The Bookshop Girl

by Sylvia Bishop

Ashley King (Illustrator)

 


This story is about a little girl named Property Jones,
so-called because she was left in the lost property cupboard of
a bookshop when she was five years old.
Property loves living in the bookshop, but she has a whopper of
a secret ... she can't actually read!


So Property doesn't see the newspaper article announcing the chance
to win the Montgomery Book Emporium, the biggest and
most magnificent bookshop in the world!


When her family win the competition, Property finds herself moving
to the Emporium, a magical place filled with floor upon floor
of books and a very bad-tempered cat.


But all is not at it seems at the Emporium and
soon Property Jones finds herself in a whole heap of trouble.

• ISBN13: 9781407159690
• Publish Date: 6 April 2017
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: GB
• Imprint: Scholastic
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 176
• Language: English

Reviews

[Leah]

The Bookshop Girl came into my life because of my local library. In fact, many books I wouldn’t have ordinarily have heard of come into my life because I look at my library’s list of new books on the 1st of every month (it is literally my favourite day of every month, I’m not even kidding). I was a bit dubious because who is called Property? It’s not a name! But it’s actually explained, before the book starts, that Property came by her name because she was found in the bookshop and her brother, Michael, put her in the lost property cupboard and the name stuck, I love little additions like that, because it tells you that the author wanted to explain Property’s unusual name, because she likely knew people like me would wonder.

The Bookshop Girl is a quick read. I read it in under an hour and, according to Amazon, it’s for 7-9 year olds which is about right, when you see the words used, the shortness of the text, the big font, etc. The plot moves incredibly quickly – one moment we’re at the White Hare, and Property, Michael and Netty and trundling along, the next they’ve entered the raffle to win the Montgomery Book Emporium and then they’ve won and they move down to London quick as you like. There’s very little let up and it will very easily keep younger readers attention, and the illustrations are incredible. Ashley King has done a fantastic job, he’s supremely talented and he really helped bring the Emporium and the Joneses to life.

I really enjoyed The Bookshop Girl. It was such a quick, fun read. The Joneses seem like a lovely family, and there was a nice bit of villain-ness to the plot, when all isn’t as it seems at the Emporium. The Emporium actually sounds like an immense bookshop. I would literally love to visit there, as a reader and book lover and can you imagine getting to live there? I’ll be dreaming about it for weeks… Sylvia Bishop is a wonderful storyteller and I loved getting to know Property Jones and her family.