Brightstorm: 1 (The Brightstorm Chronicles)

Product Information

It’s a fascinating and compelling adventure with lively landscapes and fantastic characters of the author’s vividly imagined world. The characters are incredible, with Arthur being sensitive and intuitive while Maudie is clever and has a diversified mind. Harriet, on the other hand, is an unflappable explorer. Twelve-year-old twins Maudie and Arthur’s world comes crashing in when their explorer dad is reported dead in his mission to get to South Polaris. Not only that, their family name is tainted when he is accused of stealing another skyship’s fuel before he died, which means they are unable to inherit their family home. I've included this as my last choice because it so perfectly shows how being an 'explorer' is as much about the simple joy found in discovering the everyday outside your doorstep as it is the great feats of exploring the wider world.

CROWFALL falls squarely into the cli-fi sub-genre, probably sci-fi leaning rather than fantasy (though, like all Vashti Hardy's books, it's in that science-fantast blurred spot between them.) Orin discovers his leaders are exploiting the island they live on, and have damaged it so badly that it's about to fail. Rather than trying to solve the problem (because that means giving up their benefits), they're going to abandon ship. A pretty easy to understand allegory for our world! Vashti Hardy is an award-winning United Kingdom writer of children’s books. She taught in primary school for some time and has much interest in children’s stories. She holds a first-class honor teaching degree in English and an MA in creative writing from the University of Chichester. Space explorers, whether on the ground as scientists or the astronauts themselves, are a hive of amazing inspirational stories.This book tells the stories of 50 women who have contributed to space exploration from the past to modern day. Maudie and Arthur were not only orphaned and sold to a cruel family, their father and their name was disgraced. The twins know their father didn’t do what he was accused of doing and they are determined to become explorers like their father and clear his name.Arthur and Maudie are are children of a popular explorer, Brightstorm. Their father had gone on an journey to the South Polaris when his ship crashed, killing him and the crew. He goes through many difficulties as he grieves his father and his emotional narrative plays a significant role in the story while he grows as a character. Vashti’s world-building poses questions about our own world. Can we invent power sources that do not harm the environment? Are the animals around us more intelligent than we think? Vashti Hardy’s narrative is narrated with confidence that allows her imaginative ideas to soar high.

This book is the best book I’ve ever read and I definitely recommend it! I think anyone 9+ would enjoy this book very much! It is so good! I will definitely be reading the sequel too as this is my new favourite book!Tropes. Orphan twins are very tropey. Due to societal norms, most of the time the boy is the intellectual, engineer one and the girl is the more dreamy, book nerd. This one flips that around, which I like. I would have liked to see more of that in the story with the plot. Takeaways Maud is a brilliant engineer. Arthur loves to read and learn and discover. Of course, the children still hold hope that perhaps their father survived the expedition south. So when they get the opportunity to go on an expedition south, they jump at the chance to fulfill a life long dream and maybe even find their father, or at the very least, find out the truth of what happened on that trip. How was the Story? Vashti loves adventures and invention and has always been excited by real-life explorers from history. With the use of journals, Vashti creates fantasy worlds during her free time. After quitting teaching, she became a copywriter and digital marketing executive. Amelia Earhart was an inspiration for the character Harriet Culpepper in Brightstorm, and this book makes Earhart's story accessible to the young reader. The tale of this intrepid aviator is simply told alongside vivid illustration, and travels from her childhood dreams to her achievements and eventual disappearance. There is something truly inspiring, heartwarming, epic and wonderfully educational about Vashti's new book, Crowfall. Without a doubt it is her best children's book to date (in my humble opinion), because the prose is - at the same time - remarkably sparse yet entirely with a strength of authorial voice that all writers dream of achieving!

It drew me in instantly as a fabulous call to adventure and I began to consider what sort of person would reply to such an advert. What if two children, a boy and a girl, replied? They would need an extremely compelling reason. Then Arthur and Maudie Brightstorm arrived in my imagination and I started building their story and the situation with their explorer father and the history of their mother. I decided on a fantasy world with similarities to our own, yet with many more places waiting to be discovered, populated by humans and creatures just as intelligent called sapients. The world of the Wide was born.Brightstorm gives a series of unfortunate events around the world in 80 days and provides the story with a steampunk twist. The book has quirky characters, skyships, and discerning animals to give an epic and fantastic action-adventure tale.

Discover an explorer of a different kind in this beautiful and captivating wordless picture book. A lonely girl draws a magic door on her bedroom wall and escapes through it, then uses her red marker to create things to help her on her way, such as a balloon and a flying carpet. A great reminder that we are all explorers of our own imaginations. 7. Survivors byDavid Long, illustrated by Kerry HyndmanAuthor Vashti Hardy knows a thing or two about what makes a thrilling adventure for children - that's what makes her book Brightstormsuch a rip-roaring read! I love the environmentalist theme of the story. I normally don’t really love political statements, but the environmental issue is near and dear to my heart. (I have a hippie mom to thank for that.) I love nature and I want my great grandchildren to enjoy it as much as I do. Anyhow, Maud and Arthur are on a ship powered by water instead of pitch. This gives them an advantage in the race south because water is a readily available resource, unlike pitch. They also visit a city that has converted to hydro and wind power instead of pitch and has experienced great success. Hmmm. A parallel to any current issue? I think so! What can we Learn from Hardy?