Friday, 24 August 2012

Polly Price's Totally Secret Diary Mum in Love by Dee Shulman (Children's, 9 years +, 10/10)



2012, Red Fox
142 pages, Paperback
Review copy

Themes: seriously deranged & embarassing mother, misunderstanding what things mean, poison, tragedy, scary family to be, delights of an old castle, being coerced into doing things you don't want to do, determination, courage, severe mishap, lots of laughs, occasional strong peril and lots of mild peril


I had been looking forward to going to France in the Easter holidays for weeks. Admittedly it meant going with Mum and her annoying, yuckily young, French boyfriend, Almond. But I knew we would be staying at Almond's parents' place: A CHATEAU! Everyone knows 'chat' means 'cat' in French - so I couldn't wait... 2 whole weeks in a houseful of cats! I love animals!

'Tragically things NEVER work out as you expect. Instead of a houseful of cats it turned out to be a houseful of Almond's annoying, totally weird French family. Before I had time to squeak 'murder,' I was on the ghastly trail of a heartless criminal. Could I, Polly Price, uncover the truth? Well - not if I was the chief suspect. And not if I starved to death trying to find my way through long, murky corridors to breakfast. I knew I was in a race against time. And I didn't even have a watch.

Nayuleska's thoughts

I had forgotten how truly awful Polly's mother is. It's amazing Polly is relatively normal. Okay so you need to ignore her wild imagination which ultimately causes physical damage to both humans and inanimate objects, she manages to annoy her future family, she has expectations raised through not knowing French, but she has a huge kind heart. I'd expect her to be like her mother - Im glad she isn't. Polly's antics never fail to make me smile and make the sun shine down of life for an hour and a bit. That takes talent, which Dee has shown in this awesome 10/10 read. Bring on a book 4!

You can find out more at Dee's website.

Suggested read

Especially because she doesn't want you to, check out Polly's other diaries which include On Stage in America


1 comment:

Summer Dewberry said...

This is an AWESOME book. I LOVE this series, especially this one as I love the look of French Castles.