Amelia Fang and the Barbaric Ball (The Amelia Fang Series)

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Get ready to sink your teeth into the fourth book of the spook-tacular series, Amelia Fang and the Half-Moon Holiday.

I felt sorry for Amelia, she likes sweet stuff but with her tooth she can't do any eating, then again, she will be happy later. Plus she was so excited about the birthnight (I keep spelling birthday), and then that happens. Aww. :( I loved that the author added the whole growing up and that you may have your own dreams to follow instead of those your parents want to follow. In this one we also see that Amelia and her mom have their differences. Amelia wants to become a pumpinologist, while her mom wants her to be the perfect vampire with all the right manners and doing all she is doing at this moment. I am happy with how the author wove this through the story we have, and I just love the ending, awww. Though also I had to laugh, glitter anyone? Meanwhile, she and her friends are now attending Catacomb Academy during the day, with other children from the kingdom of the light, and they have a new fairy teacher from Glitteropolis, Mr. Sublime. He's a baker, and he gives his students a new cookie recipe to try out with ingredients Amelia's never worked with before. Amelia Fang and the Barbaric Ball was Waterstones Book of the Month in October 2017. Amelia Fang would rather hang out with her pet pumpkin Squashy and her friends Florence the yeti (DON’T CALL HER BEAST!) and Grimaldi the reaper than dance at her parents’ annual Barbaric Ball. When the King’s spoiled son Tangine captures Squashy, Amelia and her friends must escape the party to plan a daring rescue! But they begin to realise things in Nocturnia may not be quite what they seem.

Absolutely darling! I can't believe I loved this story as much as I did but, by the end, I was absolutely hooked and kept thinking that if I ever have kids, I HAVE to read this to them! Where have everyone’s memories gone? And how can Amelia save them when they have all forgotten who she is?

And at the same time, blue forget-me-not flower petals stream over Nocturnia, filling the air with their scent. But that's not all! The bravest little vampire in the kingdom embarks on a BRAND NEW ADVENTURE discovering new worlds and new characters in the FOURTH book of the series... But whilst exploring, Amelia and the gang stumble upon an ancient curse – and are shrunk to the size of bugs! How will they make the bloodcurdlingly BIG journey to break the curse when they are all so very TINY?

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But even if Amelia and her friends do find Vincent, will they be able to find their way home? Or will they be trapped in the toad afterlife FOREVER? The story is kind of reminiscent of Hotel Transylvania, and I think the influences are definitely there--Amelia's dad Drake wearing a Hawaiian t-shirt, a short vampire prince with poofy hair, the kind of vampires who's name is Vladimir. It all adds up, is what I'm saying. Amelia Fang And The Barbaric Ball is the first children's book that talented and familiar illustrator Laura Ellen Anderson has both written and illustrated and it is going to absolutely delight kids with its laugh out loud humour and description of the creatures living in Nocturnia, especially the sheer terror that glitter provokes in them. A truly wonderful story about making friends and finding out who people really are, it is full of escapades and fun that kids will enjoy reading time and time again and is aimed at the 5 to 8 years market with manageable chapters for the beginning chapter book reader to get their teeth sunk into ;) This book is such a great read that I feel that older children will also love it as well as many parents who will enjoy reading this book either aloud to, or along with, their kids. This time we see the effects of what happened after the last book. The two worlds, light and dark, have reunited and this means several differences in various places. For instance, Amelia notices it in school. She has new classmates (who have to get used to waking up at night, cue a sleeping fairy in a test tube), new subjects to learn. But also in real life, glitter is all the rage, unicorns and other light creatures wander the streets. It just made me smile so much, I was happy for this world, that they could finally be united, be happy, and see that they aren't so different after all (or scary as they all thought).

All this considered I couldn't give Amelia Fang and the Barbaric Ball a very high rating, which makes me incredibly sad since this book had such potential. I have a soft spot for middle grade and children's books so when I saw Amelia Fang and the Barbaric Ball I was immediately intrigued. A book set in Nocturnia where everything sparkly, fluffy and cute is considered terrifying seemed like a great break from the literature I would normally read. Unfortunately, I had many issues regarding this book and how it executed certain topics. Welcome to the world of Nocturnia, where darkness reigns supreme, glitter is terrifying, and unicorns are the stuff of nightmares! Amelia Fang would much rather hang out with her pet pumpkin Squashy and her friends Florence the yeti (DON'T CALL HER BEAST!) and Grimaldi the reaper than dance at her parents' annual Barbaric Ball.

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Will Amelia be able to solve the mystery of the missing yeti treasure? And will she and her friends survive the perils of the crumbling Yeti Mountain and all the booby traps on the way? Also, believe it or not, there was also a twist to the plot that I WASN'T expecting in there, and that just brought the story up a whole nother level! But with unicorns, fairies and angel-kittens lurking around every corner, who can they trust? And will they finally uncover the real villain keeping the kingdoms of Light and Dark as mortal enemies?

Ed Galton, ceo at Cake and executive producer on Amelia Fang said, “Amelia Fang is full of heart, warmth and big adventure.” In Amelia's second adventure, she and her friends Florence the yeti (DON'T CALL HER BEAST), Grimaldi the Death and Prince Tangine (reformed spoiled sprout), along with her pet pumpkin Squashy, must brave the journey to the terrifying Kingdom of the Light to try to find Tangine's missing mother, Queen Fairyweather.And when the King’s spoiled son Tangine captures Squashy, Amelia and her friends must escape the party to plan a daring rescue! In their race against time, they begin to realise things in Nocturnia may not be quite what they seem . . . Amelia Fang is a feisty ten-year-old vampire, who loves spending time with her two best friends, Grimaldi the reaper and Florence, a rare breed of yeti. They live in Nocturnia, a land of darkness, ghosts and ghouls, where the sparkly magic of fairies and unicorns fills them with terror. Countess Frivoleeta is planning the annual Barbaric Ball, THE annual event in Nocturnia. Amelia finds the ball boring – she wants to study Pumpkinology and help poorly pumpkins when she grows up. However, her mother thinks that she needs to learn vampires etiquette. Count Drake had fallen out with King Vladimir, but now he announces he will come to the ball, and will bring his son, Prince Tangine. When the spoilt prices kidnaps Squashy, it is up to Amelia to rescue her beloved pet pumpkin. Amelia and Squashy are holed up happily in her bedroom with a copy of Positively Pumpkin and coming up with costumes, when her mother interrupts and disapproves highly of the mess and Amelia's desire to become a pumpkinologist. She's afraid her mother will just never understand her, and it's downright depressing. The illustrations are also done by author Laura Ellen Anderson, and I love the illustrations so much. They are wonderfully Gothic yet light-hearted, perfectly capturing the essence of the story and characters. It’s brilliant to see how this bonkers, infectious world appears in Anderson’s mind because it’s brimming with that much imagination, I needed the visual aid.