book cover

Time to Shine at the River School

by Sabine Adeyinka

Interest age: 9 to 11
Reading age: 8+

Published by Chicken House, 2023

  • Adventure

About this book

It’s a new term at the River School and Jummy and her friends are delighted to be on the coach travelling there. Only, when they cross their beloved Shine-Shine River, it smells absolutely awful. And the beautiful white Leke Leke, the egrets that search for fish from the riverbanks, are nowhere to be seen. What has happened? Still, there’s so much to distract them when they get to school – rivalries between houses, making new friends and a corn-planting competition. Jummy and her house are determined to win this – but then their water runs dry. Yet the nearby bakery has all the water it needs. There’s a mystery to solve!

Jummy’s life at this Nigerian girls’ school is busy: full of tasks and tricky decisions about who to trust. She and her friends grab the opportunity to investigate the river disaster, sticking to the school rules as much as possible, and prove that school children should never be under-estimated. Full of drama both big and small, this follow-up to Jummy at the River School is ultimately very satisfying, when those characters who put themselves before others reveal themselves to be untrustworthy.

About the author

Sabine Adeyinka is the author of Jummy at the River School and Time to Shine at the River School. She was born in England to a Nigerian dad and Jamaican mum. She grew up in Nigeria where she spent the most memorable time in boarding school from the age of eleven. As a young girl, she loved reading novels about boarding schools from around the world and longed to tell the stories of her own exciting experience. Sabine's favourite pastime is writing stories about memories of the landscape, food and people of her childhood. She is currently training to be a priest in the Church of England and lives in London.

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