Valentine Crow & Mr Death
Written by Jenni Spangler
I belong to the Primary Book Club on Twitter, and every month we read the same book and ask the author questions.
A couple of months ago the book we were going to be discussing was Valentine Crow & Mr Death.
Unfortunately I never got round to reading the book, but I joined in with the discussion and I knew I really needed to read this as I was missing out.
I borrowed this from my local library and over the school holidays I took this book out with me when I visited parks with my children.
And by the end of the first chapter I was completely hooked, and I knew this book was something special.
Twelve-year-old Valentine Crow has lived his entire life at the Foundling Hospital. Now, he and his best friend Philomena are leaving to begin their new lives as apprentices – but Valentine has been assigned to Death himself. Valentine finds himself in an impossible situation when his best friend’s name appears on the list of souls to take. Can he fight Death to save her soul, or does fate have other ideas?
This is such an amazing book, the characters are brilliant and they work well together, Mr Death is not how you would expect him to be, he is a caring character, he tries to do his best for his clients and tries to make their last moments as best as they can be.
Observely he has never had a human apprentice before and it’s nice to see how the relationship grows between him and Valentine. You get to see an extra side to Mr Death
Valentine is a really nice boy, he is someone who is grateful for everything given to him. He is a little sensitive, and struggles to come to terms with what his job is but it’s nice how he begins to understand that he is helping the souls.
I liked there were very few characters in this story as this is one of those books that don’t need many of them.
This book shows a sensitive way of describing death to children.
I really hope this will become a series as there is plenty of scope for this to go further.
Crookhaven: The School for Thieves
Written by J.J. Arcanjo
There are some books that as soon as you hear about them on Twitter and you research them you know that you really need to read them, this was one of them and it sounded perfect so because I couldn’t wait for Sam to read her copy and lend it to me, I borrowed it from the local library.
As soon as I got it home I stopped everything and this book became my life, I took it everywhere and used every opportunity to read it.
“So this is really a school for criminals.” It was meant as a question, though it came out more as an accusation.
“We are so much more than that,” Caspian said, sitting in a plush leather chair and gesturing for Gabriel to sit in a similar one across the table. “We are a home for the forgotten, a sanctuary for the lost and … yes, a training ground for the greatest crooks of the future.”
13-year-old Gabriel is a brilliant pickpocket, a skill which he uses to keep his often empty belly not quite so empty. And then one day, he’s caught.
But instead of being arrested, he is invited by the mysterious Caspian Crook to attend Crookhaven – a school for thieves. At Crookhaven, students are trained in lock-picking, forgery and ‘crim-nastics’, all with the intention of doing good out in the world, by conning the bad and giving back to the innocent.
But … can you ever really trust a thief?
With a school wide competition to be crowned Top Crook and many mysteries to uncover, Gabriel’s first year at Crookhaven will be one to remember…
The book was perfect and as I got towards the end of the book I found myself slowing down because I really didn’t want the book to end.
The main character is Gabriel, a scrappy orphan who lives on the brink of homelessness with his grandma. To survive, he picks pockets, but when he picks the pocket of Caspian Crook, he is invited to Crookhaven, a boarding school for budding thieves who use their skills for good. There, Gabriel meets Penelope Crook, daughter of the headmaster and a bit of a know-it-all, Ade and Ede, twin white-hat hackers who bounce off each other like all siblings do, and Amira, a shy Italian-Muslim girl with a knack for agility. This is an amazing group of friends
The school is filled with a varied, diverse cast, wonderfully representative of children today, with a big focus on friendship and belonging, as Gabriel comes to find his people and discover the secrets behind his missing parents.different subjects, and we have the normal things that go on with kids at school – competition, friendship, bullying, prejudices, missing home
This book is mainly setting the scene and getting the background information and characters ready for the next book, which I can’t wait for.
I love the character Gabriel as I love an underdog and you will find yourself rooting for him and his misfit friends.
Gabriel is a caring boy who only wants to make sure his Grandma is warm enough and has enough food to eat.
I love the idea of a school of crooks.
This book is so great and perfect that this was my favourite book of 2023 and it is going to take something special to replace this book in my heart.
Honesty and Lies
Written by Eloise Williams
I wasn’t sure what to expect when I picked this book up, the title and the cover really didn’t give anything away but it had pipped my interest so I dived in.
London, 1601. Honesty, a storyteller seeking fame and fortune, befriends Alice, a maid to Queen Elizabeth I. But can Alice be trusted? A tale of intrigue, scheming and plots set in the spellbinding world of the Elizabethan court. A thrilling adventure where nothing is as it seems.
The first thing that I realised was that this was going to be an historical book. I love these types of books as children don’t realise that they are learning history. These books give both children and adults the chance to explore a time that we will never be able to see.
This book is told through two narrators, Honesty has run away from her Welsh home and comes with little but dreams of a better life in a cold, dirty city. Alice is working for the Queen in one of her palaces sending her to potential lodgings, Honesty instead decides to follow Alice and decides she wants what Alice has.
The two characters are so different. Honesty can spin a good yarn, and soon wins friends and favours, to the chagrin of her new friend who is hiding shameful secrets of her own, caught up in family plotting she cannot disentangle herself from. There is a lot of jealousy between the girls.
The two girls’ very different experiences of life in Greenwich Palace and before cause their friendship many ruptures, and falling out. The author has given Honesty and Alice distinctive voices. who each tell their unique tale and reveal their individual personality and drive the story forward. This makes for a very immersive experience for the reader who gets to understand the inner motives and complexity of character of each of the girls who have their friendship tested in the novel. This is an interesting book.
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