Agents of the Wild: Operation Honeyhunt by Jennifer Bell & Alice Lickens
Walker Books
Since her parents died, Agnes Gamble has lived with her uncle. He doesn’t like animals at all. This is a big problem for Agnes who would love a furry friend. One day she arrives home from school to find an elephant shrew on her bed. His name is Attie and he is a field agent for SPEARS: the Society for the Protection of Engangered and Awesomely Rare Species. He has come to recruit Agnes to train as a field agent.
She is partnered with Attie and they are sent to the rainforest in search of a missing bee. At SPEARS, every animal is valued, and they recognise that the loss of one endangered type of bee too great to the eco-system. This field mission marks the end of Agnes’s training, and decides whether or not she becomes a permanent agent.
There is also the possibility that they will encounter Axel Jabheart – a man with white hair like a whippy cone who treats animals as something to collect – and his team Arctic Foxes. Can the SPEARS agents restore the bee to its hive and protect the balance of nature?
This wonderful new series explores the role that animals play in the eco-system. The two are often talked about as seperate things, but every create plays a part in the Earth’s balance and too many species have been made extinct due to selfish human behaviour. This has, in turn, caused catastrophic damage to the Earth.
If this sounds bleak, be reassured that the stories are far from it. They are adventure stories about a child picked to be a special agent, that promote positive attitudes towards other animals. This first story centres around Agnes’s training and the big question is whether or not she will make the grade. What does it take, aside from good grades during special animal and environment classes, to become a SPEARS agent?
The illustrations show us how hard Agnes works during her first field mission, and introduce some rare and lesser-known animal species. The palette of greens, greys and black is very effective and gives the book a distinctive feel.
Any reader will want to become a SPEARS agent. Like all good stories, Agents of the Wild: Operation Honeyhunt works its way out of the pages and into the reader’s dreams.
Bug Belly: Babysitting Trouble by Paul Morton
Five Quills Children’s Books
It’s Uncle Bug Belly’s turn to babysit the tadpoles and froglets. They are excited and happy to join in with Uncle Bug Belly’s water sports, but then his stomach gurgles and everybody knows that they are in trouble. Uncle Bug Belly’s weakness is his appetite. He just loves to eat. His attempt to get food leads him to an even bigger problem. The posts that hold the pond water in place have been removed. The water is draining away.
Uncle Bug Belly makes a plan to get everyone from Top Pond to Bottom Pond as quickly as possible. The trouble is, that in Middle Pond, lives Old Snapper, the notorious pike whose favourite food is frog. Not to mention that, if they go outside the water, they risk being eaten by Heron.
Can Uncle Bug Belly get everyone to Bottom Pond before the water drains?
The lively illustrations make this story a joy to read. Uncle Bug Belly’s antics are told as equally through illustrations as text, with cartoon-style boxes speech bubbles breaking up the more traditional format.
This is perfect for younger readers, especailly for those venturing into chapter books for the first time. Humour and adventure are balanced to create a splashtastic tale.
Dream Team: Attack of the Heebie Jeebies by Tom Percival
Macmillan Children’s Books
Everything has been different since Erika’s little brother was born. Erika feels like her parents no longer have time for her and it makes her angry. When she goes to bed following a bad day, she has a bad dream. But this isn’t an ordinary dream. She finds herself inside the dreamscape, with a pack of fluffy monsters called heebie-jeebies. One heebie-jeebie seems especially attached to Erika. She takes him under her wing and names him Beastling. There’s also a terrifying monster called an Angermare that is intent on hunting Erika down.
Luckily the dream team are on hand. Their job is to keep the dream save and stable – a job that has been made harder by the heebie-jeebies, who has been eating all the dream crystal that powers the Dream Team’s magic.
Can the Dream Team solve the problem before Erika is trapped forever in an Angermare? What will happen to Beastling if the heebie-jeebies refuse to share the dream crystal?
Think Inside Out for nighttime. Dreams become real worlds. These worlds are monitored by a Dream Team. Normally, people aren’t aware of this at all, but when something goes wrong, Erika has to help the Dream Team set her dreamscape back to normal.
Kitty and the Sky Garden Adventure by Paula Harrison. Illustrated by Jenny Løvlie
Oxford University Press
Kitty’s school are looking for designs for the new school garden and Kitty would love to be involved. Her feline friend Pixie has heard of a magical garden, so Kitty, Pixie and their friend Pumpkin head across the rooftops to explore.
The garden is guarded by a grumpy old tom cat. Rumour says he doesn’t like visitors. Kitty and her friends soon discover that the old tom, Diggory, would love to share his garden, but not everybody who comes shows the plants and decorations respect. A gang of cats has destroyed everything before, and it appears that they will do the same again.
Can Kitty and her friends help to protect and restore the garden?
The second story about the girl whose special superhero power is to turn into a cat.
Superhero tales with a twist. Instead of epic powers, Kitty is able to turn into a cat. She is joined in her adventures by the rooftop cats and together they protect the neighbourhood. There’s something a bit magical about these books. From the aesthetic (think black, white, and shiny orange) to the moment where kitty transforms, they have the same excitement as any hero story but only just enough threat to create a story. Nothing in these books is too scary for bedtime. It also balances out all the pink and pretty found in this age category. This series has black and it has sparkles. Dungarees and pretty plants. Win-win. This series is a great example of a simple idea done to perfection and it is perfect for readers looking for something to read after Squishy McFluff.
Little Owl Rescue by Rachel Delahaye. Illustrated by Jo Anne Davies
Little Tiger Press
Fliss’s magic transports her to different environments around the world where young animals need help. She has had adventures before, but every time is different from the last. This time she finds herself in the corn fields of Texas where a barn owl is sheltering her chicks in a forest marked for clearance. Then the mother owl disappears, leaving a chick behind.
