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Joy Court - Editorial Expert
Joy Court is co – founder of All Around Reading, having previously managed the Schools Library Service in Coventry, where she established the Coventry Inspiration Book Awards and the Literally Coventry Book Festival, as well as being the Reviews Editor of The School Librarian and Chair of the CILIP Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Medals. She now just concentrates on books and libraries as a freelance consultant while continuing to be an activist with the Youth Libraries Group and sits on the National Executive of the Federation of Children’s Book Groups. She has chaired and spoken on panels at festivals and conferences around the UK as well as delivering keynotes and workshops.
She is a Trustee and member of the National Council of the United Kingdom Literacy Association, where she sits on the selection panel for the UKLA Book Awards, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and of The English Association and an Honorary Fellow of CILIP. Author of Read to Succeed: strategies to engage children and young people in reading for pleasure (2011) and Reading by Right: successful strategies to ensure every child can read to succeed (2017) FACET.
This is another highly readable and engaging slice of historical storytelling from an author who is becoming well known for books which, by revealing little known aspects, can help us all to decolonise our understanding of history. I certainly learnt more about life in India in WW2, as we accompanied 12-year-old Anglo Indian Hassan on his journey from Coventry to Calcutta in 1943.
His parents have decided to send him there to stay with his grandfather after their home was destroyed in the Blitz. We learn about his travel with an Ayah escort and his first encounter with the Whites only ... View Full Review
I have no doubt that following a Carnegie Shadower’s Choice and UKLA Book Awards win with your debut novel, Crossing the Line, must be hard, but Tia Fisher has also talked about what a personal struggle this book has been for her, with her new central character Marnie being ‘a lot like the girl I once was’. But the fact that this is a story that really matters to its author, is absolutely palpable in the reading, lending urgency and authenticity to the tale of a life so very nearly wrecked and which is a brilliant ... View Full Review
There are some books so highly anticipated, and some authors so justifiably revered that you don’t want to rush your reading. You want to savour every well-crafted word. But Katherine Rundell does not let you get away with that! The story is so engrossing that you literally are swept away and cannot stop reading - you just have to settle with rushing it and then re-reading at a more leisurely pace; and my word is she a writer that can withstand re-reading!
There has been much talk of future classics and while that can often be hyperbole, it ... View Full Review
A delightful picture book that gives young readers a real insight into the relationship between animals and habitat.
We are very familiar with the concept of animals needing a certain sort of habitat supplying them with shelter and the food they need to grow and thrive, but here we learn that this is not a one-way process and that in fact the plants and trees need the animals for the habitat to thrive. What was equally surprising to me was that there are European bison and that a very similar extinct creature, the woodland bison, once roamed our own ... View Full Review
A new story from the Queen of Historical Fiction is always eagerly anticipated, but this offers something a bit different for her many fans. Like me, I am sure they will be swept away and thoroughly fascinated by this tale, which puts a unique spin on vampire mythology and, in the process, transforms the genre into an entirely age-appropriate middle grade adventure, with huge appeal to fans of mild horror stories like Jennifer Killick’s Dread Wood series. It also has loads of potential to appeal to older readers who will enjoy the clever use of familiar names from ... View Full Review
What an absolutely splendid book this is! Not only a thing of beauty, with its bejewelled and embossed front cover, but it delightfully combines the appeal of hands-on science experiments, impressive magic tricks and the eternal Harry Potterish fantasy appeal of a school for wizards. It is a book that any child, and any chemistry teacher who wants to make science exciting, would treasure and return to again and again.
The Touchwood Academy of Magical Thinking welcomes readers to a series of 40 magical experiments with tips on how to perform them and always with an explanation of how they work. ... View Full Review
Once again Tom Percival demonstrates his genius ability to use the simplest of words and expressive pictures to articulate and explain to his young readers not just how the world works but also how they themselves work.
This latest book features Queetle and Meeple, brightly coloured blobby creatures who are very confident about their place in the world until they meet! Knowing which way is up is often used in conversation as a metaphor for being right and this tale cleverly turns that concept on its head.
Both Queetle and Meeple cannot be right, can they? No amount of shouting ... View Full Review
This is a gentle and authentically honest portrayal of a young girl suffering from severe anxiety and school refusal, which is sadly a growing problem in the UK. We get a real insight into Ellie’s (aka Jellybean) feelings as she struggles to enunciate, to her sympathetic but confused parents, what it is that is stopping her from returning to school. She desperately wants to go and fears losing touch with her friends, but the ever-present inexplicable fear she feels every day is making it impossible for her.
The book opens with Ellie walking towards school for the first ... View Full Review
The title (and subtitle) perfectly captures the warm, chatty authorial voice of disabled journalist and activist, Cathy Reay, who uses her own lived experience to write the sort of empowering guide to living with disability, that she did not have growing up with achondroplasia.
Covering a wide range of everyday topics including school, bullying, puberty, friendship, and doctors and hospitals, it doesn’t shy away from the difficulties disabled people might face in our society, and she offers suggestions for facing these challenges and learning how to value and celebrate yourself. The positive emphasis throughout is that it ... View Full Review
Imagine being asked to be the test subject of experimental technology designed by your deceased parents. How could you refuse? But nobody told you what it would mean.
14-year-old Porter Simms is able to “channel” data wirelessly to his brain. In the blink of an eye he can learn new languages, skills and information. There’s just one catch. Porter is constantly online, no more than a device of the US government, and every time he uses the skills, he loses a part of himself. How long before he is no more than a humanoid tool to ... View Full Review
This emotive and powerful page turner stunningly depicts the beauty of the South Devon coast, where the author grew up, and the strength of the community that lives there all year round, but also authentically reveals the blight caused to these families lives by second homes forcing up property prices beyond the pockets of local people, the decline of the fishing industry and the availability of only seasonal employment. On a more personal level, it is a searing portrayal of loss, grief, challenges to masculinity in the modern world and the strength of friendship and sibling bonds.
Motherless Rhys and ... View Full Review
The story of two unrelated children, July and Jamie, who meet by chance in Waterloo Station, is told with great warmth and empathy, but with genuine authenticity too and tackling some difficult themes like drug use and homelessness.
The children come from very different backgrounds, but both are running. One is running away from problems and the other is running to a possible solution. Through the dual narrative we gradually fill in the details of their back story.
July has recently returned from foster care to live with her young mum, a recovering addict who struggles to hold down a ... View Full Review
