Reviews
Read these reviews which appeared in Books for Keeps - the best independent resource about children's literature. www.booksforkeeps.co.uk.
Review - The Secret Life of Jamie B, SUPERSPY
Ceri Worman
Published by Orchard
128pp, 1-84362-389-7, £4.99 pbk
This is an entertaining, pacy adventure story with a wide appeal. Subject matter plus the short, action packed chapters and equally short, choppy sentences make it one to recommend even to reluctant and less able readers.
What boy hasn't dreamed of being James Bond? Jamie B certainly has and for most of the time, even when washing cars as a holiday job, he's preoccupied with his vivid fantasy lifestyle. Fortunately, the car salesroom provides ample scope for him to mix daydreams and reality: for a start, there's the gorgeous receptionist, 17-year-old Katie 'Kitty' Cat, and then he discovers that dastardly deeds are afoot involving stolen cars and drug dealing. Jamie manages to beat the baddies - even though he doesn't get the girl - but it's not as easy and definitely a lot scarier than it is in the films. Fortunately M (aka Mum) is on hand to dole out practical advice.
Reviewed in BfK No. 149 (November 2004) by Andrea Reece (ARe)
Review - The Secret Life of Jamie B, RAPSTAR
Ceri Worman
Published by Orchard
160pp, 1-84362-390-0, £4.99 pbk
The story proceeds at a hilarious pace, and the interplay among the characters is as realistic as ever. Worman's insights and understandings are consistently sharp and always humorously expressed - I imagine that the book will be snapped up by children once it appears in class libraries.
Having just got over his experience as a super spy, Jamie B is now a well accomplished rapstar. Flashing between action and thought (the passages where his life as a rapstar coincide with everyday life in gloriously optimistic detail), Jamie B manages to uncover shady goings-on with a language school, and in the process gets two crooks arrested.
Reviewed in BfK No. 153 (July 2005) by Rudolf Loewenstein (RL)
Review - The Secret Life of Jamie B, HERO.COM
Ceri Worman
Published by Orchard
128pp, 1843629461, £4.99 pbk
This is a hugely entertaining book. It moves along at a cracking pace and is remarkably skilful, succesfully transferring computer speak and game situations to tell a story.
Jamie B deals with reality according to the rules of a computer game, at the centre of which is himself as hero, cyberj.
He’s on bad terms with his mum and disinterested in school life. Punishment and detentions have no effect on him so the head teacher decides what he needs is responsibility. She suggests he works with Anna, the editor of the school paper, on a news story. She is the daughter of his teacher Mr Tempus, of whom, to his disgust, his mother is becoming fond.
In a world of his own he dives headlong into an imaginary game. And, just as in a game, he takes on battles at different levels and with different adversaries – his mum (cyberM),Mr Tempus the Evil Time Warrior, and Anna, Queen of Palindromes. When the newspaper story he’s researching involves another adversary who’s out to cheat the local community of its park, the game level goes up several notches and he fights the battle like a real hero.com.
Reviewed in BfK Issue No. 157 - March 2006 by AF
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