Written with a unqiue and fierce flare, Nic Stone has literally hit the jackpot with this hard-hitting and honest book about class, money and first love. Achingly raw and powerfully moreish, Stone's voice reminded me of the likes of Angie Thomas and Elizabeth Acevedo. Seventeen-year-old Rico splits her time outside school between looking after her younger brother and working in the local gas station to help her mum pay the bills. So when she sells a jackpot-winning lotto ticket and the money goes unclaimed, Rico thinks maybe her luck has changed. If she can find the ticket holder and reunite them with the cash, hopefully she will get a cut of the winnings... That is if she can avoid falling for the annoyingly handsome (and filthy rich) boy she roped into helping her with the hunt. IF YOU LOVED THIS, TRY...

Lost meets Lord of the Flies meets Shutter Island in this hauntingly captivating psychological YA thriller. The setting of an isolated island alone is always enough to lure me into a novel. Be it Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, Geraldine McCaughrean’s Where the World Ends or William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, the notion of stranded and survival is always a winning recipe for creating tension and suspense. Taylor’s slant on bringing your worst phobias to life was a gripping premise but what played out felt a little safe. For me, the story lacked the dark savagery I was kinda craving but instead delved deeper into the deteriorating state of the mind and coping with loss. Nevertheless, it’s a fast-paced, immersive read with enough twists to keep you hooked until the end. IF YOU LOVED THIS, TRY...

Double trouble. Terrible twos. Here are some twintastic recommendations for when you’re seeing double! Middle Grade YA

Non-Fiction Biographies Ballet Stories Picture Books Young Readers 9+ The Nutcracker

Beautifully bold and enticingly enchanting, A Wolf for a Spell gave me chills, full on perfectly-impossible-to-put-down chills. From the first page I knew I was reading something special - The House with Chicken Legs meets a fantastically 'Freaky Friday' situation, glistening with magic, bravery and adventure.. Uhh yes please! And for a debut Karah Sutton's storytelling and imagination is comparable to the talented likes of Sophie Anderson and Kelly Barnhill. Rooted and layered in Russian myth and magic gives A Wolf for a Spell this exciting, unshakable feeling of classic meets contemporary. Sutton writes in a luminous language that enthrals and entertains, whilst whimsically weaving together the energy, spirit and heart of Russian folklore to create a deliciously descriptive adventure which middle grade readers will simply devour. Narrated between three characters - the witch Baba Yaga, a young female wolf named Zima, and an orphan girl named Nadya - each voice shines bright, and each perspective seamlessly connects to deliver an overall story of generosity, trust and friendship, with a thoughtful twist I didn't see coming. Plus, Pauliina Hannuniemi's cover and interior black and white illustrations are just beautiful. If there's ever a time to judge a book by its cover this is that book! Rich, unique, and thrumming with possibilities, I heartily and highly recommend this stunning story. Get your copy from Bookshop UK here. WHAT TO READ NEXT Check out my interview with author Karah Sutton here, where we talk about the inspiration behind A Wolf for a Spell, favourite myths, where we'd go if we had a chicken house for the day and dinner party guests!