As the chick Cookie is unable to fly, she is reliant on Fliss’s help to find her family but, as the night sets in, Fliss has to listen to Cookie’s instincts and trust her better night vision.
This series is now growing with Little Owl Rescue being the fifth adventure. I love it as much as when it started because it filled a gap in the market for a series that fully respected that animals are not the playthings of humans. Fliss meets the animals in their natural habitats, faces the realistic dangers of those environments, and leaves the animals where they belong in the wild. Her role is only to intervene when a baby could easily be helped back to its family. Fliss works with other animals in the best sense of the phrase – she cooperates with and supports their instincts.
Highly reccomend.
Mermaids Rock: The Floating Forest
Little Tiger Press
The magic whirlpool in Mermaids Rock transports mermaids to any ocean in the world. When Coralie visits a kelp forest, she finds a treasure map. Adeventure begins as the friends follow the clues, dodging sharks and killer whales along the way. What they find surprises them and they are able to put together all their knowledge about the ocean to complete the trail.
A magical mermaid adventure with a strong focus on saving our seas.
Animals meet mermaids in this chapter book series. The main characters are paid with their own marine animal friend, and they care strongly about the state of the oceans. These mermaids have a touch of magic but their goals reflect the real world.
Perfect for animal lovers and for young readers who are looking to get stuck into a chapter books series.
Midge & Mo by Lara Williamson. Illustrated by Becky Cameron
Stripes
Midge doesn’t want to start a new school or a smiley new teacher. He wishes everything could go back to the way it was. He’s not convinced about this whole new beginnings thing that his Mum keeps talking about.
Mo is desperate to be Midge’s friend. Mo smiles lots, and chatters away, and shows Midge all the great things about the school like the monkey bars and the nature trail and the lovely signs about friendship. But Midge isn’t convinced. Mo is close to giving up when she remembers how it felt to be the new girl with everything out of place. And that gives her an idea.
A touching story about sadness and friendship.
It is OK to be sad. Sad isn’t something to shun or ignore. And it isn’t always possible to make someone feel better. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t worth knowing. Older ideas about sadness – about bucking up and grinning and bearing it – are still prevalent even if we use different words. Certainly, as a society, we tend to skirt around people who are openly unhappy. Midge & Mo suggests more empathetic ways of treating sad people.
The internal dialogue used to show Midge’s voice lends the book a quiet feel. When Midge finally uses dialogue, it is like the sun has broken through the rain.
Becky Cameron’s use of colour shows the contrast between hapiness and unhappiness. This would be a lovely book for helping children to understand their emotions through colour. Sometimes we feel grey.
Another hit from the Colour series.
Rocket Boy by Katie Jennings. Illustrated by Joe Lillington
Stripes
Callum lives, breathes and thinks space. His daydreams and games are full of space shuttles and daring heroics, but everyone else is too busy to listen. Everyone except Oscar the cat. One day, Callum takes a massive cardboard box, transforms it into the spacecraft of his dreams and lifts off on an adventure. Oscar and Callum are off to Mars.
Everything is going well until Oscar gets tired. Will Callum listen to his friend or will he be left all alone?
A gentle story about imagination and friendship.
This story is from the Colour range, which bridges the gap between picture and early chapter books. It has all the visual excitement of a picture book but it also has more pages and words. Like many great picture books, there are two narratives going on and the big question for the reader is whether Callum really went to Mars or whether it was all a big game in his cardboard spacecraft.
Younger readers will relate to Callum as he tries to get adult attention. His ideas are dismissed as games but as far as Callum is concerned, it is all very real. This story will remind adult readers – perhaps sharing the book with a child – that play is important and shouldn’t be dismissed as trivial.
Some of the pages are divided into comic book style boxes. It is lovely to see books produced in this way. Young readers deserve a choice of story styles and seeing comic elements in mainstream fiction helps to prove that graphic storytelling is a valid format for storytelling.
Willow Wildthing and the Swamp Monster by Gill Lewis. Illustrated by Rebecca Bagley
Oxford University Press
When Willow moves to a new home, she finds it difficult to sleep with all the strange noises coming from the woods beyond the bedroom window. Worst of all, she has nightmares about her brother Freddie, who is very ill in hospital. When her rescue dog, Sniff, vanishes into the woods, Willow has her first encounter with The Wild Things.
This gang of children claim that strange things happen in the Wilderness – a secret place that lies beyond the woods and can only be seen by people who recognise magic. They take Willow through the thorn tunnels to the Wilderness. The trouble is, there’s a monster, a swamp-monster, and it has kidnapped a boy called Bear.
The Wild Things reckon that Sniff can follow Bear’s trail and lead them to his rescue, but are they brave enough to face the witches, killer plants and other strange and magical things found in the Wilderness?
Gill Lewis is a talented author who has written many books where children encounter animals. Her love of nature and wild spaces shines through in this story that explores the special relationship people – and young people especially – develop with the natural spaces on their own doorstep. In many ways this reminded me of Artur Ransome’s writing, especially the way in which the group of children banded together to explore and learn about outdoor space. Rebecca Bagley’s illustrations, with their muted green and white backgrounds, show the blurred lines between play and magic. The Wilderness is a very real space to the children, but there is no doubt from their movements and expressions that they are playing.
The storyline about Willow’s brother is sensitvely told, and Willow finds a way to share her adventures with Freddie.
A wonderful new series about our relationship with wild spaces.
- The books in this feature were provided for review by the respective publishers.
