Amelia fang and barbaric ball by Laura Ellen Anderson.
Book 1 of The Amelia Fang Series.
Welcome to the world of Nocturnia, where darkness reigns supreme, glitter is terrifying, and unicorns are the stuff of nightmares! Amelia Fang would much rather hang out with her pet pumpkin Squashy and her friends Florence the yeti (DON'T CALL HER BEAST!) and Grimaldi the reaper than dance at her parents' annual Barbaric Ball.
A really good read with good characters. A great start to a new series. 4*.

I began reading this to Year 3 one afternoon. Within a week half a dozen of the class had sourced their own copy. By the time we had reached the fantastic ending of this one, I looked up to find five eager pupils offering me Book Two (Amelia Fang and the Unicorn Lords) to start reading… immediately!

Amelia Fang and The Barbaric Ball is a wonderfully quirky adventure novel – populated with fabulous characters and packed with giggles – it was a HUGE hit. Can’t recommend it enough.

When doing a Halloween book for children its very difficult to get that spookiness just right with this book to take the comic approach which worked beautiful. The reason I think it worked so well is that it felt like a warm cosy but still has that Halloween spookiness to it.

I love it when authors bring friendship to the forefront of the book which was done beautifully here. That moment where Amelia stick up for Florence is such a melting heart moment but also gives kids an idea of what friendship is all about.

Amelia was so sweet and courageous but also very caring character. She was a bit cheeky at times but I love cheeky characters. Prince Tangine I absolutely thought he was so rude and irritating at the beginning. However, as the story went on he slightly warmed to me but I am still not sure will have to see what he is like in the next book. Florence looks and reads like the most cuddly and loveable person on the planet would love her as a friend. I’d like to know about her Yeti family sounds intriguing. Grimaldi OMG what an awesome name might consider it as a name for my kid! He is such a helpful and understanding friend I would like to see more of his character in the next book. Countess Frivoleeta again the names are so good in this book. She was funny and a bit mad and enjoyed her character very much. Count Drake was hilarious with his crosswords and Hawaiian graveyard shirts and his lack of awareness. The king irritated me but you could understand why he was so distant. Woo I loved because he reminded me a bit of Carson (Downton Abbey) because he was always looking out for Amelia. Squashy was my favourite character was just so adorable and cute and I want a pet pumpkin like that! Plus he loves cuddles who wouldn’t want a pet like that.

A plot that was exciting and thrilling with a few twists and turns. The ending was great because you had the adventure all set for the next book which I so wanted to read straight away.

Wow such beautiful illustrations plus they didn’t feel like an addition to the story they felt part of it. The design of all the characters are great because they are so warm but also slightly spooky looking apart from Squashy. My favourite illustration is of Grimaldi’s barge house which looks so cool and a bit creepy and the rive has this really nice flow to it.

I adored this little Halloween read it was funny, cute, great story and full of characters I fell in love with. This is a great fun and slightly spooky read that kids from 7 upwards will love. But also adults will love it too!

Amelia Fang and the Barbaric Ball was a fun children book that has some serious Nightmare Before Christmas vibes and I really enjoyed it.

It was useless for Amelia to speak to her mother about what she wanted. Being a Fang meant countless vampiress etiquette lessons, cobwebbing practice and never-ending preparations for the Barbaric Ball. Sometimes Amelia wished she belonged to a different family.
This is the debut middle-grade novel from Laura Ellen Anderson, who most people might already know because she is the illustrator for the Witch Wars series by Sibéal Pounder. The illustrations are one of the highlights of the books with Anderson creating interesting, sympathetic characters with Amelia Fany, a young vampires, her pet Squashy, an adorable pumpkin, Grimaldi - a rather wimpy grim reaper who is practising by reaping the souls of frogs and Florence, a giant special type of yeti who cannot stand being called a beast. In the story, Amelia's life is turned upside down when the King and his spoilt son decide to visit in the lead up to the event of the year, the Barbaric Ball. Amelia and her friends set off to put things right, leaving chaos in their wake...
Amelia and her friends loved reading stories about the dreaded Creatures of the Light: The gruesome glittery unicorns (Nocturnians were TERRIFIED of glitter), the evil sparkly fairies and the cute and fluffy angel-kittens of terror. It was the stuff of daymares.
What I liked: Charming illustrations, will be a hit with the audience who already love this style of illustrations and the quirky humour in Sibéal Pounder's  Witch Wars series. I did find the quirky writing style in Witch Wars and Amelia Fang a bit hit or miss, but I know it goes down really well with the 7-8 year olds I teach so I'm not going to judge too harshly!
I loved the supporting characters, particularly Amelia's friends, Florence the special type of yeti, Grimaldi, the grim reaper in training (practising on frogs) and Squashy, the cutest pumpkin pet you could imagine.
Even better if: I would have liked it is there had been a bit more discussion about Tagine's behaviour - why were the adults so quick to give him everything he wanted? I also felt like this book didn't have a proper resolution - in fact it seemed to spend the last part setting up for the next book.
How you could use it in your classroom: Would make a fun read-aloud for the lead up to Hallowe'en. Would also be a good recommendation for any children who have enjoyed Witch Wars.
See this review with formatting and pictures here: https://chrikarublog.wordpress.com/2017/10/27/book-review-amelia-fang

