Ready, player one?

So many times I've heard it said 'the book is better than the movie'. Usually I'm an advocate of that phrase. Except in one case: Steven Speilberg. Having watched Jaws at a young (incidentally too young) age I always had a high expectation of any source material that he'd used. Imagine my total dismay when I read the book by Peter Benchley in my late teens and found that not only was it completely different, but it was also an overwhelming bore.

A couple of months ago my son asked me to take him to the cinema to see a film called 'Ready Player One'. I'd never heard of it. I did my usual of asking what it was about, I looked it up online and instanly recognised that wondefully comforting name of Steven Speilberg and that was it, I was all but instantly buying tickets for us to go.

I came out of that cinema screen in a daze. There was acutally a particular scene when a well known murderous doll appeared from out of nowhere and I screamed in the auditorium! I'm sorry, but certain horror icons scare the daylights out of me and having one practically jumping out of the screen was not pleasant. 

It was hands down one of the best films I've seen in the past 5 years, maybe longer. In a world where my age and experience are starting to show me that everything is woefully rehashed this was a glorious altough nostalgic- there are hundreds of 70's, 80's and 90's references in there - alternative. 

I bought the book a few weeks ago: it's the most I've ever paid for a paperback (£9 with no discounts or offers). To be fair, had I not just received a present of Waterstones vouchers I don't think I ever would have bought it.

But it's stayed gathering dust since then; patiently waiting on my 'to read' pile while I got on with other books from my challenge. That is of course until yesterday when I finally picked it up, expecting it to either be exactly the same as the film or a pitiful let down in comparison. 

Wrong on both counts.

To tell you what the book is about you need only read the quote on it's front cover from the New York Times. It really is a cross between old fashioned morals and futuristic dystopian struggles.

It centres around Wade; an orphan living with his nasty piece of work aunt (vague reference there for all the astute book fiends).  He is staying in the tiny cramped wash room of her mobile home, literally sleeping on her washing machine and dryer. The world has gone to pot. With the fossil fuels now gone, climate change out of control and disease wreaking havoc, most of the world has taken solace by escaping onto the Oasis: a virtual universe comprising of hundreds of planets where you can do, make or be what ever you want.

People live their lives as avatars, spending most of their time in this virtual world as opposed to the real one. I think this is a nod towards the way the world is with online socialising but that might just be my personal interpretation.

Anyway when the creator of this Oasis, multibillionaire eccentric recluse James Halliday dies; he bequeaths his entire fortune and controlling interest in his company to the lucky person who can find the special easter egg, hidden somewhere in the Oasis itself. It's this quest that will pit Wade against everyone else on Earth inlcuding the sinister corporation IOI, who want to be able to charge people to use the universe that they are currently accessing free of charge (definite nod to social networks there).

I won't say much more about the plot, except to say that it is a total departure from the film. Yes the character names are the same, so is the main pace and result. There are twice the amount of tv, song and computer game references. But the rest is completely and utterly different. It was very fast paced, matter of fact writing. There were no frilly expansive descriptions (apart from the occasional flutter of technological language to help make plot points easier to swallow).

The vocabulary in the book however was rich and varied and it was a joy to see words such as axiom easily slotted into sentences that didn't make them stand out like a sore thumb from mis-use. The flow of the book was akin to a water rapid: I didn't want to stop for breath. The characters weren't overly developed but then they didn't need to be as the story moved along so effortlessly.

I read all of it's 374 pages...
...in just 28 hours. And that's with stopping for half a day to spend time with visiting family and catch up with friends then for another 8 hours just to get a good night's sleep!

I thought I'd give it an acid test and tell my son to give it a look. He's already 3 chapters in and he started it not too long after I'd finished it.

So, universal appeal too. Now all I want to do is re read it, watch the movie or find a way to play some old Atari games! It's a safe bet that my son will be the same when he's finished his reading adventure!

I have to say there are scenes in the book which are entirely adult in nature with explicit phrases; not too adult for teenagers but definitely not meant for primary school children.

