Autumn Moonbeam Dance Magic is the first story in a magical new chapter book series. Dancing dreams are intertwined with friendships, rivalry and feelings of self doubt. The story sparkles with truly original characters, spell binding dance moves and has a likeable heroine whose road to achieving her goal is peppered with magic and mishaps.
The Story: Autumn auditions for Black Cats, Sparkledale Dance Academy’s competitive dance team. Along with her best friend, Edith (Batty), and her not so nice next door neighbour, Severina Bloodworth, she overcomes her feelings of self doubt and does her best to impress dance teachers Verity, Onyx and Rainbow. But competition for the four team places is fierce…
Autumn lives in a warm, chaotic household with Mum, Ghostly Gran, her twin sister, Zephyr, three brothers and a dragon called Trevor. She loves watching dance shows on the Spell-a-vision but the thought of performing in front of others gives her moths in her stomach. That all changes when her friend Leif brings the audition flyer into school which leads to Autumn overcoming her doubts and taking part.
We absolutely love the magical language and the wordplay in the easy to read text. As well as watching Spell-A-Vision Autumn eats Beetlebix for breakfast and goes to Pointy Hat Primary. There she is taught by Miss Spinningweb who has competed in the Aaarghlympics. There are lots of magical moments – the potions class, the spell that creates a giant spider web trampoline and we love the way that butterflies and fire appear when the dancers on Autumn’s favourite programme dance.
Heidi Cannon’s illustrations add to the humour and the action in the story which includes a diverse cast of characters. They have some wonderful names including Cosmic-Creeper, Mr Snailcruncher and Toadflax Moonbeam.
Autumn Moonbeam Dance Magic is a magical story. We loved meeting all the different characters and can’t wait to read their next adventure – Spooky Sleepover.
Age Range: 5 +
Author: Emma Finlayson Palmer / Illustrator: Heidi Cannon
Thank you to uclanpublishing for sending a PDF of this heartwarming story. We enjoyed doing the quiz to find out which Autumn Moonbeam character we are most like 😀
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