This Week’s Word Is “Bedtime.”

In what will be the final Word Wednesday column of 2020, I have another great book from Britannica Books, an imprint of What on Earth publishing. The holiday season is upon us, but there should be just enough time to squeeze this one under the tree if you so desire. It’s a book of non-fiction stories that are perfect for reading aloud. Introduce your little ones to the wonders of the world with 5 Minute Really True Stories for Bedtime.

What Is 5 Minute Really True Stories for Bedtime?

It’s a collection of 30 tales that describe a little bit about the world around us. The stories contained within are all sleep and nighttime related. The book starts with “Why Do We sleep?” and “What Are Dreams?” before moving onto other topics such as “King Tut’s Beds,” “A Busy Night at the Hospital,” and “The Northern Lights.”

Each story is 6–8 pages long which is short enough to be read in 5 minutes, just as your child is going to bed.  Plus, like all good bedtime stories, there are lots of illustrations to look at. Many of the illustrations are annotated whilst others are more like traditional story illustrations.

The range of stories covered is impressive: you can learn about sleeping in space or sleeping in hammocks, or you could learn about the amazing Kang Bed Stove, which I had never heard of, but would now love to have installed at home! There are stories about nocturnal goings-on, whether it be “The Rush to Market” or “Night Hunters.” You can find out about the sleeping habits of animals, whether they be beneath the waves, under the ground, and even in the air. There are also a number of stories devoted to geography and astronomy, such as why we have night and day, how we get a midnight sun, and the legends hidden in the constellations. If that wasn’t enough, the astronomer in me loved the pages devoted to the colors of stars and how the Moon was made.

The book closes out with a breakdown and potted biographies of the book’s contributors, authors and illustrators, a short glossary, and an interesting sources/further reading section. 

Why Read 5 Minute Really True Stories for Bedtime?

The parceling up of information into easily digestible chunks is such a great idea. Children are always interested in what’s going on around them, but, often, the books that deliver the answers they are looking for can be a little dry, or perhaps the information is hard to access (although I’d hope that this isn’t the case for the books reviewed for Word Wednesday). By breaking things down into bedtime-story sized chunks, and backing the stories up with delightful illustrations, the Really True Stories for Bedtime delivers perfectly edible nuggets of information. 

The stories can be read in any order, but they do have a natural progression to them, which means as you travel through your book, your child’s knowledge about sleep and nighttime gradually grows. 

I was enchanted by the idea of this book, which is why I requested a copy to review. I wasn’t disappointed. There’s so much I didn’t know about sleep and the night; or rather, things I had never stopped to consider. 5 Minute Really True Stories for Bedtime is a novel take on children’s non-fiction; it’s a lovely book perfect for inquisitive children, everywhere. The magic of fiction at bedtime is irreplaceable, but the books like this show how true stories can wow too.  

If you’d like to pick up a copy of 5 Minute Really True Stories for Bedtime, you can do so here in the US and here, in the UK. 

And that’s it for Word Wednesday in 2020. Thank you for reading this column during this craziest of years. I do hope that wherever you are, you are able to stay safe, have meaningful contact with loved ones, and find lots of lovely books to read over the holiday season. Word Wednesday will be back in 2021, when hopefully we can all start looking forwards again. 

Disclosure: I received a copy of this book in order to write this review.

This Week’s Word Is “Gigawatts.”

I learned what a Gigawatt was from watching Back to the Future 35 years ago, but that’s by the by. The film is one of my all-time favorites, one of the few I can watch over and over. For this week’s post, I’m going “bake to the future,” as I review Back to the Future: The Official Hill Valley Cookbook. 

I must confess I’m not a huge user of cookbooks, especially in the age of food bloggers. Sure, food bloggers are annoying; I don’t need to know what you did on the morning you bought your spice-blend from that delightful market, just give me the ingredients and the order in which to mix them together, please. Once you’ve scrolled beyond 2,000 words of irrelevance, however, you can find some great recipes. If I don’t go in for cookbooks, I certainly don’t go in for gimmicky cookbooks, because, in the words of food blogger Bilbo Baggins, they “feel thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread.”

Yet here I am, against my better judgment, with The Official Hill Valley Cookbook, because… well, because Back to the Future.

I have to say this is a pretty great cookbook; perfectly on theme. It combines great-tasting and fine-looking food with an added dash of nostalgia. No. Not a dash; this book is soaked in nostalgia gravy. To stir in another metaphor, there is ample butter for the bread.

What Is The Official Hill Valley Cookbook?

The book contains over 60 recipes and after a brief introduction and a quick glossary of cooking terms, the book launches into it how to cook its Hill Valley–inspired treats. 

It’s broken down into several sections, each one pertaining to a given year in the movie franchise. 

So we have:

• 1985.
• 1955.
• 2015. (The extrapolated one, not the actual one (there’s no One Direction Confection.))
• Alternate 1985.
• 1885.

The book then closes out with “Hosting a Back to the Future Movie Marathon.” This offers some ideas for menu plans, what to have during breaks and offers up that the running time of the trilogy is 5 hours 42 mins.

Why Try The Official Hill Valley Cookbook?

This is a fun book that treats its source material with the love and fealty it deserves. There are some classics in here, “Uncle Joey’s Parole Cake,’ as well as some clever themed sidesteps “Clint Eastwood’s Cowboy Punch” and the “What are you, Chicken? Sandwich.”

As you might expect, the 2015 section has some of the most fun recipes, like “Hoverboard Cookies” and the “Jaws 19 Spicy Grilled Shark Steaks.” My personal favorite is “Chicken Cordon Biff” from the alternate 1985. If you’re looking for some more traditional old-style cooking then head straight to 1885!

The Official Hill Valley Cookbook is very nicely presented. The 1885 pages are set on sepia-toned paper and 2015 has a funky futuristic font for its headings. The book is peppered throughout with pictures of the food, along with stills from the movies, providing that all-important nostalgia ingredient. On the cover sits the very tasty and amazing looking (if you get it right) “Doc Brown’s Time-Altering Chicken Pot Pie.” If there is one thing better than chicken pot pie, it’s chicken pot pie with a flux capacitor on it. 

If you have a Back to the Future fan in your life, who also happens to know their way around the kitchen, this would make a great holiday gift. You’d make them very happy, and they’d make you some tasty food; it’s win-win. 

If you’d like to pick up a copy of The Official Hill Valley Cookbook you can do do here, in the US, and here, in the UK. (Affiliate Links)

If you enjoyed this review, do check out my other Word Wednesday posts. 

Disclosure: I received a copy of the book in order to write this review.

This Week’s Word Is “Dolls.”

I’m not going to lie, a gothic-tinged story about a family dynasty and magical doll-making wouldn’t ordinarily be my first choice of subjects to read about in a novel. Yet, when the novel has been written by Kate Mascarenhas, author of The Psychology of Time Travel, one of my favorite books of 2018, how could I resist? The Thief on the Winged Horse is another excellent novel. It’s gothic, a little bit macabre, and utterly compelling. 

What Is The Thief on The Winged Horse? 

It’s a novel set in an Oxfordshire backwater; a small river island between rivers Thames and Cherwell. The island is populated by the descendants of a single family, the Kendricks. The Kendricks make the finest dolls in the world, dolls that are enchanted. Each Kendrick doll is imbued with a single emotion, that is palpable when you hold it. Being near a Kendrick doll can fill you with curiosity, fear, bliss, or countless other feelings. Their work is coveted across the globe. Only a member of the Kendrick family can make a Kendrick doll.

As the novel opens, a young man arrives, knocking at the door of the Kendrick house. He claims to be a long-lost descendant of the family; a descendant of a long-ago covered-up family scandal. Larkin’s arrival starts a chain of events that will rock the safety and security of the Kendrick dynasty. 

Alongside the arrival of Larkin, the novel focuses on two women. Persephone, the niece of Conrad, Master of the Kendrick dynasty; she’s the daughter of Conrad’s disgraced alcoholic brother. Seph dreams of being a sorcerer, but thanks to the archaic rules of the Kendrick family, she is only allowed to work in the shop, selling the dolls. Hedwig is Conrad’s assistant. She is forever at the whim of her temperamental master, but as the novel unfolds, we learn she is quite able to keep Conrad where she wants him. 

As the story progresses, the theft of an important doll sets family member against family member and foments plots within plots. Which way will family loyalties fall, who stole the foreboding Plague Mourner doll, and why?

Why Read The Thief on the Winged Horse?

If Kay Mascarenhas wrote internet terms and conditions, I would happily read them from first clause to last. I find her writing beguiling and addictive. It’s gently brilliant. The intricate web of secrets and lies she weaves in The Thief on the Winged Horse is effortless to read.

The novel is a snapshot of a dynastic saga (it’s about 700 pages too short to be considered a full saga), with plenty of villainous skullduggery, but filled also with the flawed mishaps that come with family.

I love the setting. It’s a world like our own, but in Persephone and Larkin’s Oxford, enchantments exist. Sorcery exists in the form of the sorcerers giving dolls emotions, but the magic doesn’t stray much beyond that. Much of the life in the novel is mundane, with cars, trains, and cell phones, but the dolls, they are special. 

This is a novel about the importance of craft. The satisfaction of doing something with care, to the best of your ability. My own hobby, of tabletop gaming, isn’t too far from the crafting of dolls and dollhouses. I could see many parallels. The joy of creating dollhouse furniture is similar to painting a unit of Clone Troopers or scratch building a medieval townhouse for the battlefield. All of the Kendrick family, whether they be likable or not, are creators and it was interesting to immerse myself in their creative process. 

