Waking Beauty - Julie Parrish

Waking Beauty is a modern day fairytale, I was a bit dubious at first as the blurb made the book sound a little 'twisted', but as it is a book based on the 'tweenage' market I understood the reasons behind the description.

From the first page I was gripped! The book is written for young girls, the plot, characters and speed of how the story develops are spot on. Princess Anna is 'Sleeping Beauty' and falls asleep for a hundred years, only to be woken by her 'prince' in modern day times. The book tells us of how she copes with modern day technology and how her family fit in with modern times. The main plot still keeps with the fairytale life with hidden fairies and witches.

The amount of content the author has introduced to Anna's life is amazing, everything from designer clothing, mobile phones, our obsession with the Internet (MyFace and SpaceBook!) and how young kids of today speak. Each change to Anna's life is described and has meaning to your own life.

The way the book is laid out is different to how I normally expect novels to be, there are no distinct chapters which is great as I hate it when you read down the list of chapter titles and they kind of ruin the storyline as you can guess what is going to happen ... in this book the author has sectioned each part by fancy dotted lines.

The sectioning is great if like me you don't have much time to read. I could pick up and put down the book as and when I liked as I didn't feel the need to read to the next chapter. This is also a great introduction to reading for younger girls (for example my daughter who is 9) as she reads small chunks at a time.

The characters are friends from the start, you feel like you know them and their surrounding from the amazing descriptive text the author has used. You can picture Anna's house and bedroom, what the characters look like (without using the front cover as a guide), the school they all attend etc....

I laughed out loud at some parts and got really worried for them during others - but at no point was the book scary or 'sexy' which was great. The author has catered for a range of hormones with the storyline, she has captured the lust and love of the characters without having to put naughty bits in, think High School Musical for the level of passion ... a kiss says a lot, books don't always need 'hanky panky' to create an effect.

I was impressed, this is Julie Parrish's first novel and it is brilliant. Not too long, not too short. Loads of content and a plot to keep you gripped. I hope Julie continues to write as a follow-up to Anna's story could be a winner - this could be the new Princess Diaries with an evil twist.

Available in all good bookshops and on-line
PUBLISHED by Matador 5 April 2010£6.99ISBN 9781848762879
Distributor: _Orca Book Services.
Tel: 01202 665432. Email: orders@orcabookservices.co.uk
BIC subject category: YFM – Romance & relationships stories (Children's/YA)
Paperback 264 PP 216 x 140 mm
Portrait www.troubador.co.uk

Anorak Magazine

Anorak Magazine

The first thing that struck me about Anorak magazine is how colourful it is ... as you flick though the luxurious thick paper pages the colours hit you like you are reading a rainbow of information.

The magazine is aimed at children, the magazine is smaller than the usual kids mags (that you buy from the supermarket) but it has approx 80 pages so it is pretty chunky! We found the size excellent for reading in the car as it wasn't so tall that it hit the seat in front. Emma also suggested that it is a great size to read on a plane, it would fit on the seat tray and it would keep her entertained for a few hours.

I have honestly never seen so many colourful detailed pages in my life! Each page has chunks of information, just enough for a young child to either read by themselves or have read to them (without loosing the will to live after a few pages) and actually absorb the information presented to them. The illustrations are relevant and current to today's 'tweenie' market of readers.

Emma loved the 'Book Stuff' pages and has actually added one of the books reviewed onto her Christmas List. She liked completing the puzzles as she progressed through the magazine and commented that 'every page was different' - this helped to keep her interested.

I believe that the magazine covers a while range of age groups and literacy levels - from Pre-School to at least age 11 (year 6). Some parts Emma laughed out loud, while others she quickly skimmed over - but I would expect that due the the enormous range that Anorak Magazine covers.

In the copy that Emma reviewed she liked the 'Insects' page the best, she said that the images were clever and the information was interesting. She also liked the way that most of text was white on a coloured background - apparently this is different to other magazines, my worry though is that some people struggle to read white text ... although I personally found it quite pleasing on the eye.

All in all Emma enjoyed reading Anorak Magazine, if you would like more information about subscriptions please follow http://www.anorak-magazine.co.uk/

Emma's rating: 9/10