Review - Miles Around London

Miles Around London (Miles Around the World #1)
by Caroline Harris & Douglas Pledger
Date: 2014
Publisher: Raven Crest Books
Reading level: C
Book type: picture book
Pages: 34
Format: e-book
Source: NetGalley

In a little house in north London lives a little kitten called Miles

Up until now, Miles only knew the outside world to be his back garden, until one day his next door neighbour Bernie the bulldog takes Miles to the bottom of their gardens and shows him a wonderful view of London. A view of all the adventures and curiosities soon to be discovered.Join Miles as he travels around London with his tour guide, Cabbie the pigeon and discovers London's sights, meets new friends, learns new things and you can even play a few games along the journey.

Miles Around London has been created, written and illustrated by artists Caroline Harris and Douglas Pledger. Aimed at younger readers and big kids (parents) alike, it has plenty of information about London mixed with fun and games that your children can interact with and play along the journey.

(synopsis from Goodreads)

I actually enjoyed this book more than I thought I might. It's a cute little story--almost like a travel guide--for kids that features some of the sights of London. It could be a great book to give to little kids before they make a trip there so they'll know some of the things to expect.

So why can't I give it a higher rating? The writing. I thought maybe I was in for trouble when, early on, Miles was "laying" in the garden (last I checked, he's a cat, not a chicken). From there, it got progressively worse, with missing (or wrong) punctuation, "said bookisms", and lots of sentence fragments. It's a shame, because the concept is cute and the illustrations are engaging. This could've been a really strong children's book, if it had had a bit more polishing done before going to print.

While the premise and concept are fun, the technical aspects of the writing drag the rest of the book down a bit. It's not terrible, and if you don't mind grammatical issues in children's books, you might like this one more than I did. But I'm a bit of a stickler when it comes to language, especially in books for impressionable young readers.

Thank you to NetGalley and Raven Crest Books for providing a digital ARC.

Premise: 4/5
Meter: n/a
Writing: 2/5
Illustrations: 3/5
Originality: 3/5

Enjoyment: 3/5

Overall: 3 out of 5