WWW Wednesday

I’ve just started The Time of Green Magic which is the 6th book of my 20 Books of Summer, but I’m already getting behind with reviewing them! I’m listening to Louisiana’s Way Home and am really enjoying this – the narrator is great!

I’ve finished books 4 and 5 of my 20 Books of Summer Challenge, Sky Pirates and The Titanic Detective Agency, both of which I really enjoyed. I’ll be posting my reviews soon. I also read Tom’s Midnight Garden which is a story I’ve wanted to read for ages. I picked it up in Waterstones on Saturday, and read it on Sunday. I really, really loved it. It is a time-slip novel about a young boy who is sent to stay with his Aunt and Uncle after his brother catches measles. He discovers a wonderful garden, and forms a friendship with one of the children who lives in the house, Hatty. Night after night, he spends time with her as seasons pass and she ages. I adored the heart-warming ending although I had already guessed the connection. And I picked up another time-slip story, The House on Hawthorn Road which I picked up when I was in Ireland at Christmas. It tells the story of two families living in the same house, one in the 1950s and the other 60 years later, who can travel to each others’ time. The main characters are Beth (from present) and Robbie (from 1950s). I really enjoyed the development of their relationship, especially as Robbie is not the best-behaved boy, yet he helped Beth become more of her real self. The time-slip aspect was intriguing and I loved how it developed. This story has realistic relationships with humour and poignancy. The differences in the roles of the women from both time periods was really interesting, and I loved how both women’s attitudes changed as a consequence of knowing each other. This is a story of family, rather than children within family, which was a real change for me as I’m definitely more used to missing/deceased parents in the middle-grade fantasy stories I read!

Next, I’m hoping to read the 7th book of my 20 Books of Summer Challenge, The Mask of Aribella.