Well aren’t we the busy little bees?! Hope you have all been enjoying our posts throughout June? There have been reviews, author interviews, giveaways and we’ve started getting some author guest posts now, too. July will bring more of the same for you. You can expect lots more reviews, brought to you by our Bookbabbler review panel, more books For Little Ones, author Q&A’s and you can expect guest posts from Sue Limb, Sophia Bennett and Simon Cheshire, to name but a few.

Now, onto what we’ll be reading together this month:

Ballet Shoes – Noel Streatfeild

Pauline, Petrova and Posy are found as orphaned babies in different parts of the world by eccentric fossil collector and explorer Gum. He adopts them, takes them to his London home and leaves them in the care of his niece Sylvia and the family Nurse. Then off he goes to continue his exploring, saying that he’ll be back in five years’ time. When the three little girls are old enough, they choose the surname Fossil for themselves and vow to make the name famous. At first they lead privileged and sheltered lives. But when Gum fails to return after five years, Sylvia’s money begins to run out. First she is forced to take in some boarders – an engaging and eclectic mix of characters – but then she decides that the girls should go to acting school. This way they will be able to earn some money before they grow up. Pauline adores the school, as she dreams of becoming an actress. Petrova hates it, all she wants to do is learn about cars and planes and engines. Posy loves it too – she is born to be a dancer and the school is the perfect place for her.

Skulduggery Pleasant – Derek Landy

Meet the great Skulduggery Pleasant: wise-cracking detective, powerful magician, master of dirty tricks and burglary (in the name of the greater good, of course). Oh yeah. And dead. Then there’s his sidekick, Stephanie. She’s! well, she’s a twelve-year-old girl. With a pair like this on the case, evil had better watch out! “So you won’t keep anything from me again?” He put his hand to his chest. “Cross my heart and hope to die.” “Okay then. Though you don’t actually have a heart,” she said. “I know.” “And technically, you’ve already died.” “I know that too.” “Just so we’re clear.” Stephanie’s uncle Gordon is a writer of horror fiction. But when he dies and leaves her his estate, Stephanie learns that while he may have written horror, it certainly wasn’t fiction. Pursued by evil forces intent on recovering a mysterious key, Stephanie finds help from an unusual source — the wisecracking skeleton of a dead wizard. When all hell breaks loose, it’s lucky for Skulduggery that he’s already dead. Though he’s about to discover that being a skeleton doesn’t stop you from being tortured, if the torturer is determined enough. And if there’s anything Skulduggery hates, it’s torture! Will evil win the day? Will Stephanie and Skulduggery stop bickering long enough to stop it? One thing’s for sure: evil won’t know what’s hit it.

Gimme A Call – Sarah Mlynowski

“See, I was at the mall and I dropped my phone into the fountain. And I had been thinking about all the things I would tell myself if I could call myself when I was fourteen. And now I’m talking to you.”
“What,” I say slowly, “are you talking about?” I would hang up, should hang up, but she sounds so familiar.
“Don’t you see?” she says, bursting with excitement. “I’m pretty sure I’m you. In the future.”

Devi is a mess. Her boyfriend just dumped her, and the only college that accepted her is known to everyone as ‘Stupid State’. But suddenly, she can talk to herself three-and-a-half years earlier – which means she can totally change her future for the better! Either that, or create hilarious and disastrous consequences…

All of our Book of the Month choices were inspired by our Bookbabbler review panel this month. We’re looking forward to reading them all – hope you are, too! Tell us all which book you’ll be reading in our poll on the left. All books now have a thread in our forum, so go babble about them together..

June already?! Well that can only mean one thing – we’re onto some new books for the month.. Hope you all enjoyed last month’s – there’s been a few chats in the forum about them so we know some of your views. If you’ve read them, do go share. We’re also excited, as today we get to pick the winners of all our launch month freebies – if it’s you, we’ll be in touch soon! And our review panel will be formed this week, too – it just gets better and better…!

Anyway, this month we’ll be reading and babbling about:

The Butterfly Lion – Michael Morpurgo

A lyrical and moving tale of a young boy growing up in Africa, and his lifelong friendship with a white lion. “All my life I’ll think you you, I promise I will. I won’t ever forget you.” Bertie rescues an orphaned white lion cub from the African veld. They are inseparable until Bertie is sent to boarding school far away in England and the lion is sold to a circus. Bertie swears that one day they will see one another again, but it is the butterfly lion which ensures that their friendship will never be forgotten.

Find out more about the author at www.michaelmorpurgo.com.

The Dragonfly Pool – Eva Ibbotson

Tally Hamilton is furious to hear she is being sent from London to a horrid, stuffy boarding school in the countryside. And all because of the stupid war. But Delderton Hall is a far more interesting place than Tally ever imagined, and an exciting school trip to the beautiful and luscious kingdom of Bergania whisks Tally into an unexpected adventure . . . will she be able to save her new friend, Prince Tamil, before it’s too late?

