Blog tour: "Pandemonium" by Gail Aldwin

Well this is a first for me!  I've never taken part in a blog tour before, and especially not as the opening act❗

 

The author of "Pandemonium", Gail Aldwin, asked me if I wanted to be involved in the blog tour for her new book that's published on 1st December 2020 by Victorina Press.

I always love having a face to put to a name online so the author has kindly sent me this photo of her to share with you all:

And this is what the incredible illustrator looks like:

This is the adorable cover of the book:

And if you wanna see what the others in the blog tour have said about the book, all the info is in this poster:

If you don't wanna know what my opinion of the book is before you read it, don't read any further, but if you wanna know what my review says, just keep reading below the divider!

⭐⭐⭐⭐ out of 5

I was honoured to receive an advanced copy of this gorgeous book so that I could take part in my first ever blog tour on it.

I love the front cover - it's so fun and purple and inviting... I'm wondering about the word choice for the title of the book though - such a young audience might be put off with not knowing what pandemonium means which might lose their interest before the adult has even opened the front cover... it's a picture book, so it's aimed at 6 year olds, tops, and they will have no understanding of what the word means and not be able to understand when their grown-up attempts to explain what it means either.  My little nephew is, at the time of writing this review, 5 years old, and there's no way he'd understand the word without explanation from the person reading it with him, which might turn him off listening to the rest of it.  I hope the author has a reason for choosing such a difficult word for the title of her book for such a young audience.

Oh dear, the author has used the word "haberdashery" in one of the illustrations and early text too.  A six year old would be fidgeting and picking their nose with confusion already.  If it doesn't rapidly improve then it's already losing a star.

Now a chef has appeared out of nowhere and said "pandemonium" so that is, unfortunately, a star gone after only 13 pages.

pages 14 to 24 were OK, but the author has used the word "pandemonium" again and split it into quarters so a six year old would be fidgeting and getting bored out of their tree now... such a young child doesn't know how to use a thesaurus and a word like pandemonium wouldn't be in a primary school dictionary anyway!

And now it's finished... not a good book unfortunately, and I hope other reviewers disagree with me, but the author has used adult vocabulary in a young child's book without understanding the intended audience's level of understanding.  It had potential, but the word choices are totally wrong unfortunately.  The only reason it's not going down to three stars is the adorable illustrations.