Sandy Fin: Operation Splash Landing

A perfect book for the summer holidays, this has the feel of a classic seaside adventure – allowing both those readers who are off on holiday to reimagine the landscape before them, and those left in the library to be swept away, transported into the heart of this urgent ocean adventure.

We meet and become easily at home from the outset with Sandy and Lily, firm friends and the main characters. Despite living in a land of dreams for some young readers, importantly, these are not characters without difficulties – Sandy has already lost his father and both Lily and Sandy are set to lose their home if they can’t provoke the villain of the story, Albo Start, into revealing his true intentions.

As is so often the case, the children see the urgency and the truth behind events at the Museum of Seaside Stories, and face their fears to pursue Albo Start, uncover the Golden Lobster and return Portwhistle to more prosperous times.

The writing is perfect for readers ready to move from beginner readers to junior fiction; it encourages them to engage with more challenging vocabulary and sentence structure, whilst also retaining short chapters always ending with a reason to read on and plenty of laughs along the way. It will undoubtedly also appeal to readers who have already met Bridget Vanderpuff, another Martin Stewart creation, and those who have an interest, as so many do, in the conservation of our seas and ocean wildlife. With the potential for many more titles in the series to follow, Operation Splash Landing looks set to take off.