On one level, this is a novel about magic dolls and family secrets, but you don’t have to scratch very deep to see that’s about so much more than that. The Kendrick dynasty is an insular patriarchy. It’s all too easy to recognize real-world parallels in its organization and attitudes. Mascarenhas neatly dissects the absurdities of such institutions and highlights the damage they can do, both to themselves and the wider-world.  

The Thief on the Winged Horse is a delicately crafted novel one that is completely different from The Psychology of Time Travel, but no less satisfying. The paths this book led me down were a joy to walk, whilst all the time I was kept me in the dark about the ultimate destination. There are many mixed motivations in the novel, making it hard to guess how events would pan out. Nevertheless, the ending – its hidden destination – was entirely satisfactory. I finished my walk through The Thief on the Winged Horse infused with the warm feeling one associates with a pleasant stroll through beautiful scenery. I loved the book from first page to last. 

If you’d like to pick up a copy of The Thief on the Winged Horse, you can do so here, in the US , and here, in the UK.

If you enjoyed this review, do check out my other Word Wednesday posts. 

Disclosure: I received a copy of this book in order to write this review. 

This Week’s Word Is “Celestial”.

I’ve read and reviewed some great books for GeekDad and Word Wednesday over the years, but I don’t think any of them have been as good as Space Maps by Lara Albanese and Tommaso Vidus Rosin. I love everything about this book from first page to last. 

What is Space Maps?

Space Maps is published by Whatonearth Books, who published the amazing Britannica Encyclopedia I reviewed recently. It’s a large-format hardback (approx 15″ x 11″) consisting of just under 90 pages and is filled with lovely illustrations. Its aim is to teach the basics of astronomy, taking us on a journey through the Solar System and beyond. There are no photos in the book, everything, including planets and nebulae, are drawn.

Space Maps is broken down into 5 sections:

Mapping the Stars:

The first section focuses on positional astronomy. It looks at how star maps are made, showing maps from both hemispheres, but also describes equatorial maps. It explains why the star field changes as the Earth spins, and how the seasons change with the Earth’s rotation around the sun. It also looks at some culturally significant maps: The Greek Constellations that I grew up with, a Chinese star map, and a South African star map.

Where are we?

Our position in the universe. From outside moving inwards, starting with Galaxies, the Milky Way, and the Sun, before moving into the Solar System. Space Maps then takes a closer look at the Earth and Moon, discussing eclipses, volcanoes, axial tilt, and all manner of geographical details. There’s a beautiful page devoted to Light Pollution. The sad thing about Light Pollution is it looks AMAZING! The Moon pages focus on its phases, major features, and humankind’s quest to land there.

What are Other Planets Like?

This section has maps of every planet, with major features labeled. I had no idea Mercury has Proust, Homer, and Calvino craters. I had also no idea most of its features were named after writers and musicians. Each of the book’s planet entries has an “Identity Card’ that details all that geeky data that makes learning about the solar system irresistible. I love learning how long it takes planets to rotate around the sun and which one’s have a day that lasts longer than a year! 

Mars gets an extra page about the various probes that have been sent there, and there are extra pages devoted to Jupiter’s moons. Both Pluto and Charon are featured. Reading Space Maps is the first time I’ve ever really taken note of the geography of Charon. I had no idea it featured a “Mordor Macula,” not to mention a Spock Crater and Kubrick Mons. Who knew astronomers were such a bunch of geeks? (Yeah, OK, we all knew that.)

I also didn’t know that Pluto had 5 moons, each one named with an Underworld theme. Space Maps has made me realize that my astronomy knowledge is sadly out of date. 

What is Beyond our Solar System?

This section takes a section of Space and examines what lies within it. “The Sky Behind Ursa Major” and “The Sky Behind Orion” are two of the page headings in this section, as well as the “Large Magellanic cloud.” This section opens young eyes up to the wonders of the distant universe. The final double-page spread is devoted to Exo-Planets with a map of where some of the major ones are located, with a description of those that are most like Earth. 

What is it Like for Humans in Space?

The final section takes a look at the Earth’s atmosphere, asking where does Space really begin? It describes how astronomers observe the skies above us and the artificial satellites orbiting the Earth. Finally, the book looks at spacesuits, rockets, and the International Space Station. 

Space Maps closes out with a glossary and a bibliography of sources. 

Why Read Star Maps?

It’s hard for me to overstate how much I love this book. The art style particularly appeals to me and that’s a major factor in my designating it the best book I’ve ever reviewed for Word Wednesday. That and the sheer breadth and depth of knowledge included. As well as hard facts about the planets, the sidebar texts introduce important astronomical concepts, such as gravity, the life of the sun, and black holes. 

The book is very engaging, thanks to its visual appeal. The diagram labels are bursting with interesting information too. It’s everything an introductory astronomy book should be. It delivers a large amount of fascinating information about space, opening up young readers’ eyes to the wonders above them. 

Star Maps is the perfect gift for any child (or adult) from the age of around 8 upwards. It’s for anybody who loves to look up into the sky and wonder what’s out there. I can’t praise this book highly enough! 

If you’d like to pick up a copy of Star Maps, you can do so, here in the US and here, in the UK (Affiliate links).

Disclosure: I received a copy of this book for review. 

This Week’s Word Is “Divergence.”

Back to novels this week for Word Wednesday and a full-on science fiction tome from Adrian Tchaikovsky. I put off reading this one, fearing it was a little heavy for my current state of mind. This was a big mistake, as The Doors of Eden is a thought-provoking and absorbing read. 

What is The Doors of Eden?

The Doors of Eden takes the reader on a journey that’s almost entirely unexpected. I’d love to have seen Tchaikovsky’s route map for this book! It opens with two young women in Cornwall, “cryptid” hunting. They’re following up strange reports of birdmen in the South West of the UK. Something peculiar happens, and one of the women, Mal, goes missing. Lee is left behind, with a strange story to tell and her heart shattered. 

The main narrative picks up the action a few years later. Kay, a transgender mathematician, is attacked by far-right thugs the same night Lee receives a phone call from Mal. Worlds collide, literally. 

Strings pulling strings and plots within plots are the order of the day in Doors of Eden. The British Secret Service has been monitoring Kay. She is one of the few people in the country able to understand the math behind a high-level encryption algorithm. A shadowy billionaire manipulated Kay’s far-right group attackers whilst the missing Mal returns, from who-knows-where, backed by a strange race of people who are also hopeful of enlisting the mathematician’s services. 

It turns out that the very fabric of reality is at stake. Kay and Lee are reunited before crashing headlong into a multi-dimensional adventure. 

If all that wasn’t enough, interspersed between the narrative chapters are excerpts from an academic-style book about Earth and potential alternative evolutionary pathways. Are these interesting merely interesting faux-scientific asides, or do they have a bearing on the overall plot?  

Why Read The Doors of Eden?

As I alluded to in my last novel review (for Cory Doctorow’s Attack Surface), I’ve struggled with reading in 2020. Doors of Eden is not a light read. There were times when I longed for something trashy and easy to consume, but the true measure of how good a book is probably how you feel when you finish it. In the case of The Doors of Eden, I finished feeling exhilarated and desperate for more. It’s perhaps only when you step back, able to see the entire picture painted by a novel, that you realize just how great it is. 

This is the first Adrian Tchaikovsky novel, I’ve read, despite him winning the Arthur C. Clarke award for Children of Time. For whatever reason, he’s never managed to climb to the summit of my to-be-read pile. Well, I won’t be making that mistake in future. 

The Doors of Eden is an excellent high concept science fiction novel. The pull quote on the front cover reads “brimming with ideas,” and it most definitely is. Novels filled with conceptual, reality-bending ideas, aren’t always the easiest to read (see also: XX by Rian Hughes) but the better ones are always worth the cerebral investment. There is a lot going on here and it’s fascinating. 

As well as the hi-concept sci-fi stuff, there is also some great social commentary. At one point in the book, Kay is gender-shamed and deadnamed. The effect this has on her is vividly portrayed, and the actions portrayed as an act of out and out cruelty. It cuts to the bone of what a cowardly, ignorant, and mean-spirited thing it is to do. These few pages are a masterclass in showing how devastating such insensitivity can be.

The Doors of Eden is a novel of inclusion. I can’t say too much about it, without spoilers, but Tchaikovsky brilliantly skewers the myth of nationalist isolationism and exceptionalism. He manages, within the context of the novel, to make one character look absurd, and it doesn’t take much skill in transference to see how this translates into the real-world. Sadly, the people who really need to read and assimilate this takedown, probably won’t ever read an inclusive and accepting novel like The Doors of Eden.  

The Doors of Eden is a single-volume novel; entirely complete and able to stand on its own. Having said that, there are definitely opportunities for spin-offs and follow-ups; novels I’d be more than happy to read. I would love to read further books following the characters and settings offered up in The Doors of Eden. 

This book may not be the easiest read of the year, but it is one of the strongest and most thought-provoking. I have no idea whether it marks the best introduction to the work of Adrian Tchaikovsky, but I’m certainly looking forward to reading some more. 

If you’d like to pick up a copy of The Doors of Eden, you can do so here, in the US, and here, in the UK. (Affiliate links.)

Disclosure: I received a copy of this book in order to write this review. 

This Week’s Word Is “Britannica.”

If you’re a certain age in the UK, you’ll associate knowledge with the Encyclopedia Britannica. A classic multi-volume encyclopedia that adorned libraries across the nation. It was the ultimate sign of homework well done if you’d had to look it up in Britannica. As a young impressionable book geek, I loved the idea of Britannica; it was such a big book, its index alone took up an entire book! With the internet bringing information straight into people’s houses, tomes like the Encyclopedia Britannica have fallen out of use, but don’t start thinking they’re not relevant. Britannica is back with an All New Children’s Encyclopedia and it’s an updated classic! 

