Anna BranfordRecensioni

Sweet story about young girl working towards a goal and persevering in face of challenges. Story focuses on her creative abilities to find ways to reach her goal. Also touches on family life with single mother and new friends. Violet's enthusiasm is catching and her can do attitude is inspiring.

A light, humourous read about a 10 - 12 year boy who desperately wants a phone so that he can look cool and be the envy of his class mates. Neville is the only kid in his whole class without a mobile phone. Or so he tells his parents. When it's clear that Neville's parents can't be persuaded to get him a phone, Neville enlists the help of his mate, Enzo. Neville and Enzo are determined. Humans have walked on the moon; they have built the pyramids - surely if they put their minds to it, they can find a way. Surely? They try various ways to persuade their parents ( very humorous to read) but to no avail. Then they fins a cell phone in a bus shelter and they set about trying to keep it, but there is no Finders Keepers in this story. Fun to read.

Utterly charming. Violet is a young girl - 6? - who really wants to buy a china bird, but struggles with a way to raise money to buy it.

While this is a lovely story with beautiful pencil drawings, it falls into that weird high reading/low interest level, but if you have a kindergartner or 1st grader with a higher reading level, she will love Violet!

Recommended.

I think I liked this book even more than the 1st. The relationship between the two sisters in this one is really quite nice.

So I may need to sneak off and read this entire series on my own. The adorable cover illustrations drew me in. Then the story line had me hooked. Each title page starts with a small knitting inspired illustration - sign me up! The heroine is as sweet as pie. These are just the type of stories I would want to write myself. My daughter let me read two of them to her and she read #3 on her own...but does not have quite the same level of love for these as I do.

Violet's mother knits and sells her handmade goodies at a weekend market. Yes, you had me at knit and weekend market. Im sold! Love these books!!

The Authors website is also quite lovely!

Violet tries to make a ladybug happy, but she accidentally kills her. Violet’s sister desperately needs an idea for her science fair project. These two little plot lines twist and curve around each other and result in a wonderful little story.

It is so lovely to find new small chapter books, just perfect for the children at my primary school. Violet Mackerel’s Personal Space is one of these. And what a sad-happy story. Violet’s mom has decided to remarry and the whole family will move. That’s two sad things for children to deal with but the author, Anna Branford, deals with the sad things in a way that will make the reader feel happy when she finishes the story. That’s so nice for children who have to deal with sad things every day.

When Violet's sister, Nicola gets stressed out trying to work out what to do for a Natural Science Display exhibit, Violet wants to help. She tells Nicola about Small Gloria , a ladybird that she wanted to help by giving it a new habitat so it wouldn't be cold and wet, but instead it dropped dead. This sets Nicola thinking about life cycles of a ladybird. But how will she do something that is good enough for the competition?
This is a lovely story with nice pencil and ink illustrations. Although it seems aimed at a young age group it will hold an appeal for girls up to the age of nine or ten especially if they struggle with the longer novels for this age group.

This is a lovely story about Violet Mackerel who needs a tonsillectomy and ands up making friends with the old lady she meets in the waiting room. Violet is an engaging character with her own particular view of the world and the humour that this leads to will be appreciated by any adults reading the book aloud. Ideal as a read aloud for a child facing an operation but this story will also have wider appeal. Suitable for ages 5 and up as a read aloud or 7 and up to read by themselves. Beautiful black and white illustrations accompany the text.