This is the perfect book for Halloween for children who want to laugh rather than be scared. Amelia Fang is a happy-go-lucky child who finds herself in charge of helping Prince Tagine to make new friends at school. However all is not as it seems and he turns out to be a thoroughly unpleasant young man. The story is brilliantly written and there are lots of illustrations that really add to the story. A real exploration of friendship and standing up for what matters (with lots of unicorns and glitter thrown in!) A perfect book for any school library, especially at this time of year.

In Nocturnia  everything sparkly, fluffy and cute is considered terrifying, which is a great premise for a comical book about nocturnal creatures. This premise intrigued me to pick up this book for my autumn reading roll. This book was fun and easy to read, but on certain topics it did disappoint.

One of the disappointing part of this book was the absentee parenting trope which tends to be a viral infection in literature for children. I understand the need for absentee parents, and it can be done well, like in Coraline by Neil Gaiman. In Amelia Fang and the Barbaric Ball the absentee parenting troupe was borderline neglect, the mother is insanely self-absorbed caring more for her looks and her social status before her daughter. At one point the mother gives away her favorite chair and Amelia's pet pumping away to the kings spoiled-rotten son. when Amelia refuses she is told not to cause a scene and sent to her room. The father seems to be more concerned about his crossword puzzles than his family and is a stereotypical never-in-the-kitchen male. This is empathized by Amelia's bafflement over the first time her father put a teacup in the sink on his own. In our day and time where social norms and gender-roles are being challenged, reverting back to stereotypes in children's fictions will not help us grow a new generation with good and open values.
The bottom line regarding this issue is that I think this story had a lot of unexplored potential.

That aside I found the illustrations in this book nothing short of amazing. They are simple and very cute, and they do their job well of complimenting the story and it's themes.
Another good point about this book is the humor, which is at some points a little over the top hilarious with words like "darklings" and "diephone" and so on and so forth. In the beginning I found the puns a little annoying, but as I read on I go used to them. I can imagine that the humor will be just the perfect cup of tea for it's intended audience (which is middle grade), but as an adult reader it took me a while to get used to them.
This book can easily be compared to the Hotel Transylvania movies with it's vitty language and puns, and I think they are reaching for the same type of audience. And I only wish that Amelia's parents would have taken a tiny straw out of daddy Count Dracula's overprotective parenting book.

Are you looking for the perfect Halloween, spooky read for your young ones? If so, then look no further! Amelia Fang and the Barbaric Ball is the PERFECT creepy read for the youngsters this Halloween.

Amelia Fang is no ordinary girl. She is a vampire and her best friends are Florence, a rare breed of yeti, and Grimaldi, a young Grim Reaper in training. Not to forget her absolutely adorable sidekick Squashy the pumpkin. Amelia’s parents are hosting the annual Barbaric Ball and the King and his son, Prince Tangine, have agreed to attend this year. Amongst all her mother’s excitement, Amelia cannot think of anything worse than the Barbaric Ball and things don’t exactly get better when she is tasked with looking after the Prince when he starts school.

There are lots of wonderful, funny twists and turns along the way but something that I truly loved about this book was how deep and meaningful the underlying message is. This book approaches the themes of family relationships, loneliness and friendship in such a refreshing way that I’m sure many kids reading this would relate in some way. The last half of the book especially was pretty powerful in its message.