What is Britannica: All New Children’s Encyclopedia?

Britannica is a new imprint, that is part of the What on Earth? publishing house, whose books I’ve raved about before. This encyclopedia is edited by Christopher Lloyd, author of Absolutely Everything, and it’s easy to see that the two books share the same DNA (which, incidentally, has 6 separate entries in the book!).  

The encylopedia has a gorgeous brushed tactile cover and is a whopping 414 pages (If your child has endless questions after reading The History of Everything in 32 pages, this is a logical next step!) The pages are printed on matt paper (all my encyclopedias I had when I was growing up were glossy) and are half an inch shorter than a piece of A4. There’s a solid mix of text and images on every page, with the images being a mix of infographics, diagrams, and photos. All in all, the visual appeal of the book is impressive. 

The All New Children’s Encyclopedia is broken down into 8 sections that run broadly chronologically, though, where applicable, each section has modern information included. For example, the book opens with “The Universe,” starting with the Big Bang, but ending with space probes.

Each section is concluded with an “Ask the Experts,” page, which asks a few simple questions of contemporary scientists or historians, and then a quiz to test your knowledge of the section. One other little feature I like, apart its horrific implications for the English language, is the “Listified” columns. These are interspersed throughout the book and provide interesting bullet points about a given subject. e.g. “Speed Demons…Listified.”  Other interesting sidebars include “Game Changers,” a spotlight on events or individuals that profoundly affected the course of history and “Note from the Expert,” little snippets of explanatory texts from current experts in the relevant field. 

The Encyclopedia is broken down as follows:

1. The Universe. Big Bang, Stars, Planets, and Space Exploration.
2. Earth. The formation of the Earth, Plate Tectonics, Fossils, and Climate. 
3. Matter. Atoms, Elements, Gravity, and Energy. 
4. Life. Evolution, Classification, and Habitats
5. Humans. DNA, Language, Calendars, Money, and lots lots more. 
6. Ancient and Medieval Times. The Fertile Crescent, Minoans, Greeks, Romans, Africa, and China. 
7. Modern Times. Empire, Slavery, Communism, World War. 
8. Today and Tomorrow. Inequality, Climate Change, the internet, and the Future! 

The end of the book has a comprehensive bibliography of source materials, a decent glossary, index (but not one that takes up a whole book), and some picture credits. 

Why Read Britannica All New Children’s Encyclopedia?

This book has “present” written all over it. It’s not the sort of book your kids are likely to rave about it receiving but they will definitely come to appreciate it over time. It has the answers to a million homework assignments contained within. This book is traditionally the sort of book your Aunt gave you, and whilst I don’t like to make sweeping generalizations, it still has that vibe about it now. Which I suppose is very on-brand for Britannica. 

We often joke about “improving” books in this house, and this book is exactly one of those. 

It’s a beautifully constructed primer of just about everything. It’s everything an encyclopedia should be, without the risk you’ll find horrible misinformation like you might from a google search. Visually stunning, it’s the sort of book I’d have loved leafing through as an 11-year-old. It’s chock full of facts and brimming with explanations. The various different sidebars keep things interesting, providing different methods of imparting information. There is something of interest on every page. 

You’d expect a book that bore Britannica name would be of high quality, and this All New Children’s Encyclopedia absolutely is. 

If you’d like to pick up a copy of Britannica: All New Children’s Encyclopedia, you can do so here, in the US and here in the UK. (Affiliate links.)

Disclosure: I received a copy of this book in order to write this review.

In memory of Sir Sean Connery or a least the SNL version of him, 

This Week’s Word Is “Saber!”

I do love Star Wars; season two of The Mandalorian is a family event here, as I imagine it is in many of our reader’s houses. I also love Insight Edition books, especially its Star Wars volumes, so I was thrilled to have the chance to review The Lightsaber Collection. It’s the next best thing to having a collection of working sabers and is an indispensable guide to those elegant weapons from a civilized age. 

What Is Star Wars: The Lightsaber Collection?

Few things say Star Wars like a lightsaber. For many fans they are the essence of the Star Wars universe, so to have them drawn together in a single volume is very exciting. This book even includes the first reveal of Stellan Gios’s broadsword lightsaber, taken from the forthcoming High Republic era, the basis of the next Star Wars universe print expansion. 

The book itself is a long format hardback. It measures only 16cm high but is over 30cm long with 155 pages. The book uses some images from the film but most of the artwork is illustration. Lukasz Liszko has created some amazing photo-realistic lightsaber images whilst Ryan Valle provides each saber with fine character portraits. 

The book is broken down into 3 main sections, bracketed by a short introduction and a spine-tingling index. This book may have the most exciting index in the history of publishing, but more on that later. The introduction discusses what a lightsaber is and how they are designed, both from a real-world perspective and their role in the Star Wars narrative. It sets the scene for the Jedi and their iconic weaponry. 

The first main section of the book has 31 entries. “Jedi of the Galactic Empire” focuses on every Light Side Jedi, famous and not so famous. The book draws on many media threads for its entries: the movies, tv-series, computer games, and comic books.

The majority of entries follow the same double-page format. On the left-hand page, there is a character portrait, written description of the lightsaber, and a picture of the ignited saber. On the opposite leaf is a larger picture of the lightsaber (or sabers if their owner is a dual wielder). Some entries such as “The Skywalker Lightsaber” and Darth Maul have a fold-out page, extending the length of the image to three full pages. In the case of the Skywalker lightsaber, this offers extra space for additional text describing the significance of the lightsaber to the saga. 

Ahsoka Tano is given two entries, one for her Clone Wars sabers and another for her Rebels era sabers. I learned from reading the book that her Rebels era sabers are are white to show that Ahsoka’s path is different from any other character in the franchise. Similarly, Obi-Wan has two entries too, Padawan and Jedi Master. 

The second section of the book is “Acolytes of the Dark Side,” a fairly self-explanatory title for the 20 entries it contains. Here, as you’d expect, you’ll find Maul, Sidious, Dooku, and Ren, as well as a host of inquisitors. This section also includes a look at the saber wielded by “Dark Side Rey” in The Last Jedi and an entry for the “always fascinating but now newly exciting because of The Mandalorian“Darksaber.

The final section of the book is called A New Jedi Tradition. It has a comparatively short 8 entries and includes Rey Skywalker, Leia Organa, two entries for Ezra Bridger, one of which is for his awesome Rebels pistol saber, as well as Kanan Jarrus, and Fallen Order’s Cal Kestis. 

The index has six pages of vertically parallel lightsabers with their wielders written underneath them. Writing this, I’ve realized it’s pretty useless as an index, as it doesn’t tell what page you need to look at to find them (for this the contents is much better) but as an awe-inspiring visual representation of the saga’s lightsabers, it’s perfect. Honestly, the index would make the best poster!

Why Read Star Wars: The Lightsaber Collection?

Because lightsabers!

We’re very fortunate that lots of books come into our house. Very few of them have caused as big a stir and discussion as this one. All of my kids have pored over it, discovering bits of trivia and remembering scenes from the films and tv shows. My youngest who loves Ahsoka and the Darksaber has read these entries over and over. He loves this book. 

I’ve seen very few books that capture the essence of Star Wars as well as The Lightsaber Collection. It does everything it sets out to do and does it brilliantly. The evocative appeal of the lightsaber is perfectly captured in this book and I think it’s a “must-have” for Star Wars fan. 

If you’d like to pick up a copy of Star Wars: The Lightsaber Collection you can do so here, in the US and here, in the UK.

If you enjoyed this review you can check out my other Word Wednesday posts, here. 

Disclosure: I received a copy of this book in order to write this review.  

This Week’s Word Is “Surveillance.” 

September/October has not been a good couple of fiction months for me. I’m not sure why, but I’m struggling to find books that hold my attention. Having slogged through 600 pages of a science fiction debut from a well-known fantasy author, I gave up 2/3 of the way through, feeling I’d given it a fair crack of the whip. Whilst reading that book, I learned that Cory Doctorow had a new follow-up book to Little Brother. Would Attack Surface reignite my reading passion?

What is Attack Surface?

Before talking about Attack Surface it’s probably worth talking about Cory and Little Brother first. I read and reviewed Little Brother when it first came out, and I was blown away. I hadn’t heard of Cory Doctorow at the time, but Little Brother put him firmly on my radar. I remember two things about reading it. One, that it made me feel old; the heroes in the book decry anybody over the age of 25 as being obsolete (I was mid-thirties at the time) and two, it made me reaIize how naive I was about technology. I had no idea what the surveillance state was capable of. Little Brother was obviously biased in its outlook, but it’s a strong, powerful novel, that justified the echoes of Orwell alluded to in its title. 

Cory Doctorow, as it says on his Wikipedia page, “is a Canadian-British blogger, journalist, and science fiction author who served as co-editor of the blog Boing Boing. He is an activist in favour of liberalising copyright laws and a proponent of the Creative Commons organization, using some of their licenses for his books. Some common themes of his work include digital rights management, file sharing, and post-scarcity economics.”

Doctorow is still a strong believer in creative commons and the perils of DRM, so much so, he launched a campaign to produce a DRM free version of Attack Surface, on Kickstarter.

Being a middle of the road, stay at home dad, whose most difficult daily dilemma tends to be whether I should walk or use the car on the school run, much of what Doctorow writes about tends to pass me by. It’s only by reading his novels, that I’ve gleaned some understanding of the scope of the technological economy and the depth and breadth of cybersecurity, for good and ill. I spend much of my time reading his novels, thinking “Do people really do that?”

The answer is more often than not, “Yes, they really do.”

