February Reviews: Children's 7 years +, 11 years + & Non-fiction

Note: if you've read the February Reviews: Children's Picture books post then skip past my ramblings to the reviews themselves. I'm repeating this so I don't have to take time rewording it! 

 

This week here on Nayu's Reading Corner is going to be a bit different review wise. Looking at my calendar, I've been ill most of the year. I have about 30 reviews to write. If I kept to my normal style, that would take ages. I've already removed the 'themes' part of my reviews until I'm caught up. However even doing that will still take a while. I hate having a large backlog, and I'm more inclined to spend too much time blogging instead of resting. 

So here's my solution, which is called a compromise. I'm grouping reviews by genre (roughly) and doing one or two line reviews. I will still include the blurb & the all important cover picture, as those are rather essential. I won't include themes, suggested books to read next and author info - those take a fair bit of time to do. 

The books I'm reviewing today are children's 7 years +, 11 years + & non-fiction  Let's get reviewing! 

Children's 7 years + 

Mermaid S.O.S Misty To The Rescue by Gillian Shields, 

 December 2010, Bloomsbury, 96 pages, eBook, Personal copy, 10/10) 

Summary from Bloomsbury 

Just as Misty and her friends start to make their way back to Coral Kingdom with the magic crystals for Queen Neptuna, a storm whipped up by the evil Mantora throws them right off course!

Misty and her fellow Sisters of the Sea are lost, but they must find their way home as quickly as possible in order to complete their important mission.

Misty comes up with a brilliant plan to help her mermaid friends, as well as saving a forest deep in the ocean from a terrible end.

Nayuleska's thoughts 

I bought this because I'm into mermaids at the moment, and wanted to scope out the current range for this age group. Yes my Muse is getting inklings of a mermaid series - not surprising really when I love mermaid drama H20 Just Add Water so much. I adored the illustrations for this book, they are cute and rounded, not super skinny mermaids. Misty gains courage even when danger is all about her and her friends. The grouchy crab was hilarious! The concept of the series is spot on too. This is a super cute and sassy mermaid 10/10 adventure.

Children's 11 years + 

Fairy Lies by E D Baker 

January 2013, Bloomsbury, 256 pages, Paperback, Review copy 9/10 

Summary from Bloomsbury

As if finding out that you're no ordinary schoolgirl but a fairy princess wasn't enough, now Tamisin has been stolen away by fairies! In this delightful sequel to Fairy Wings, the fairy princess Tamisin has been kidnapped from her home in the human world by Oberon, king of the fairies, who thinks he's her father. When Tamisin's boyfriend, Jak, finds out, he sets off to rescue her. In this funny and heart-warming chase through the land of fairies, goblins, sphinxes, unicorns and many more, Tamisin and Jak must look for each other, and find their way back to the human world.

Nayuleska's thoughts 

You can't go wrong with a pink cover. (That's my random thought of the day....) Fairies, mermaids, trolls and sphinxes have lots of interactions, some good, some troubling in Tamisin's chaotic life. I loved Tamisin as a character, what she endures is sometimes entertaining, sometimes scary. It lost a grade because occasionally the characters acted out of character. 

Children's, Non-fiction

Deadly Factbook: Reptiles and Amphibians by Steve Backshall 

14th February 2013, Orion Children's, 80 pages, Paperback, Review copy, 9/10 

Summary from Orion 

Discover the world's most extraordinary creatures in the third of Steve Backshall's DEADLY factbooks.

Packed with fascinating facts and drawing on Steve's own amazing experiences, this is the third DEADLY factbook for Steve Backshall fans everywhere. Illustrated throughout with full colour photographs and art.

Nayuleska's thoughts 

Unsure if I've mentioned it before, but I adore geckos, lizards and frogs. My love of these animals kept me tentatively turning the pages, doing my best to avoid seeing the humungous (exaggeration) photos of snakes, which I have a phobia over. It was worth it - lots of facts to learn about these cool (in more ways than one) creatures. 

 I hope you like this temporary, different style of review. I'm going to implement it whenever I'm ill, to take the stress out of blogging. I can be a bit of a perfectionist, and this is my way of saying it's ok to do things differently. (Yes once again I'm copy word for word from the previous post. So sue me!  (don't!))