Author: Anna James
Illustrator: Paola Escobar
© Date: 2018
Publisher: Puffin Books
Pages: 281
Chapters: Yes
Illustrations: Yes, but most pages do not have an illustration
Publisher Recommended Age: 8-12 years
Bonus Activities at End of Book: No
Summary from Book: Ever since her mother’s disappearance, eleven-year-old Tilly Pages has found comfort in the stories at Pages & Co., her grandparents’ bookshop. But when her favorite characters, Anne of Green Gables and Alice from Wonderland, start showing up at the shop, Tilly’s adventures become very real. Not only can she follow Anne and Alice into their books, she discovers she can bookwander into any story she chooses. Tilly’s surprising new ability leads her to fun and exciting adventures, but danger may be lurking on the very next page…
When new secrets are uncovered, it’s up to Tilly to solve the mystery of what happened to her mother all those years ago. From debut author Anna James comes an enchanting story about the magic of books and the power of imagination.
Page Pig Thoughts: The descriptions in this story were rich and inviting. From the start, you can easily settle into Tilly’s story. Although maybe to really immerse yourself, a cup of hot cocoa would be handy because Tilly sure has a lot of cups at the start of the story.
This was a fun idea for reading a book to be more real than just imagination. As Alice in Wonderland pointed out, whose version of real is really real anyway? I enjoyed following the story and seeing where the books would take Tilly. Being familiar with the stories that Tilly traveled into did not seem necessary, but may add an extra bit of joy if you see a familiar character come to life. I did not find the action to be so suspenseful that I could not put the book down, but I savored all the time that I had with the story.
Page Pup and I both loved following the cover illustration around. I hope to read this one with Page Pup before too long.
Use caution with younger or sensitive readers, Enoch Chalk and the illustrations for him may be a little creepy. Also for younger readers, please note Item of Interest #16 below.
Family Unit:
- Matilda “Tilly” Pages (age 11) lives with her grandparents, Archie and Elsie Pages. Her father died before she was born and her mother, Beatrice, mysteriously disappeared when she was very small.
- Oskar Roux (age 11) lives with his mother, Mary, in London. He spends holiday vacations in Paris with his father and older sister.
Conflict/Social Issues:
- Tilly tries to find her peace with not knowing what her parents were like, particularly her mother.
- Enoch Chalk, a librarian at the Underlibrary, believes the Pages family is up to no good and follows Tilly on her bookwanders.
- Oskar briefly struggles with his mamie being ill.
Positive Items:
- Tilly and Oskar become good friends, so they each discover that fictional characters aren’t the only people that make good friends.
- Tilly is always told to “be brave, be curious, be kind.”
- Tilly’s grandfather, Archie, offered some lovely gems of advice. “Sometimes a person who becomes a friend is the least likely person you’d expect. Friends should bring out the best in you, not be the same as you. I’m sure you’re someone’s perfect fit.”
Items of Interest:
- Tilly’s grandparents own Pages & Co, a bookstore in London. They live in a home connected to the bookstore.
- Oskar’s mother owns a cafe named Crumbs across the street from Pages & Co. Oskar is dyslexic and enjoys art. Oskar tells Tilly that just because he likes art does not mean that he is good at it, Tilly and her family discover that he is an amazing artist.
- Jack is a teenager that works in the Pages & Co cafe. He is constantly trying to make new book themed food items for the cafe.
- Tilly struggles with not knowing why her old friend is not her friend anymore. She begins to think characters in books may make better friends.
- Tilly struggles a bit with her grandparents not giving her all the details about her mother that she would like to know. Her grandparents apologize that maybe their sadness has gotten in the way of telling Tilly the details that she would like to have.
- Tilly finds a box of her mother’s old books. The books trigger some emotions for her grandparents. Tilly sees them as a connection to the mother that she doesn’t know.
- Tilly does not understand how her favorite book characters visit her at the bookstore.
- Oskar initially thinks that Tilly is a bit crazy when she says that she sees book characters in real life. He says that everybody has/had imaginary friends.
- After Tilly and Oskar wind up traveling to Avonlea with Anne of Green Gables, her grandparents take them on a trip to the Underlibrary.
- Tilly is a little upset that her grandparents hadn’t been honest about bookwandering. They hadn’t wanted to tell her before it actually happened to Tilly (as they expected that it would) because they suspected that Tilly would think that they were a bit crazy.
