MG Takes on Thursday

This is my weekly meme celebrating amazing middle-grade books. This week I’ve decided to revamp the banner to include the book I’m celebrating.

How to take part:

• Post a picture of the front cover of a middle-grade book which you have read and would recommend to others with details of the author, illustrator and publisher.
• Open the book to page 11 and share your favourite sentence. 
• Write three words to describe the book.
• Either share why you would recommend this book, or link to your review.

This week, I’m celebrating …

Favourite Sentence from Page 11:

In less than a second it [the bird] had snatched a silver spoon from an empty cup and shot up the narrow staircase behind her.

This book in three words:

ADVENTURE, FRIENDSHIP, FLITS

Edie and the Box of Flits is a delightfully enchanting story that utterly captivated me, and took me on a magical and exciting adventure filled with daring, discoveries and danger.  Absolutely spellbinding!

Eleven-year-old Edie Winter loves travelling on the London Underground and is helping her Dad out in the London Transport Lost Property Office during half term, reuniting owners with their lost belongings.  However, she is rather intrigued by a mysterious wooden box left behind:  could there be something inside it?  Imagine her surprise when she discovers three tiny winged people living in the box:  Flits who need her help. 

Although Edie is forbidden to take any found item home from the Lost Property Office, she is unable to resist, and takes the family of Flits home with her.  Impy, Speckle and Nid desperately need her aid to find their missing family after their home has been destroyed.  Can Edie and her new friends find the missing Flits, and expose the culprit behind their disappearance?    

This is a delicious treat of a story: fast-paced, action-packed and with plenty of tantalising twists, secrets and revelations sprinkled with a perfect pinch of danger and intrigue, making it a real page-turner.  I was wholeheartedly invested in the story as the plot twisted and turned, taking me on a real rollercoaster of an adventure. 

I absolutely adored the Flits, who can only be seen by children under 13, and loved that they have very individual personalities which were wonderfully portrayed in the story.  I especially liked Impy who is playful, feisty and courageous.  The Flits, fans of all things sugary, recycle items thrown away by humans in order to build and furnish their homes: I loved this message about not being wasteful and the importance of recycling and reusing.  Edie is a wonderful young girl who has found the move to secondary school difficult due to friendship issues. She finds new friendships with, and through, her bond with the Flits, and shows quick-thinking, strength and courage when helping her new friends.

The illustrations which are scattered throughout are absolutely stunning and complement the story perfectly as do the chapter headings depicted as a tube line. 

This is a wonderfully magical, heart-warming adventure of family, friendship and Flits that I have no doubt young readers will adore and want to re-read again and again.

Thank you to Piccadilly Press for an early copy in exchange for my honest opinion.

I’d love if anyone who wants to give this meme a go would comment in the comments box and include a link to your post so I can visit, comment and find some great middle-grade recommendations. If you do create a post and are on Twitter, and would like to share your post, please use the hashtag  #MGTakesOnThursday so I can find it, read it and share it!