PotsandPlots

I’ve been umming and ahhing about whether to include children’s book reviews on PotsandPlots. I enjoy reading children’s fiction, particularly sharing them with my boys, but as my youngest son is now 13, those days are beginning to fall behind us.

Reviewing children’s fiction fitted in well with GeekDad’s readers. Almost by definition they would be interested in the sorts of books I like to read with my kids. For PotsandPlots, I wondered whether to focus on particular genres or readers, and so drop children’s novels in favour of a stricter diet of SFF.

During my Autumn review interregnum, I’ve slowly realised that the reason my mojo evaporated was that I was thinking too much about how to build an audience. I wasn’t focussing on the thing I enjoyed. The reading. On balance then, I’m going to go with unfocussed and just review what I’ve enjoyed, regardless of genre or age group. If nobody reads it, so be it. At least I’ve had fun!

Avalanche, then?

Plant with: Children’s Fiction, Action, Thriller.

Grows into: Exciting tale about teamwork and self-belief.

Rating: 🌻🌻 – Vibrant Annual (Out of 3 – check here for rating description)

Review Copy sent to me by publisher, Nosy Crow

Out Now!  In paperback – Find it on bookshop.org (Affiliate Link)

The Review.

Avalanche is a children’s thriller by Simon Fox, aimed at ages around 9 upwards. I’ve reviewed a couple of Simon Fox books before, most notably Running out of Time, which has an excellent time travel device, and some thoughtful observations on the asylum debate currently raging in Britain. If I was reading Simon Fox for the first time, I’d start there.

Avalanche is a more standard thriller. It’s exciting and has some great set pieces, but it doesn’t have same the resonance as Running out of Time. It more resembles Deadlock. Fox’s two more recent novels are about thrills, spills and upending the plans of dastardly adults.

In Avalanche we follow Tom, whose mum is head of secruity for a biotech billionaire. One who has already had one attempt on his life. As a result they have all relocated to a remote Apline chalet, in order to escape unwanted attention.

Unfortunately, this plan fails. An attack on the compound leaves Tom’s mum out of action, the billionaire captured, and causes an avalanche that traps everybody in.

Tom and the billionaire’s daughter, Emily, who sneaked back to the chalet when they were supposed to elsewhere, are now the only ones who can save the day.

Home, but not Alone.

That’s the premise: Two children, who initially have no respect for each other, must battle a team of special operatives in order to save their parents and to stop a bioweapon from falling into the wrong hands.

I enjoyed the interplay between Emily and Tom. It’s a classic device – two kids from different walks of life disliking/mistrusting each other, but Fox keeps it fresh. They both have imperfect relationships with their parents, and Fox ably demonstrates that you can’t tell, from the outside, what is going on inside a family. Emily is type 1 diabetic but still more than able to kick hijacker-ass, which is a nice touch.

The traps and tricks the pair use to work through the house are fun and innovative, and there’s a neat twist that turns things on their head towards the end. We also have a mountaintop helicopter action scene that is wholly more convincing than the finale of Mission Impossible: Fallout. Fox’s characters are significantly less wooden than Henry Cavill, too, which we can all be thankful for!

All in all, Avalanche is a fun thriller that ticks all the boxes that children’s literature should.