Congratulations Karah on the publication of your dazzling debut A Wolf for a Spell! A beautiful blend of adventure, magic and myth, A Wolf for a Spell tells the mesmerising tale of Zima, a fearless wolf, who forms an unlikely alliance with Baba Yaga to save her pack and the forest from the wicked tsar. What was the original inspiration behind this? I think the very earliest moment was about 5 years ago, while rewatching one of my favorite childhood movies called The 10th Kingdom. The movie follows a woman who is transported into a world where fairytales really happened. She encounters a lot of fairytale-inspired characters, my favorite of which is a not-so-big-bad Wolf. I started thinking about how I'd love a story about just that character: a wolf who wants to prove that they aren't the villain. It wasn't a big leap from there to imagine the wolf encountering a witch who also isn't as evil as the stories say. Rooted in Russian mythology, what first attracted you to this folklore, and did you carry out much research during the writing process? My mom is Russian and Polish, so I've loved Russian fairytales since childhood. This was what really excited me as I worked on the book — realizing that I could combine this idea of a wolf-as-hero with the wolf from the Russian fairytale Ivan Tsarevich, the Firebird, and the Gray Wolf. For research I reread a lot of my favorite stories again, but the bigger bulk of the research was in trying to depict imperial Russian culture. Most of the fairytales are quite vague in their descriptions — they mention tsars, and castles, and fine dresses — but having to paint a picture for the reader took a lot more historical research than I was expecting. In addition to texts about history, I referenced poetry and paintings, because I wanted to capture the feeling of being immersed in a place, and not just details like what kinds of shoes they wore or what food a villager might have eaten. What’s your favourite myth? There was a Hans Christian Andersen story called The Traveling Companion. On the surface it's about a young man who is traveling after his father's death, defeats a troll, and marries a princess. But it has a twist that totally blew me away when I was six years old, and I reread it constantly. I don't want to give the ending away! You should read it. If you had a house with chicken legs for the day, where would you go? Right now? To Kentucky. I was just about to travel back from New Zealand to Kentucky when the pandemic hit. I'm very grateful to be safe here, but not being able to visit my family has been difficult, like it has for everyone. At any other time... maybe Iceland? It depends on whether or not the hut is a good swimmer. A Wolf for a Spell is told from the perspectives of Zima the wolf, Nadya, and Baba Yaga. Did you face any particular challenges balancing these three voices and identifying with each character? I originally wrote the book entirely from Zima's point of view. But there was a problem in that Baba Yaga is on a quest of her own throughout much of the book, and readers kept telling me that they wanted to know more about where she was and what she was doing. The addition of Nadya's voice was actually very late in revisions. It was my editor Katherine who said that the book is all about a conflict between wolves, witches, and humans, and it would provide a nice symmetry to have chapters from all three. I loved the idea, and once I started playing around with shifting scenes to be from Nadya's perspective, I found that it added a lot to the story, and clarified some of the twists and turns. So it was actually a really satisfying process! Throughout your story you explore themes surrounding resilience, solidarity and belonging. What do you hope readers take away from A Wolf for a Spell? I think a key thing is deciding for yourself who you trust and who you care about. In the beginning the characters are all very frightened and suspicious of each other, because they've heard stories about wolves or witches or villagers being evil. And while some of them are, many are not. A Wolf for a Spell is your debut novel, why was writing this book important to you, and do you have any tips/advice for aspiring authors? It's hard to say why this book in particular was important, because there were a number of books that I wrote before it that were also special. But something about this story made me persevere. I kept revisiting and rewriting. When I got frustrated and put it away for a time, I kept returning to it. This was the book that persisted. And that's probably the key advice really: persist. Keep writing, keep querying, keep trying. So much of this business is the luck of sending the right book to the right person at the right time. The only way to improve those odds is by starting the next book, and the next after that. What’s next for your writing journey? I'm writing another middle grade book for Knopf! This one has swans in it. This question is about your favourite children’s/YA books. What’s a book you loved as a child, a book you love now, and a book you can’t wait to read? Loved as a child: Ella Enchanted Love now: Eva Evergreen, Semi-Magical Witch by Julie Abe. This book is like eating cookies while wrapped in a warm blanket. Can't Wait to Read: Sorry I'm going to cheat and name several! Cece Rios and the Desert of Souls by Kaela Rivera, Josephine Against the Sea by Shakirah Bourne, The Gilded Girl by Alyssa Colman, and The Last Fallen Star by Graci Kim. If you could invite any five people – past and present, real and fictional – who would you invite and why? Jim Henson, Jane Austen, Stephen Sondheim, Anne Shirley, and Leonardo da Vinci. I have no idea how well they would get along! Karah Sutton is a former bookseller and a current children’s author. A Wolf for a Spell is inspired by her Russian heritage and the fairytales that have enchanted her since childhood. She splits her time between her home town in Kentucky and a house by the sea in New Zealand. https://karahsutton.com/// Twitter @Karahdactyl

By Henry Carroll Illustrated by Rose Blake Sharpen your pencils, dust off your sketch pads and get ready to channel your inner artistic spirit with Henry Carroll and Rose Blake's glorious guide to Be a Super Awesome Artist! From getting grubby with Andy Goldsworthy to exploring dimension with Rachel Beach and imagining the surreal with René Magritte, Carroll brings together 20 spectacular art challenges from the great masters themselves. Along with useful tips and nifty know-hows, Carroll also covers the artist essentials like, perfect pencil pointers and creating complementary colours, to including a fascinating timeline of art history. Illustrator Rose Blake, who also illustrated the fantastic, A History of Picture for Children, adds a characteristic charm and warmth to each page. I particularly loved Blake's own interpretation of each of the challenges in something as simple as the numbers 1 through to 20. Whether you work through the challenges in order or pick a page at random children will be painting like Pollock, doodling like Duchamp and creating like Kahlo in no time! Bluebird's favourite challenge... Be a pop star like Roy Lichtenstein! Be bright and bold with colours and context in this comic inspired challenge. IF YOU LOVED THIS, TRY...

