loved it!

Lovely to have a book that we didn't know the ending for. The rhyming is great and keeps you moving through the book at a good pace and it is beautifully illustrated in a fun way with lots of little details that aren't immediately obvious so you can keep coming back to it and spotting more. Our 11 month old is really starting to enjoy it and my husband has also remarked on this being one his favourite books to read to her.

best so far!

brilliant. best of the series so far as it really develpos different sides to the characters and, as always, brings in new members of"the dark". Although i read this book in two nights (due to being used to robert jordan sized books) i really enjoyed it. I'm just anoyed i have to wait for the next of the series!

A gorgoeus treat for children

This book is just perfect for toddlers. "Puff the Magic Dragon" song needs no introduction - but the illustrations are just so beautiful that it brings the whole song to life and it's so magical, it almost brings a tear to my eye reading it. The new version on the CD is so tranquil and my 2-yr old daughter asks for it every night (my wife loves it too!)

good book but...

If you have read all the darren shan books then you wil know that this is the worst one yet. i have loved all of his books so far(except blood beast) it isnt to bad but the plot is quite bad like when one of the characters randomly explodes for no reason. and Zombies... but i wont ruin the plot for everyone...

I can't believe the overall rating for this book!

I have always been a lover of chick lit, Marian Keyes, Jane Green, love 'em all for a bit of light reading. So I've been eyeing the Sophie Kinsella books for a while and finally picked up 'Can You Keep a Secret?'...oh dear. Unfortunately I cannot keep the secret of how much I hated this book! Sadly I am the sort of person who cannot leave a book once I've started it and so I stayed until the bitter end.

I have never written a negative review (I would simply stay silent) so I'm very sorry Ms Kinsella. However, I have had to suffer an entire book where the plotline is so painfully obvious and the heroine was such an utter moron that if I were to meet someone like that I would shake her by the shoulders and tell her to stop being such an idiotic wimp! As the reader, I am generally meant to feel some sort of sympathy or empathy with the main character in these types of book, not so in this case. Emma Corrigan is an imbecile and the type of 'friend' one would tend to avoid at all costs. Nothing the character does is remotely realistic and the only reason I give this book 1 star is because if Emma can end up with a rich successful boyfriend AND a promotion, then there is hope for us all! Although I really think this is stretching the meaning of 'fiction' to it's outer limits, maybe it should be reclassified under 'fantasy'.

Usually I share my books with my friends and family or give them to the charity shop when I've finished with them. This time I simply left it on the bus and walked away. Now I'm off to pick up some Aldous Huxley in attempt to get some of those brain cells back...

Very sweet, we like it already

A friend bought this book for our son's Christmas because she said she had loved it herself as a child. We just dug it out this week, and already our little boy (20 months) is hooked. He loves identifying all the bits & bobs in the pictures (for some reason the brushes were especially fascinating tonight), and I like speculating what on earth inspired Judith Kerr to write the story, because it is very very odd.

Our household is terribly old-fashioned in that my husband works and I stay at home to look after our son, and we do like to go out for dinner sometimes, so this book is especially appealing to us because it sort of reflects our life. I just hope that if any tigers do come to tea, they will be as polite and smiley as the tiger in this book!

Heartbreaking

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's triumphs with her first book which is engrossing for those who love evocative, emotional stories.

The very sad and harrowing story is told against the backdrop of Nigeria's political upheaval in the 1960s. Kambili, a 15 year old girl is subjected to a daily, stifling ritual that has been set by her father, a fanatical follower of Catholicism who is also brutal towards his children and wife.

I felt so desperately sad for Kambili and her brother Jaja because they are voiceless as well as oppressed and are routinely subjected to domestic brutality that belies the familiy's outward appearance. Instead of being a refuge, their home is a prison and you want them to escape. Thankfully, a momentary release comes in the guise of their Aunt, their father's sister and both children realise that their domestic situation is not normal nor acceptable. The story unfolds with an unexpected turn of events and at the end, you wonder if Kambili or Jaja will ever find peace or true happiness.

A heartbreaking but thought-provoking tale.

EXCELLENT

My daughter has loved this book from the day she got it at 18months. It is still a firm favourite and I never get tired of reading it. How she is talking she tells me what is coming before I turn the page and I awlays receive a big hug on the final page. I totaly recommend 5stars!

Another great mythical tale for Percy Jackson

Well i read this a few weeks ago. n i have to say it didnt let me down. The series has far surpassed my favorite series of books Artemis Fowl which takes some doing.
Percy once again finds him self on a quest with Anabeth and Grover and the return of Tyson. Luke has discovered the ancient labyrinth from the greek myths and hopes to lead Kronoses forces through to destroy camp half blood. It introduced some more interesting characters such as new love interests n further developes the relationships with Percy and Annabeth.
The writing is brilliant as ever and wont let you put this book down, each chapter remaining as exciting as the last. I wont tell you what happens in the book as its too good to be spoiled like that..

I highly reccommend this to all. Its taken this superb series of books even further and i simply cant wait for the next.

Giant Teacups. You Just Can't Go Wrong

Lola is very excited because Marv is bringing his little brother Morten round to play, and Lola has lots of plans for Morten, all of which Morten, who seems to be chronically shy, doesn't seem to have a lot of say in. It ends well, as usual, but with that nicely ambiguous mix of morality and what children are actually like and what children actually do, which makes these books so appealing.

