Anna James’s Tilly and the Map of Stories is a magical treasure hunt for 9 year olds that sends two best friends from a London bookshop all the way to Washington DC.<\/p>\n
Tilly Pages lives at Pages & Co, the bookshop her grandparents run. She’s a bookwanderer, which means she can read herself right inside a story and chat to the people who live there. Or she could. The Underwoods, who are in charge of the British Underlibrary, have locked the books so nobody can get in.<\/p>\n
Tilly HATES it. And something odd is going on in the shop. A customer comes in for a book he thinks he loved as a child and can’t remember its title, its author or, by the end, why he wanted it at all.<\/p>\n
Tilly thinks she knows who could help. The Archivists are supposed to be the most secret bookwanderers there are, and she’s sure she’s been sent a map to them. It’s a key, a ball of red thread, a bag of breadcrumbs and a very thin book. (You can see why Grandad isn’t convinced.)<\/p>\n
Then the Underwoods turn up at the shop. Either Tilly helps with their research or they’ll stop every child bookwandering for good. So she and her best friend Oskar are bundled into a taxi in the middle of the night with their passports. Next stop, the Library of Congress!<\/p>\n
If you’ve got a reader who loves books about books, they’ll be very happy here. Alice, Anne Shirley and The Secret Garden all get a look in, and a tea party table starts growing out of Tilly’s bedroom floor. Oskar is great company too. He says he feels a bit kidnapped, then orders a full English at the airport because missing breakfast is an emergency.<\/p>\n
It’s less cosy than a bookshop story sounds, though. The Underwoods want Tilly herself, and her family are properly frightened of what they’d do. Grandad hides her upstairs when they call, and then two twelve-year-olds fly to America on their own. There are tears at the other end.<\/p>\n
This is the third Pages & Co book and it carries straight on from the first two. Names and events from the earlier books go past quickly, and it tells you how they turned out, so it really is best read in order.<\/p>\n
If they haven’t met Tilly yet, start with Tilly and the Bookwanderers. It begins on a rainy half-term in the same bookshop, with five books stacked by her bed and Tilly complaining that nobody has proper adventures in real life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Anna James’s Tilly and the Map of Stories is a magical treasure hunt for 9 year olds that sends two best friends from a London bookshop all the way to Washington DC. Tilly Pages lives at Pages & Co, the bookshop her grandparents run. She’s a bookwanderer, which means she can read herself right inside […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":14264,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"lr_next_read_post_id":9583,"lr_next_read_anchor":"Tilly and the Bookwanderers","lr_seo_hook":"Tilly has a key, some breadcrumbs and a map her grandad says isn't a map.","lr_series_id":347,"lr_series_name":"Pages & Co","lr_series_position":3,"lr_series_label":"","lr_author_order":""},"book_tag":[27],"age_group":[24],"book_type":[1044],"book_author":[108],"class_list":["post-14265","our-books","type-our-books","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","book_tag-fantasy-books","age_group-books-for-9-year-olds","book_type-paid","book_author-anna-james"],"yoast_title":"Tilly and the Map of Stories by Anna James | Little Reads","yoast_metadesc":"Tilly has a key, some breadcrumbs and a map her grandad says isn't a map. For ages 9+. 3,000+ books in the Little Reads app. 7-day free trial.","acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n