By Malcolm Duffy In this unflinching, heartfelt story about homelessness, award-winning author Malcolm Duffy brings the all too real plight of life on the streets to your doorstep and immediately demands complete attention and action from the very first sentence, ‘You never forget the day you lose your home. I lost mine on a Tuesday.’ 15-year-old Tyler’s world is turned upside down when his family uproot and leave London for a new life in Ilkley, Yorkshire. Angry, upset and bored, Tyler finds comfort in swimming at the local lido and quickly come to befriend Spider – a sofa surfer teen down on luck and about to be without a sofa. As Tyler is drawn deeper into a world he never knew existed, he finds himself spinning a tangled web of lies in his efforts to help Spider escape a world of fear and insecurity. As thoughtful as it is eye-opening, Duffy, with great consideration and sensitivity, refuses to give space to the negative stereotypes and connotations associated with homelessness. Rather, through the character of Spider, a vulnerable teenage girl, reinforces the reality that homelessness is a universal situation and impartial to any age, gender or race. For any reader, but particularly the intended YA readership, the terrifying and dangerous reality of homelessness feels otherworldly but Sofa Surfer shines an uncompromising light on just how real and relatable this issue is. Spider could easily be a friend, or a classmate, and it’s this urgent thought that will ignite empathy and inspire action in all its readers. Duffy doesn’t shy away from the gritty and difficult descriptions of life on the streets but, and by no means overshadowing the importance, he uses his skill and platform to bring hope and heart to a naturally very heavy subject, and with his undeniable trademark humour has you holding down laughter. Masterfully weaved into this is a courageous coming of age tale of belonging, friendship, and the importance of empathy and understanding. I loved both Tyler and Spider’s characters. Despite navigating polar opposite situations both characters came off relatable and admirable, but it was their sheer tenacity and trust for one another that had me holding my breath and racing towards the end of this unforgettable story. Truthful, compelling and fearlessly insightful, Sofa Surfer, without any shadow of a doubt, lives up to the promise of Duffy’s acclaimed and powerful debut, Me Mam. Me Dad. Me. Duffy has once again showcased his talent for writing timely and topical narratives whilst never losing humour and heart. A worthy, highly recommended, read. I look forward to what Malcolm Duffy gifts us with next. IF YOU LOVED THIS, TRY...

