Summer reading

Hope you are all enjoying the holidays and that the Summer Reading Challenge is going well! If you haven't started yet, then get yourself down to the library SOON!  VERY SOON!  NOW!  YESTERDAY!

Unfortunately due to someone being silly on the blog, I've had to change the password needed to log-in and write posts. The username is still the same as it was; the password is the same as it was, minus the first four letters. If that doesn't make sense, please send me a message via the blog and I'll help you.

I've been reading lots this summer (just for a change) so I thought I would share some of the books I have enjoyed so far. I'd also love to know what you have been reading so please share anything you've enjoyed in the comments box below.

1) Book 1 of The Earthsea Quartet by Ursula le Guin. Very enjoyable, but not the easiest read. The books are almost fifty years old now, so the way that some of the sentences are written is a little old-fashioned. I'll read the other books in due course.

2) You're a Bad Man Mr Gum! by Andy Stanton. People have been telling me how great these books are for years, and they're right. Quite similar in style to Philip Ardagh and John Dougherty, very funny with lots of ridiculous situations. There seems to be about fifty in the series already.

3) The Midnight Library (Blood and Sand) by Nick Shadow. Wow! Didn't know about these books, but loved reading this one. It's made up of three short stories, all very creepy (in fact, how the Goosebumps books should be!). The first story, called Blood and Sand, was definitely my favourite. How does The Sandman make his beach sculptures so lifelike and realistic? You'll have to read the story and find out.

4) Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren. Just brilliant! These books are now almost seventy years old, but they are such a pleasure to read. Pippi (or Pippilotta Delicatessa Windowshade Mackrelmint Ephraim's Daughter Longstocking, to give her her full name) is a very unusual nine-year-old girl. She lives in a house with her monkey, Mr Nilsson, and has incredible strength. You really must read these books at some point, as they are quite unlike anything else you will have read. The books have recently been reissued with illustrations by Lauren Child (who also did the Charlie and Lola books).

I've not read a zombie book for almost two weeks now, so this weekend I'm going to get stuck in to the second of Charlie Higson's brilliant zombie series, The Dead (which seems to take place before the first book, The Enemy).

Mr Biddle