Wilberfoss Primary School

Hereville Volume 1 – How Mirka Got Her Sword

By Barry Deutsch

Published by Amulet

“Spunky, strong-willed, eleven-year-old Mirka Hirschberg isn’t interested in knitting lessons from her step-mother, or how-to-find-a-husband advice from her sister, or you-better-not warnings from her brother. There’s only one thing she does want: to fight dragons!

Granted, no dragons have been breathing fire around Hereville, the Orthodox Jewish community where Mirka lives, but that doesn’t stop the plucky girl from honing her skills. She fearlessly stands up to local bullies. She battles a very large, very menacing pig. And she boldly accepts a challenge from a mysterious witch, a challenge that could bring Mirka her heart’s desire: a dragon-slaying sword! All she has to do is find – and outwit – the giant troll who’s got it!”

Alfie – Year 5

Hereville is a graphic novel about a 11 year old orthodox Jewish girl called Mirka who wants to be a hero, a dragon slayer.

All of her friends talk about the wild rumours of the local flying lady – everyone thinks she’s a witch.

As Mirka is an Orthdox Jew she’s banned from eating pork, and because she lives in an orthodox Jewish village she doesn’t even know what a pig looks like! To her a pig was a horrible, evil monster so she was scared when she saw one.

Worse still – the pig she sees is no ordinary pig – it could talk! The pig threatens her for taking one grape from his garden….

All her friends laugh at her because the evil talking pig kept stealing her homework just to cause trouble. But  then it got worse when the pig set her up by trampling Mirka’s stepmother Fruma’s flower patch and leaving one of Mirka’s shoes behind.

This was the final straw for Mirka, After that she tells Frumer about the witch and that’s when she gets sent to her room and in the middle of the night she gets up and goes to fight the troll.

I thought it was interesting because it’s full of adventure especially when she wins the sword. I thought it would be a good book for a person who likes adventures, because I liked it and normally I don’t read adventure books.

Finn  - Year 5

I enjoyed Hereville. It was funny and a bit strange!

The best bit was when Mirka was getting hunted by a pig because she picked an apple from the pig’s garden but the pig adored the grapes. The funniest bit was when the troll wanted to fight Mirka with knitting because I thought they were going to fight with swords.

The strangest bits was when Mirka was walking to school and she came across a house and she saw a witch floating next to her tree and the witch was cutting it.

Find out more about Hereville at the website for the book, including a preview of this and the next book!

Gum Girl Volume 1 – Catastrophe Calling

By Andi Watson

Gum Girl is the new series by Andi Watson, an artist whose Glister books have been really popular in the school library.

Walker Books and Andi were kind enough to donate some copies for the school library, but before they go on the shelves we handed them out to some very keen pupils…. and they certainly seemed to like them!

Review by Holly (Year 5)

I loved Gum Girl, it’s a really good book, in fact it’s not good, it’s absolutely amazing!

When Catastrophe calls, it’s Gum Girl’s time to shine. Grace Gibson is the new girl with one very big secret … there’s a new heroine in town and she can well stick to the bad guys!

Review by James (Year 6)

I liked this book; it’s all about a girl moving to a new town with a new school and new problems!

Grace Gibson looks normal on the outside, but she manages to create some super-gum which comes in useful as she needs to save herself countless times!

There are three stories in Gum Girl Catastrophe Calling but my favourite is the first where she starts at Calamity Primary School and meets a boy called Billy Fisher, who always gets picked on. But the school bully at Calamity happens to be a giant super-robot!

Then there’s the evil genius little Nigel Lott who wants to get rid of Gum Girl because she saved the town from his robot of destruction. In fact, by the end of the book there’s a whole Evil Geniuses After-School Club. That’s just the sort of school Grace has found herself in!

I would definitely recommend this book to adventure lovers!

(School bullies with a difference at Clamity Primary School)

Review by Lucy (Year 6)

Grace has moved from a small calm town, to a catastrophic city packed with calamity! And if that wasn’t bad enough, her dad is the headmaster at her new school!

Things turn from bad to worse when Grace finds an old chemistry set in the new house. Unpacking or fiddling with the chemistry set…. oh … Grace chooses the chemistry set. And the explosive chemical reaction creates GUM GIRL!!

I liked Gum Girl because it has a fun, quirky storyline which people of all ages will enjoy. It was really clear, and each character felt like they could be real. I also liked the graphics and the jokes that Andi Watson puts through the book.

It’s an amazing graphic novel and I’d give it 10 out of 10.

(Oh dear…. the origins of Gum Girl!)