This has the usual top class illustrations. I love Child's style, the cut and paste, scrapbook mixed with line drawing and other media. It's fascinating to see what materials she has mixed up to create such child friendly illustrations. This may seem common now, but this type of illustration and the mixing of font styles and uneven lines of type was pioneered by Child.

All my kids love Charlie and Lola. This book is one of my 18 month old son's favourites. He loves the bold colours and the giant teacup motifs in particular. We never read it just the once, it's always a several times type story.

The boy in striped pyjamas

I read this on holiday. I have a keen interest in the second world war. I was very disappointed. Although I understand that the book is totally fiction, I felt that the writer hadn't really done enough research into it and that It was as though a child had written a short story about the war.

Great for babies AND parents!

This is our 4 month old son's favourite book, as indicated by his rapt attention and animated arm and leg waving on certain pages. All the pages have bold colours, and the small amount of text on each page has a rhythmic quality that makes it enjoyable to read aloud and keeps little'n engrossed. He particularly likes the lion page, although this might be in part due to his dad (me) performing a load"Roar!" at this point. I'll update review when our son is old enough to read it himself.

Revisionist history?

I'm somewhat confused about the plot of this one. It seems to me that Faith was more than redeemed during S7 of the show and more than made up for her previous evil and mistakes. Seems rather churlish to be talking about wiping the slate clean after that!

The contemporary equivalent to 'In Search of Excellence'

This strong text is the contemporary equivalent of 'In Search of Excellence' that every self-respecting manager had on their bookshelf during the 1980s. Time will tell if the conclusions of this book are any more reliable than Peters & Waterman's contribution.

The pretext of this book is 'how do you take a good company and make it great?' Finding case studies to answer this question is no easy task and the research team set about it by finding companies that performed at the industry average for 15 years, then outperformed the market for the next 15 years by a factor of 3:1.

The team then interview and investigate the companies themselves and come up with some interesting and thought provoking findings. Out of these investigations come some concepts that will have enduring impact on management discourse - the most notable of which is the concept of a Level 5 leader (a person combining personal humility with professional will).

So why not a 5 star rating? The one weakness is the relatively lightweight approach to case study. From an academic perspective, this book repeats the same mistake made by so many other studies - it interviews only senior managers and makes too much use of media reports (written by journalists who talk to senior managers). Whilst I appreciate the access issues, good quality case study work involves a wider range of people and the theoretical conclusions of this book may - like its 'excellent' predecessor - unravel due to a failure to investigate any views other than those of managers.

Lovely for young children

This is a lovely book for young children. Mine love looking on every page for the hidden character, and the rhyming text is great and easy to remember so little ones can join in when they've heard it a few times.
My 3 kids love this one!

His Dark Materials Boxed Set

What excellent books! i could not put them down. Phillip Pullman has a wonderful imagination and i would recommend this book to adults and older children as i feel children under ten year's maybe a little scared! Can't wait to read his next book.

Fantastic book

I thought my 15 month daughter would be too young for this but she loves it and asks us to read it to her all the time. the rhyming story holds her interest as she follows the story of the night monkey/day monkey. wonderful illustrations especially the burst of colour as the day monkey takes over. Cant recommend it enough.

another descriptive and fast paced Rider novel

Alex Rider returns for another action packed adventure where he drops down on Australian land and is recruited by the ASIS to go undercover in a snakehead, which will ultimately bring him back to an old deadly enemy.

In the 7th instalment of the acclaimed series, Horowitz again uses a brilliant depth and accurate view of the world through researching all of the elements to be used in his novel, which has to be admired, and through this, do readers get a great description of what is happening and a very descriptive approach to the novel.

This research conforms brilliantly to what Horowitz has chosen Rider to do this time, in exploring boats, Australia, science, bombs plus other meaningful and wonderful things that are all well developed and executed by one of the best children's fiction writers of recent years.

Though not as intriguing as the first couple of novels, Snakehead packs a deadly bite into the Alex Rider story with a very dramatic twist on Alex's personal life, by including Alex's godfather, who is an intriguing character to read about from start to finish.

Again Alex is put in a do or die situation at many points and a high authority blackmails him in a way to get him to do a job. Horowitz again writes with a sense of purpose, and an inevitability that is gripping and is almost impossible to put the book down when a major event is happening.

The book conforms to the genre brilliantly, with chases, fights, helicopters and guns etc, the typical conventions of the action genre. And as usual, here is a question of the realistic outcomes of situations but even so are deadly exciting and edge of your seat reading with a great central lead.

This is perhaps a more emotional book than the others with Alex growing up and higher stakes than usual and the other Rider books have more intensity but regardless it is an action packed adventure and the stakes are once again, raised to a great extreme with Horowitz's pin point accuracy.

8/10

'Two weddings....one bride'

I've loved all the Shopaholic books, but this is probably the best so far, you'll be astounded at how Becky manages to arrange two seperate weddings, almost by accident. If you're planning your own wedding, this book could be the perfect distraction, you'll realise however stressful things get, they'll never be as bad as this. Very, very funny.