Having read and adored Sylvia Bishop's debut Erica's Elephant last year, I was obviously delighted to hear that she had a new book coming out and one titled 'The Bookshop Girl' no less! I of course had to read it. I literally do not know where Sylvia Bishop gets her incredibly creative ideas from? Once again I was pulled in to her story creation and falling in love with her characters.
BOOK REVIEW
The Bookshop Girl is about a girl called Property Jones, named simply because she was found in the lost property cupboard of a bookshop when she was five years old. Even though she loves living in a bookshop she hasn't told anyone that she can't read! She doesn't want to tell her family in case they think differently of her. A bit like Charlie and the Chocolate factory story, Property's family are impoverished, so when they win a competition to get over Montgomery’s Emporium of Reading Delights (sounds just like the one in Bath!) it seems like their fortunes have changed, but they may have taken on more than they bargained for!
The Bookshop Girl is for slightly older readers than Erica's Elephant, but it still had all the charm and magicalness that Erica's Elephant had. There were also slightly less illustrations, but still enough for those readers transitioning into more wordy reads.
Although I don't read a lot of middle grade now, so don't have a lot to compare Sylvia's books with, I just know that her reads are going to give such important and helpful messages to their readers. In The Bookshop Girl, Property Jones is different, and different is hard to be, always has been, but in this story Sylvia makes it ok to be different, celebrates it in fact. I think this is so important as so may people are afraid to be who they are and Property is afraid that her family won't love her anymore if they find out that she can't read.
The most magical part of this story was of course Montgomery’s Emporium of Reading Delights. Each room takes you into another world with thousands and thousands of books. Oh if only it was real! And the grumpy cat that resides there is absolutely adorable
Once again a story full of charm, quirky characters and adventure, although Erica's Elephant remains my firm favourite.
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