Review by Mae (Year 4)

At her new house, Grace Gibson plays with an old chemistry set she has found, but the glowing green contents explode everywhere, including on her gum.  Later on, when she goes to the shopping centre with her “friends”, chaos break loose; a meteor crashes down to Earth, a robot attacks the shop, and Grace is nearly run over by an out of control bright pink bin lorry. The gum she’s chewing, that was covered in the chemicals from the experiment, saves her from first the bin lorry and then the huge meteor. Grace realises what’s happened and after doing more experiments becomes Gum Girl!

I liked it because it has a lot of adventures in it whilst also having a bit of friendship. My favourite part was when Grace’s hair went very, very wrong and she looked so funny.

I think you should read this book, it is full of surprises and laughs.

(Grace Gibson, AKA Gum Girl is definitely having a bad hair day!)

Thanks once again to Walker Books and Andi for the books. They’re going in the library after Easter!

Mirabilis – Year Of Wonders – Winter

By Dave Morris and Leo Hartas

Review by James (Year 6)

I think that Mirabilis is an amazing book and I like the way it starts as a duel at 20 paces – very, very exciting.

The book is alll about a young boy called Jack Ember and his attempts to get a magical gold coin before his Grandma is killed. It also involves a green comet, that’s flying across the sky and causing all sorts of strange things to happen. I love all of the creatures like the vampires, giant babies and dinosaurs that appear in the book because of the magical comet.

My favourite part is where Miss Bodgkiss is picked up by a Pteranodon (or a Pterodactyl) and taken away!

I love the way that the book finished on a cliffhanger and you have to read on with book 2 to find out what on earth happened to Jack!

My overall rating is 5 out o 5 and I can’t wait until I read part 2!

Mr Bruton here, just a quick introduction before we get to Isobel’s great little review of a great little book!

We love the Johnny Boo books in the school library! They’re not the longest, not the most challenging, but they’re just so much FUN!

And they’re also a perfect example of why the school library is so very important, because it’s sometimes far, far more pertinent to enthuse our children and foster a love of reading than it is to just concentrate on whether they’re writing in paragraphs yet! (Sure, paragraphs are important, but you show me a child who loves reading and eventually, trust me, they’ll get paragraphs.)

Johnny Boo and the Mean Little Boy

By James Kolchalka

“Johnny Boo is the best little ghost in the whole world, because he’s got Boo Power. This means that he can go “BOO” really loudly. His pet ghost named Squiggle has Squiggle Power, which means that he can fly and do really fast loop-the-loops. Together they have the world’s greatest ghost adventures!”

Review by Isobel:

Johnny Boo, the best little ghost in the world, was playing with his friend Rocky the Rock and he didn’t want to play with Squiggles.

This upsets Squiggles, who went to play with a boy but he didn’t know he was mean.

The mean little boy started to catch Squiggles in his mean butterfly net. The mean little boy caught Squiggles and put him into a jar and wouldn’t let him out. What a mean little boy! Johnny Boo came to see where Squiqqles was and he saved him because he sneezed and the lid came off because the sneeze was massive!

I like the book and thought it was really funny when Johnny Boo set his friend free by sneezing!

My favourite character is Johnny Boo.

Baggage

By The Etherington Brothers

DFC Library

Review by Mia (Year 6)

Baggage is all about Randall, who has to return the oldest piece of luggage in the lost property warehouse where he works to its owner, or he’s going to get fired:

To give you an idea of how silly Randall is… the case he decides to pick is the one right at the bottom of a huge pile.

And the whole pile comes crashing down on top of him, they all fly out the huge doors and take Randall with them.

Once he gets the case he starts looking at it for clues for who it belongs to, which starts us off on a really funny, really silly, but very good adventure.

The case is covered in stickers that act as clues – first Randall looks in a sweet shop because of the sticker of some really old bubblegum. The old lady who runs the shop (Ruby) knows the next name on the case, and Randall is off again. Randall runs into one of his friends and they end up crawling through some pipes (lots of pipes!). They look for a post box with the name Bennington on it. then a few seconds later Randall’s friend (Lucky) found it.

There are lots of funny things in the book that Randall finds including:

A floating ice-cream shop in the shape of a duck, Kong the collector, with his guard dog (the beast), cable car chases, a stinky rubbish dump, the Onionskins football stadium, meatball costumes, and much, much more…..

Randall and all of his friends go through lots of crazy adventures and get into a bit of trouble all just to get the bag back to its owner before mid night so Randall doesnt get fired!

I liked this book because I found it funny. My favourite bit was when he was in the sweet shop and the old lady was making rude things out of liquorice!