This book is crammed full of some of the most gorgeous illustrations I have seen in a children’s book. I’ve include two examples above but honestly some of the illustrations are just so incredible detailed and they really set my imagination on fire. Being able to see for myself all these gruesome monsters and the horrid Creatures of Light truly threw me into Amelia’s world.

The characters are just wonderful! Alongside the adorable, loveable Amelia, Florence, Frimaldi and Squashy there are a whole host of entertaining characters but one of my favourites had to be Woo, the ghost butler of the Fang family. He truly saves the day on a few occasions and also had a great sense of humour.

Talking of humour, this book is SO refreshing and hilarious. There will be quips in here that make both the children and adults reading this book cry with laughter. Some personal favourites of mine where ‘The Great Gothic Gravestone Carve Off’ and the ‘diePhone’, such clever twists on modern culture that will be sure to make you laugh out loud, I know I did!

Amelia Fang and the Barbaric Ball is the perfect book for this Halloween, it will keep you entertained and laughing whilst also having a truly spooky edge to it.

This is such a cute book. It reminds me very much of the monster high genre where monsters are normal and popular and have normal lives.

Without spoiling the book for anyone this is the story of Amelia who is a vampire. She likes to just stay at home with her pet pumpkin squashy. Her mum and dad the count and countess throw an annual ball where all the monsters and ghouls come together for a night of dancing and fun. Amelia hates the ball and all the people attending it but is forced to go. The price of Nocturnia hates Amelia and kidnaps squashy and Amelia devises a plan to get him back.

The book is gorgeous. It immediately invites the reader in. The cover is dark and shimmery, the pages are edged in pumpkin orange, the book is highly illustrated, there is an illustration on practically every page. There is a map at the front showing where all the palaces, forests and mountains are, and there are lots of large words that are highlighted to engage the reader like SPLAT CRASH ARGHHH etc this is really helpful when reading books to a child to get them to exaggerate those words in the story and make them feel a part of it.

Loved it and would happily read the next one in the series which you can pre-order, its called Amelia Fang and the Unicorn Lords and will be available in March 2018.

With Halloween coming up, i think this would make a brilliant gift for a child as part of a Halloween parcel instead of loads of sweets.

A creepy-cute Addams Family type of story that certainly isn't just for kids. The illustrations are amazing and really make the story come alive.

The relationship between Amelia (a vampire) and her friends is brilliant. Grimaldi is a young Grim Reaper (he gets notifications of deaths on his 'diePhone', along with regular calls too) and Florence is a very rare breed of Yeti, apparently. I also loved Amelia's little pet pumpkin, Squashy, who is adorable. Amelia's parents, Count Drake and Countess Frivoleeta, are wonderful, very Morticia and Gomez but more fun. Frivoleeta is a little bit vain but she loves her husband and daughter. Drake loves crosswords and Hawaiian shirts, and his family. Their gross pet names for one another, and their daughter, had me laughing out loud. I'm not sure my husband would appreciate me calling him 'my little sweat gland' and if he was to call me 'Dearest belch-breath' he would most definitely regret it. As for Tangine... Well, there is certainly nothing charming about this Prince.

I loved this book. It is hilarious from beginning to end and is crying out to be a movie. Anyone got Tim Burton's number...?

In the dark world of Nocturnia, vampires and yetis and grim reapers are bosom buddies, but nothing is more evil than GLITTER, or daylight for that matter.

Here Amelia Fang's parents are hosting their annual Barbaric Ball, and everyone is excited to attend, except for their daughter, who is always the only child to attend, until now that the prince's son, Tangine, is coming ...

I've looked forward to reading this for some time, as I'm a huge fan of Laura Ellen Anderson's illustrations, and had the book on preorder for months, but when it came available on NetGalley I jumped at getting an ARC. It more than lived up to my expectations, the writing is fun and playful, full of word games and puns, there was one about Florence the Yeti as a machine that had me giggling. I loved the noxious terms of endearments, like 'darkling' for darling and 'my little fart' which had me howling with laughter.

The story itself is richly imagined, sweet, and delicious - there's a lot that relates to food, often in ghastly, gruesome ways, that had me pulling rather gruesome faces of my own. Like crunchy fingertips and toenails. The characters are loveable, particularly Amelia, Squashy and Woo the ghostly butler with his monocle.

