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25 Oct 2019

A SPOOKY TALE.

A Spooky Tale Banner

A Spooky Tale Cover


One of the many bloggers participating in this Book Tour (for links to all  the others please see below) so capably organised by Rachel's Random Resources, its my pleasure to be sharing my thoughts on A Spooky Tale by Sue Wickstead.

When the teacher decided to take the class out on a walk the children did not want to go ... But... What could possibly go wrong? why did the class not feel well? Read the book to find out.
- Synopsis

When the teacher said she would take our class on a walk, we didn't want to go, we said "we didn't feel well."
- First Sentence

After that we stopped to eat a snack, but as we ate our banana a grumpy gorilla snatched it and chased us away.
- Memorable Moment

SOURCE ... Received with thanks from Tour organiser Rachel.

READ FOR A CHALLENGE? ... No.

MY THOUGHTS ... A spooktacularly funny story with eye catching and wonderfully detailed full colour illustrations. With everything from a wicked witch, a hairy bear, a big, big dragon and many more such captivating characters A Spooky Tale provides just the right amount of gloriously age-appropriate (the book is marketed as being particularly suitable for those aged three to eight years of age) 'scary' fun for young readers.

Perfect for the school library as well as the home ... this would be great if produced as a 'big' book that the teacher could share during story circle.

I liked that the whole walk the students take with their teacher was literally mapped out at the front of the book; that readers could follow the progress of these children and their teacher. 

And with each page ending with the words ...

Aah! Now that would be telling and I don't want to spoil any of the fun so let's just leave it at that the story encourages the remembering of a key phrase that is repeated at the end of every page and as we know young readers love repetition and the opportunity to join in the telling of a story.

Hopefully the first in a series of 'walks'. I'd love to see more books featuring this class and their teacher.


BOOK INFORMATION ...
Target Age: Children 3-8 years
Genre: Children’s picture story book
Publication Date: 2018
Standalone Book
Estimated Page Count - 40

ABOUT THE AUTHOR ...

Sue Wickstead Author PhotoI am an author and a teacher and have written six children’s picture books, all with a bus included somewhere.
Having been able to share my first book, 'Jay-Jay the Supersonic Bus', it was time to think about writing a book for younger readers.
While visiting a local school the children were writing stories about a journey, we read Jay-Jay’s book and then I remembered a book that I had written some years before and I read this to the class too, and they loved it.
The original story was based on a walk with my class around the neighbourhood of Bewbush, Crawley. The walk had led to map work and sequencing. Then together with the class I wrote an imaginative adventure.
The events we imagined were put into a class book. The book was shared with many classes and it was always a favourite.
Now years later I decided it was time to update, improve and look at publishing the book.
There is indeed a walk around the district of Bewbush. and following the publication of the book I went back to see if and how the neighbourhood had changed.
‘Oh, I see you have written a book without a bus!’ commented a friend.
But, look through the pages and you will see there always has to be a bus!
The neighbourhood of Bewbush was a new estate built in Crawley town in the 1970's. The area was built without any shops, school or safe places for children to play. It was an area of high need and was supported by a special playbus which offered a much-needed playgroup venue.
I also undertake events and author bookings and love to share my stories. There are also a few more stories in the writing process, with links to real events and buses.
Follow Sue Wickstead
FaceBook - https://www.facebook.com/storiesSue/

CONFIRMED BLOG SCHEDULE (Please feel free to stop by any/all of the sites) ...

Image result for name felicity

7 comments:

  1. It's always wonderful when a good story has great illustrations to go along with it. And who doesn't love a good map!?

    I'm glad this was a fun book for you to read and review.

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  2. Sounds fun. Creatures and illustrations things that children in my family tend to love. Obviously, this is also perfect for this time of year.

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  3. Felicity,
    I too, am glad that you enjoyed
    this book so very much, I can
    definitely hear the enthusiasm
    in your words. And the illustrations
    look wonderful (to judge from what
    you shared of those here).
    Raven

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  4. how cure. everything about the book put a smile on my facesherry @ fundinmental

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  5. Hi Felicity,

    What a lovely book, the cover art on its own is absolutely amazing.

    My great nephew has just turned 4 and I know that the idea of reading a story with an easy to understand map so that he can follow events visually, would be a fantastic idea.

    The only possible hitch I could see, would be that he might then want to go for a walk in his own local area, and be expecting a map to go along with it … Still, that might set the challenge for his own teachers? :)

    I checked out Sue's website, which is so bright and cheerful, and so totally suited to the genre in which she writes and the age group she is appealing to.

    I wish her all the luck in the world and thanks for a great review and all your support, Felicity :)

    Yvonne
    xx

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  6. This looks like such a fun book! I'm glad you enjoyed it. And full color illustrations are always a treat. :)

    -Lauren
    www.shootingstarsmag.net

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  7. Felicity, I'm glad that you enjoyed this "spooktacularly funny story". It sounds wonderful!

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Ah wish te thank each an everyone of yee fre yer keind words. It's canny te see yee an ah hope you'll visit agyen. Divvent leave it tee long, will ye?