2016 Reading Challenge: Book 1 - Goth Girl & The Wuthering Fright

So, here we have the first review of the year!

Goth Girl and the Wuthering Fright by Chris Riddell
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Why I chose this book: As I work in a school library, we have in stock the Goth Girl series of books.  I loved the general appearance of this book, from the shiny pages, to the illustrations.
Genre: Children's Fiction
Date Started: 30/12/2015   Date Finished: 07/01/2016
Would I Recommend this Book? Most definitely YES!  I would say that this book would appeal mainly to girls aged between 9-14.

My Review

I loved this book!  As mentioned above, the shiny pages first caught my attention to the book.  I tried to take a picture of this, but I really didn't do it justice!  This is the third in the series, but to be honest, you don't need to read them in order.  I didn't feel like I was missing any part of the story from not reading the others.  

I loved the story and the play on names for the characters.  'Hands Christmas Anderson' and 'Dean Torville' may go over a lot of children's heads, but I'm sure the adults will love them.  

In terms of the story, this book tells us of the goings on at Ghastly-Gorm Hall during the Christmas holidays.  In this particular year, Ghastly-Gorm Hall pays host to the Literary Dog Show, where fictional (kind of) world famous writers participate with their dogs in a number of tasks to be crowned the winner.  Of course, not all goes smoothly and there are some strange goings on that needs investigating.  

All in all, I thought that this was a fun story and I think this will be loved by girls and possibly boys everywhere.  After finishing the book, my initial thought is that it is suitable for ages 9-14, however, after my Goodreads posted on my Facebook wall, a friend commented that her 7 year old daughter loves this series of books.  She did explain to say that her 7 year old isn't quite able to read this by herself, but that it's something they enjoy together.  The opinion given by my friends daughter is that she likes them "as they are adventurous and she likes reading about what life was like in the past".

The illustrations in this book is stunning.  As you can see in my pictures, they are so fun and suit the story so well.  I also really enjoyed the 'Cogwheel Foot Notes'.  They just add that extra bit of fun to them and explain a little more about places or characters.  

All in all, this was a very enjoyable read and would be the perfect addition to any pre-teens bookshelf.

Jackie. x