The illustrations were phenomenal, I wanted to savour each one, and together with this sweet tale, it ensured that this became something rather special, I think this is a series and an author to watch.

I received an ARC copy, this is my honest review.

What a delightful book. Or rather grotesque and terrifying. Amelia Fang is a flawed but compelling heroine. With her friends Florence and Grimaldi she hatches a plan to rescue her beloved pet Squashy the pumpkin, from the obnoxious Prince Tagine. Along the way she learns to have compassion in trying circumstance and to withhold judgement, in spite of the stories she's heard about creatures of the light. I can't recommend this enough to 7-10 year olds and I think adults who remember The Worst Witch might get a kick of out this too. The illustrations are so beautiful I want to frame them on my wall!

It's that time of year when Countess Frivoleeta is planning her pride and joy, the Barbaric Ball. Amelia Fang can’t think of a worse way to spend her time and would much rather hang out with her friends, Florence and Grimaldi, but the Countess insists she attends. The only saving grace this year is that Prince Tangine will be there too so she won't be the only child.

Until she meets him - he is horrid with a capital H! How will she survive the ball now?

Beautifully illustrated throughout, Laura brings Nocturnia vividly to life. With an eclectic cast of characters, a fun and fast paced plot and the confirmation that glitter is indeed bad, this is a funny, heartwarming tale of friendship, loneliness and understanding. Can't wait for their next adventure!

Great for fans of Stitch Head and Vlad The World's Worst Vampire.

This was a tremendously fun read! It was hilarious (The GBBO reference got me!), and I really enjoyed the themes of friendship. The illustrations were GORGEOUS, and I think the concept and world was richly imagined and brilliantly executed. Would thoroughly rec this for early middle grade readers, and I can't wait to read the next one!

I read this book with my seven-year-old daughter, who loves to read. She was excited to read a new book, and has put together a review of her own:

"This book was amazing and wonderful! I liked the bits when Prince Tangine got Wooo's name wrong, and when Wooo got his own back. My favourite character was Squashy because he likes to jump up and down just like me! The funniest parts were when Miss Ameeelia and Grimaldi dressed up as a Mummy Maid, and when Florence said "I am not a beast, I am a Rare Breed of Yeti!" but I didn't like it when Prince Tangine called Florence a beast. That was mean. I'd really like to read the next book!"

I enjoyed reading this with my daughter, as she quickly became invested in the characters. Her reactions were lovely to watch - she roared with laughter at the jokes, and was very indignant about Tangine bullying Florence. The story itself was well-paced, and suited to the book's target age range. It managed to be mildly creepy without being scary, and the illustrations were brilliant. I also really liked the use of white text on black background on some pages, as it helped to reinforce the setting in Nocturnia. I would definitely recommend this book to others.

A wonderfully cute book! Really enjoyed reading it and laughed out loud a few times. The illustrations are so cute and makes me want my own pet pumpkin! Perfect for children (and those young at heart) closer to Halloween time!

A funny and charming new character Amelia lives in a totally weird world; with elements of the Gothic always in evidence. The author's illustrations are superb and really reflect the content of the story. This is a truly wonderful addition to this sub-genre of story, with heroes and villains (well, horrible girls) that you can really get involved with. I am looking forward to her further adventures

Set in Nocturnia, Amelia and the rest of the Fang family are preparing to host the latest Barbaric ball the only annual event in Nocturnal only this time, the king and prince are attending too.

Ahead of time Amelia has to show the prince around her school where he acts very stuffily towards them all and when he has dinner with the whole family pre barbaric ball, he acts entitled and ends up taking Amelia's Squashy, her friend!

Amelia sets off determined to retrieve Squashy away from the awful prince but can she and will she succeeded and what is wrong with the prince to make him so awful?

The book was wonderful, I hated the prince as you should and loved Amelia and her spooky friend. May I say the language and phrases in the book were genius for example a diephone and Great British Carve off for example made me laugh. The drawings were great too with a lot of detail for each character with elaborate costumes for the cast of the book. The deep issue in the book a round friends and parents worked nicely in the last half of the book when Amelia figures things out as the plot develops on and was actually a great twist as well as truthful in how we act to people as we develop relationships.

Many thanks to the publishers for allowing me to review this book for them!