June 2022 Reading

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I do a monthly round up for everything we’ve read each month. Himself focuses on science articles and forums and news, so he’s not getting a section – books only!

Large boy

Dragon Mountain, Dragon Legend, and Dragon City by Katie Tsang

Oh this boy does love a series. He sped through all these ones in about a week, I think he enjoyed them.

“About a kid called Billy Chan and his friends discovering a mountain full of warrior dragons, they all team up to save the world from the dragon of death. “

The School for Good and Evil by Soman Chainani

It’s about a princess and a witch that get snatched away from their village and put in opposite schools. The princess is in a school for future villains and the witch is in a school for princess. He won’t tell you anymore

Death Sets Sail, Jolly Foul Play, Death in the Spotlight, Murder Most Unladylike and Cream Buns and Crime by Robin Stevens

“People get killed by poisoning and drowning and strangling, something different in each book. Two girls, Hazel and Daisy, they have solved so many mysteries that you would think that they were causing them!”

For a child who has consistently insisted that he does not like detective stories (is he even my child?), he seems to have had a change of heart.

Also read:

• The Boy Who Could Do What He Liked by David Baddiel
• Percy Jackson and the Greek Gods by Rick Riordan (relegated to the also read!)
• City of Spells by Alexandra Christo
• The Breakfast Club Adventures by Marcus Rashford and Alex Falase-Koya

Small boy

Amazing reading from small boy this month, he’s ploughed through four chapter books as well as starting and abandoning a book about the Top Gear Stig.

The Brilliant World of Tom Gates and Top of the Class (Nearly) by Liz Pichon

Seriously?! How many of these are there (that’s me, not small boy).

“I really really like Tom Gates mum, he’s really silly and he loves doodling. I like doodling too you know!”

How to Speak Dragonese and How to Break a Dragon’s Heart by Cressida Cowell

Well it looks like we have another Cressida Cowell aficionado on our hands, he’s just got more out of the library too.

“I really like Hiccup, he gets up to all sorts of adventures with Snotlout and Fishlegs and Kamikazi. They nearly sink their boat and almost get killed lots but they always save the day in the end.”

Also read:

• Horrid Henry’s Revenge and Horrid Henry Meets the Queen by Francesca Simon
  (he says these are dreadful and he only read them to get his points)

Me

Go Tell The Bees That I Am Gone by Diana Gabaldon

You know how a new book comes out in a series you love, so you buy it and then don’t start it. Because if you start it, you’ll finish it and then you know you’ll have to wait a very long time before the next one comes? This is that. I’ve had this since January and I’ve been saving it up. I didn’t run through it super fast because it weights about three tonnes.

However, it did not disappoint. Everything you expect from an Outlander book is in place, there’s plenty of buckling of swashes, feisty disagreements, swooning and intrigues that reassure you that there must be more volumes to come. That said, I personally missed Fergus somewhat and would have preferred to have a bit more sparring with Lord John.

Oh and it has the most beautiful inside of the cover.

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I think I shall have to restart the whole series from the beginning, maybe alternating with some good detective novels and non-fiction for some variety.

The Heat of the Moment: A Firefighter’s Stories of Life and Death Decisions by Sabrina Cohen-Hatton

My dad always buys me at least one book for Christmas, often something I wouldn’t have chosen for myself. This year it was this account of how a female fire chief has been instrumental in examining, analysing and improving the safety nets that ensure robust, appropriate, unbiased and well-informed decision making by the fire service, even under the extreme pressure of life or death emergencies.

I think we can all take away some lessons from this book. Maybe we don’t need help deciding what to have for dinner, but choosing how to react in a challenging situation or when we’re tempted to knee-jerk and start a shouting match when something stressful happens.

Les marais sanglants de Guerande by Jean-Luc Bannalec

Ah monsieur commissaire Dupin, you’re back. I’m loving this phase of the series, when I’m three books in and feeling comfortably familiar with the central characters and locations.

This one kicks off with Dupin almost messing up badly. He follows up on a tip and gets shot at, almost killed, but way outside his patch. His bosses smooth things over (sort of) and he’s left to team up with the local investigation team to figure out what’s going on. How would a TV detective episode play out? Well, he’d either fall madly in love with his counterpart or have a massive argument and end up in a fight with them. Dupin does neither, the two leads detectives carry out there investigation partly together and partly independently and eventually they piece together the puzzle and get their bad guy. Of course, when do the detectives not get the bad guy?

How about you?

What books have you and your family enjoyed lately?