Attack Surface is the third in a loose trilogy of “Little Brother” books. Along with Homeland, the three books share a common theme and some common characters. All three novels stand up in their own right, but it’s definitely worth reading them in order if you can. 

This novel follows Masha, a character who features in Little Brother, largely as an antagonist, I believe (I can no longer remember the specifics of the LB story). She is a counterpoint to the Anonymous style hacktivists that inhabit many of Doctorow’s stories. During and after the events of Little Brother she felt compelled to work for the government and their contractors; hacking for the state. As the novel opens Masha is playing both sides. Her employer has her working for a post-Soviet state government, whilst in her free time, Masha is handing out hacker advice to opponents of the regime.

Needless to say, none of this goes well. 

Mahsa returns home to San Fransisco, where she attempts to help an old friend who is working for a campaign group that is a descendant of Black Lives Matter (The Little Brother books are set in the near future. The lines between what is fact and what is science fiction are blurred in Attack Surface. Or at least they were for this techno-duffer.) Tanisha, one of Masha’s few friends discovers her phone has compromised by the authorities, using dubious methods. She asks Masha for help in working out what has happened and how to keep herself clear of prying eyes. 

What follows is a cautionary tale regarding mass surveillance and our reliance on technology. 

Why Read Attack Surface?

Cory Doctorow always suffers a problem which is that they have to be measured against Little Brother; a truly thought-provoking and thrilling book. It effortlessly melds action, politics, and technology into a marvelous whole. That’s a hard thing to do. To write one book in a lifetime as good as Little Brother is a fantastic achievement. To write two is probably impossible.

I’ve read at least 4 other Doctorow books and they all struggle (for me at least) to get the triangle of action-politics-technology right. To be clear, none of them are bad books, but where Little Brother can be enjoyed by all, the others, including Attack Surface, probably require that you have a desire to read a book about technology. Attack Surface is tech-heavy, and it squashes the story. None of this tech is particularly hard to understand, the issue is, as Masha suggests at one point, being ultra-secure is rigorous, continuous, and not very exciting. 

Having said that, if you are interested in technology, want to know the frailties of your phone, and, more particularly, want to know how governments and corporations use and abuse your data, Doctorow books are second to none. Attack Surface is like having your eyes opened with a potato peeler. In a good way. 

This is real and this is painful. The ways in which data is interrogated and manipulated is terrifying, yet the overreaching arc of Attack Surface is a hopeful one. Without giving too much away, the war against surveillance is probably unwinnable, but perhaps it’s possible to shift the rules of engagement. 

The characterization in the book is strong. Doctorow depicts his characters well, especially his geeky, driven ones. There are heroes and villains in this piece but some have more blurred lines than others. I loved the character interactions in the book and Masha’s internal monologue is fascinating. 

It did take me quite a long time to read Attack Surface but as I said at the top of the review, I’m struggling with reading attention right now. The book is most definitely interesting, but I didn’t find it captivating. Little Brother demanded to be read, demanded to be finished. Attack Surface is intellectually rigorous but won’t leave you hanging out for more. 

Having said all that, Little Brother, Homeland, and Attack Surface are three vitally important novels. Nobody describes how the system works against us quite like Cory Doctorow does. 

If you want to pick up a copy of Attack Surface you can do so here, in the US and here, in the UK. 

GeekDad has lots of Cory Doctorow reviews, check them out, here. 

Disclosure: I received a copy of Attack Surface in order to write this review. The Bookshop.org link is an affiliate link. 

This Week’s Word Is “Condensed.”

We love a good timeline book here at GeekDad and Word Wednesday (a day late; sorry about that), and frankly, who doesn’t? 3 years ago, I reviewed the excellent What on Earth? Timelines book, from What on Earth? publishing. This year, it’s Laurence King’s turn to give it a go and, audaciously, they’ve tried to condense everything from the Big Bang to the present today into 32 pages. The result is the excellent and “does exactly what it says on the tin,” History of Everything (in 32 Pages). 

What is The History of Everything (in 32 Pages)?

It’s a large-format hardback, which unsurprisingly, has 32 pages. It begins with the Big Bang and ends with the present day. By necessity, everything is covered by a brief overview, with each era depicted using a richly illustrated double-page spread. The book is perfect for ages 9-14, to give them a basic outline of the history of our planet. Younger children can access its information too, but may need a little help. 

To give you some idea of the scope of the book, humans don’t arrive until page 18, meaning that half the book is given over to The Big Bang, the formation of the universe, Earth, and the arrival of life (and of course, dinosaurs). The second half of the book takes in the rise of humans and agriculture, cities, civilizations and empires, the enlightenment, industrial revolution, and the evolution of technology, before arriving at the space-faring, internet-using present.  

Why Read The History of Everything (in 32 Pages)?

As an overview of the planet’s history, this is an excellent book. Despite having barely any space in order to describe billions of years of history, the book is surprisingly comprehensive. It is definitely engaging too and will pique interest in young readers, tempting them to find out more information about a whole host of subjects. 

Young me would have been drawn to the Solar System and Big Bang pages. They typify the concise well-delivered information found in the book, as well as covering a subject I was passionate about growing up. I would have loved the infographic-lite depiction of data too. It’s the same throughout the book; whether you have a young naturalist, paleontologist, or historian in your house, this is an inspiring book, perfect for triggering inquisitive minds. 

This book is great for internet age, project work too. Perhaps it’s my generational disconnect talking, but whenever my kids bring home a school project, I always try to start them off by asking them to look in a book (we’re fortunate enought to have plenty to look through in this house), rather than jumping straight to Google. Yet, when they do, I have to agree with them, that often the information they want is hard to find, or is at the wrong level of detail. The History of Everything cuts through that. Having information at a high level enables readers to get a broad overview of the subject they’re investigating. Key terms and concepts described in the book promote deeper searching, either in other books or with a more focused internet search. It helps solve the problem of how to find the right answer without knowing the answer first. 

The History of Everything is a great book, that achieves exactly what it sets out to do. It’s the perfect introduction to pretty much all of history. No mean feat in just 32 pages. 

You can pick up a copy of The History of Everything (In 32 Pages), here in the US and here, in the UK.

If you enjoyed this review do check out my other Word Wednesday reviews. 

Disclosure: I received a copy of this book in order to write this review. The Bookshop.org link is an affiliate link. 

This Week’s Word Is ‘Relativity.’

This week I have another Laurence King book, from a series called “Words that Changed the World.” Albert Einstein’s Theory of Relativity is aimed at readers aged around 11 upwards desgined to explain Einstein’s body of work. 

What Is Albert Einstein’s Theory of Relativity?

Now, there’s a question! One this book aims to get to the bottom of. It’s large format (15″ X 11″) slim (62 pages) hardback. Its striking cover is textured and covered with intriguing scientific diagrams and formulae to draw you in. You want to know more from the moment you look at the book. The body of the book uses a mixture of text and illustrations to explain how Einstein’s theories evolved and the thought-experiments that underpinned them. 

The book begins with an overview of Einstein and his life, up until he embarked upon on his groundbreaking work. It then explains what was known about gravity, time, space, light, and relativity at that time. 

After that, the book digs deeper into Einstein’s work beginning with “Einstein’s Miraculous Year” and the four papers that he sent to his friend Conrad Habicht in 1905. Namely, light quanta, molecule size, Brownian motion, and the electrodynamics of moving bodies. Next, things start to become more complicated with the theory of special relativity, time dilation, and the frankly bonkers topic of length contraction. 

Halfway through the book we are treated to the science behind E=mc². Then the general theory of relativity, bent light, and the shape of the universe. The book closes out with the experiments that proved some of Einstein’s theories, the publication of the theory of relativity, and the practical modern applications of Einstein’s science. Laid out in black and white (or in black white and amazing colored illustrations), it’s hard to credit how the theories of just one man could bring about so much change and advance science so far. 

Why Read Albert Einstein’s Theory of Relativity?

Even as student of science trained to beyond graduate level, I don’t think I had ever appreciated the scope and depth of Einstein’s work. He’s universally known as that clever-science dude, synonymous with a crazy-haired genius, but I’ve never fully studied the man or his work. 

This book is a brilliant jumping off point for anybody interested in Einstein and physics. Whilst pitched at a relatively young audience, there are, by necessity, some complicated concepts in here but they’re greatly simplified for beginners in the field. The book will be of use to anybody with a passing interest in relativity and helpful to any child studying Eintstein during their compulsory education.

The artwork in the book is excellent; affording a deeper understanding of what the text is explaining. If you have an inquisitive child this is a great place to start. If you want to brush up on some higher-level physics, but don’t know what you don’t know, then this book provides an engaging platform from which to launch your investigation – before, say, moving onto the books of Roger Penrose, who has just been awarded one half of a Nobel prize for his own work with relativity. Although the work in this book is over 100 years old, its application and investigations are still cutting edge! 

All in all, this is yet another beautiful informative book from Laurence King, author Carl Wilkinson, and illustrator James Weston Lewis. It’s a perfect introduction to Einstein, relativity and the wonders of physics. 

If you’d like to pick up a copy of Albert Eintstein’s Theory of Relativity, you can do so, here in the US and here, in the UK.

If you enjoyed this review, do check out my other Word Wednesday posts.

Disclosure: I received a copy of this book in order to write this review. The Bookshop.org link is an affiliate link. 

This Week’s Word Is “Mythical.”

Last year, I reviewed MythMatch, a gorgeous work filled with portmanteau legends. Now its creators “Good Wives and Warriors” are back with Mythopedia, a more straightforward but no less sumptuous look at creatures of legend from around the world. 

What is Mythopedia?

