Chasing the Shy Town

I spend a lot of time at my job looking for new short chapter books that are suitable for newly independent readers. These books have larger fonts, shorter chapters and illustrations throughout the book.

These books are suitable for children aged 5 / 6  upwards and they are the next step up from picture books. And when I saw this book I knew this was going to be ideal for this purpose.

Senan doesn’t care for adventure. He’d rather watch the world go by from his bedroom window.

But when he spots the Shy Town – a hilltop town that vanishes and reappears along the horizon – he is fascinated.

Along with his fearless and fun-loving neighbour and his no-nonsense grandmother, Senan sets out to find the Shy Town. On their epic adventure they encounter wild storms, a boy made of paper, a nervous, beetle-like creature with remarkable abilities – and a mysterious town with an incredible secret.

Senan uses his binoculars to spy out the Shy Town, a sweet little place on a hill, with winding streets and red and yellow roofs. Senan calls it the Shy Town because it often hides and is hard to find. He tells his next-door friend Joshua (a Girl) about the Shy Town, and they set off, with Senan’s grandmother in a ramshackle wheelchair, to find this elusive place. Along the way they make friends with Paperboy. Who is, as you’d expect, a boy made of paper.

With the help of a kruckle (a sort of Shy Town creature) that they meet on their journey, they find the Shy Town, only its real name is Perfection, because it is absolutely perfect. But all is not well in Perfection: the inhabitants are constantly worrying about making it more and more perfect. But since more perfect than perfect is an impossibility, they are constantly exhausted.

This is a lovely book celebrating the impossibility  of perfection.

This was such a lovely story that I really enjoyed reading.

I loved Gran and the description of Gran being pulled in her ramshackled wheelchair, this painted such a fantastic picture in my mind.

This is a fast paced action adventure where the reader has clues to help solve a puzzle, there is already a list of children that are looking forward to borrowing this book.