Written by Jill Stanton-Huxton⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
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My thanks to Anne of Random Things Tours for the invitation to join the blog tour for Harvey and the Moon Bus, and to Jill Stanton-Huxton and Matador Books for a free copy of this book to review.
The blurb:
A beautifully-illustrated story about anthropomorphic animals who have a fantasy adventure together.
An underlying theme and moral message which is the importance of helping people.
A fantastical adventure story for children 5-7 years old.
Harvey sees his friends, Chester and Nelly, heading for the corner shop and boarding the Moon Bus, so he decides to join them. Harvey sits next to a grumpy grey rabbit. The Moon Bus takes off and flies through space and lands on the Moon and they all head off to The Moon Rock Sweet Emporium in Moon Crater Alley.
Harvey loses Chester and Nelly – so when he sees the grey rabbit heading for a nearby circus tent he decides to follow him, where he meets a small mouse called Gretel. But they only have 15 minutes to reach the Moon Bus before it leaves for the day!
Gretel tells him the magic mats on the Helter Skelter will take them to the Moon Bus really quickly. The magic mat flies over the cobbled streets towards a huge crater but Gretel falls out of Harvey’s pocket and starts plummeting to the ground. Harvey manages to grab her safely. As the Moon Bus is about to take off, Harvey uses the last of his three wishes to catch it and jumps on board.. They look out of the window and see the grey rabbit running along the runway after the Moon Bus… But will he catch it in time?
Children's Magic & Fantasy
My thoughts:
Harvey is a dungaree-wearing cat who has followed his friends, a dog called Chester, and a cat called Nelly, onto a bus, driven by their friend, an old farm dog called Archie. On the bus is a grey rabbit who is quite rude and behaves badly. The bus is headed for the moon where the animals find lots of things to do. Harvey follows the grey rabbit into a circus tent, where he is entertained by the guinea pigs, Otis and Olive, performing acrobatics. The grey rabbit is also there, and performs for the audience by taking doves and a little mouse from his top hat.
When the performances are over, Harvey finds the little mouse, whose name is Gretel, sobbing because she doesn't want to be part of the grey rabbit's act anymore.
Harvey says she can live with him, and helps her to escape from the grey rabbit by hiding her in the top pocket in his dungarees.
They have to get back to the moon bus by five o'clock, but Harvey can not tell the time. Fortunately Gretel can, and with fifteen minutes to spare, they head to the helter skelter to use a magic mat in a bid to reach the bus before it departs.
This is Ms Stanton-Huxton's debut children's book. It is a lovely short story about friendship, teamed with a magical adventure on the moon, which is sure to delight young children.
The story moves along at quite a pace, and subtly woven into it, is the message that we should help one another. I loved that all the characters are animals. I think that using animals to tell the story is a clever way to underline the 'helping' theme, especially when we see a cat helping a mouse and vice versa.
Throughout the book there are lots of drawings to illustrate the story. While I thought that, considering the target age of 5-7 years, it might have been better to have colour illustrations, this did not detract from the story itself.
Now that we have been introduced to Harvey and his friends, I look forward to reading more of their adventures, and finding out what other moral values they can teach us.
| Author Bio – Jill Stanton-Huxton |
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 JILL STANTON-HUXTON grew up in Buckinghamshire and has a BA Honours Degree, a Diploma in Humanities and a Diploma in Literature & Creative Writing from the Open University. She has had non-fiction articles, short stories and poems published in magazines, local newspapers and online. Jill has been a volunteer judge on the BBC Radio 2 500 words competition for the last two years, marking stories in the 5-9 year range. She was also the winner of The Buckinghamshire Family History Society Alan Dell Memorial Award for 2013. The idea for the characters in the book came from her own childhood and family pets. The inspiration for the book comes from our beautiful and charismatic Norwegian Forest Cat, Macavity. He is six years old now and has become a local celebrity in the neighbourhood," says Jill. With so many of Macavity's cat antics to choose from and the fact that I'm always making up stories in my head ... it was only a matter of time before Harvey materialised. I plan on writing more books in the series ... what adventures will Harvey and his friends go on next? Only time will tell," says Jill. Harvey and the Moon Bus is the first in a planned series of Harvey books. |
| Social Media Links – | |
| Web site | http://www.jillstantonhuxton.com/ |
| X | @JMStantonHuxton |
Huge thanks for the blog tour support x
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