By Maureen Tai, 20 August 2018

“With that square head, you look just like a gecko.”  – Akissi

It is hard to miss the copy of Akissi, laid out on the table at Daunt, a bookshop in London. The cover is a startling yellow and has a picture of a little girl the colour of warm cocoa, with an oversized head, large oval eyes and wide toothy grin.  She lives with her mum and dad, older siblings Victorine and Fofana in a square, yellow brick house with blue shuttered windows in the Ivory Coast.

Akissi is full of life, full of ideas and full of mischief – that trait which endears certain book characters to the youngest of readers (think Pippi Longstocking, Matilda, Peter Rabbit and Tom Gates to name a few). Akissi is irresistible. Continue reading →

By Anna, 23 July 2018

Maybe the others would have believed me. Maybe not. But I wasn’t going to tell them. This was just for me.  – Vera

Every summer, all of Vera’s friends go off to camp. She never has. Now she is.

Vera is Russian, and as much as she tries to fit in with her American friends, she still feels like the odd one out. After a bit of a disaster with her birthday sleepover, Vera hears about a Russian camp called O.R.R.A. from a girl at her church, and she is determined to go there. She thinks that she won’t be that left out, because everyone else would be Russian, like her. She isn’t prepared for the camp ahead of her.

Continue reading →

By Maureen Tai, 22 June 2018

“Two arms two legs? Anyone?’ – Zita

Planet Earth. An enormous crater scars a grassy clearing in some woods. Zita and Joseph chance upon the depression and discover a squareish object within the meteoroid that lies smouldering at the bottom of the hole. There is an enticing red button on the object, which of course, Zita mischievously pushes. Multiple times.

And of course, all hell breaks loose. Continue reading →