Mythopedia is essentially an atlas of the planet’s mythical animals. It is broken down by continent and examines a number of myths that come from a particular area. There are flood myths, creation myths, and warning myths all of which are tied together by the fact they involve mythical creatures. Some of these creatures will be familiar, others far less so, possibly depending on whereabouts in the world you live.  

Each entry has at least one double-page spread. This details the creature via some boxed text which also describes a legend associated with it. This text also explains whereabouts in the world the legend originated from. Around that text, on each page, is a full-color and frankly stunning, illustration. There are 37 creatures in total. 17 of these are given an additional double-page spread that recounts the most famous legend they are associated with. 

The book’s cover is a thing of beauty. Not only is the illustration amazing, drawing on many of the creatures found inside the book, but its binding is textured and pleasingly tactile. It’s a tome for book geeks to swoon over. 

After opening with a brief introduction and an illustrated map of the world, Mythopedia is broken down as follows:

• The Americas: 8 legends, including Quetzacoatl, Thunderbird, and Auñ Pana.
• Europe: 8 legends including Pegasus, Basilisk, and Zilant (of which I had never heard before).
• Africa: 6 legends, including Anansi, Grootslang, and Anubis. Again, I’d never heard of Grootslang.
• Asia: 12 legends, including Yeti, Barong, and Kumiho.  The Kumiho was new to me too. 
• Oceania: 3 legends. The Tiddalik, Rainbow serpent, and Abaia. – I was woefully ignorant of all of these. 

Why Read Mythopedia? 

When you’re a child there is something so beguiling about mythological stories. They open your eyes to the wonders of the world. Many of us geeks seek out mythologies time and time again. Whether it be via roleplaying systems, SFF novels, or comic book stories, part of the draw for us is the defining of new mythologies. Books like Mythopedia remind us about the glorious mythologies that have evolved over thousands of years, across the globe.

Mythopedia adds an additional layer of beauty over the fascinating stories. Every page is a work of art. Even if you didn’t read the text, the book would be worth a look. But you’d be missing out on some really great stories too. Mythopedia is a triumphant marriage of words and art. 

It’s hard to review much beyond that. The illustrations are amazing, the stories traditional, and the entire package a perfect way to introduce young minds to the amazing legends that persist all over the world. 

If you’d like to pick up a copy of Mythopedia, you can do so here, in the US and here, in the UK. 

If you enjoyed this review, do check out my other Word Wednesday posts.

Disclosure: I received a copy of Mythopedia in order to write this review. The US link is an affiliate link for bookshop.org. 

This Week’s Word Is “Meme.”

XX by Rian Hughes is a crazy big novel, clocking in at over 900 pages. It’s touted as being sci-fi’s equivalent of cult classics House of Leaves and Infinite Jest, and it reminded me of the meandering masterpieces of Neal Stephenson. XX is a huge book, stuffed with ideas, subtle pop-culture references, and font based trickery. The novel’s subtitle is “A Novel, Graphic,” and Rian Hughes uses his expertise from the comic-book industry and his love of fonts to create a visually arresting novel. This combined with his extensive knowledge of advertising results in an intriguing novel about the power of ideas and how they’re transferred.

What Is XX by Rian Hughes?

XX is a doorstop of a book and it definitely (at times at least) feels more like an art installation than a traditional novel. It is also out-and-out science fiction, with a very golden-era sci-fi feel, though with a very (post)modern twist.

The novel has two main strands that wind together a short way into the novel. First is a mysterious signal received from space, picked up by the Jodrell Bank telescope in England. Less than a minute long, this signal of digital noise explodes onto the world’s consciousness after its existence is leaked. What is the signal? and Where did it come from? are two questions that drive the novel’s narrative.

In the other strand, we have an IT start-up in Hoxton, London, hipster central. “Intelligencia – Memetic engineering,” a company of three people, two of whom are quasi-geniuses at the forefront of A.I. engineering. Jack is fascinated by pattern recognition and the transference of ideas. When he starts to see messages in the everyday objects around him, he builds and codes a machine that can capture the entities that are trying to talk to him. When he does, he discovers ideas with substance that can communicate. Jack calls them Digital Memetic Entities or DMEn for short (Say “DMEn” out loud for an indication of the linguistic playfulness that Hughes brings to his novel.) Through the DMEn, Rian Hughes allows his love of typography to shine through. They talk to Jack and his colleagues using different fonts or in the 21st Century meme’s case, via Twitter. 

And that’s before the aliens arrive. 

Before working for Intelligencia, Jack had done some coding work with Daniel Novak, the head of Jodrell Bank. Daniel brings in Jack for his pattern recognition expertise to see if he can decode anything in The Signal. We learn early in the novel that NASA and other space agencies are keeping secrets and that an alien lifeform has crashed on the moon. But what what relation does this bear to The Signal and can Dana, a lone astronaut on a manned moon base, communicate with the alien? Well, yes, but things don’t go to plan. 

Why Read XX by Rian Hughes?

Much like House of Leaves or Infinite Jest, reading XX is an undertaking. It reminded me very much of a Neal Stephenson novel too: a rambling investigation into a host of ideas that tie together into a thematic whole. A book you put down and think, “Whoa,” but may on occasion have wondered, as you read through, whether it was going to be worth the effort.  

XX is worth the effort.

It’s never a hard read, but you sometimes can’t help but wish it had had a tighter edit. It does meander, and the final destination (which is pretty amazing, it must be said) is so far away from the beginning of the book, it can be hard to remember how you got there. I mean this both literally and figuratively. It took me over 3 weeks to read XX, but also many of the characters go on huge journeys. By the time I’d read to the end, it was hard to remember where everything had started!

If you enjoy random asides, you’ll love this book. There are no footnotes, as in Infinite Jest, but the main narrative is interspersed with all manner of media sources, whether they be centuries old letters, newspaper clippings, or ranting on conspiracy theory websites. There are also transcripts, surveillance records and, redacted secret service reports added in to give yet more variety.

Even more peculiarly, there is an entire science fiction story, serialized in 7 or 8 parts, that is meant to be from an Interzone-style SF periodical. If all that wasn’t enough, there is even a QR code in the book that you can scan to take you to an album of music created using the code of The Signal. The 4th wall is broken down from time to time too, but the effects are often so subtle, you find yourself wondering how many other cracks you’ve missed. The depth of detail and the extent of the playfulness in XX is most impressive.

If you’re happy to absorb yourself in quirky details, soak up random bits of information about maths, astronomy, physics, and computing then this is most definitely a book for you. If you’re interested in the way information travels on the internet or how ideas gain traction and proliferate, then there’s a lot here for you too. If you’re looking for a metaphysical story about alien conquest, and inter galactic spacefaring, you’ll find it in XX. It’s all of these things, and more, which is why it’s such a big book. The road is far from straight but the views on the journey are magnificent.

You can pick up a copy of XX from November 10th in the US and in the UK, now.

If you enjoyed this post, do check out my other Word Wednesday reviews. 

Disclosure: I received a copy of this book in order to write this review. All Bookshop.Org links are affiliate links.

This Week’s Word Is “Climate.”

“Who is right on Climate Change? The world’s scientific experts? Or your cranky Uncle?”

So goes the back cover quote of Cranky Uncle Vs Climate Change. 

Why is Climate Change so difficult for some people to believe? Is the planet doing fine, as you cranky uncle insists? This book aims to explain the science behind Climate Change and better still aims to help readers, young and old, explain it to skeptics. Not only that, it discusses “science denial” in general, which in our COVID ravaged world feels more important than ever. 

When stuff like this happens (whilst I was writing this review) you can’t help but feel EVERYONE could do with taking a look at Cranky Uncle Vs Climate Change. 

What is Cranky Uncle vs Climate Change? 

It’s a book written by Dr. John Cook, founder of SkepticalScience.com a website devoted to debunking climate change skepticism. Cranky Uncle vs Climate Change is subtitled “How to Understand and Respond to Climate Science deniers.” It’s a book we’ve all felt we need at some point in our lives. 

The book itself is a chunky square softback, comprising 170 pages. It’s filled with engaging cartoon style explanations of the observable effects of Climate Change, the many arguments people use to call Climate Change a myth, and offers explanations and advice to help debunk those arguments.

The book contains 6 sections:

1. How did climate change get so controversial?
2. Denying Reality.
3. Denying Responsibility.
4. Denying Consequences.
5. Denying Science.
6. Responding to science denial.  

The book also describes the fallacies of science denial, coining the term “FLICC.”

Fake Experts.

Logical Fallacies.

Impossible Expectations.

Cherry Picking.

Conspiracy Theories. 

Cranky Uncle vs Climate Change takes one climate change fact at a time and looks at the myths used to counter it. On each double-page spread, it explains the science and debunks the myth. It’s a simple but effective formula. For example, CU v CC examines the myth that a cold-weather spell means that Climate Change isn’t happening, explains why humanity’s contribution to carbon dioxide emissions is significant, despite it being a fraction of the what is generated naturally, and explains that whilst warm weather might be nice, it’s very bad overall for the planet.  

Essentially, everything you ever wanted to know about the science of climate change is in this book, presented in clear easily understandable words and pictures. This is backed up with ways in which skeptics try to knock the science down, and shows how powerfully “sticky” facts can be used to overwhelm dodgy myths and misconceptions. 

The book aims to inoculate us against science denial by trying to increase our critical thinking skills. This will make it easier to resist weaker forms of misinformation, making it, in turn, harder for additional misinformation to take root. Every piece discredited is one less piece in a climate denier’s jigsaw.   

At the end of the book, there is an excellent Fact-Myth-Fallacy summary, organized around four main categories. “Global Warming is already happening,” “We’re causing Global Warming,” “Climate impacts are serious,” and “The scientific consensus is overwhelming and robust.” This summary lists key facts that come under each category heading, explains how deniers try to deny these facts, and shows where the denier’s fallacies lie. 