So sadly, though I'd love to count this as my book that was turned into a film I can't. Instead, I've chosen this as my young adult book with the advice to any in secondary schools who want to engage reluctant teenage boys: get on this one people!

It's astounding! Better than the Speilberg film by far (sorry Stephen, I still worship you).

Book 22 of my 52 book read and my young adult text.

Book Title: Ready Player One
Author: Earnest Cline
Published: 2011
Pages: 374
Suitable for: young adults (high school and up)
Interesting words: pervasive, abundant, paradigm, discernable, quintessential, unabashedly, latency, synonymous, primative, inconspicuous, contiguous, sinister, axiom, derogatory,
ramifications, protagonist, conglomerate (and that's just a few of them!)

The Lesson of Anne Frank

This blog post is not for the faint of heart. I say that with all due sincerety as, having just finished the book I really can't say with certainty what might come flying out of my brain as my fingers dance across the keyboard.

This week's book was a memoir or journal. I could've done some research, I'm sure there are lots of journals out there that would make interesting reads for children. I've tried to keep this list full of child friendly books as I feel it makes the challenge more interesting.

But there are weeks when it is going to be a real problem. As soon as I started this piece of text, I realised this might well be one of those weeks.

The story of Anne Frank is well known, extracts from it are often used in primary school teaching. It's her own personal diary written between June 1942 and August 1944. It talks of events in the secret annexe: a hidden 'apartment' in an office building/warehouse where she and seven other Jewish people were forced to live in hiding.

It tells everything about her daily life from her struggles with being kept in hiding, to her often difficult relationships with the other occupants of the annexe. But more importantly it pours the very deep secrets of her heart on to each line and page as she confides in the diary, using it as a way to express herself and deal with the very normal issues of adolescene.

For years it has been in my house and I have never read it. I have had all sympathy with her plight and I've pretended to have a decent understanding of it. After all, as I used to say 'she was just a normal girl, going through something unimaginable and horrible' as if that was justification for my ignorance of the text itself.

What a niaeve fool I was! From the very first entry I felt like I was seeing things through her eyes. Her relationship with her own parents as she grows older and away from them was something tangeble, I could identify with it. There were passeges where I simply couldn't bring myself to accept the sheer extremes of the life within the annexe's walls. They were at one point relying on rotten veg for their daily meals, twice a day. There were moments where I could feel the claustrophobic environment that she found herself in every single day for two whole years.

Nothing I can say right now can do it justice. What made it more harrowing for me was knowing the outcome. In fact, the afterward told in plain detail of Anne's fate, along with the fate of the other residents. It became a solemn reminder, something I would go back and reread every time I felt a glimmer of hope or an ounce of unrealism. I needed to keep grounding myself in it's gravity.

This book is great as a point of reference for children at the top end of a primary school as an introduction to the topic. But I don't feel it would be right for children of a young age to read it from cover to cover, not without being able to grasp some of the more mature, adult themes within it.

It might be niaeve of me to say it but I feel a little as though I've grown with her; that in my reading the 350 pages of her life I have come to know a little more about what she experienced.

After the war had ended, her father (the annexe's sole survivor) was at the forefront of a campaign to keep and restore the building where she had spent those final years. He was quoted as saying it was intended as 'an earnest warning from the past and a mission of hope for the future'.

I think the lesson of this book is that in the face of incredible adversity there is always hope. Anne was often hopeful for an end to the war and a bright future. She wanted to live on after her death.
If in some small way I am helping that to happen and to promote a piece of text that should never dwindle into obscurity then I'm glad.

Book 21 of my 52 book list and a book that counts as a memoir or journal.

Book Title: Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl
Author: Anne Frank (with editing from Otto Frank and Mirjam Pressler)
Translated by: Susan Massotty
Published: 1995 (this particular edition)
Paes: 350
Suitable for: Children aged 12 and up (so long as they are aware of and can openly discuss the content)
Interesting words: exuberant, superficial, meticulous, refrain, monotony, frolicsome

Desperate Times

The challenge is growing difficult now, all the easy choices for books have been used up and now it's getting harder to find the books I need, let alone to read them inside of a week. As this yearly challenge draws towards it's halfway mark I'm really going to have to apply myself.

