children’s fiction – Everything Is Better With Dragons

Review: The Feathered Tree by Allan Frewin Jones

My Review

The publisher sent me this ARC a couple of months ago and it was on my list for June, but I’ve got a gap and I thought I’d read it now. It came with a lovely letter, a magpie feather and some beech seeds.

I made a post on Instagram last week when I had read the first 23 chapters. Here’s my summary from there:

The MC is 16 but acts younger in some ways. Immediately got Au vibes, from her and her new friend, Quinn. Tree and corvid special interests.

The writing is probably more what I’d have read at 12 rather than 16. It actually reminds me of the tone and comprehension level of the first two Song of the Lioness books but obviously not set in a secondary world or with knights and battles.

The supernatural element of the dryad and setting in the west country feels familiar but also unfamiliar, a weird, uncannyness. Could be real, could be a traumatised teenager on her summer hols daydreaming, if you see what I mean.

Easy to read, short chapters.

Bullying element is sensitively handled, and an experience I recognise. Just because they aren’t beating you up doesn’t mean they aren’t bullies. Teenage girls are absolute bitches at times and their boy ‘friends’ are nasty little cowards hoping to touch a boob if they are just unpleasant enough. Touched a nerve, sorry.

Now, having finished the book, I have more to add:

The way Polly and Quinn share their joy in their interests is really sweet, they really want to know each other and their interests, and the description is an amazing description of two autistic people sharing their special interests and being intoxicated with it and each other.

The final trick from Ashley and her friends is awful, but Quinn seeing the truth about his sister, and Nyssa and the tree-wights coming to the rescue is really engrossing.

I cried. The way Polly and Quinn celebrate planting saplings and joining the song of nature is so powerful. I couldn’t help myself, I cried so much.

This is a story for younger teenagers, but it explores things they will be interested in, like first love, dealing with family difficulties and unusual family structures, being bullied, and the transition from secondary school to Further Education. It is written in a way that would have appealed to me as a younger teenager, but these days I don’t know what twelve-year-olds are reading.

The environmental theme is strong in this book, and I can see the intention – humans have messed up, we can do better, and some people are. I can see that the author is linking folklore to modern environmental issues, but it is a little unsubtle at times. Maybe it needs to be for the intended readership age to get the message over, but it can also put them off. Kids don’t like being told what to think, it’s better to let the theme speak for itself.

Frewin Jones has done a good job of integrating the folklore elements in with the coming of age story. It’s possible that the characters could be imagining things, like Polly and her friendship with Nyssa could be a teenager going through a difficult time telling stories to make things better, but the way it’s written pulls it together so that we the reader knows that Polly is really experiencing these things.

There’s something of a romanticism of the past and folklore, which is fine, but can be slightly misleading about history. We don’t know the beliefs of people in the West Country pre-Christian conversion. There are a lot of folk stories, and the Cornish saints had some good stories, but no one knows the significance of the stone circles or the individual stones that they set up. I read a lot of Rosemary Sutcliffe etc. as a young teen, I know this stuff when I see it – it’s based on 19th and 20th century beliefs about prehistoric beliefs and lives, based on limited understanding of the archaeological evidence available at the time. See also, the green man etc. for 19th century fuckery with folk traditions and folklore. I’ll forgive it because 30 years ago I wouldn’t have known that. I’ve read a lot of mythology and folklore because I read books where the author wasn’t quite correct. Go forth children and read all the archaeology, history, mythology, and folklore!

I enjoyed this story. It was well-written, pitched well for the target audience and sensitively deals with difficult topics. Some of the Devon dialect from the elderly neighbour was fun; my gran is an old lady from Devon but she doesn’t use a lot of dialect anymore, which is a shame.

Also, visit Devon, it’s amazing!

Review: Moojang and the Sloth Guardians, by N.E. McMorran

Publisher	Spondylux Press
Publish Date	10 December 2025
Pages	208
Language	English
Type	Paperback
ISBN	9781838097844

Moojag and Nema are back for a final roller coaster of an adventure, this time to save Box Hill from total destruction and rescue a bunch of mossy sloths from nasty Brix’s celebration feast.

But their new, slow-moving friends have a secret weapon
and together they’re all set to prove that saving the Real World
literally takes guts!

My Review

Moojag and Nema are back, the Conqip have invaded and are threatening to destroy Box Hill. With the help of various parents and grandparents (Adam’s dad and granddad reappear), a colony of sloths, the fruit-happy Pofs, and a gang of Gajooms, the evil plans of the Conqip are defeated and the island saved, although not without loss. We learn more of the history of the families, the secrets of the Conqips and how they came about, and see the responsible use of future technology in action.