Why Read Cranky Uncle vs Climate Change?

There has perhaps never been a better time to read this book. Not only does it help with explaining climate science, but it also has a host of ideas and suggestions for boosting critical thinking in more general terms. I, personally, seem to be experiencing an awful lot of mask denial and anti-5G rhetoric at the moment. It’s exhausting, but reading Cranky Uncle has not only taught me the importance of not rolling over and letting conspiracy win out, but it has also armed me with tools to combat the nonsense. 

The book is filled with valuable information about how best to spot and debunk logical fallacies. It sets out how and why the conspiracies may have come about, and how you can best deal with a denier depending on why you think they may find a conspiracy theory credible. 

It does all of this with some great simple to understand illustrations and informative text. I consider myself an intelligent person, but sometimes it can be difficult to unpick climate (or COVID) deniers logic. At the baseline, there’s some credible and sophisticated deception going on. The material often comes with such righteous fervor it can be hard to find where best to start unpicking it. This book gives you those tools. Just knowing the book exists, that it offers the weight of scientific thought to support you, is comforting. 

Going forward into the 21st Century, one can’t help but think the most important thing for our children to learn is to think critically. Time and time again the news shows us that critical thinking is currently in woefully short supply. To make better-informed decisions, the ability to interpret information and recognize misinformation is going to be vital if we wish to maintain a stable and happy society. Books like Cranky Uncle Vs Climate Change can be the mainstay of educating the next generation of critical thinkers. 

If that wasn’t enough, there are two excellent web resources behind the book too; skepticalscience.com and crankyuncle.com, which have great articles on Climate Change, critical thinking, and science denial. Come the fall there will be a Cranky Uncle app too! 

You can pick up a copy of Climate Change vs Cranky Uncle, here in the US (affiliate link) and here, in the UK

If you enjoyed this book, do check out my other Word Wednesday reviews. 

Disclosure: I received a copy of this book in order to write this review. 

This Week’s Word Is “Skulk.”

Word Wednesday is back after a couple of weeks hiatus, during which we prepared for the return to school and other life things happened. We’re back with a beautiful children’s puzzle book from Laurence King called Skulk. Laurence King makes one of my favorite maze/puzzle books of all time, Pierre the Maze Detective, so I had high hopes for Skulk too. I was not disappointed. 

It has a Maze that folds out into a large cube. 

Yes. A maze that is a cube. 

In a book. 

With portals.

It’s awesome and worth picking up just for that! 

What is Skulk?

Skulk is a slim hardback crammed full of mazes and puzzles. Written and designed by Robin Etherington, Skulk is vividly brought to life by the illustrations of Renaud Vigourt. Skulk is evidence of a happy marriage between author and illustrator. 

The book’s opening premise is that Skulk is a shadow, who is inseparable from his partner, “the boy.” In a comic strip introduction, Skulk and the boy find an ancient map, which leads them to a castle (brilliantly named “Castle Chiaroscuro”) and some barely guarded treasure. This, of course, is a trap. Skulk falls deep beneath the castle, torn from the boy and so begins his quest to return to the surface so they can be reunited. 

Skulk consists of 11 puzzles, the majority of which contain a maze element. Of the two puzzles that don’t contain a maze, one of them is a word puzzle and the other is a numerical puzzle, with visual clues. The mazes come in all different types, with interesting quirks, such as charting the course of a beam of light around a hall of mirrors, or connecting pictures in the ancestral gallery. There are also a number of masks for you to find as you traverse the castle. (Masks? Very on-trend for 2020!)

Why Read Skulk?

Much as with Hoakes Island, another excellent Laurence King puzzle book, Skulk is a pleasure to hold in your hands. Even though the mazes are intended for children, they’re fun for adults to pore over too. The drawings are excellent and the mazes’ quirky extras, give you something to think about beyond getting from point A to point B.

If I had a criticism of the book, it’s that sadly, the center page fold occasionally causes issues. It’s impossible to fold the pages completely flat, so some detail on the binding is obscured. It’s not a big thing, but it’s there, and not an easy problem to solve because of how bookbinding works. 

Nevertheless, Skulk is an excellent maze book, that should keep children diverted for a good few hours as they unlock its secrets. As I mentioned at the beginning of the review, the highlight is the cube maze, which is a top-quality piece of paper engineering and an idea so elegant, you have to wonder why we don’t see this sort of thing more regularly in maze books. If a cube maze wasn’t enough, it even has portals that much up across the faces of the cube so you can travel from one side to another as you try to find your way! The cube is definitely one of Skulk’s highlights; your kids will love it and they’ll want to show it off to everyone they meet. 

I’ve really enjoyed Skulk. It’s the best book of its type I’ve seen in a while. It’s an engaging, highly atmospheric book for everybody who loves a maze. 

If you’d like to pick up a copy of Skulk, you can do so here, in the US and here, in the UK. 

If you enjoyed this review you can check out more of my Word Wednesday reviews, here and a host of other Laurence King books, here.

Disclosure: I received a copy of this book in order to write this review. My US book link is an affiliate link. 

This Week’s Word Is “Wormwood.”

Sometimes you just need to get on and read whatever everybody is saying you should read. I’ve had Rosewater by Tade Thompson sitting on my to-be-read pile for months, but such is the nature of to-be-read piles they tend to grow rather than diminish and so I never quite got to it. I often have a fear with seminal, much talked about science fiction, that I won’t quite get it. It can be a little too “out there” for me. I think I was worried Rosewater might be the same; that the idea of reading Rosewater might be better than the reality of reading Rosewater.

I was wrong. It’s as good as everyone says.

What is Rosewater by Tade Thompson? 

Rosewater is the first book in the Wormwood trilogy. It’s set mainly in 2066, but it cuts back to 2055 and times in between. The novel is set in the fictional township of Rosewater, which has sprung up around an alien manifestation in Nigeria. Little is understood about the alien(s) except that periodically the biodome opens, and the people of Rosewater are healed of whatever ails them. This healing is so efficient it even brings back the dead, albeit as zombie-like “reanimates.” The dead of Rosewater are buried well out of the city limits. 

For a wider context, planet Earth is much different to how we might recognize it. London and Hyde Park were destroyed by a similar (the same) alien landing there. The US has gone dark; almost nobody comes out and nobody goes in.  

So, we have a peculiar township set up in the middle of Nigeria that functions almost entirely to service the dome and the people who flock to it for its miraculous healing. In the middle of this sits Kaaro who, we learn early on, has been involved with the dome since it very first arrived, before Rosewater ever sprang up. Kaaro is a “sensitive.” He has an ability that enables him to read people’s minds. He can even manipulate their thought patterns, should he desire. This makes Kaaro and people like him extraordinarily valuable for both law enforcement offices and crime syndicates. Kaaro is an operative for the ASF; the secret service that operates around Rosewater. 

Kaaro is unreliable in just about everything he does, including, we suspect, narrating his story. He had a criminal past before being enlisted in the ASF, he also had an early brush with the alien lifeform at the center of Rosewater. Everything revolves around Kaaro, but why?

Why Read Rosewater by Tade Thompson?

Everything I heard about this book is true. It is a startling an original piece of fiction. The setting marks the book out as something different from the outset. The town of Rosewater with the huge biodome at the center is an interesting construct in an area of the world often overlooked in science fiction. The dome, its function, and its effects on Kaaro are multi-faceted. There are many layers of ambiguity with power struggles going on in multiple directions. Some of which sit in the background waiting to reveal themselves late in the novel. 

The time structure of the novel can get confusing. I occasionally lost track of which point in time I was reading about because the sections in the past jump about in time. Whilst the 2666 narrative is linear, the past timeline is not. But despite being a little confusing for an old-timer, the novel’s structure serves as an excellent way to reveal information piecemeal, keeping the reader on their toes. The structure of the Rosewater is a well-crafted example of how to show and not tell. 

Characterization is strong and the novel’s alien culture is innovative and more than a little mind-bending. Rosewater’s alien invasion is subtle, inventive, and free of bombast. Rosewater does what the best sci-fi does; confounds the reader’s expectations and examines old tropes from an entirely different perspective. Aliens coming to Earth is nothing new but with Rosewater, Tade Tompson makes it feel like it’s never been done before. 

One of the best things about being slow to get to books in the to-be-read pile is that often by the time you’ve done so, the sequels have arrived. There are few things worse than getting to the end of good book, knowing you have an indefinite time to wait before the next installment comes along. Rosewater Redemption and Rosewater Insurrection are already available and I can’t wait to read them. The problem with this, of course, is that reading one book and buying two new ones only adds to the ever-increasing bookberg that sits in my bedroom (only 1 third of it pokes above the bed).

I will have to wait a little while though. I have recently started working with a new PR rep and they’ve set me some exciting great-looking books to read. Unfortunately, they are all the size of house bricks; more on those in future Word Wednesday posts. In the meantime, do check out Tade Thompson and Rosewater. It’s a great book, chock full of fresh ideas and thoroughly recommended. 

If you want to pick up a copy of Rosewater you can do so here, in the US and here, in the UK. 

If you enjoyed this review, you can check out my other Word Wednesday posts, here.

This Week’s Word Is “Home.”

This week for Word Wednesday, we’re moving away from the fiction of recent weeks to a children’s non-fiction book from our friends at Laurence King publishing. The Homes We Build is a stylized jaunt around the globe looking at habitats, both normal and unusual, from around the world. 

What Is The Homes We Build?