Your YA debut, A Jigsaw of Fire and Stars, powerfully intertwines myth and magic with the haunting realities of Europe’s migration crisis. What was the original inspiration behind this? A Jigsaw of Fire and Stars was in gestation a long time. I remember going to a preview of the 1990 British drama, The March, written by William Nicholson for ‘One World Week’ and being struck by how visceral the issue of migration from the South to Europe is. In The March, a charismatic Muslim leader from Sudan leads 250,00 Africans on a 3,000-mile march towards Europe with the slogan ‘We are poor because you are rich.’ What’s happening at the moment is that war and the climate crisis often compels migration. I wanted to look at this from the viewpoint of a YA, my narrator, Sante, who’s tries to make sense of her situation by finding the traffickers responsible for her parents’ deaths. Another inspiration is that as a migrant myself, questions of identity and belonging are never far away. They’re always present, and at times can become fraught when politicians use fear of migration to whip up hatred of outsiders. A Jigsaw of Fire and Stars is set around the beautiful Mediterranean. Why this location? A Jigsaw of Fire and Stars is set in southern Spain, Andalusia, an incredibly beautiful part of the world. Most of the action takes place in the city of Cadiz, where I spent a year in the late 80’s teaching English as a foreign language and writing an early draft of my first adult novel, True Murder. I’ve visited Cadiz and friends in Andalusia ever since. It’s one of my spiritual homes. If you were to join Mama Rose’s circus, what would your circus skill be? Ha! Good question! I’d like to be as lithe and acrobatic as the gymnast Simon Biles but since that’s never going to happen, I’ll have to join the circus as a storyteller! Your writing is infused with beautiful African folklores. Did you face any particular challenges balancing this magic with the realism of trafficking, refugees and displacement? I’m very lucky to have an excellent editor at Zephyr/Head of Zeus, Fiona Kennedy. I trust her to let me know if I’m gone OTT. But to be honest, I found it useful mixing elements of the supernatural and magic with themes as traumatic as refugees, trafficking and displacement. Without a spark of otherworldliness, I think I’d find the themes too depressing to tackle. What gravitates you to writing magical realism novels? Life is magical. Life is a miracle. Being able to see and breathe, move about and talk to strangers and friends is a huge adventure. And when you start peeling away the layers of peoples’ lives and histories, I’m in awe at the thrill of being alive. My stories are a product of this gift. Stories are my way of looking at the world and trying to make sense of it, I suppose. They’re my way of finding purpose in everyday events by fusing them with the simplicity of fairy tales, while allowing my characters to achieve amazing things. What’s your favourite Ghanaian myth? In the oral traditions of West Africa, stories are everywhere. For example, the clothes we wear, their colour, the symbols on them and specific designs, have names and meanings, which many people know. The same goes for music and dance. If stories and music are the life blood of culture, we have it in spades. The most famous Ghanaian stories are Ananse folk tales, which travelled to North America with West Africans captured and sold as slaves. The tales of Ananse the spider/man were transformed into the tales of Brer Rabbit, the trickster. I suspect myths are created where history meets religion and magic. If that’s the case, my favourite myth is about the creation of the Ashanti Empire. The story goes that Okomfo Anokye – a priest of traditional African religion worked closely with the first King of Ashanti, Osei Tutu, to create an empire. The golden stool, which according to legend Osei Tutu managed to conjure down from the sky, is a symbol of the Ashanti Empire and is said to have magical powers. Makes for a great story, doesn’t it? What do you hope readers take away from Sante’s story? I hope readers enjoy Sante’s story enough to identify with her and follow her search to know more about her birth family and where she comes from. I also hope that they relish Sante’s sense of adventure and drive for justice; and that once they’ve finished, they’ll recommend the story to their friends. Word of mouth is powerful! Location, homelands and sacred sites are really important in Wolf Light, what made you choose Cornwall, Mongolia and Ghana as primal settings? I chose those settings because I love Cornwall and have good friends who used to live there. I know Ghana as well and I visited Gobi Altai in Mongolia, a couple of times when I was making a documentary series for ITV. In Wolf Light I wanted to write about locations and communities that are very different. Locations close to water, forest and desert, which tell us something about the impact of the climate crisis in parts of the world where, traditionally, people experienced their connection to the environment as sacred. In Wolf Light we witness heartbreaking climate disasters and environmental destructions. How much of an impact can storytelling for children and young adults have on protecting and preserving the environment? If you believe as I do, that it’s our ability to tell stories that makes us human, I have great confidence that stories, combined with imagination, have the power to change lives – if only through imagining a future for ourselves which will be better and kinder for the planet we live on. Your three heroines are such admirable, empowering and fierce characters. Where did you get your inspiration to write your characters for Wolf Light? That’s a really hard question to answer. Where do characters come from? Are they neglected parts of ourselves seeking expression? Or aspects of people we’ve admired that have taken root in our unconscious minds? I find that some characters find their way on to the page easier than others. In Wolf Light, Adoma from Ghana was great fun to write, as was Zula from Mongolia. I had to work harder to open up to Linnet from Cornwall, but when she came through, I really enjoyed writing her and I’m tempted to return to write more about water witches in Celtic mythology. What’s next for your writing journey? I’m busy finishing the first draft of a novel – Lionheart Girl. Born into a family of West African witches, Sheba’s terrified of her mother who can turn into a crow. After Sheba learns to shape-shift as well, she must protect the hunted from the hunter – mother. What’s the last ‘armchair travel’ book you read? I’m going to cheat in my answer to this question because I suspect that every book I read is, in one way or another, a ‘travel’ book. Don’t we travel into someone else’s imagination in every story we read? Don’t we enter new worlds when we pick up non-fiction books? The last non-fiction book I wolfed down was Anna Funder’s Stasiland, which a friend recommended some years ago after I started raving about the film The Lives of Others written and directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmark. Stasiland plunges you into the fraught lives of East Germans before the fall of the Berlin Wall. It’s a wonderful account of a strange, secretive world of uncertainty and betrayal. Does travelling have a big impact on your writing? Travelling has a HUGE impact on my writing. I think the best part of travelling is the opportunity to give mind and body space to relax and imagine new worlds and possibilities. I wouldn’t have been able to write The Secret of the Purple Lake – a collection of inter-connected fairy stories for younger children without spending time on Rousay, in Orkney, Andalusia in Spain, the island of Kho Samui in Thailand, and coastal Ghana. While in Rousay, I felt a Viking vibe and underneath that a love of seals and mermaids. A belief in Mami Water – sea and water spirits - is rife along the coast of West Africa. And having spent time in Spain, I definitely sensed the ghosts of the Moors and Islam wherever I went in Andalusia. I certainly wouldn’t have been able to set A Jigsaw of Fire and Stars in Cadiz if I hadn’t a great deal of time there and got to know the city quite well. This question is about your favourite children’s/YA books. What’s a book you loved as a child, a book you love now, and a book you can’t wait to read? I loved reading as a child, especially Grimms’ Fairy Tales. I was a sucker for Greek Myths, Robin Hood and His Merry Men, and tales of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. Books I enjoy now are Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials; Michelle Paver’s Chronicles of Ancient Darkness; and Sally Gardner’s, I Corinader and Maggot Moon. There’s a stack of books I’m eager to read. Among them are: The Ghost of Gosswater by Lucy Strange; Rawblood by Catriona Ward and The Wolf Road by Richard Lambert. If you could invite any five people – past and present, real and fictional – who would you invite and why? Mmmm. I think I’d enjoy hosting a dinner party for fierce, powerful women who’ve fired my imagination. First up is pharaoh, Queen Hatshepsut, a very canny political operator who ruled on behalf of her son for much longer than he wanted. I visited her temple in Deir el-Bahri as a guest of the Luxor African Film Festival and was blown away. I’d invite Yaa Asantewaa, the queen mother of Ejisu in the Ashanti Empire, who’s famous for leading the Ashanti rebellion against British colonialism to defend the Golden Stool. Next up is Amanirenas, Kandake of Kush, a one-eyed warrior queen who led the Kushite armies into against the Romans and defeated them. As a schoolchild I enjoyed hearing the story of Boudica, queen of the British Celtic Iceni tribe who led an uprising against the conquering forces of the Roman Empire. Finally, I’ll ask Nina Simone to join us. I love her music and exult in her talent. Finally, we’d love to know three random and/or interesting facts about yourself! I adore eating cold Ambrosia rice pudding out of the tin. My favourite colour is turquoise. I’ve never learnt how to ride a bicycle. Yaba Badoe is an award-winning Ghanaian-British documentary filmmaker and writer. A graduate of King's College Cambridge, she has taught in Spain, Jamaica and Ghana. Her short stories for adults have been published in Critical Quarterly and in African Love Stories: An Anthology, edited by Ama Ata Aidoo. In 2014 Yaba was nominated for the Distinguished Woman of African Cinema award. Her debut novel, A Jigsaw of Fire and Stars, published by Zephyr, was shortlisted for the Branford Boase Award 2018 and has been nominated for the 2019 Carnegie Medal. Yaba is based in London. Follow Yaba on Twitter @yaba_badoe.

