Brightstorm: 1 (The Brightstorm Chronicles)

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There is something truly inspiring, heartwarming, epic and wonderfully educational about Vashti's new book, Crowfall. Without a doubt it is her best children's book to date (in my humble opinion), because the prose is - at the same time - remarkably sparse yet entirely with a strength of authorial voice that all writers dream of achieving! Tropes. Orphan twins are very tropey. Due to societal norms, most of the time the boy is the intellectual, engineer one and the girl is the more dreamy, book nerd. This one flips that around, which I like. I would have liked to see more of that in the story with the plot. Takeaways

Brightstorm a sky ship adventure is an amazing book! I honestly was not expecting it to be this good when I first got it but it was incredible! It’s about twin siblings, Arthur and Maudie Brightstorm who’s father, an explorer has died on a failed attempt to reach south Polaris. They stay to live their housekeeper, Mistress Poacher, but she has absolutely no interest in the twins and simply sells them to Mr and Mrs Beggins, poor people who treat the twins very badly and make them servants! The children live in the slumps (slums) until one day they find an advert for a race to claim South Polaris for the 2nd time. They decide to join Miss Harriet Culpepper, who is also an explorer just like their father, and her team (which includes Felicity Wiggety) on a race to South Polaris. Many exciting things happen to the crew of the Aurora sky ship as they journey deep into the unknown. Will the Aurora team reach South Polaris first? Or will they be beaten to it by Madame Eudora Vane on board her sky ship Victorious? Read the book to find out! They are devastated by the news and confused, and they don’t know what to believe. After investigation, the Lontown Geographical Society has found Ernest Brightstorm guilty of destroying the expedition of Eudora Vane, his competitor. A mysterious clue makes the twins question the story they’ve just been told. To discover the truth, they’ve to go on a lifetime journey. Stella Starflake Pearl is a great young protagonist who becomes the first female to be allowed into the Polar Bear Explorers' Club. On an expedition to the Icelands, Stella and three fellow junior explorers get separated from the main expedition.Space explorers, whether on the ground as scientists or the astronauts themselves, are a hive of amazing inspirational stories.This book tells the stories of 50 women who have contributed to space exploration from the past to modern day.

Twelve-year-old twins Maudie and Arthur’s world comes crashing in when their explorer dad is reported dead in his mission to get to South Polaris. Not only that, their family name is tainted when he is accused of stealing another skyship’s fuel before he died, which means they are unable to inherit their family home. I've included this as my last choice because it so perfectly shows how being an 'explorer' is as much about the simple joy found in discovering the everyday outside your doorstep as it is the great feats of exploring the wider world. Arthur and Maudie are are children of a popular explorer, Brightstorm. Their father had gone on an journey to the South Polaris when his ship crashed, killing him and the crew. In addition to his death, he is blamed for having stolen fuel from another airship before his death and is accused of violating explorers’ laws, which led to losing everything under his name. Arthur and Maudie have nothing left and are sold and listed for servitude by a slave family.The author is an alumni member of The Golden Egg Academy, and her books are published in the United Kingdom by Scholastic. With inventive touches to the story such as pygmy dinosaurs and frost fairies, the story landscape is easy to imagine and get lost in. It's punctuated with some stunning illustrations by Tomic which add beautifully to the atmosphere. 4. Tom Crean's Rabbit: A True Story from Scott's Last Voyage byMeredith Hooper,‎ illustrated by Bert Kitchen If you have a young reader interested in adventure, books about animals, and airships, this is a perfect book for them. This amazing book by Vashti Hardy keeps the reader engaged and hooked as you go on an epic adventure. Thus began my reading of Brightstorm. Perhaps that is why I was not thrilled with the beginning of this book. I didn’t get swept up in the steampunk craze that began a number of years ago. I admire the creativity in all the costumes and the art, but not many of the stories enticed me to read them. But the cover on this one…Did you see the cover on this book?? It is simply beautiful!