Subtitled “A World of Houses and Habitats,” this book takes a look at houses from all around the planet. It’s separated into themed chapters with each page containing pictures and diagrams that explain the features of various houses and what makes them suited to their purpose. The book is filled with the fabulous and the mundane from palaces and towering skyscrapers to cave dwellings and more functional everyday housing. 

Sections include:

• Creating shade and keeping cool: Thick walls, narrow streets, white walls, and domes. 
• Combating the cold: The similarities between staying warm and keeping cold: Swedish Red homes and the “magic” of igloos. 
• Protecting homes from extreme events: Designing for Earthquakes; old methods and new. How emergency shelters are designed. 
• Concealed in the landscape: Petra and Cappadoccia. Two wonders on one double page!
• Creating new landscapes: Le Corbusier and reclaiming land from the sea.
• Rainbow residences. There are few things more arresting than colored houses. They look amazing in this book
• Floating homes. Living on the water from Sumeria to Amsterdam.

There are also sections that look at the history of urbanism, the evolutions of skyscrapers, and the history of architects. The book also looks at the cultural meanings of housebuilding, from the superstitions we introduce into our homes to family-tree houses, and recycled homes. Finally, there’s an in-depth look around a traditional Japanese house, which I found fascinating. 

The book is a slender large format hardback of about 70 pages. 

Why Read The Homes We Build?

This is a great book that hits the sweet spot between having enough pictures not to be intimidating with sufficient text to be truly informative. It makes for a very accessible book for children aged around 8 upwards. One that will give them insight into how different people live around the world. It makes the reader think beyond their own four walls; helping them to question their definition of house and what a “home” truly is. 

I particularly like the graphics style chosen. It’s very clean and doesn’t clutter the pages, illustrating the points made in the text clearly, whilst inviting the reader in to investigate that text in further detail. The book is arranged in an interesting manner too. It may have been more obvious to arrange it geographically, but arranging it thematically, allows readers to appreciate the similarities and differences of abodes from across the globe, as local solutions to similar problems are displayed alongside one another on the page.  

All in all, this a tremendous book. The Homes We Build is strong on visual appeal and packed with useful information. There really is nothing not to like. 

If you want to pick up a copy The Homes We Build you can do so here, in the US and here, in the UK. 

If you enjoyed this review, do check out my other Word Wednesday posts. 

Disclosure: I received a copy of this book in order to write this review. The US bookshop link is an affiliate link. 

This Week’s Word Is “Islam.”

Books that are a blend of words, pictures, and crazy fonts are big business in the world of children’s books; especially for those aged around 7 upwards. Our family favorites are the Storey Treehouse books, but there are many others including Wimpy Kid and Tom Gates. This summer, thanks to a random tweet I saw a few months ago, we’ve found a fabulous new member of the genre, Planet Omar. 

So far, there are 3 books in the series published in the UK and the first installment Planet Omar: Accidental Trouble Magnet will be published in the US at the end of September 2020. 

What is Planet Omar?

Like many children’s books, the story is about the trials and tribulations of school life; Teachers, fitting in, and scrapes with the school bully. It’s also about life at home too. Dinner table conversations, battling with your siblings, and grumpy next-door neighbors. What sets this book apart from many of the others that sit in this crowded field, is that Omar and his family are Muslims. 

Alongside Omar’s day at school we read about Ramadan and Eid, going to mosque, and, very gently, we hear about other people’s preconceptions about Muslims and Islam. 

For that’s what the book is really about; preconceptions. From the fearful neighbor who “doesn’t like spicy food” or the bully at school, who tells Omar that, one day, he’ll have to move out of the country. Better than that, though, Omar himself has preconceptions about events in the novel too. These lead him to jump to the wrong conclusions. What we have here is a funny and gentle novel, in an engaging format with excellent pictures. It’s a book that shows the reader the benefits of looking a little harder to help demystify what they don’t understand.

Why Read Planet Omar?

Any book that is dedicated to “all the children who ever felt that being different was a negative thing,” is almost always going to be worth a read. Planet Omar is no exception. The book is great for young Muslim readers. They’re currently underrepresented in British children’s fiction, and this is a very positive reinforcement of their way of life. Moreover, for families like my own, it’s an invaluable resource for showing the similarities between British families no matter their religion and ethnicity. It engenders empathy and understanding. 

My son has been fascinated by the descriptions of festivals and trips to the Mosque depicted in the books (In Book 2, there is a storyline about saving a Mosque and he was very invested in making sure they came through.) The books have opened our eyes to aspects of Islam that (in my case) we knew happened, but would have been hard pushed to explain it to anybody, had they asked. 

Planet Omar is a celebration of inclusivity. It explains how a lack of understanding can lead to fear. Omar’s neighbor doesn’t really want anything to do with Omar and his family until events force her too. Her discovery that her neighbors are much like any other human beings brings about a friendship that is heartwarming. Again, it’s a gentle way to explain how damaging and futile prejudice can be. 

One curious note; I noticed on the book’s title page that it had originally been titled “The Muslims.” Whilst I don’t know anything about the promotion of the original version of the book, it is probably not a coincidence that the vibrant rebrand as Planet Omar has been more successful. Whilst the phrase “The Muslims” has significant context within the story, it’s an indictment of modern Britain that a book with that title, and of this quality couldn’t succeed. “Planet Omar,” especially with the subtitle “Accidental Trouble Magnet.” sits within an entirely different demographic. One where it’s been able to get the traction it deserves. 

Planet Omar is exactly the sort of book Britain needs if it is going to break down the barriers that exist within it today. It knocks down misconceptions and is the embodiment of the idea that we are “far more united and have far more in common with each other than things that divide us.” (This quote is from the late Jo Cox, and never seems far away from my mind when I read books like this.) I loved Planet Omar from start to finish, book 2 Unexpected Super Spy is just as good. Book 3, Incredible Rescue Mission has just come out in the US and will definitely be part of our next book shop trip!

If you enjoyed this post you can check out my other Word Wednesday reviews, here.  

This Week’s Word Is “Cosmic.”

I’ve shared a lot of good books with my children in recent months, such as The Land of Roar and The High Rise Mystery, but of all the children’s books I’ve read to my children, over many years, very few have been as much fun as The Alfie Fleet series by Martin Howard.

The books, backed up by Chris Mould’s excellent illustrations, are a sort of Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy for children. They’re funny, surreal, inventive works of pure imagination and, if that wasn’t enough, they have an engaging, diverse set of characters and strong themes of fairness and thinking of others. 

What Is the Alfie Fleet Series?

So far, it’s a series of only 2 books; The Cosmic Atlas of Alfie Fleet and the Alfie Fleet’s Guide to the Universe. I sincerely hope the series grows into a long-running one, as the books are hilariously funny and good for the soul. My children are starting to get to the ages where bedtime stories become a thing of the past but I would happily keep buying and reading these books, long after I have nobody to read them to because they’re great feel-good reads that give everybody a good belly laugh. 

In the opening story, down on his luck, Alfie is looking for a job so that he can raise enough money to buy his mum a foot spa. Alfie’s mum works incredibly hard in a horrible job, earning just enough to put food on the table, but little else. Alfie wants to give something to lift his mum’s spirits, something to soothe her permanently aching feet.  He ends up answering a job advert, which is how he discovers the Unusual Cartography Club and its sole remaining member, Professor Pewsley Bowell-Mouvement. (It should be pointed out that the books don’t have much toilet humor in them but when they do it’s executed brilliantly).   

The Unusual Cartography Club is about to have its debts to the local council foreclosed, potentially destroying an amazing place. In the basement of the Club’s building is a stone circle; one that can lead to anywhere in the galaxy. Realizing that whilst he may not get paid, he must not let the professor and his stone circle be bulldozed, Alfie decides to help save the building and the club. There then follow and interplanetary yomp, filled with dragons, heroic knights, vainglorious elves, and a girl called Derek.  

Through a series of improbable escapades, needless to say, Derek, Alfie, and the Professor manage to save the Cartography Club and even get Alfie’s mum her foot spa. The book is a complete tale, but with a portal to an infinite repository of planets to draw on, book two was inevitable. 

As book 2 opens, Alfie’s scheme to bring the Unusual Cartography Club up to date and into the world’s consciousness by converting it to a travel agency. Sadly, some unwelcome guests arrive to derail his beautifully laid plans. In this second installment, things start to become a little deeper, with the introduction of destiny and cosmic design, whilst still maintaining the first novel’s themes of honesty and friendship. Martin Howard has big plans for Alfie going forward, and I can’t wait to see what happens to him next. 

Why Read the Alfie Fleet Series?

These books are out and out good fun without ever dumbing down for cheap laughs. Well, there is the odd Bowell-Mouvement gag, but even they have more class than much of the competition. There is a running joke in the books that the Professor always calls Alfie, “Rupert.” It shouldn’t be possible for this to remain funny over 600 pages and two books, but Martin Howard manages it, sending me and my son into fits of giggles on more than one occasion. 

The books’ characters are wonderful. Silly, but also very human. Very silly but many of them embody the best of what humanity should be. The villains are dastardly and ever-entertaining too. 

The most interesting thing that Howard’s multi-planet device gives him is the opportunity to create a swathe of fascinating and frankly bonkers worlds. Worlds filled with quirky geography, fantastic beasts, and crazy religions. Howard has taken his theme and run with it. Each new locale is a riot of the imagination (very much reminding me of my first ever GeekDad review, The Wonder) and, particularly in book 2, we can see just how the large the scope of Alfie’s universe might become. It’s wonderful and breathtaking. 

