Happy Birthday Bookstart!

It's the 20th anniversary of Bookstart, the first book-gifting programme in the world, which was launched in 1992. Part of Booktrust, it offers free books to all children during their first year and between the ages of 3-4, usually via health visitors and nurseries. They also run the Bookstart Bear Club online and in libraries (including the one where I work) to encourage young children to read. To help secure future funding, they're asking people to pledge to share 20 books in 2012. Many celebrities are taking part and if you want to join in, you can view the pledge wall and make your own pledge here.

As it says on the Book trust site, there's many ways you can share books - reading them to your own kids (or in my case, The Hound, although he does tend to doze off…), recommending books to friends in person or on line, joining a reading group, taking part in book swaps or posting reviews online. As a writer, encouraging reading (and more importantly a love of reading) is something that's very close to my heart, so I've made my pledge, and I'm going to share my books via this blog throughout the rest of this year. They won't all be books for young children but they will be children's or YA.

So here are my first three books! (I'm cheating slightly, as they're a trilogy, but they're some of my favourite books EVER so I just have to include them.)

1. Northern Lights by Philip Pullman
2. The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman
3. The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman

So, why the His Dark Materials triology? Because every time I re-read them, I get something new out of them. They're exciting, beautifully written, intelligent and thought-provoking, and I can highly recommend them!

In other news…
The copyedits for ACID are done! Woo-hoo! That means I'll be returning to my WIP, which I'm having lots of fun with despite its messy first-draft-ness. And happy book birthday to my dad, whose book Insect Photography - Art & Techniques came out on Wednesday (you can read a bit more about it in last week's post here). Hurrah!

Have You Read… THE IRON JACKAL by Chris Wooding

It was seven feet tall to the shoulder… part human, part animal, part machine. Its short fur was wet and greasy, like something newly born. Its arms were thin and disproportionately long, ending in outsize hands with double-bladed bayonets in place of fingers…

Darian Frey, Captain of the Ketty Jay, is more than familiar with danger. But now his ship is fixed up, he and his crew are celebrities and for once, everything seems to be going their way.

Then they’re offered a job. Frey’s former fiancee Trinica Dracken wants him and his crew to retrieve a relic from Samarla, a desert land where old enemies of Frey still lie in wait for him. But getting the relic to Dracken turns out to be the least of Frey’s problems. Soon, he’s in a race against time, fighting to save his own life as he’s stalked by the terrifying Iron Jackal…

I’ve been a fan of Chris Wooding for a long time. I love his young adult novels, particularly THE STORM THIEF and the BROKEN SKY trilogy, and his adult novels are every bit as good. In fact, THE IRON JACKAL, the third in the Ketty Jay series, has to be one of the most exciting books I’ve read all year.

Starting with a shoot-out in the opening pages, the action never lets up, and the aircraft race scene is absolutely breathtaking. Chris Wooding is also a master at black humour, and there were many moments in the book which made me laugh out loud. The IRON JACKAL’s characters and the relationships and conflicts between them are expertly drawn, the world of the story involved and intricate, yet you never feel like you’re getting bogged down in description or details. I absolutely loved this book and wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it.

For the first two tales of the Ketty Jay, check out the equally excellent RETRIBUTION FALLS and BLACK LUNG CAPTAIN. And you can find out more about all of Chris Wooding’s books on his website here.

Have You Read…

KILL ALL ENEMIES by Melvin Burgess

I’d been good for nearly a week. Only one fight; it must have been a record for me. I should have known it couldn’t last…

Billie keeps getting into trouble - she doesn’t mean to, but somehow it just happens. Chris thinks school is a waste of time - he’s desperate to leave, but his parents are forcing him to stay. And Rob might look big and tough, but his violent stepfather keeps getting the better of him, and inside, he feels utterly helpless. Soon, events take a downward spiral for each of them and they get excluded from their schools and are sent to the Brandt, the local Pupil Referral Unit (PRU). There, their lives collide, with surprising results for all of them.

At first glance, Billie, Chris and Rob seem like the sort of teenagers the media delights in demonising - troublemakers, wasters, no-hopers. But there is more to their stories than first meets the eye. Almost immediately, you start to learn the real reasons behind their behaviour, and why school isn’t – and often can’t – be their number one priority. As the story unfolds, it reveals a hidden world where the characters are unsung heroes, fighting for themselves and their loved ones, while so many of those around them are blind to what's really going on in their lives.

Burgess, author of the controversial and brilliant Junk and Doing It, as well as many other highly-acclaimed novels for children and young adults, visited several PRUs in the course of researching Kill All Enemies – which started life as a project commissioned for Channel 4 – and Billie, Chris and Rob are based on the kids he talked to. They are such engaging and believable characters, and knowing their stories come from real life makes them all the more harrowing, because they could be the stories of people you see every day: that kid slouching at the bus stop with their hood pulled over their face and a cigarette dangling from their lower lip; the one getting into fights behind the school; the one hanging out in the park late at night in the rain because anywhere’s better than home…

Luckily for Chris, Billie and Rob, there are a few people who do understand them – or at least try to – and who help to stop them falling through the cracks completely.

As for the ending… when I read the closing lines, I wanted to punch the air and cheer. Chris, you’re my hero! But I won’t spoil it by telling you why - if you want to find out, grab yourself a copy now!

Have You Read…

DARK HORIZONS by Dan Smith

“An angel. An earth-bound angel, or a heaven-bound one, I wasn’t sure, but an angel nonetheless…”

Alex cared for his mother in the final days of her life, and now he needs a fresh start, so he heads off round the world in search of adventure. But he’s got no further than Indonesia when he’s involved in a horrific bus crash. As he lies injured in the road, his possessions are stolen and it seems his adventure is over before it’s even begun. His last memory before he loses consciousness is of someone offering him water. Is it an angel, or a human being?

Later, when he wakes in hospital, she returns. She’s human after all – a fellow traveller named Domino – and after getting him out of the hospital and away from the suspicious local police, she takes him to her remote community near the spectacular Lake Toba. At first, Alex thinks he’s discovered exactly the sort of off-the-beaten track experience he was hoping for, but he soon discovers that the community is haunted by secrets. Why is there so much tension between its inhabitants and the locals? What’s behind Domino’s uneasy relationship with the community’s leader, Kurt? And why will no-one talk about Sully, who left in mysterious circumstances some time before?

The truth is darker than anything Alex can imagine…

When the author was growing up, his family had a home in Sumatra for seven years, and this experience shines through in the writing. Everything about DARK HORIZONS – the setting, the descriptions of the culture and the sights, smells and sounds – feels utterly authentic. The plot is fast-paced but complex enough to be really satisfying, and the writing is so vivid I could see everything that was happening unfolding in my head like a movie.

My favourite thing about DARK HORIZONS, though, is the charismatic and unpredictable Domino. I love strong female characters, I love unusual names, and with this book, you get both. But with her magnetic attraction to danger, is she the best thing that could happen to Alex, or the worst? You’ll have to read the book and find out!

So what are you waiting for? Grab a copy now and discover the deadly secrets that lie at the heart of paradise. And why not check out Dan Smith’s equally gripping first novel, DRY SEASON, too?

Many thanks to Dan for agreeing to let the brilliant DARK HORIZONS be my first ever Book of the Month!