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Andrea Reece - Editorial Expert
Andrea Reece has spent almost her entire working life in children’s books, first as publisher, latterly as consultant, project manager and critic.
She has reviewed for LoveReading4Kids since 2015, is editor of the leading children’s books review journal Books for Keeps and administrator of the Klaus Flugge Prize and Branford Boase Award.
She was children’s programme director of the FT Weekend Oxford Literary Festival until 2023, spent three years as manager of National Poetry Day and works with CLPE on the CLiPPA (CLPE Children’s Poetry Prize) and with The Full English on the Poetry By Heart national competition. She has judged children’s prizes including the Costa Children’s Book Award and Alligator’s Mouth Award.
Latest Reviews By Andrea Reece
Here’s another awesome new adventure for your favourite robot brothers Alex and Freddy, and the action levels – and the stakes – have never been higher.
Relations between (some) humans and robots are at an all time low, with attacks on robots encouraged by a violent new action group, ‘Humanity First’. Alex and Freddy find themselves caught up in this, but unknown to them the force behind the group is an old enemy, and very dangerous indeed. In early scenes, the brothers are on holiday at the seaside, but things get progressively darker and the final ... View Full Review
Gus the goat is excited to meet his new neighbour, Mavis Mole, and immediately launches into a guessing rhyming game that quickly irritates his new friend, but which will have little children giggling gleefully.
Mavis must live in a hole, he suggests – a moley in a holey! Mavis tries to correct him, but he jumps in – again and again – with more rhymes. Does Mavis live in a bowl? On a pole (poley moley)? Or in a sausage roll? Mavis gets more exasperated as the guesses get more ridiculous, and finally reveals she lives in a – ah, ... View Full Review
Little Zara is at the beach with her teddy when – oh no - he disappears! Now’s your chance to help her track him down because this series applies the favourite choose-your-own-adventure format to picture books, providing the reader with story options at each page turn.
If you think a princess has taken Ted, turn to page 5. If you think a monster’s got him, then it’s page 6. As you set the storyline, there’s a different adventure with each reading. The format is lots of fun for youngsters, the lively nature of the ... View Full Review
It’s never too early for youngsters to develop good financial skills and this admirably clear and accessible new series will set them on their way to doing just that.
This title tells them everything they need to know about managing their own money, from opening a bank account to the best ways to borrow if you need to. Never condescending or jokey, it uses a question-and-answer format to make everything as straightforward as possible, from explaining how bank accounts work to showing how savings can increase in the right ones. There’s a section on borrowing ... View Full Review
Happy, grumpy, excited, sad, safe, scared, joyful, angry, proud, embarrassed: little children are prompted to think about, discuss and understand all these emotions through the pages of this brightly illustrated board book. What’s more, they’re shown that they can choose whether to be happy as a lamb or grumpy as a goat, both moods unmistakable in the pictures of an energetic roller-skating lamb on one side of a press out piece and a thoroughly grumpy goat – arms crossed – on the reverse.
Now they know how they’re feeling, text hidden under the press ... View Full Review
Children encounter ten different emotions in the pages of this brightly illustrated board book. They’re invited to choose too whether they are feeling – for example – calm as a panda or jumpy as a kangaroo.
A press out piece on the opposite page shows us a very Zen panda, and excitable kangaroo on the reverse, both demonstrating their emotions to the max. Now that children can recognise those feelings, text hidden under the press out pieces suggests ways to achieve positive states - counting with eyes closed, breathing slowly in and out, taking strong breaths through the ... View Full Review
There are lots of great fantasy adventures in which the hero is put through their paces, tackling wizards, monsters, maybe even undead warriors.
Readers get all the classic fantasy thrills in The Goblin’s Revenge with the added excitement that you the reader get to make all the decisions. Every battle that needs fighting, every escape to be made – the choice is yours, and if you get it wrong, it won’t end well.
You’ll need luck as well as skill and it’s all made that bit more difficult too, because you are ... View Full Review
If you’re fascinated by ancient Egypt or simply want to know more about the lives of ordinary people in one of the world’s most interesting civilisations, this superb book is for you.
Authors Michael Hoffen, Dr Christian Casey and Dr Jen Thum have taken a work of ancient Egyptian literature, known as ‘The Satire of the Trades’, in which a father – Polonius like – passes on instructions to his son, and have used it to illustrate what daily life was like almost 4000 years ago.
Khety was sending Pepi his son to become a ... View Full Review
Yara loves ballet more than anything, ever since she first stumbled into a ballet class by mistake age four. Her family move a lot because of her dad’s job but now at last they’re staying put which means she can attend Miss Diamond’s ballet school.
It’s bliss, everything Yara has dreamed off. She makes friends and learns all the major ballet positions, but then her newfound ballet class is threatened when Miss Diamond’s grumpy landlady threatens to close the studio. Yara comes up with a rescue plan, with everything resting ... View Full Review
David Long and Lou Baker Smith take us around the world and across millennia in a book that looks at stunning buildings, in the process revealing lots about the cultures and people who built them. It makes our world feel huge, full of variety and beauty, but shows that humans, wherever and whenever they lived, have always shared imagination, determination, and technical ingenuity.
Double page spreads present buildings with similar purposes – for example, defensive structures, palaces, places of worship – text explaining their history and passing on fascinating facts (the Forbidden City in Beijing has 8,886 rooms). A special gatefold ... View Full Review
Having successfully solved a crime in the previous adventure in this new series, Alice and Sonny – newly discovered to be brother and sister – are looking forward to rest and relaxation on the Lady Rose, the luxury yacht left to them by their grandfather.
The yacht has VIP guests, Edward VIII and Mrs Simpson no less, but someone on board is a crook. When a precious and very special jewel goes missing, our two junior sleuths are determined to find the culprit, especially as they might have to lose the yacht to pay back the jewel’s owners.
... View Full Review
However much copycat publishing goes on, you can rely on Pushkin Children’s Books to find thoughtful, thought-provoking, singular books for young readers and that’s exactly what Movies Showing Nowhere is.
Cate’s mother died as she gave birth to her daughter. Twelve years on her father is distant and withdrawn, while Cate is considered weird by her classmates, not that she cares what they think. The arrival of a mysterious invitation from a Mrs Kano, to attend the town’s old cinema, ‘showing films you won’t find anywhere’, changes things ... View Full Review
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