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Tricia Adams - Editorial Expert

As a professional librarian with more years’ experience than she cares to mention – Tricia has worked in several sectors including government libraries and as a self-employed information specialist but has reverted to her favourite – of working with children, in various guises, for the last 20+ years.

This has included a spell as a primary school librarian, before moving back to public libraries in her home county of Northamptonshire, where she was Head of Children’s and Young People’s Public Library Services and the manager of the Schools’ Library Service – Learning Resources for Education.

She was then Director of the School Library Association (an independent charity) between 2008-2018. She had the honour to be Chair of the Carnegie and Kate Greenaway judging panel and Youth Libraries Group during 2008 and 2017. She now fills her time with volunteering for the Federation of Children’s Books, is Chair of the newly formed Northamptonshire CBG, Co-ordinates the National Share a Story Month initiative and is a newly appointed Trustee of the English Association. She continues to work with Youth Libraries Group and she also leads training sessions, as well as reviewing for several organisations.

A lifelong love of reading and collecting children’s books, amongst other topics, has created a collection so rambling that the house has to be extended every few years!

Latest Reviews By Tricia Adams

This novel, by Birmingham born poet Zephaniah, is the fifth book in the Scholastic Voices series – highlighting the situation and stories behind the myriad of people who have arrived from all over the world to the UK. Leonard’s father is one of the many Jamaican born men who came to Britain at the request of the UK government to help rebuild the country after the second World War. So, when Leonard and his mother arrive in Southampton the 10-year-old had to get to know a father he barely remembers and learn to live in a climate, both ... View Full Review

This is Robertson’s second collect of poetry - her work on You Are Not Alone has received funding from Arts Council England’s ‘Developing Your Creative Practice’ programme. The poetry covers many styles and topics – all connected to well-being and mental health. Divided into five sections each section containing diverse poems on a loosely similar theme – though all the poems are very varied and cover everything from what the mind is like to OCD type activities, from belonging to hope, happiness to allowing people space. Such a varied collection will be ... View Full Review

Set on board the Titanic this account of four diverse and multi-skilled girls planning a daring heist could possibly only have one outcome – or could it? The girls are all from different and often very difficult backgrounds – they have no family to back them up and all meet through their lodging house – a depressing place in Dublin with strict rules. Needless to say, the girls all circumvent the rules in some way to make a living and to keep bread on their tables. Josefa, a thief, chooses and then leads the girls on their daring escapade – ... View Full Review

At first glance this looks like a short, light novel but how wrong anyone would be to think that. Translated from the original Welsh, this is a deep thought-provoking novel – filled with actions and philosophical questions that create a lasting impression. Dylan was only 6 when the world as he knew it stopped. The electricity went off, everyone left - and just him and his Mum were left to survive on a remote Welsh mountainside above the village of Nebo - with no services. Now 14, Dylan has learned new survival skills and is as wise as any adult. On a ... View Full Review

Frances Hardinge always produces books that are very readable and fascinating in equal measure. Her newest The Unraveller is exactly that – set in a strange culture where a race of spider like creatures, the Little Brothers, have given the citizens of Raddith the ability to cast a curse on the people they hate. These curses can be quite mild or could be horrific – turning a child into a cloud for instance. Kellen is the only person who can ‘unravel’ curses – in the way one would unravel a piece of cloth, gathering ... View Full Review

Using the much-interpreted legend of Theseus and the Minotaur – a journey full of dangers and threat, as well as a search for a father as a basis Coelho then weaves around it the story of Theo – also on a journey to find his father. Each is off on a maze-like quest to find their roots, their inheritance with each facing dangers and problems along the way. Not only is this an intricate mix of two stories with echoes of each other, but in places is given over to the reader to control the story arc by choosing which ... View Full Review

Black and British: An Illustrated History

Professor David Olugosa has created this very accessible Illustrated History based on his previously published, bestselling adult versions of Black and British (adult), as well as the Short Essential History (aimed at teens). It is the book he wished he had when he was at Primary school. This version shows us key events in British history that have involved Black Britons – starting with the Romans and working through all the periods of history since. It explores the fact that Black peoples have been integral to the history of this country, as well as the more shameful impacts of the ... View Full Review

This book is outstanding in its gathering of talent to provide the illustrations to Adeola’s messages. It is a powerful, personal response to the murder of George Floyd and the awakening around the world to the Black Lives Matter movement. It is an honest and very personal letter to Adeola’s younger self, messages he wishes he had seen and heard at a young age, created now for the children of the future. The messages apply to any child – and the illustrations show a diverse range of children and adults; the writing is simple, straightforward ... View Full Review

Forna has taken her own experiences of sexism and racism that she experienced as a woman from Sierra Leone living in the US on which to base this novel. This has created a powerful depiction of the oppression and cruelty meted out to women who are different from a society’s accepted roles. Set in the patriarchal fantasy world of Otera, this is based in an ancient kingdom, where a woman’s worth is only as good as her proven purity. This purity is proven by the woman being made to bleed – in a brutal ceremony ... View Full Review

This book is set 17 years before the action in Angie Thomas’s The Hate U Give – showing how Star’s father in THUG became the man he is. Maverick is an average teenage boy in the Garden Heights area – selling drugs to help the budget at home as his father is in prison. His Mum works two and sometimes three jobs to try to make ends meet – and Maverick knows he needs to graduate High School to stand any chance of becoming the man he wants to be. That is, ... View Full Review

How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories

Holly Black writes amazing fantasy set in the land of Faerie. She has thrilled us with The Folk of the Air Trilogy – but this delightful novella takes a deeper look at the early life of the cruel King Cardan from the trilogy – offering some insights as to why he becomes the adult he is and how his early influences contributed. For such a short book (only 173 pages) it is filled with high romance, terrifying danger and touches of humour that will appeal to both established fans and new readers alike. Starting in Cardan&... View Full Review

This novel moves from poetry to prose, and back again, as it explores a girl’s relationship with her Grandfather. Mizuki can see something is deeply troubling to her Grandfather Ichiro, but she can’t find its source, except it is somehow connected with an old book and Ichiro’s need to create origami paper cranes from it. Mizuki’s worries are expressed in verse before we jump back into prose - to the at times brutal description of the day the bomb fell on Hiroshima and Ichiro’s role in that ... View Full Review