Children's books: Adventure: "The Spell of a Story", "The Hoys", and "Addy's Chair to Everywhere"

The Spell of a Story by Mariajo Ilustrajo (Frances Lincoln Children's Books)
The Hoys by Kes Gray, illustrated by Mark Chambers (Happy Yak)
Addy's Chair to Everywhere by Debi Novotny, illustrated by Jomike Tejido (Free Spirit Publishing)

Into the world of children's books...and off on an adventure or two!

The Spell of a Story is everything you could want in a children's book—adventure, drama, a tiny moral to the story, and a story-within-a-story. Oh, and lively illustrations to keep things extra interesting. When the main character is told to read a book over vacation, she can't imagine anything worse—and things don't get better when her mother takes her to the library. But it doesn't take long before she falls into the story and things start to change...

What I loved most about this is the way the character falls into the story and we get to see snippets of what's going on between the pages, all in full color and with plenty of adventure. The witches are my favorite; mischevious or no, they look like a delight to hang out with. I didn't need a book like this as a kid (from a very young age my father could stick me in the back of a conference room with a few books and I'd be happy as a clam for the duration), but I still would have loved reading it, just as I loved reading it now. After all, life is so much more colorful with a book or twelve...

There's something so delightful about children's-book pirates. I'd rather not meet one in real life, but the pirates of The Hoys are a cheerful bunch!

I picked this up because it reminded me a bit of The Man Whose Mother Was a Pirate, which my family read repeatedly when I was little. There don't appear to be any lady pirates here, unfortunately, but instead Pirate Jake goes looking for the elusive hoys. (What's a hoy, you ask? Well, who else did you think is being referred to when a pirate shouts "Ahoy there!"?)

Colorful illustrations keep things lively, and while some of the vocabulary will probably call for a parent's explanation, I've come to really appreciate picture books that are not in verse; without that constraint, the language is often much more interesting. Enjoy the story...and then don't be surprised if the next small child who reads it wants to hunt for some hoys in remote corners of the beach.

Addy's chair can take her places—in real life and in her imagination. And in Addy's Chair to Everywhere, we see Addy worrying that her chair will set her apart, but then using that same chair to fuel not just her own imagination but her classmates' imaginations.

The book world is getting better about diversity, but it still has a ways to go, and it's wonderful to see more books working to 1) represent kids who might not usually see themselves on the page and 2) casually remind other readers of ways to be inclusive. The reason Addy uses a wheelchair is not named here, and I love that—first because it's a reminder that her disability, whatever it is, is only one part of her story, and second because it lets more kids who use wheelchairs imagine themselves in her chariot. I also love that we see Addy out of her chair, playing with other kids on the ground; it's a small and subtle thing, but as far as I can remember I never had a class with someone who used a wheelchair when I was in school, and when I was a kid I'm not sure it even would have occurred to me that someone could, you know, get down out of their wheelchair and play.

I don't think the book needed rhyme, but it doesn't feel forced or get in the way of the story. The book also includes several pages of suggestions and resources for teachers, which I hope will spur educators into thinking about inclusive solutions even before they know that the need is in front of them.

Thanks to the authors and publishers for providing review copies through NetGalley.