Join our community to get personalised book suggestions, extracts straight to your inbox, 10% off RRPs, and to change children’s lives. Cuckoo Summer: This adventure novel, set in World War 2, is about friendship, triumph over adversity and resilience. Given that Earle wrote WHEN THE SKY FALLS, one of my favourite wartime stories, as well as the more recently published WHILE THE STORM RAGES, which I also thoroughly enjoyed, my expectations were high. Your selection was perfect for our children and what really made the difference was your ability to engage with each child, discuss their interests and help them to choose a suitable book based on your extensive knowledge of the books you were selling. Fortunately, she is neighbours with Tommy and his aunts, who keen an eye out for her as she and Tommy set out on a summer of adventure.

In the beginning, Tommy, our narrator, explains Sally’s dialect to us, when necessary, offering definitions for Geordie vocabulary which might be unfamiliar. There was just the right amount of choice to suit everyone without being overwhelming and I received comments from parents and staff about the quality of books offered compared to previous sales which have always been based around current crazes and well known celebrity authors.I think we need to meet nature in our books so we know what the British countryside should really sound, smell and look like.

But then they find a German airman, he'd parachuted out of a plane that was coming down in Woundale. Then again, Sally’s full of stories and schemes and it seems she’s reluctant to share anything about her past life. Ideal class read for y5/6/7 to compliment or introduce a study of WWII but any keen young reader will enjoy this story.

Jonathan Tulloch's writing takes you straight into the story's time, during WWII, and place; a small Lake District village. I loved the setting of this book too, in the green countryside of the Lake District, farming for victory and doing what they could for the war effort.