My book of the month for December is a charming Christmas story written by a very young (she's eight) and hugely promising author, Indigo Haynes.
A Kitten Called Christmas - gosh, you'll think, it's bound to be sickly and far too sweet, isn't it? Well, you'd be wrong. It's an absolute delight, from the first page in which the author reveals that the heroine Jenny's father is a cat breeder
which meant he had to sell most of the kittens for money. He's not a bad man. He's just trying to make ends meet and provide for his family. But still...
A litter of Manx kittens has just been born, but one of them has a stubby tail which means she won't fetch a good price. What will happen to Christmas? This inventive and resourceful author invites us to find out.
Indigo has also written a science fiction story for children entitled
Holly and the Rabbits from Mars, which is all about the adventures of a brave young bunny who saves the world from an invasion of gigantic red rabbits, and
How Potatoes Saved the Queen, a story featuring Elizabeth I and starring a Tudor dog, whose name is - you've guessed it - Potatoes, and who belongs to Sir Walter Raleigh.
Last year, Indigo won a national short story competition judged by Francesca Simon, author of the Horrid Henry books, and I'm sure that in ten years' time (or sooner) she'll be writing bestsellers of her own.
There's a link to the Kindle edition of
A Kitten Called Christmas to the right of this post. Click on the cover image to take you there.
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