kwanta in the Asante Kingdom (present-day Ghana) to the 1920s Jim Crow segregation era in the American South. In this dazzling novel- in-verse, Kofi, the central character of The Door of No Return, features as 12-year-old Charley’s grandfather, Nani Kofi. A man who keeps his suitcase by the door ready for when he can return to “his old home, back in Africa” aboard Marcus Garvey’s Black Star Line ship. ... View Full Review

Packed with page-turning peril and the power of hope, Sarah Merrett’s A Place of a Thousand Wishes melds magic, mystery, friendship and courage to conjure a classic tale of good versus evil. While Mason and his dad make marvellous ice cream, times are tough — production is tricky in their pre-refrigeration era (to say the least), and then a stranger creates a commotion that ruins his dad’s ice cream cart. Into this, the legendary Darlington the Miraculous comes to town — a man who claims to possess the power to grant wishes ... View Full Review

With an incredible talent for conjuring voice, Meg Rosoff is an outstanding writer whose work is always 100% authentic, and utterly free from cliché and the clutter of well-trod YA paths. This is joyously apparent in Almost Nothing Happened, which transforms a classic scenario (a life-changing summer) into a fabulously fresh and funny story of a teenager’s unforgettable 48 hours in Paris. A rash decision to not board his Eurostar back to London after a lonesome summer exchange programme in rural France leads Callum to one hell of an experience in Paris. Callum’s bizarre adventure ... View Full Review