Home > Categories > Books > Kids - General > Holiday of a Lifetime: Disaster Diary review

Is a lucky seahorse charm strong enough to protect Anna's family from Potential Disaster as they travel around Europe? Just in case, Anna's going to keep her backpack and survival manual close at hand, because sometimes luck has nothing to do with it.
Paperback chapter novel aimed at primary school children.
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Being a very keen traveler myself I thought that this book might be nice to read with my Miss Six so was looking forward to reading it with her.
Almost immediately after reading the first chapter I took it from Miss Six's room and decided to read it myself before reading it with her any further. I think what put me off is I almost immediately developed a dislike for the main character Anna. The story is told in the first person and in diary form and Anna just doesn't come across as being very nice or is maybe just a tad annoying. I may have missed it but I am not sure that Anna at any point says how old she is but her attitude really isn't one I want my Miss Six getting into her head!
We try really hard to foster an open and embracing attitude to new experiences/things etc and I just don't think I want my Miss Six finishing this book as Anna just doesn't have that attitude. By the conclusion of the story I felt that the story needed to be tweaked to have more development in the story line aside from the focus on the seahorse charm and a more positive attitude from Anna is respect of the amazing holiday that this records. Anna and her family visit some amazing places and have some very cool (and some very not so cool but all too common) experiences in some amazing countries but it would have been nice to have seen this depicted slightly more positively.
Having been to all the places written about, and had many similar experiences, there were definite "aha" moments reading this that should have had me loving this book. For whatever reason though I just didn't quite get there and for that reason I am not scoring this book highly. I guess overall I just was't taken with this book and it just didn't have quite the story I was hoping for. However I wonder if a slightly older girl than my daughter would enjoy this book (as opposed to a critical, protective mother....)
ADMIN: This title is targeted at ages 8+ years
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