Topic: Y5 50 Recommended Reads

Here’s one for the booklovers! Pages & Co: Tilly and the Bookwanderers is a middle-grade adventure where classic children’s characters wander from the pages of their books out into a bookshop, where they lead 11-year-old Tilly back into their fictional worlds.

Tilly lives with her grandparents in their bookshop, ‘Pages & Co’. Tilly’s mum mysteriously disappeared when she was very small and she knows very little about her dad. Often lonely, Tilly finds solace among the pages of the wonderful books in the bookshop. One day, things take a thrilling turn when Anne of Green Gables appears in the shop, soon after followed by Alice in Wonderland. Tilly’s world is turned upside down when she realises that not only can characters from the books leave their stories and come into her world, but she can wander right into theirs too. Tilly is a bookwanderer!

Along with her best friend Oskar, Tilly embarks upon a bookwandering adventure beyond her wildest imagination. But among the sheer joy of visiting fictional worlds, questions begin to emerge about bookwandering. Is there a network of other bookwanderers like her? Why is the mysterious Enoch Chalk always loitering nearby? Can bookwandering help Tilly solve the mystery of what really happened to her mother all those years ago? Do her grandparents know more than they have let on about the world of bookwandering?

This is a clever story with a high appeal to booklovers. Readers with prior knowledge of the classic book characters will get the most out of this book, but this is by no means a prerequisite for enjoying the story with its convincing characterisation, creative world-building and enjoyable plot twists and turns.  A delightful story set to charm readers young and old.