We’ve added Eva’s page to one of our favourites on Facebook, so pop along to find out more.

The Star Shack – Lila Castle

Pete and Annabelle always believed they were a perfect pair-until junior year, when Annabelle became obsessed with astrology. Now they can hardly stand each other. Pete thinks Annabelle has become a total flake; she thinks he’s an uptight jerk. To prove her point, Annabelle dares Pete to open a summer business on the boardwalk giving advice based on the stars. ”You and me and an astrology booth. I dare you.” Annabelle knows Pete can never say no to a dare. Together they’ll run the Star Shack and read visitors’ charts for romance and see what happens. Will a simple dare lead to a summer to remember or to something even more?

Out this month, this is Lila’s debut novel. We’re following her on Twitter and will be bringing you our chat with her here soon.

Hopefully there’s something for everyone there. As always, we’ll enjoy reading all 3 anyway. All of them have been added to our shop now so go grab a copy and vote in our poll to tell us all which one you’ll be reading.

Happy reading!

May is just round the corner already, so what will we be reading this month?

Fallen – Lauren Kate

What if the person you were meant to be with could never be yours? 17-year-old Lucinda falls in love  with a gorgeous, intelligent boy, Daniel, at her new school, the grim, foreboding Sword & Cross …only to  find out that Daniel is a fallen angel, and that they have spent lifetimes finding and losing one another as  good & evil forces plot to keep them apart. Some angels are destined to fall…

Granny – Anthony Horowitz

Twelve-year-old Joe Warden isn’t happy. He has rich, uncaring parents and is virtually a prisoner in the huge family mansion, Thattlebee Hall. Worst of all, though, is his granny. Not only is she physically repulsive, she’s horribly mean. She has the look in her eye of a predatory crocodile and Joe starts to suspect that she has unpleasant designs on him. But what are they and how can he foil them?

Chips, Beans and Limousines – Leila Rasheed

Bathsheba Clarice de Trop thinks she’s a star. Well, her mum is a world-famous novelist whose books are all about the amazing adventures of her fabulous daughter, and of course the stories must be true. But when Bathsheba is confronted by her down-and-out father, and discovers that her role in the fantastic new Bathsheba film will be played by hot US actress Avocado Dieppe, she has to face reality. She might not be as famous as she liked to think, but maybe she can still be a star in her own right.

Pick whichever one appeals to you, or read all three with us. The books have been added to our book shop to make it easy for you to get a copy. To find out more about the authors, a link to their website is on our LitBits page and check out our Q&A with Leila Rasheed in our post on 17.04.2010 . Each book’s got a thread created for it in the forum, ready for you to go in and get chatting about it as soon as you want.

Until then, happy reading!

Hello! Bookbabblers – the online book group for kids and young adults – is here! We have arrived, and invite you to join us. For our first month, April, we are reading:

The Wind Singer – William Nicholson

The first part of a planned trilogy, this fast-moving fantasy conjures up exciting and extraordinary images.  It is set in the imaginary city of Aramanth, in which citizens must continuously pass exams to get on in  society. Kestrel Hath rebels against the system, and is forced to flee Aramanth. She takes up the quest to  find and bring back the voice of the ‘wind singer’ that she thinks is destined to free the city.

The BFG – Roald Dahl

A tale of a girl and a vegetarian giant with an odd manner of speaking, who together save the country from Fleshlumpeater, Bonecruncher, Gizzardgulper and other hideous giants.

Glass Houses – Rachel Caine

College freshman Claire Danvers has had enough of her nightmarish dorm situation, where the popular girls  never let her forget just where she ranks in the school’s social scene: somewhere less than zero. When      Claire  heads off-campus, the imposing old house where she finds a room may not be much better. Her new    roommates don’t show many signs of life, but they come out fighting when the town’s deepest secrets come  crawling out, hungry for fresh blood…

It’s entirely up to you which one you fancy reading, let age be no barrier! We’ll be reading all three anyway. If you’ve already read them, join in and start babbling about them. If you’re going to read them with us during April, perhaps don’t go to the ‘Book of the Month’ forum posts until you’re finished as we’d hate to spoil the end for anyone!!

If you fancy finding out a bit more about the authors of our books this month, or other stuff they’ve written, try the following links:

www.roalddahl.com

www.williamnicholson.com

www.rachelcaine.com

Check out the websites, read the books and join us in our first month and get babbling!! We look forward to welcoming you..

We’re brand new so are in the middle of building contacts with publishers and authors to make sure we can bring you loads of info and news here first. We are updating our progress on twitter so follow us by clicking on the link at the top of the page to keep up with us, and of course, click the link on the right to get this emailed to you whenever we update it. We will be updating it shortly with next month’s reads, so to make sure you’re getting your copy ready, get our emails! Thanks x