Jack’s Secret World by Jack Ryder is a magic adventure for 7 year olds that begins with four friends walking straight through a wall and out into somewhere else entirely.<\/p>\n
The storyteller talks to your reader from the very first page. Secrets come in all shapes and sizes, apparently. Some are small. Some are dark. Some are far too ridiculous to make any sense of.<\/p>\n
And some are magic, and there might be one hidden in this book if you look properly.<\/p>\n
Then comes a firm note that you shouldn’t try the wall thing at home, because most walls aren’t like that one and you’ll only bang your head. That’s the tone of the whole book, really.<\/p>\n
On the other side, the sky is rainbow-coloured and full of stars in the middle of the afternoon. Bees go past singing a song about honey and their furry tummies. There’s a tree growing apricots that actually sparkle.<\/p>\n
The best part is that the children already have powers, found in potions back at the old house. Rocco can fly. Bruno runs like a cheetah. Jack can talk to animals, which is how he knows the dog is banging on about apricots again.<\/p>\n
They are all wonderfully unbothered about the danger. Jack points out that they have no idea what lives here. Bruno decides he’ll simply outrun any lions. Rocco will go straight up. Jack gets told he’ll have to talk his way out of it, thanks very much.<\/p>\n
What they’re actually doing is looking for Blossom, a girl with no memory who went through ahead of them to find her father. Jack has his own private reason for needing to find her, which he isn’t sharing with anyone yet.<\/p>\n
If you’ve got a reader who likes being spoken to directly, this will go down very well. The narrator keeps leaning in and telling them things the characters don’t know, which makes a child feel wonderfully in on it.<\/p>\n
The magic is gentle too. In these opening chapters the worst that happens is a squabble over who gets the next apricot, so it suits a child who wants wonder more than peril.<\/p>\n
One practical thing. This is the second book about Jack and the gang. The opening pages catch you up properly, so a child who starts here won’t be lost at all.<\/p>\n
But if yours likes things in their right order, Jack’s Secret Summer is in the library as well, and that’s the one where three boys and a dog first push their way into the ivy-covered house and find the girl who can’t remember who she is.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Jack’s Secret World by Jack Ryder is a magic adventure for 7 year olds that begins with four friends walking straight through a wall and out into somewhere else entirely. The storyteller talks to your reader from the very first page. Secrets come in all shapes and sizes, apparently. Some are small. Some are dark. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":11725,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"lr_next_read_post_id":7785,"lr_next_read_anchor":"Jack's Secret Summer","lr_seo_hook":"Four friends step through a wall into a world with stars in the daytime sky."},"book_tag":[1047],"age_group":[19],"book_type":[1044],"book_author":[414],"class_list":["post-7786","our-books","type-our-books","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","book_tag-magic-books","age_group-books-for-7-year-olds","book_type-paid","book_author-jack-ryder"],"yoast_title":"Jack’s Secret World by Jack Ryder | Little Reads","yoast_metadesc":"Four friends step through a wall into a world with stars in the daytime sky. For ages 7+. 3,000+ books in the Little Reads app. 7-day free trial.","acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n