The Starburster Stories by Berlie Doherty Review

Reviewed by Catherine Joyce

The Starburster Stories book is made up of three different stories, The Starburster, The Humming Machine and The Windspinner. All three stories are about a boy called Tam and his adventures to the land of Faery. On his adventures he encounters terrible monsters, midnight bears, mischievous fairies and most of all, MAGIC. After reading the back of the book we couldn’t wait to start!

The book has plenty of illustrations to help keep young readers interested and the chapters are short enough so that a child can read a full chapter at a time without losing interest. My son has just turned eight and we read the book at bedtime, he read a chapter to me and then I read a couple more as he was keen to find out what happened next!

The first book, The Starburster, deals with the arrival of Tam’s new sister Blue and his feelings about her arrival. It would be a good book to read if there is a new baby in the house as it deals with Tam’s initial feelings when she arrives and we see his opinion of her change as the book progresses.

In the second book, The Humming Machine, Tam has to rescue Great Grandpa Toby who has been captured by the beautiful Damson Hag. The Damson Hag had turned Great Grandpa Toby into a nine year old boy and Tam manages to rescue Great Grandpa.

In the third book, The Windspinner, Oban, the old King of the fairies, has now entered Tam’s world disguised as a boy Tam’s age.

I like children’s books like this with three books in one as it encourages my son to read alone. After we had read the first book he was keen to get started on the second as he was already familiar with the characters and following Tam’s magical adventures really kept him interested. The story moves quite fast but this is what you need to keep an 8 year old interested!

The book is magical.

At £6.99 for 3 stories I think it is excellent value for money.

Rating: 5/5

RRP: £6.99 (Paperback) / £2.99 (Kindle)

Available to buy from Amazon here.