It’s a testament to how good these books are, that whilst we were reading book 2, my son, picked up our copy of The Cosmic Atlas and started reading it, because he wanted to keep reading about Alfie but also didn’t want me to miss out. I’m 100% sure if you grabbed a copy of The Cosmic Atlas of Alfie Fleet, you’ll be as hooked as we were. If every book was as fun and engaging as the Alfie Fleet series getting children to read would be a whole lot easier.

You can pick up a copy of the Alfie Fleet books, here in the US and here, in the UK. 

If you enjoyed this review, you can check out my other Word Wednesday posts, here. 

Disclosure: I received a copy of the first book in the Alfie Fleet series in order to write this review.  

This Week’s Word Is “Brexit.” 

Chris Beckett is an author I’ve been meaning to read for several years now, ever since Dark Eden won the Clarke Award. Finally, I caught up with is work, with his latest novel, Two Tribes. I was drawn to Two Tribes because of its themes of Brexit and climate change. 

Before COVID-19, if there were two things in the UK that polarised discourse more than anything else, they were Brexit and climate change. Now, we can add wearing masks and lockdown to that list, but the protagonists on both sides are largely the same. Two Tribes examines the…err…two tribes of contemporary Britain – the Leavers and the Remainers. 

What is Two Tribes?

The novel is nominally set two hundred years in the future on a planet Earth ravaged by climate disaster. The UK has been annexed by China, and an enigmatic ruling party sits over the general population. Climate change and civil war have destroyed much of Britain. 

In this far-future, works an archivist, putting together small pieces of personal testimony, namely diary entries from 2017.  From her work, Zoe discovers two diarists whose stories intersect. Intrigued, she creates her own narrative that reveals how the seeds of the UK’s destruction were sown. 

The two diarists, Harry and Michelle, are an unlikely couple; a Leaver and a Remainer. An educated middle-class London architect and a provincial working-class hairdresser. Despite being the proverbial chalk and cheese, the two strike up a friendship. The story then follows Zoe’s narrative of Michelle and Harry’s lives, interspersed with excerpts of Zoe’s own life in a not particularly benevolent but not entirely malevolent, police state. 

Why Read Two Tribes?

One might expect Two Tribes to be an anti-Brexit novel, and to a degree, it is, though it is far more scathing of our current climate-politics than it is about Brexit. There is a strong case to say this is an “anti-anti-Brexit” novel. It isn’t pro-Brexit (far from it), but it examines the aloof elite attitudes of the chattering classes; those that dismissed the pro-Brexit voters as racist thickos. 

By using the viewpoint of an impartial historian, Beckett examines the Brexit vote and the attitudes of modern Britain; our tendency to listen to our own echo chamber. I think many of us know we do this, but it remains easier to bask in our own superiority and decry our opponent’s stupidity than it is to actually do change how we think or listen to alternative points of view. Through his relationship with Michelle, Harry is afforded an opportunity to look at his own life and assess the attitudes of his peers from a different perspective. 

“Harry had become very conscious lately of how much of conversation, any conversation, was not about exchanging ideas or information, but about collectively rehearsing a position and obtaining little strokes of mutual validation.” 

The result, for a middle-class liberal like myself, makes for uncomfortable reading. This is great, because, like Harry, I can now reevaluate my own attitudes, in the light of the self-awareness that Two Tribes has afforded me. 

Chris Beckett has done an excellent job in summing up the disconnect between the two tribes that exist in Britain today (the Brexit vote, was more or less a 50/50 split). Don’t, however, feel that if you’re not interested in Brexit or don’t live in the UK, this novel won’t be for you. 

First up, Harry’s relationship with social media, in particular, his obsession over his Twitter feed offers a caution for us all. Next, across the globe, division politics is running rife. Brexit was defined by “us” and “them,” winners and losers – “get over it, you lost,” which isn’t what politics should be about. Perhaps it’s a naive attitude, but I think our politicians should care more about cultivating consensus and finding common ground, so that fewer people are left behind to feel disenfranchised. 

You only have to look at the current furor around masks, lockdown, and civil liberties, to see that some people are more interested in being right and creating division than they are about ensuring the safety of others and the ability for us to overcome the pandemic, both economically and medically. Much as for Brexit, there are no easy answers. Errors will be made, but a divide is opening up between people with different views, which may have catastrophic consequences. A divide, some people, particularly on social media are keen to exacerbate and exploit. It’s easy to imagine that Beckett might be able to write a follow-up novel that examines how the UK’s tribes fared during the pandemic.

If I have one complaint about the novel it’s the ending. I don’t mind an open-ended story, but Two Tribes cuts off abruptly and doesn’t really feel like it’s drawn to any sort of conclusion. But perhaps that’s the point. There are no neat solutions to the Brexit problem. Warring tribes don’t work things out; class and political division will forever cut through Britain. The ending doesn’t spoil the excellence of what has gone before, by any means, but if you like a complete story, be warned, you won’t find that here. 

All in all, Two Tribes does what all good science fiction should do, which is to examine modern society through a lens held from a different perspective. Yet, much of the novel, isn’t really science fiction at all, as it deals with two people living in 2017. By then using the events of his contemporary narrative to inform his science-fictional one, Beckett very cleverly shifts the reader’s viewpoint and makes them reconsider the world around them. This is all done with a gentle sleight of hand, making Two Tribes a subtle, yet powerful work of fiction that informs the reader about the world we live in.  

You can pick up a copy of Two Tribes, here in the US, and here, in the UK. 

If you enjoyed this review, do check out my other Word Wednesday reviews.  

Disclosure: I received a copy of Two Tribes in order to write this review.  

This Week’s Word Is “Wonderland.”

Juno Dawson writes visceral issue-driven thrillers about high society. Prior to this, I have read Clean, the story of the daughter of an oligarch, who has had to enter rehab. It charts her battle with drugs and depression. Dawson’s latest novel is another high society thriller, part of her “London Trilogy,” the middle book of which, Meat Market, I haven’t read but I really need to put that right. The best thing about Wonderland (for me at least) is that it’s an homage/reworking of the Lewis Carroll’s classic with plenty of Easter eggs for Alice fans. 

What Is Wonderland?

Juno Dawson books are terrifying. Well, they are if you’re a parent. It must be said this book really isn’t aimed at us, yet both my wife and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It’s a very clever reworking of Alice in Wonderland that examines the pressures of teenage life, the various ways in which depression and mental health issues may manifest themselves in young adults, and the trials of tribulations of being a trans* teen in modern Britain. There’s also a lot of drugs, a fair amount of sex, and some good-old-fashioned attempted murder. 

Alice Dodgson (Easter egg No. 1!) lives in a world of stifling privilege and high-end luxury. Yet she is a misfit in her school of millionaires’ daughters. Firstly, Alice’s mum is an author; she’s rich from the sales of her books. New money does not fit in well at St Agnes’ school. Second, Alice is trans; though this is not common knowledge. 

As the novel opens, Alice is in trouble again. Bright but easily bored, this is a common occurrence. Alice isn’t too bothered about being in hot water. What is really eating her, is that her friend Bunny has gone missing. Nobody else is concerned about this but Bunny said she was in danger. Though their friendship is based on little more than a chance encounter, Alice wants to find out where Bunny has gone. She needs to know that she’s safe. 

This leads Alice to an underground party for wealthy socialites. A party that she would usually be excluded from. The “Wonderland” parties are only available to the very top tier of London society. Alice tricks her way in and so, she enters the rabbit hole. 

Why Read Wonderland?

First up, if you’re an Alice fan then you absolutely should read this book. There are many clever references to the original book, that add a whole extra level of joy to reading Wonderland. The central story of society rivalry is not a new one, but in Dawson’s hands, it’s fresh and invigorating. The interplay between spoiled teenagers is breathtaking. They’re very exaggerated, but at the same time easy to relate to. 

The party set pieces are impressive. They convey a mad carnival atmosphere; a hedonistic freedom only the young can enjoy. Wonderland is an evocative story of hedonism and a lack of accountability. Many of the characters in the book are loathsome in isolation, but Dawson shows us what’s beneath the facade. Wealth can’t protect from the insecurities of teenage life; in many cases, it makes them worse. In Alice’s world, there are few places to hide. 

The characters in the story are not particularly representative of the book’s readers; after all they come from the top 1%. They do however reflect the desires, concerns, and confusion of teenage life. The prospect of having the entire world open to you, but having little or no clue where you want to go in it. A blank piece of paper can be a terrifying prospect. Parents’ dreams and aspirations are impressed upon children, no matter what their social background. What happens when a child doesn’t want to fulfill them? The flip-side is also represented. Parents who care little for their child’s well-being are dangerous, no matter their social status. 

Dawson provides a clear voice for teenagers who are confused by their place in the world. The current media representation of trans children and trans rights is bewildering; immeasurably more so, I imagine, if you’re a young person questioning your very identity. Dawson’s book offers no individual answers but it does offer assurance that readers are not alone on their journey; that it’s OK to ask questions, and that above all, it is perfectly normal to want to be comfortable in your own skin. 

I can’t personally relate to many issues in the book, which are both subtle and complex, but Juno Dawson can. This is evident in her stories. As well as doing all that, Dawson writes an excellent yarn. There are some genuinely shocking moments in the book, and I raced to the finish, desperate to see if the villain would get their comeuppance and indeed, for much of the book, find out if the villain was actually who I thought it was. 

Wonderland is everything a good young adult novel should be. It actualizes the fears and hopes of its target audience, whilst scaring the be-jesus out of their parents. It informs, yes, but, above all, it entertains. Doubly so if you’re a sucker for Lewis Carroll mythology.

*Please note this is the specific word used in the book, and is part of the character’s gender identity.

If you’d like to pick up a copy of the Wonderland, you can do so here, in the US and here, in the UK.

If you enjoyed this review do check out my other Word Wednesday posts, here.