This week has been one where, come Saturday I'd not even come close to finishing any of the books I'd really wanted to read. So I resorted to desperate measures today: I raced out the the library and looked through the picture books section. This led me to a couple of interesting revelations and has caused me to stop and ponder 'what exactly qualifies as a picture book?'.

A definition I found whilst browsing online says that a picture book is 'a book in which the illustrations are as important as (or even more important) the words telling the story' (thanks ThoughtCo.com).

I have read a fair few books in my time where the illustrations are plentiful, but do not essentially serve a greater story-telling purpose than the text. Conversely I have read thicker books that would not nearly have packed the same punch without the illustrations that come with them (Chris Riddell's 'Ottoline' books being a prime example).

Needless to say the books I selected in the library today were quick picks, so I wasn't really worrying about what made a picture book at the time. In reality the only thing going through my mind was 'easy read, quick blog post'.

You might wonder why I'm rambling on about the topic instead of simply reviewing the book. I'll be honest and tell you: reading a 32 page book in a rush feels a little like I've cheated.

Anyway, I found a couple of 'picture books' to review. You as blog readers can be the judges of whether or not they qualify as proper picture books.

First up: Love is My Favourite Thing by Emma Chichester Clark

This is not my main book choice, but as I was finishing off scanning through the picture book section my eyes fell across it and I couldn't resist.

It tells the story of Plummie, the dog who likes all kinds of fun doggy activities, but loves to be loved most of all. One day Plummie faces one calamity after another when all the things she loves to do lead her into more and more trouble. In fact by the end of the day she's pretty much left on her own to contemplate the consequences of her actions (very humanely I might add).

She realises that she might not be loved anymore and this scares her silly. So, when asked if she knows what she's done wrong she does that adorable puppy dog look and bows her head and in the end she is forgiven. The last page shows that she does try always to be good and though she might make mistakes, ultimately she's secure in the knowledge that her family loves her and that, is her favourite thing.

Interestingly this book's origin came from a real life blog started by Emma Chichester Clarke which details the adventures of her own pet dog. The blog's popularity led to the book which I can only assume may well be the first of many (and why not, it's an adorable subject matter).

There really isn't any challenge to this book, nor is there great expanding subtext or issue for discussion. That's what makes it a pleasure to read though. It's a simple, no frills, no fuss book for a child to enjoy with a parent or carer.


The illustrations are good, but I'm not sure I can say a heck of a lot about them. They don't carry a hallmark like some illustrators have. Whenever I see a book with illustrations by Quentin Blake for example, I know automatically that it's a work of his. That isn't a bad thing but on the other hand they don't stand out. They certainly don't tell a more revealing or more important story than the text. But that doesn't make them bad illustrations. They were good.

Okay so I said more about them than I thought I would.

Next up: 'I am Number One'

This is a book with a number in the title and my actual selection for this week.

Let me just start by saying that this book was written by none other than Michael Rosen. This man is something of a legend in my eyes. I have seen his poetry being swallowed greedily by children from the ages of 3 to 14. I've heard high school kids recite words from his chocolate cake poem because they absolutely love his accent! I've even seen whole class rooms watch his poetry on youtube and finish lines of it before he does... ...once again, imitating his voice.

His works are well written and superbly performed (as I was lucky enough to find when I saw him on stage).

This book tells the story of A-One, a character who resembles humpty dumpty but is actually a wind up toy soldier. He is also a total bossy boots. "I am in charge" he says  whilst waiting for his friends Sally, Sid and Maddy to wind him up and get him going. He calls them useless, hopeless and no good and even goes so far as to bully them into giving him their apparel! After acquiring a hat, scarf and rucksack he proudly reaffirms that he's in charge, but in the sight of his ridiculous nonsense they all start to laugh, turning things he says into silly mumbo jumbo. Even he has to smile after a while. Frankly if I saw and egg shaped tin soldier wearing a dodgy hat, scarf and rucksack about to start playing a drum whilst standing on a shoe I'd probably laugh too.

