Review of "A Spectacular Story from the Future" by Katie Lally

⭐ out of 5

If you've read any of my other recent reviews, you'll already know that I start 'em all off by saying that every book starts off with the full 5 stars and I'm always hopeful that they will still be firmly in place by the time I close the book.

The Amazon page says that the publishers have said that it's aimed at 2-12 year olds which is a huuuuge variety of abilities but because it's only 32 pages long, it sounds like it's a picture book, so I'm gonna read it in that headspace.

Oh dear, the second word of the entire book is waaaay too advanced for such a young audience.  I reckon the word choice is why there is such a huge age range, but a 12 year old wouldn't read a picture book and a 2 year old would already be confused after only two words, so the first star is already incredibly wobbly unfortunately.

The eighth word is also waaay too advanced for such a young audience, so the first star has dropped off after less than a sentence.

The third word on the second page is equally advanced but I've already knocked a star of for that reason, so can't knock the second star off yet.

The story has been decidedly tepid and the white words are incredibly hard to read on the blue illustration.  There's no way a young child would put up with that so the second star is also incredibly wobbly unfortunately.

On a positive note, the illustrations are good and might appeal to slightly older readers of maybe 8 or 9 years old so maybe that's another reason the author has chosen such a huge age range?

Now Granny May is talking to the main character as if she's older than she appears and I'm fed up of giving the author the benefit of the doubt for all these things, so we're now down to three stars.

That's better!  The author has used white highlights behind black text on a bluey-white cloud, so that's considerably easier to read than that first time she made that mistake.

Oh boy, Mother Nature is topless on this page, so the third star is instantly coming off because that really isn't child friendly at all.  I've only got one more star left to remove and over half the book to read... this isn't looking at all good unfortunately.

Now the text is barely readable again, so after half of the book, the fourth star is being removed and I'm officially giving up on this book.  The author should stick to illustrating IMNSHO.