Having thoroughly enjoyed Petra Quelch’s children’s book Lottie Sparkles’ Magical Discovery, reviewed here, I am delighted to participate in the blog tour for Petra’s latest book, Magic Marmalade. I’m sharing my review today. My thanks to Petra for inviting me to take part.

Published by Austin Macauley, Magic Marmalade is available for purchase in all the usual places including Amazon UK, Amazon US, Waterstones and directly from the publisher.

Magic Marmalade

Imagine you didn’t have to travel the ordinary way of transport. You could get from one place to the other quickly and without any delays. Wouldn’t that be fantastic?

Mabel Bloom doesn’t like to travel the ordinary way. She dislikes buses, cars, trains or even planes. But one day she receives a very important invitation from the Other Side of the world, so she turns to her grandpa for help. Grandpa sends Mabel a recipe which, when made correctly, will give her the power to travel a very unusual way. And Mabel’s extraordinary adventure begins.

My Review of Magic Marmalade

Mabel has an invitation, but how will she get to the event?

In the interests of complete honesty, I’ve one small quibble to get out of the way before my review proper – I personally prefer left, rather than centrally, justified text in children’s books!

That small detail aside I loved Magic Marmalade. It’s a lovely, exciting story with an important underlying message that if we believe in ourselves with a little bit of luck we can achieve anything. Mabel overcomes her difficulties and reaps the rewards in doing so, so that children can have faith in themselves as a result of this story. I liked the structure of the story over a week too.

With Mabel, Battina and Grandpa as central characters, Magic Marmalade encourages links between generations that I think are so incredibly important in the current world. This would make a fantastic bedtime story for a grandparent to share with a grandchild via Zoom. There’s adventure, and a little sprinkle of magic that makes Magic Marmalade very entertaining.

I thought the balance of text to image was perfect with language accessible enough for independent readers, but with sufficiently unusual words too, to enhance a child’s vocabulary. I especially liked the use of onomatopoeia.

The images in Magic Marmalade support the text brilliantly, helping less confident young readers gather meaning. They have a naïve charm that will appeal to children with plenty to look at as the story progresses.

Magic Marmalade is a charming story that has a lovely message.

About Petra Quelch

Petra Quelch is the author of Magic Marmalade and Lottie Sparkles Magical Discovery. Petra loves everything sparkly, glittery, magical and mysterious.

Aside from all the glitz and glamour, she is a collector of books, pens, tea sets and a huge fan of chocolate.

Petra has two little girls, also known as “The Little Book-Fairies with a BIG imagination.

Most days, she findsherself conjuring up stories for children or reading books in her favourite spot by the window.

You can find out more by following Petra on Twitter @ACaseOfBooks and Instagram and finding her on Facebook.

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