Behind it all is A-One's serious realisation though that without their help, he'd be hopeless, useless and no good. And so our story ends with him handing back what he took before humbly admitting that he's "one of the gang".

This has Rosen's trademark light heartedness all over it. In the way the characters use word play to turn something horrible into something funny. It is cleverly written, well paced and well illustrated.
Once again it won't challenge in terms of language but it does provide food for thought in terms of cause and effect. How we treat others can ultimately be a reflection of who we are.

Do the illustrations stand out markedly? No. Do they tell their own story? Not really. There is however a pivotal point of the story where a large picture of A-One shows him finally smiling and it's in that image that we see his realisation of his own foolishness.

Could the story work without the pictures? Definitely. Once again that does not make them bad illustrations. It probably makes me a bit of a picture book snob.

Isn't it a good thing that picture books are not on my 52 book list (haha)?


I am Number One is book 20 of my 52 book list and it's a book with a number in the title. Illustrations and book covers will be added at a later date.

Book: Love is my Favourite Thing/ I am Number One
Author: Emma Chichester Clarke/Michael Rosen
Illustrator: unknown/Bob Graham
Published: 2015/2009
Pages: 30/24
Suitable for: ages 3 upwards (both books)
Interesting words: absolutely, eventually/ hopeless, useless, frowned

The Infinite Magic of Mr Edge

I have the great pleasure to be a part of a reading club on Twitter. Every month the group discusses a children's book before voting on the next one to read. It hasn't been up and running long and I'll admit that it can be hard reading with a deadline in the back of my mind. However, the books we've selected so far have been brilliant.

But this month's choice was absolutely magnificent!

Written by Christopher Edge, The Infinite Lives of Maisie Day tells the story of it's titular character. 

Maisie wakes up to the sound of her alarm clock at 9 am on the morning of her 10th birthday. She goes downstairs to find things aren't quite right. Her family are missing, there's no sounds, no indication of where they might be and when she opens her front door to look there is nothing but a vast blackness. Her entire world has been left blank. 

But then Maisie wakes up to the sound of her alarm clock at 9 am on the morning of her 10th birthday. She goes downstairs to find mum, dad and her sister getting ready for her special day. Things should run smoothly from there, so it's a sucker punch when the reader is thrown back into the alternate world with the alternate Maisie. 

As the two worlds of Maisie and Maisie unfold, events start to steam roll, leading her and her sister Lilly (the book's other central character) towards a climactic collision of epic proportions. 

This book had me going from the very first word. The language is simple but effective. It is almost as though the author carefully selected every single word for the biggest impact. It isn't a long book; only 155 pages in fact. The pace moves along smoothly and quickly, yet at no point did I feel rushed through it. 

The sibling rivalry between Maisie and her older sister Lilly is tense, made all the more gripping by the stark contrasts between them. Maisie is a shut in, being a child genius who has achieved a college level education and is on to doing degrees through the Open University at the tender age of 10. She stays at home and is tutored privately but suffers from the lack of interaction with the outside world. 

Lilly on the other hand is a typical teenage girl (I use the word typical in a very loose sense as I know that every teenager is unique). Lilly's problems largely stem from the same root source: the fact that her 'genius' sister is considered by others to be a freak. 

I never saw the plot points coming, which was a massive bonus for me. I love it when a book offers me something new and surprising. This book had me gasping out loud (sorry if that sounds like a bit of a spoiler). 

The research and science behind the book is astounding and shows real dedication to combining knowledge with imagination. I found myself at one point looking up M.C Escher's 'Ascending and Descending' just to help me visualise a particular scene! 

There is so much I would love to say about this book; I feel as if I could go on forever! But I won't because if I do, I will simply spoil it by giving away too much. 

If you get the chance, please give this book a read. It is a credit to it's creator and a masterpiece of children's literature (and I really don't use those words lightly). 

Book 19 of my 52 book list and this counts as my book by a male author. And it's all thanks to Twitter's Primary School Book Club

( #primaryschoolbookclub ). Check it out.  

