AN ACT OF LOVE By Alan Gibbons

I know, I know.... technically it isn't based on a true STORY, but the story does follow a real life series of events that did really take place in the UK.

This is the heart breaking story of two little boys who come from very different families. One is a white British family, the other is a committed Muslim family. The relationship that these two boys have a children is amazing and a true weapon against a world full of racism and discrimination. However as the two boys grow up and the so called 'war against terror' begins, each boy gets caught up in their own countries battles and are eventually separated. One becomes a British front-line soldier, the other becomes a extreme Islamist soldier, and a beautiful friendship is torn apart.

This is an incredible, thought provoking and poignant story which really does highlight the way that prejudice can split families and communities, and also how easy it is for one person, or group of people to drum up enough support to start a war.

The main puzzlement that the book presents is that it is an older children's book. Personally, I found this emotionally difficult to read as an adult, so I'm not sure how a child would do with it. Never the less it is a really good book and one that I would recommend to more mature younger readers, as it is a brilliant vehicle for telling young people about recent history which they were too young to remember happening. This war was a big event in modern British history which we need to learn from, and I believe that this is a book which we can use to help us do that.

Give it a place on your reading list and share it. Everyone.

MAXIMUS AND THE GREAT EXPEDITION By Brian Ogden

So this could actually fit into a number of categories including, a book with non human characters, a book published the year I was born, a book of short stories, but I have chosen this to be read for the category of a book from my childhood.

I remember very clearly, the only thing I ever enjoyed about primary school was listening to our teacher read stories about Maximus Mouse and his friend Patrick, in assembly. They must have had every book Ogden ever released about Maximus Mouse, but despite being 19 I had to by a copy when I found it in a charity shop for 30p.

These are fabulous stories about a small mouse named Maximus who lives in the church vestry, his best friend Patrick who lives with his wife and 37 children in the Sunday school cupboard, and his other furry critter friends who live in the grounds of the church. In this particular volume of his adventures, they visit the seaside and learn how to enjoy nature and respect it at the same time, Maximus tries to fly and learns that he's better off trying to be a mouse, and together with Patrick, he climbs the church bell tower to reach the flag pole, despite his fear of heights, learning that so long as we have faith, we can do anything. These are just three of the stories in this book, but they are all equally beautiful and captivating in the way Ogden has told them.

These may have been published last century, but the messages and lessons taught through them are no less poignant today and the stories are in no way outdated. These are a definite for any parent who wants to encourage their children morally and spiritually, and even if you don't want to use the little prayers at the end of each tale, they are still amazing little independent stories. I am so glad that I got the opportunity to go back and read this. It really has made me smile, and remember the tiny glimmers of good from school.

ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND By Lewis Carroll

Thought I'd mix things up with the reading challenge categories this time. Number five, and I've decided to read a book for the Banned Books category! Yes Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was a banned book. Banned in China for the polymorphisation of animals. Incidentally, the copy I borrowed from work had Through the Looking Glass in it as well, however I read it as one wonderful book.

I absolutely love this book(s). It is just so absolutely nonsensical and fantastical, you couldn't ask for anything better. I have to admit that out of any world created by any author in the whole of literary history, I would choose to visit Wonderland... I mean who wouldn't.

In the first of the two novels, Alice spots a white rabbit checking his pocket watch and exclaiming he's late, though what he's late for he will not explain. Bored of reading and listening to her sister, Alice follows the rabbit down his rabbit hole into an entire other universe of the strange an bizarre. Along the way she meets animals who can talk, playing cards who paint roses... literally, and a Queen with a penchant for executing people.

In the second book, Alice, once again bored with every day life, delves through the mirror in the drawing room, arriving in a back to front world where she becomes a living pawn in the biggest game of chess you could ever imagine. It's thanks to Through the Looking Glass that we have the well known characters of Tweedledee and Tweedledum, as well as the poem Jabberwocky, and a great other iconic Alice in wonderland, images that Disney stuck into the film.

No word of a lie, I could read this book over and over again,  thousand times. I already know 99% of the poetry off by heart. This tops out at my favourite book of all time and if I could I would make this compulsory reading everywhere! No one is ever too old for the magic of Wonderland, so whether your 5 or 105 year old, pick it up, read it. Then read it again, and finally give it to your friends before reading it a fourth and fifth time.

This right here is quality literature, a masterpiece of English writing. The basis for all grounded childhoods and a gateway into the imagination of children and adults everywhere!!!