By Karen M. McManus Bestselling author Karen M. McManus is back with another electrifying thriller rooted in sinister secrets, fractured families and an inheritance that some would even kill for... The Story family are the envy of their neighbours: owners of the largest property on their East Coast island, they are rich, beautiful, and close. Until it all falls apart. The four children are suddenly dropped by their mother with a single sentence: You know what you did. And with it they never hear from her again. Years later, when 18-year-old cousins Aubrey, Milly and Jonah Story receive a mysterious invitation to spend the summer at their grandmother's resort, they have no choice but to follow their curiosity and meet the woman who's been such an enigma their entire lives. But a family and legacy built on secrets and lies is bound to come crashing down sooner or later, and the cousins are determined to discover the truth at the heart of it all. Satisfyingly suspenseful with a plot twist only Karen M. McManus can pull off, The Cousins will be devoured by McManus fans and new readers alike. But did it reach the jaw-dropping heights of the renowned One of Us Is Lying series? For me, not so much. The action felt disconnected, the pacing slow yet skilfully measured, the characters flat, and an ending that felt rushed and underwhelming.. The Cousins is more cosy mystery then it is gripping thriller. But I'm blaming it on the grand (unrealistic?) expectations that I craved from McManus's previous books. Just a quick scroll on Goodreads and you'll be inundated with 5 star reviews for this book, so a worthy read for many. More by Karen M. McManus IF YOU LOVED THIS, TRY...

By Susannah Lloyd Illustrated by Paddy Donnelly A glorious, rip-roaring, laugh-out-loud, girls-rule picture book from an exciting, creative duo! In Here Be Dragons one hapless, hilarious knight makes it his mission to go find and slay a dragon and prove the other unruly knights wrong. Past treasure and bones, up a suspiciously spiky dragon-like hill and into a cave of pearly white chompers, will the knight spot the dragon before it's too late... or will a fearless damsel step in and save the day?! With eccentric old-English jargon and superb illustrations that cleverly incorporate the dragon into the landscape, Here Be Dragons is a wildly witty and wonderfully wholesome gem that little readers will adore. IF YOU LOVED THESE YOU'LL LOVE HERE BE DRAGONS

Picture Books Middle Grade and YA Short Stories Non-Fiction