Storm

Frankie Frida Ripley was born on a blanket. On the beach. In the middle of a storm. Next to her dad’s easel and paints. It's safe to say things hadn't quite gone to plan. Her mum has always said that a little piece of the storm stayed inside Frankie that day, so it’s not really surprising she grew up with a bit of a temper – you would too!

Nothing went to plan the day that Frances and her mum, dad, and sister went to the Crab Pot for lunch, either. They didn’t expect a freak disaster to wipe out their entire village – and Frankie certainly didn’t expect to wake up dead, doomed to haunt her parents’ house for hundreds of years as an angry poltergeist scaring the tourists that come to visit.

But when Frankie makes a strange new friend, it looks like her anger might have other uses – and she might need to learn to use that little bit of storm inside of her for good.

Storm is a warm, funny and occasionally dark book about the power of being yourself and understanding your more difficult emotions. Whilst there are challenging, sometimes existential concepts in this story – be warned that Frankie and her family all die in the opening couple of chapters, and Frankie then spends hundreds of years alone and invisible – Frankie herself is a funny and loveable character, and her no-nonsense attitude towards being dead is that it’s a bit of an inconvenience. Death and loss can be difficult subjects to broach in children’s literature, but Storm tackles the topic with sensitivity and gentle humour, as well as a wonderfully grumpy heroine.