Book Title: The Infinite Lives of Maisie Day
Author: Christopher Edge
Published: 2018
Pages: 155
Suitable for: children aged 7 upwards
Interesting words: cascade, infinity, mobius, particles, protons 

Beyond the Book Review

Well this was the easiest book choice on the entire list by a county mile!

My history with this book starts a few months ago when I purchased a book called 'Who Let the Gods Out'. It looked bold and different and frankly who could argue with a title like that? I took a chance, took it home and started to read; then did that really annoying thing that parents do to their kids when they feel they've hit upon something brilliant.

"Son, son, you've gotta check this book out!" I yelled like a giddy school girl. Luckily for me, my son is quite patient with me. We have a tradition where myself or my hubby reads to him every night which I love. On this particular night he indulged my repetitive nagging by choosing 'Who Let the Gods Out' as our next book.

We flew through it; lapping up it's fresh perspective, wonderful humor and soap opera drama.

Not long after the release of it's sequel 'Simply The Quest' I had the incredible fortune to meet the author, the lovely Maz Evans, who took the time to sign a copy not only for my son but also for the school I worked for.

I was a proper fan girl, it was that exciting! But nothing made me happier than to see my boy's face when I got home with his signed copy.

Then we reached the third book in the series 'Beyond the Odyssey' and a truly heartbreaking turn of events. We got the book in as soon as we could and sat down that first night to read the first two chapters. But I left the book in his room that night, thinking he was going to sleep. When he came downstairs the next morning however, he'd read two thirds of the book... ...on his own (insert a line full of sad faces here)!

I was in despair until he came to his own defence and called me out for sneaking peaks at the last chapter!

That is how addictive these stories are though, 'Beyond the Odyssey' being no exception. The writing style is well paced, the characters feel realistic: you can connect and empathise with them.

The series centres around young Elliot Hooper, who is trying to care for and protect his mother, the poor woman having been seized by the terminal grip of dementia. With mum being his only carer, he  is already trying to hide his problems from the wider world, which includes Mr Boil (the most irritating history teacher in history) and Mrs Porshley Plum (the hellish heffer of a neighbour whose devious schemes are immoral and nothing short of pure evil).

Now lets throw into the mix a disgraced constellation and ex member of the zodiac council Virgo (who is always right by the way) and the Greek Gods: Zeus, Aprodite, Athene, Hermes and Hephestus who land on Elliot's doorstep.

Then place the ticking time bomb between the Gods and the Deamon of Death (Thanatos) that is the race for the chaos stones (4 stones that control pretty much everything). For good measure, lets just plonk Elliot right in the centre of that race as he seems to be the key to controling the overwhelming powers of the four chaos stones.

By this third installment Elliot is embroiled in all of this whilst trying to cure his mother's illness and rekindle a relationship with his newly released ex-convict father and facing scrutiny from the authorities, who have concerns over his safeguarding and welfare. The drama is unceasing and yet there were parts of the book which had me laughing out loud.

The language is easily accessible, with a few nuggets of beautiful vocabulary dropped carefully in like the perfect seasoning. I found reading this book something akin to climbing up to the top diving board at the pool (which is a stupid thing I would've done on a dare many years ago when I was a kid and had more brass than common sense).

The whole book series so far has felt like a long road, not without it's heart aches and sacrifices.

Now I'm standing on that precipice, sick with rage towards certain characters (not from the height) whilst wanting to cry for others (not because I've realised my own stupidity).


At the very heart of this series though is a love between a mother and her son. Lord knows I can relate to that.

It will take all my courage to leap into that final book when it comes out. But I'll breathe, brace myself and make that dive. I'm just hoping that, even though he'll be that little bit older by the time the book is released, my son will take that dive with me.

A book from a trilogy or series this is book 18 of my 52 book list.

Title: Beyond the Odyssey
Author: Maz Evans
Published: 2018
Pages: 357
Suitable for: children aged 8 and upwards
Interesting words: incandescent, verdant, plummet, establish