About the Book

Roll up, roll up, the Scareground is in town!

Twelve-year-old Nancy Crumpet lives above a bakery and her life is a delightful mix of flour, salt, and love. Yet her mind is brimming with questions no one can answer: Why did her birth parents disappear? Why can she speak with the sky? And why must she keep her mysterious birthmark hidden?

Everything is about to change when the Scareground returns to Greenwich. Nancy is convinced it holds the answers to her parents’ disappearance. Nancy and her best friend Arthur Green meet the fair’s spooky owner, Skelter, and discover a world full of dark magic and mystery. Nancy must confront her greatest fears to get to the truth. But is she ready for all the secrets the Scareground will reveal?

About the Author

Angela Kecojevic is a senior librarian, author and creative writing tutor. She has written for the Oxford Reading Tree programme and the multi-award-winning adventure park Hobbledown where her characters can be seen walking around, something she still finds incredibly charming! She is a member of the Climate Writers Fiction League, a group of international authors who use climate issues in their work. Angela lives in the city of Oxford with her family.

What I Thought

Nancy Crumpet is a girl at home on the rooftops of Greenwich and with her family of baker parents. She knows she is adopted but when black balloons, raven feathers and music only she can hear arrive in town, she begins to realise that maybe they didn’t tell her the truth about her origins.

Along with her friend, Arthur, Nancy gets a ticket to the mysterious Scareground and although she’s made a promise to stay away it’s one she simply can’t keep when the truth is out there on the wind.

Author Angela Kecojevic has created a perfect spooky middle grade read with sumptuous writing. The descriptions leap off the page and the scares leap out at the scareground’s participants. It’s not too frightening for the reader but, as the book describes the Scareground, it is macabre. I think this would make a marvellous Tim Burton cartoon.

But are the scares as innocent as they seem and are the enigmatic Skeltor and his fairground crew to be trusted? After all the fair takes in boys that are otherwise unwanted. Waltzer, Shy, Racer and Dodge remind me of Fagin’s boys but they deal with illusion rather than thievery.

Without giving things away, and probably because people reading this will be too young to remember, but this gives me the same vibes as one of the 80s Care Bears Movies. But there are no Care Bears here to save the day it’s up to Nancy and Arthur and the Sky!

Love that this is all wrapped up but with the promise of a new adventure. I think our protagonists are ready to tackle the next one.

Huge thanks to The Write Reads tours and Neem Press for the gifted copy. Opinions are, as ever, my own.