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Stealing Phoenix - Joss Stirling
by linzeelou
Stealing Phoenix is the second book in a series by Joss Stirling. It was published in September by OUP and the book is 272 pages long. Thanks to the publisher for providing an ARC for review.
Plot
Although Phoenix has special powers, she is far from being in a good position in life. Living within the Community means ... working for the Seer and using her gift to do as he asks...in this case it means stealing certain things. When her latest mission that includes a very specific target fails, Phoenix knows she is in deep trouble. The only way to save herself is to get closer to the guy she is supposed to steal from, an American student visiting London.
That American student is Yves Benedict and what Phoenix doesn't know is that Yves has special gifts of his own. He is a Savant just like her. He turns out to be so much more than Phoenix's next target though, he is her destiny even if she doesn't believe it to begin with. The Community has different ideas though and think that they own Phoenix - past, present and future. If Yves has anything to do with it, she won't be staying there for much longer but there are many obstacles to overcome before that can ever happen.
What I thought
Ever since I finished Finding Sky, I was dying to have more from Joss Stirling and the Benedict boys. I couldn't have been more excited when Stealing Phoenix got delivered!
What I love about this book, even though it is technically part of a series, it also works really well as a stand alone. There may be a little confusion when it comes to figuring out what Savants/ Soulfinders are but other than that, you don't really need the previous book, Finding Sky for anything. While the Soulfinder aspect is great, this book works just as well if you take that out, although it obviously strengthens the story.
I was really glad to see that this book was set in London, rather than in Wickenridge, Colorado again. It isn't that I didn't like that setting but I think changing the scenery gave this book a whole different feel to go with the new voices of Phoenix and Yves. This also gives the readers from the UK a big advantage by knowing a large amount of places mentioned in the capital. I really enjoyed the London setting and I could really feel myself going where Phoenix and Yves do and to have that feeling of familiarly throughout.
Phoenix (Phee for short) was a wonderful main character. Her life is not easy at all and she has had a lot to deal with for only being a teenager. Knowing no other life than that of the Community, Phee gets on with life as best she can, by doing the jobs the Seer gives her. Although in some ways, Phee is ruled by other people, she still has a strong voice of her own and isn't one to back down from a fight. I loved how spunky and strong Phee was even though she had so much going on. Her fighting spirit certainly made me love her to pieces and to route for her from the very beginning. I also really liked the journey that Phee went on throughout the book in the sense of finding out/ realising who she really is.
Joss Stirling has a fantastic ability to create swoon-worthy teenage guys. As much as I loved Zed from the previous book, Yves has completely knocked him out of view. As a very intelligent guy, Yves had a lot going for him. Not only is he extremely good looking, he is smart beyond the average, isn't afraid to show his geeky side and is very confident in himself. I loved everything about Yves as soon as he appeared on the page. He was charismatic and funny but also sensitive and caring when he needed to be. If Yves were real, I would go to London right now, track him down and attempt to steal him away myself!
It was good to see characters from Finding Sky appear in this book. As much as I enjoyed Phee and Yves' story, I was happy to see some of the Benedict family make an appearance and to help out. Stealing Phoenix gives some insight into what may come in future books from Joss Stirling and into what the other brothers may be like in their own books. Not only were the reoccurring characters good but also the new characters. With people like the Seer, Dragon and Unicorn, this book was never going to be boring. The Community as whole provides a lot of mystery and action throughout which made the pacing perfect. There are some really good fast paced parts that were mixed well with slower, more sensitive parts when it came to Phee and Yves.
I was a little worried that I wasn't going to like this book as much as Finding Sky but infact, I liked it a hell of a lot more. If you thought that Zed was the brother for you, be prepared to think again!
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Project X: White: Inventors and Inventions: Flying Machines - John Malam
by broxi3781
Project X is a specially created series of carefully leveled books intended to encourage boys to read. The idea is, that only a limited number of new words are introduced in each book, allowing children to progress smoothly through the various levels. I have bought a good number of these books to help my son learn to read, but that isn't ... really why I bought this book.
My son has only just now reached level 10 in these books, so when I first bought this, before his 6th birthday, he had little hope of reading it. However, both of my sons were interested in flight of all kinds. As my sons were only 5 and 2 at the time of purchase, I wanted something with plenty of high quality illustrations, a text that would keep them interested, and language they could understand. I wanted a book they could learn about flight from, but of course too much detail would lose a child's interest. I knew Project X would deliver on all of these, and that this book could double as a reading primer at a later date, so I went ahead and bought it, especially as I was lucky enough to snap this up for £3.00, on ebay, as new. Currently it will cost just over £5 new from Amazon - and as often happens with this series, used copies will cost significantly more. I don't quite understand why sellers list them. I can't imagine paying and extra 2.50 pounds to get something used as opposed to new.
When this book arrived it managed to meet all of our expectations. The book is very well illustrated with almost all colour illustrations, and about 4-6 lines of good sized clear easy to understand text. This book does have text on colours other than cream or white though, but it is still on extremely light pastel colours, making it easy enough to read.
