A Murderer on Crocodile Island

Tim Diamond is no ordinary detective. He 's clumsy and he bumbles and fumbles. But (surprise surprise) he solves all his mysteries. The secret of this, you soon find out, is his younger brother Nick who tells the story of each mystery in the Antony Horowitz Diamond Brother Mystery collections. Nick also solves the mysteries.
I loved Antony Horowitz ever since I read Storm Breaker, the first in his Alex Rider collection. Alex Rider is a 14 year old spy and has wonderfully exciting adventures where he fights villains and narrowly escapes being killed. The stories in the Diamond brother series don’t have so much action as the Alex Rider ones, but they are fun and also quite funny.
Of the three stories in this collection, I liked the third one the best. Called I know what you did last Wednesday, it is about many murders on a lonely island in Scotland ( called Crocodile Island) Its supposed to be a party, a school reunion to which Tim Diamond gets invited . Instead the school friends (now grown quite old) find themselves all alone on an island where people keep getting murdered in strange ways - stabbed with a model of the Eiffel Tower, bashed up by a globe and even by a musical organ. Who will the murderer be – read this book to find out.
Posted by Diviya

How the snooty Thelka learns her lesson

When I found a copy of The Exploits of the Chalet Girls in the British Council library, I was thrilled. I’d read the first one The School at Chalet a year ago and liked it so much, I decided to read all the others ( and they’re many , around 60 !) . This book looked exciting and it came just on time – one day before we left for our beach holiday on the Konkan coast.


So there I was, on a hammock near our MTDC cottage on the beach and reading it ..even though the school is nowhere near a beach ! It is quite the opposite; in the mountains near Salzburg in Austria ( where Mozart was born) . The chalet school was started by Madge Bettany who was told by the doctors that her younger sister Joey needed to be in the healthy air of the mountains to get well. What better way than to start a school. Money for Madge , and a lovely place for Joey to grow up in.


So the Chalet school began. With interesting subjects like French and German taught on different days. The students have fun, they walk everywhere , sometimes they climb mountains, sometimes they go to the forest opposite their school. And there’s always something eventful happening .


In The Exploits the eventful thing is the arrival of a pampered Prussian girl called Thelka. She’s snooty and she uses bad language. By the end of the book Thelka is, as you can guess, well behaved ..but how she gets to this is what is interesting. Besides Thelka and her tantrums, there’s a lot of other action too. The naughty fifth formers are always upto something .They’re chemistry lab explosions, clocks being broken and other interesting tricks . So if you like school stories like St. Claires and Mallory Towers , be sure to read this one !

posted by Aleya Dutta Choudhury

Holiday Books

We're off this Saturday . To spend 2 days in cottages by the beach ; and one in a houseboat ! We'll be on the the Shatabdi express travelling down the Konkan coast and then we'll be at Kudal.

At Tarkalli , where we're staying , they're hammocks on the beach - sounds great for sinking into, with a great collection of books . Here's our list

• Exploits of the Chalet Girls by Elinor M Brent-Dyer ( 8 years plus)
• Sophie in the Saddle by Dick King-Smith ( for 6-8 year olds )
• George Speaks by Dick King-Smith ( for 6-8 year olds )
• The Colossus of Rhodes by Caroline Lawrence ( 9 years plus)
• Three of Diamonds by Anthony Horowitz ( 9 years plus)
• Evil Star by Anthony Horowitz ( 9 years plus)
• Percy Jackson and the Titan's Curse by Rick Riordan ( 9 years plus)

The Boy in the Bookshop cafe

We were at the Crossword cafe in town the other day , when we met a boy from Poddar. He sat next to us , at the next table . His mom saw us looking at his book and began to chat to the four of us.


But the boy never looked up. He was reading. Speed reading. His book , to be followed by 3 others that were stacked by his side - the adventures of the boy hero Percy Jackson ...naturally we were staring.


We have, for the last few months been in a Percy Jackson world. That Rick Riordan could have written such gorgeous stories for his son- a 9 year old boy who had difficulty reading, whose teachers complained he had dyslexia and AHDH.


But Rick Riordan, himself a teacher didn't lose heart. He began telling his son stories. And what stories !


The hero od the Riordan books , unsurprisingly, is an 11 year old boy. He does badly in school. He jumbles his letters. he is hyperactive and distracted . But why does he do all these things ??


He is a half blood- and his father is no other than the mighty sea God !!


Percy ( short for Perseus) speaks and reads ancient Greek ( that's why he's bad at reading English)


Read the series of 4 - Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, The Sea of Monsters, The Labyrinth and The Titan's Curse


It's very racy and full of action. And for those you have read the original greek mythology, its a fascinatingly modern interpretation.