Hello readers another book review today for you to get your teeth into. I love reading books that are for a younger age group because they often have such an enjoyable silly nature to them. Don’t get me wrong give me a complex crime thriller or a riveting historical fiction any day but children’s book are brilliant at giving me a little respite and I adored this one. Get ready for one hell of a positive review. If you haven’t seen I have put all my reviews on Amazon now (fingers crossed I haven’t missed any) so for anyone that was waiting for one, I’ve finally bitten the bullet and done that. I pinky-swear to put them up as they get reviewed on mylittlebookblog going forwards frommmmm now! For now onto the review, and you might want to make a pot of tea for this one.

Sky Swift lives happily in a cosy home with her mother. She enjoys the simpler things in life like drinking tea, munching biscuits, oh and sniffing everything. One day evil pays a visit.

Her world has changed forever. Stalked by an evil tea bag and chased by an evil tea company that will stop at nothing to get her.

They want her for their wicked plan.

Sky is in trouble. She needs help.

But who can she turn to?

So this review starts with a slight confession, up until a couple of months ago I despised tea, and to a point I still do. Now, I know this basically means that I should be stripped of my British title but I just can’t stand the stuff. I do however often enjoy a peppermint tea (which although not the same is I guess a little better? Maybe, maybe not.) Either way this book revolves almost entirely around tea. As you can see from the quite short blurb it follows the lovely Sky who loves a good cup of tea. One day whilst munching a few too many biscuits, an odd man from McSorely’s tea turns up on the doorstep.

With terrible smelling breath and a penchant for licking his moustache, he scratches Sky’s mum leaving her in a terrible state, and kidnaps Sky. She escapes and is rescued by Rex who takes her to his secret hideaway. All whilst this is happening Sky is chased by an evil tea-bag: keeping up okay? After dodging the flesh eating gorillas, she meets the rest of the gang; Alice and Joe. Here she learns that each of them has a special skill to do with tea, explaining Sky’s need to sniff everything. They go on a rip-rolling adventure to work out how to disarm the evil tea bags and save River (Sky’s mum) who is currently in a coma. As they start digging they learn that there is more to the plans of the evil tea company. Can they stop the evil Tea Lady and the tea master? Can they save River?

I think I’ve got that all in; there’s a lot to this book and I know as a younger reader I would have adored this not that I didn’t at the ripe old age of twenty-one. I thought the plot was wonderfully devised, just enough silly bits and bobs but a real understanding of how to construct a story whilst keeping it fun and exciting. I thought Sky was wonderfully written; she’s a little quiet and timid but as the story continues she develops a much more gutsy attitude. Rex is a little stuck-up and acts a lot older than his years but his sweet nature and his pain for the loss of his family is written brilliantly. Favourite character hands down: Terminate, the friendly gorilla who can’t stop kissing people. I know that would definitely have kept me in fits of giggles.

I thought the plot moved with pace and dexterity. There’s a lot to fit in and there is a switching of time zones (throughout the book we get little snippets as to how and why all of this started.) The writing has just enough description to help paint a picture of the landscape without getting bogged down. I think however what I liked best was the little details that the author has so cleverly woven in; the tea-bags being able to talk, the tree house (their secret-hideaway,) the way the tea Master turns Mister Snickering’s face inside out to punish him and the way they both talk, oh and the fact that Mister Snickering’s car drives itself so that he can go for a nap on the way; that sounds, well, brilliant. I don’t want to spoil this because it all works together so well, but trust me it’s just enough silly to be entertaining but not to ludicrous. Although we are talking about evil talking tea-bags.

Overall I thoroughly enjoyed this book, it’s witty, silly, but well thought-through and brilliantly written. Thumbs-up.

Links

Amazon