The Bookshop Girl is a fabulous mystery for all book lovers. Property Jones and her family win The Montgomery Book Emporium in a raffle and it sounds absolutely amazing, an out of this world bookshop experience that leads you to discover books on any topic.
The Story: Property Jones lives in a small bookshop with Michael and his mum Netty but their lives change when they win The Montgomery Book Emporium and move to London. They arrive at Arthur H. Montgomery’s magnificent bookshop but after showing them around he is in a hurry to leave. Next day the mystery deepens when Mr Eliot Pink appears in the shop. There are so many unanswered questions and mysteries to solve – Who is Eliot Pink and what does he want? Why did Montgomery run away? And will anybody find out that Property can’t read?
At the beginning of The Bookshop Girl we learn that Property has successfully managed to hide the fact that she can’t read from Michael and Netty. However, despite her illiteracy, she very quickly learns how to decode many of the picture-dials in the shop so that she can help customers to find particular books and it doesn’t stop her being the mastermind behind a plan to save The Montgomery Book Emporium.
The Montgomery Book Emporium has a complicated system of rotating stacks and books are sorted into rooms that reflect their contents – The Room of Bedtime Stories contains beds for you to curl up on to read, there’s a Room of Woodland Tales and a Room of Space Adventures. It sounds absolutely amazing – a book lover’s paradise! Ashley King’s illustrations reveal more about the intricate workings of the library, not only do we see it from the customer’s point of view but events in the story also take us behind the scenes. We love Ashley’s portrayals of each character, especially the expressions on evil Eliot Pink’s face and Montgomery’s ‘most magnificent moustache’!
Property is a wonderfully determined heroine and her inability to read doesn’t stop her from coming up with an extremely cunning plan to save the bookshop from villainous Eliot Pink who is hiding a secret of his own. She is helped by Gunther, the Book Emporium’s grumpy cat who immediately takes a shine to Property, and Michael as they uncover a dastardly plot to defraud book lovers all over the country.
The Bookshop Girl is a story that we couldn’t put down, we just wanted to read on to discover who Eliot Pink was and what he was up to. The story moves at a fast pace and at times Property has to think quickly to keep herself out of danger. But there is also humour in the book and as the story progressed we were really hoping that Property’s secret would be discovered so that she can also enjoy reading all the books in The Montgomery Book Emporium.
Age Range: 8+
Author: Sylvia Bishop / Illustrator: Ashley King
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