Beyond the Stars: Twelve Tales of Adventure, Magic and Wonder is a wintry story collection for 11 year olds, with writers including John Boyne, Roddy Doyle and Derek Landy.<\/p>\n
The stories come from different writers and illustrators, and the first few are VERY different from each other. So it’s one to dip into rather than race through.<\/p>\n
Roddy Doyle’s story is about a small white street dog in Moscow in 1951. She’s hungry and tough and very clever. She gets caught pinching meat and ends up in the dog pound. Then some men in white coats pick her out, weigh her and shake her about in a metal box to see if she’ll wet herself. (She’s being tested for a rocket.) It’s all told from the dog’s side, and you’ll be rooting for her.<\/p>\n
Derek Landy’s story is a proper laugh. Corporal Fleece is a soldier who plays dead in every battle, with a pouch of cow’s blood tucked in his tunic for the purpose. One freezing morning he gets swept right into the middle of the fighting, and from there things go from bad to MUCH worse.<\/p>\n
John Boyne’s story is gentle and daft. Abigail works at a vet’s and keeps handing people the wrong pets (a walrus cub instead of a schnauzer!). She keeps an elephant, a koala and a toucan at home. Then a sad little boy called Henry turns up in her living room. His dog has died, and his parents say he has to be sad for a whole year before he can have another.<\/p>\n
Worth knowing before you hand it over. Fleece’s battle is very bloody. Heads come off, a horse is killed and his best friend dies right in front of him. It’s written for laughs, but it doesn’t look away. The space dog story ends with a short note about the real dogs, and one of them doesn’t survive. There’s some mild swearing too.<\/p>\n
If your reader is fine with a battle in a funny story, they’ll probably love Fleece. If they’re a sensitive animal lover, the vet story is a kinder place to start. And for a curious reader, the space dogs might send them off to find out more.<\/p>\n
If it’s the Moscow dog who stays with them, Roddy Doyle also wrote A Greyhound of a Girl. It’s about a cheeky Dublin girl whose best friend has just moved away, and an old-fashioned woman who turns up on her street in the rain without getting wet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Beyond the Stars: Twelve Tales of Adventure, Magic and Wonder is a wintry story collection for 11 year olds, with writers including John Boyne, Roddy Doyle and Derek Landy. The stories come from different writers and illustrators, and the first few are VERY different from each other. So it’s one to dip into rather than […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":10113,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"lr_next_read_post_id":6666,"lr_next_read_anchor":"A Greyhound of a Girl","lr_seo_hook":"Space dogs, a cowardly soldier and a muddled vet's assistant in one book."},"book_tag":[1045],"age_group":[28],"book_type":[1044],"book_author":[1129],"class_list":["post-6945","our-books","type-our-books","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","book_tag-adventure-books","age_group-books-for-11-year-olds","book_type-paid","book_author-various-authors"],"yoast_title":"Beyond the Stars: Twelve Tales of Adventure, Magic and Wonder by Various Authors | Little Reads","yoast_metadesc":"Space dogs, a cowardly soldier and a muddled vet's assistant in one book. For ages 11+. 3,000+ books in the Little Reads app. 7-day free trial.","acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n