- The Underlibrary oversees all bookwanderers and books, but is a secret and hidden underneath the British Library. People with a special relationship with books can have the ability to travel into the stories aka bookwander. Rules have been established to keep bookwanderers safe, like never traveling to the end of a story and carrying the copy of the story that you are traveling into with you. What happens when you travel into a book is real, which means that some books are more dangerous than others (e.g. Lord of the Rings versus an early reader).
- Enoch Chalk is a grumpy librarian at the Underlibrary and is a stickler for the rules.
- Oskar doesn’t heed the initial rules that were given to him and Tilly. He takes them into Treasure Island and really wants to see the ship. Long John Silver sees them in the captain’s quarters and thinks that they are spies, and he really doesn’t like the idea of a bad luck girl being on the ship. When Long John Silver sees his name in the book that they were bookwandering with, he believes witchcraft is happening. He sends Oskar to the plank where Oskar accidentally drops the book. Tilly dives in after the book, and manages to read the last lines for them to escape while holding onto Oskar who doesn’t know how to swim.
- Tilly finds out that her grandfather, Archie, used to be the head librarian at the Underlibrary. Her grandmother was the cartographer in the map room at the Underlibrary.
- Tilly keeps traveling into books when she is not supposed to.
- Tilly finds out that her father is a fictional character from A Little Princess. Her mother wanted Tilly to exist in the real world, so while she was pregnant, she left the story to have Tilly. Since Tilly is half-fictional, her bookwandering abilities are not standard.
- Tilly travels into A Little Princess and winds up in the Endpapers (very dangerous). She manages to escape into the Underlibrary. She finds her way into Enoch Chalk’s office after hours and starts snooping. She finds a copy of A Little Princess that is different than the others that she has read/seen.
- Oskar’s mamie (grandmother) is ill. His mother, Mary, travels to Paris to collect his sister and to give his father time to help his mamie. Archie and Elsie offer that Oskar can stay at Pages & Co while Mary is gone. Oskar is rather sad while he comes to term with the news.
- Oskar’s mamie was a book illustrator.
- Archie took Elsie’s last name because Pages is a lovely bookish last name for a bookseller/librarian.
- Pages & Co bookstore has been in Elsie’s family for generations.
- Archie used to be the head librarian at the Underlibrary. When Tilly’s mom, Beatrice, broke lots of rules in an attempt to get back the man that she loved from the books, he resigned.
- Tilly and Oskar join the party preparations at Pages & Co. Every year there is a big party, this year’s theme is Alice in Wonderland.
- Tilly makes a plan to bookwander into Alice in Wonderland’s Endpapers with Oskar. They were supposed to be on a bookwander break. Tilly and Oskar successfully make it back to the Underlibrary after hours and into Enoch Chalk’s office. They wind up jumping into the different copy of A Little Princess to avoid Chalk noticing them.
- Tilly sees her mother, Beatrice, in the story. She is upset that her mother does not know who she is at all. Beatrice takes her to a boarding school to rest because Tilly clearly isn’t dressed properly for the weather and she thinks that Tilly has hit her head. Tilly works on figuring out how to escape. Tilly has a close call with slipping down the wet roof in the story to get to Oskar on the next building over.
- Tilly and Oskar manage to escape the story with Beatrice in tow while Chalk is chasing after them in the story.
- When Tilly, Oskar, and Beatrice tumble into the Underlibrary, the head librarian, Amelia, hears them. When she goes to see what the noise in Chalk’s office is about, she sees her old friend, Beatrice.
- Chalk starts on an angry rant. Turns out Chalk is a fictional character that has been living in the real world. He was bitter that no one read his book and he was doomed to die on page 248. Anyone that finds out that he is fictional winds up trapped inside a book. The previous person that held his Underlibrary job was sent into a Dickens novel 25 years ago, so Chalk said he likely isn’t alive.
- Chalk trapped Beatrice inside A Little Princess.
- Chalk has some master plan, but won’t divulge what it is before he disappears.
- Amelia takes Tilly, Oskar, and Beatrice back to Pages & Co. Archie, Elsie, Beatrice, and Tilly have a hug filled reunion.
- Beatrice apologizes to Tilly for not recognizing her in the story, she was not herself in there.
- Tilly broke a lot of bookwandering rules, but always wound up okay. Her family and the Underlibrary were generous in how they dealt with her rule minding.
Other Books in Series (At Time of Posting):
- Book 2 – Pages & Co.: The Lost Fairy Tales
- Book 3 – Pages & Co: The Map of Stories
- Book 4 – Pages & Co: The Book Smugglers
- Book 5 – Pages & Co: The Treehouse Library
- Book 6 – Pages & Co: The Last Bookwanderer