Chaya, a no-nonsense, outspoken hero, leads her friends and a gorgeous elephant on a noisy, fraught, joyous adventure through the jungle where revolution is stirring and leeches lurk. Will stealing the queen’s jewels be the beginning or the end of everything for the intrepid gang?

Paperback | 272 pages

Publisher: Nosy Crow Ltd (January 2nd, 2020)

This was totally an impulse buy that spoke to me in Waterstones. The cover is beautiful and the title sounded intriguing.

Easy. Taken from the 9-12 reading section, so I didn’t expect any trouble.

Chaya was so interesting and a more complicated character than I expected. She was always surprising me with her actions. I got to know her well but I also think there is much of her character left to be discovered.

Nour was the unpredictable character and the one with the most to prove. It was enjoyable to watch her flourish through the course of this book.

Neel surprised me. He never acted like I expected him to and seemed to continually change his character.

Easy to visualise with the vivid descriptions and characters.

This book was good and certainly an entertaining read but it didn’t read as special or unique. It only took me a couple of hours to read and though I felt the time was well spent, I don’t feel awed at what I’ve read. The ending was also a big disappointment for me.

I enjoyed it to a level but it’s not up there with other children’s books I’ve read this year. Solid effort but not enough to ‘wow’ me.