Fantasy, Fun and Friendship: All for young readers

If you love reading tales about friendship, fantasy and fun, the books listed here would interest you. These include a hilarious novel of friendship and family secrets, a heartwarming story about learning love that is never lost, and a true one of sacrificing everything for family. In addition, there are also a magical fantasy and an extraordinarily interesting novel for you.

YOU WON’T BELIEVE THIS

Author: Adam Baron

This is a hilarious novel of friendship and family secrets which shows that people are people, no matter where they are from. Someone is doing terrible things to Mrs Martin, Cymbeline Igloo’s favourite teacher of all time. Cymbeline has to find the culprit (after he has learned what the word ‘culprit’ means). He also has to help his friend Veronique, whose grandma is very ill. It seems Nanai has a secret, connected to her arrival in the UK as a boat person from Vietnam, a traumatic journey in which she lost her twin sister. Can Cymbeline figure out the mystery in time? You will enjoy reading this tale.

THE GIRL WITH SPACE IN HER HEART

Author: Lara Williamson

This is a heart-warming, laughout-loud story about learning that love is never lost and change doesn’t have to be scary. Mabel Mynt knows a lot about space...like how we feel connected to the stars because we are all made of stardust. And that mum’s new boyfriend, Galactic Gavin, has eyes that twinkle like Sirius, the brightest star in the night sky. And that sometimes the perfect place for her sister Terrible Topaz will be a black hole. But Mabel doesn’t know how to fill the space in her heart that dad left when he walked out. And so she sets out on a mission of discovery.

STORM

Author: Nicola Skinner

It is a new extraordinarily moving novel from the author of the highly acclaimed Bloom. Frances’s parents were not prepared for her birth. They had a blanket, an easel and some paint, but nothing useful like a car or a phone. It’s no wonder Frankie has always had a temper. She was born on a beach, in a storm. What Frances was not prepared for was dying in a freak natural disaster that wiped out her whole town. Waking up 100 years later, Frances finds a whole load of new things to be angry about. And that’s before the visitors start turning up, treating her home like a tourist attraction. There are worse people out there than tourists… and they are coming for Frankie who is about to discover that there are things more important than herself – and that anger has its uses. Because when you have a storm inside you – sometimes the only thing to do is let it out…

MY NAME IS TANI

Author: Tanitoluwa Adewumi, Craig Borlase

This is a true story of sacrificing everything for family, living with nothing but hope, then sharing generously all they received to discover the greatest riches of all. At the age of 8, Tani Adewumi, a Nigerian refugee, won the 2019 New York State Chess Championship after playing the game for only a year while he was homeless. The amazing story of Tani and his family began amid Boko Haram’s reign of terror in Nigeria. They fled their home to the United States, where they lived in a shelter for the homeless in New York City as they waited to be granted religious asylum. To know what happened next, pick up the book.

STARFELL: WILLOW MOSS AND THE FORGOTTEN TALE

Author: Dominique Valente

Illustrated beautifully by Sarah Warburton, this fantasy is ideal for young readers. Willow Moss, the youngest and least powerful sister in a family of witches, recently saved the world. The problem is that nobody can remember it. To make matters worse, her magical ability seems broken. Instead of finding lost things, objects keep disappearing against her will … which is troubling now that her friend Sometimes needs her help! Sometimes has discovered how to see 10 minutes into the future. Unfortunately that time is only enough to find out that his kidnappers are on their way! Find out whether Moss could help Sometimes.