I would recommend Baggage to all readers because I really enjoyed it and I think that anyone else would like it as well!

Toon Books are a graphic novel series designed for the youngest of readers. We have a set of 4 in the school library and they’re borrowed and enjoyed by all years.

But when the latest Toon Books release; Patrick in A Teddy Bear’s Picnic came through I really wanted to get the views of some children in the right age group. So we’re very pleased to welcome the very latest, and very youngest reviewers – Katy (Age 8) and Lucy (Age 7).

I gave them Patrick, but also gave them a selection of other Toon Books, thinking it would be useful to get an idea of the series. I certainly didn’t expect them to come back with not just one review, but a spectacular four!

Ladies and gentlemen… Katy & Lucy:

Patrick in A Teddy Bear’s Picnic and Other Stories

By Geoffrey Hayes

Katy says:

In this book there are four stories. My favourite story is the one where Patrick goes to the shop for his mum to get cookies but Big Bear tries to steal his dollar and later his cookies.

The book, and the pictures, are very funny as well – and it was very funny when Patrick is naked after taking his wet clothes off! I really like the big picture on page 5, it’s a very nice start to the story.

Lucy says:

Patrick in A Teddy Bear’s Picnic has four stories in it. My favourite one was when Patrick went to the cookie store. In this story his mum asked him to go to the cookie store. On the way he bumps into Big Bear, who tries to steal his dollar, but Patrick escaped. On the way home Big Bear met Patrick again, but Patrick shouted ROAR! And Big Bear as scared.

Another funny story was Patrick being told to have a sleep by his mum but he didn’t snooze at all – but when he went outside to play he did snooze.

Luke On The Loose

By Harry Bliss

Lucy  says:

In this story Luke chases flappy pigeons all around the town crazily shouting YAAAAH! Eventually he climbs up onto a roof and falls asleep and snores loudly until the firemen come to rescue him and return him to his parents. I think this story is funny because Luke and the pigeons cause so much trouble – the best bit was when Luke and the pigeons flipped an ice-cream from the ice-cream seller onto someone’s head!

Katy says:

This book is about a little boy who goes off chasing pigeons in the park. He ends up sleeping on the roof!

It was very funny when the cat thought “I’ll never let my kittens chase pigeons” – and then the cat does exactly that when she saw Luke and the Pigeons on the roof! The book is interesting when the fireman come. I Liked the book very much and the picture were very good.

Benny And Penny in The Toy Breaker

By Geoffrey Hayes

Lucy says:

This story was about 3 mice; Benny, Penny and Bo. Every time Bo comes round to play he breaks most of Benny and Penny’s toys. This time he breaks a bat and a ball and Penny’s favourite toy – her cuddly monkey! When he breaks the bat and ball, the ball goes into Benny’s eye!

In the end Bo made a get well letter to Penny’s monkey and they all played together without any toys. I think this book was very good because they weren’t very sensible and they weren’t too naughty.

Katy says:

Benny & Penny in The Toybreaker is about a brother and sister becoming friends with their cousin Bo. The brother is called Benny and the younger sister is called Penny. Bo is “The Toy Breaker” – who always breaks Benny and Penny’s toys when he comes round to play. But they all become friends when Bo gets stuck in a fence and Benny and Penny help him.

I liked the part when they finally become friends and it is a happy ending. But I also thought it was funny when Bo hits the ball into Benny’s eye! The pictures were funny and they helped to tell the story.

Zig And Wiki in Something Ate My Homework

By Nadja Spiegelman and Trade Loeffler

Katy says:

This book is about two friends called Zig and Wikki. They are two strange creatures; aliens from outerspace.

Zig’s teacher wants him to bring in a pet for homework. So Zig and Wikki land their spaceship on Earth and they try to find one there. This means they look at lots of different animals.

I liked it when they got a ride on a lily pad by a frog and it was funny when Zig zapped Wikki instead of the raccoon. The book told you about some animals and the facts were very interesting. The pictures were great and funny.

Lucy says:

In this story Zig and Wikki were aliens who were looking for a pet. But Wikki got them lost in space and they went to planet Earth.

When they got to Earth, there were lots of animals to choose from; a fly landed on Ziggy’s chocolate bar – Zig tried to catch it with a net but catches Wikki instead. He also tried to catch a dragonfly, a frog and a raccoon. They tried to shrink the raccoon but they shrunk Wikki!

Katy made a very good point at the end of all of her reviews – “The pictures are very good – in fact, I couldn’t read the story without them!” I think we can all agree that we’ve got two great new reviewers there! Thank you so much to Katy and Lucy for doing these for us, and we really can’t wait to see what you’ll review next!