'Flying Machines' covers the history of flight. It begins with the mythical wings of Daedalus and Icarus, Leonardo da Vinci's flying machines, moving on to Otto Lilienthal's gliders and the Wright Brothers 'Flyer'. There is a nice two page spread on Baron von Richthofen. The amount of information here is quite limited, but his is a story to long to tell in only two pages. I'm glad he was included though, no fan of military aircraft can help having some admiration for him, even if he was an enemy. Of course I expect I'd see it rather differently had I been on the other end of his sights.
We were especially pleased to see two pages on the Spitfire. My sons both adore this machine. They watched the entire "Battle of Britain" movie just to see these, and my youngest cried when "The bad guys killed the Spitfires" on the runway. My youngest is determined to join the army when he grows up and pilot the Spitfire - we have tried telling him they have newer planes now, but this is the one he wants. ( He also doesn't quite get the distinction between the RAF and the army). I don't blame him. If ever a machine achieved perfection in form this is it. This section is appropriately titled "The Finest Fighter". It has a black and white photo of five Spitfires in formation as well as a brilliant drawing with a cutaway section to show what's inside. My sons always love this type of thing, as like most boys they like to know what makes something works, and engines seem to be a source of fascination.
Next come the Chinook, the B-12 Stealth, unmanned aerial vehicles, the large, light glider type planes that have circumnavigated the globe, Voyager and Global Flyer. Finally the book wraps up with the space plane 'White Knight'. This is followed by a glossary, index, and a parents activity section, as is the norm for nonfiction books in this series.
My sons were both delighted by this book, and it managed to include every one of the planes most important to them. It was as if they had been consulted personally for the making of this book, and I expect a good deal of research went into which planes young boys are interested in. This book served it's original purpose perfectly, and continues to be an excellent book for my youngest to look at planes. But even better, my oldest can now read this himself. It does have a few tricky words, such as souvenirs and Lilienthal, but he was able to read the majority of the words without help.
This book fits nicely into the Project X series, and it does include Max, one of the main characters with speech bubbles on each page, but the book would also be fine as a stand alone book. I do recommend the entire series, but I would also recommend this book on it's own. This book would be perfect for any young child with an interest in airplanes. I think this book would suit a child as young as two, as my son was, if they have a real fascination with airplanes. For a child to read on their own, this is listed as level 10, which is intended for ages 7-8, Year 3 / Primary 4. As I have mentioned in previous reviews though, this series uses a number of words which might not be found as often in other reading primers. For this reason if starting part way through this series - I would recommend choosing a band lower than the child's current reading level.
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The Fish Who Could Wish - John Bush
by xxBeccaxx
My son recently became very interested in books and reading and one of the things that is now a firm part of his routine is a bedtime story. He received this book a few weeks ago and it has become one of his firm favourites, he reads it every second night, he alternates between this and another story so we have read it a LOT so ... far.
This book is entitled: 'The Fish Who Could Wish', which is written by John Bush and illustrated by Korky Paul. Mainly this is a picture book with small rhymes on each page which is aimed at small children, personally I would say from around 18 months to around 3 or 4 years old. It's definately very versatile in it's reaching.
The full story is based on a fish who has the power to make and have all his wishes come true. There are various examples set out in rhyming form. They are strange for wishes such as skiing and silk ties but none the less they all come true. The final wish the fish wishes is to be like all other fish in the sea. Of course this means he looses the power to have whatever he likes come true. There is definately a moral of this story about wishing and being careful as you just never know!
First of all I found the layout of the book to be very simple but easy. The sentences are not at all too long, on a couple of the pages just one or two lines which I feel is a little too short but not a problem. The rhyming language gives it a certain flow and adds to the fun of reading. It is very easy to read and it rolls off the tongue. The language is pretty simple and as a starter book I feel this would be ideal for children to start recognising and reading words. This is simply an observation I have no fact on this.
It is entertaining and enjoyable, even I found it a great story to read simply to find out the next crazy wish the fish would make. The pictures are bright and colourful and in keeping with the story which is excellent and means it is very suitable even for very small children. The illustrations are very cartoon like and excellent for appealing to children.
Personally I love this book and am more than happy to read it to my son as many times as he would like. He loves the story which can be seen from the amount of times he has wanted to read it the last few weeks. The illustrations are appealing, the rhythmic tone easy to get to grips with, the language is simple enough to understand and there are not too many lines per page which overall is wonderful as my son does sometimes find it hard to sit for lengthy periods of times listening to long stories. He's very much a hands on boy rather than a listening boy.
This was a gift so I have no idea where it actually came from or the price but a quick google search revealed that this is available from Amazon for £3.71 with free delivery. There also seems to be a couple of other books available in the same format from the same author which I shall definately be buying for my son. This would make a perfect gift or just a treat for a wonderful little boy or girl.
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