This one was fun, and the cover is very colourful. There are bits of information sprinkled about and it ends with hope for a better future, even if Moojag does go off to live in the woods with the sloths. The families are reunited, and the danger to their world is removed. Some of them have gone to London Tops to help others surviving in London. There’s a future in sight.

There are also a lot of Beatles references, most of which I didn’t get because I don’t listen to the Beatles.

Reading the books one after the other, I might have got a few events mixed up; the stories follow straight on from the one before and I read them in quick succession. The overall arc is visible to me, and it’s a lovely story, but the details get a bit jumbled. There is a lot of to-ing and fro-ing for the characters, as they race across islands and Gajoomdom, and I got a little confused at times about who was doing what. It is the nature of children’s fiction that sometimes adults don’t quite get the story.

I actually really enjoyed this one, and the sloths digestive victory made me laugh. The development of the relationships over the course of the stories makes sense, as the reader learns with Nema about how things got the way they were and the reasons people act the way they do. There was something satisfying about the conclusion.

A lovely series of bonkers adventures for children, in a possible future world. Age recommendation for series 8+

Review: Moojag and the Lost Memories, by N.E. McMorran

The stand-alone sequel to ‘Moojag and the Auticode Secret’, endorsed by award-winning authors Patience Agbabi, Alex Falase-Koya, Ben Davis, and Daniel Aubrey.

A multigenerational story, featuring a neurodivergent cast and audhd, non-binary, POC, main characters, for readers 8 years and over.

When Nema returns to Gajoomdom, she discovers three forgetful grannies who have totally lost track of time. If she and Moojag can’t help them remember, everyone’s memories are in danger. But turns out not everyone is who they thought they were. Who will they rescue? Will they rescue them in time to save their perfect Real World from the nasty Conqip?

‘Lost Memories’, inspired by the author’s grandmother, and living with dementia and disability during the pandemic, shows us the impact of loss and the power of memory, as well as the importance of future technology when used for good.

Local Authors Reviewed: Part One

As you may remember, a few weeks ago I went to a local authors event to do some networking and get opinions on the best self-publishing platform and was given four books by local authors to review. Here are the first three.

As always, I received these in return for honest reviews. I am going to be very honest. Sorry.

Selected Poems, by Michael Nilsen (poetry)

Published by: Matador

Publication Date: October 2015

ISBN: 9781784624705

Price:£9.99

A collection of poems written over a 22 year period and covering a range of themes including nature, autobiography and surrealism.

My Review

The nature poems were the most affecting and well-written, with great imagination. Unfortunately most of the poems didn’t move me all that much although they could have a different effect on other people. Poetry is subjective like that.

The Crooked Link, by David Evardson (General adult fiction)

Published by:Self-published

Publication date: 2016

ISBN: 9781522901259

Price:Unknown

Stanley is a crook, a crook who happens to have stolen money from an even bigger crook in London. When he turns up in Cleethorpes with a plan to buy a house, if he can sell his London flat first. A chain of buyers and sellers build but the chain is only as strong as it’s weakest link, and this link is crooked.

My Review

The plot is good but the execution needs work. It feels like a first novel even though the author has written several books before. It doesn’t quite ring true enough to become immersed in the plot, although the attempt at local dialect is good.

Marikka, by Sam Hawksmoor (children’s fiction)

Published by: Hammer & Tong UK

Publication Date: 2015

ISBN: 9781511994224

Price: Unknown

Marikka flees from an arson attack on her home to the sea, where she meets Mika – a runaway working for a sinister, scarred man hiding from the world. Meanwhile her father, long thought dead, searches for her with the aide of ‘the girl who can read objects’.

My Review

The plot reminds me of an Enid Blyton novel that has been modernised, including the sinister, mysterious villains and the evil step-father. I really quite enjoyed it and I admit to bawling like a baby at end. I liked the main characters, the plot was good, the chapter titles funny and the writing fluent. There were editing errors, e.g. instance instead of instant, minor things I had to parse to get the gist of the sentence but nothing that a re-edit won’t fix. Definitely a good one for the young teenager before they move on to more challenging books.

I have just one other book to read, For the love of Emily by Joy Wood. I haven’t started it yet but I will soon. The books are piling up again on my to be read list. I’ve been working on craft projects and writing assignments. Before I start University at the end of September I want to get the non-fiction assignments of my Writer’s Bureau course completed. I’m almost done, I have one task left to do on the final non-fiction assignment, and I shall tackle that tomorrow.

For those following the Saga of the Bath, finally today, after nine and a half weeks, the landlord sent a plumber to replace the old bath with a shiny new one. Or, I should say, the letting’s agent did. I intend to wallow in that thing tomorrow morning.