Laura James is a talent to watch and so when a new title comes out from her, I immediately want to read it.
News Hounds is all about dogs and so will appeal to young readers. What happens with dogs when the humans aren’t around? Plenty of antics and sweet moments!

Super illustrations make this adorable story even better!

What a fabulous new book for newly confident readers or parents wanting to read a chapter book to children. Lovely story with kind and thoughtful characters and humorous side without being silly. Excellent and just what is needed.

A sweet little chapter book for early readers to enjoy. Although Laura James seems to deliberately target those trends young children are drawn to: flamingos, pugs and now sausage dogs, the story itself is engaging and young readers will definitely enjoy following as the new friendship between the Jilly the Irish wolfhound and Gizmo the sausage dog develops. The additional subplot is well crafted and children will enjoy seeing Jilly overcoming her difficulties in the end. The illustrations are a delight and bring the entire canine crew to life. The promise of further News Hounds titles will certainly be well received and I imagine young readers will be looking out for the second book in the series with great enthusiasm.

The first in a new series for younger readers that is fun and a good introduction to characters that will obviously feature in future books. It's a decent, simple, plotline revolving around finding local homes for puppies so their mother could still see them and setting up the focus for the series, the Daily Bark newspaper. The characters are nice and the illustrations work really well. I thought it was a lovely story and it should be really popular.

We were looking forward to reading this story and it was really great from the first page. The characters are all lovable and the appealing illustrations and humour really appealed to us. The story is serious in nature at times, covering themes such as detachment and illiteracy, however we found that there was enough humour to keep it light and exciting.

The main character Gizmo is empathic to Jilly’s problems and through this he manages to find lots of friends and even start his own business as an editor! We discover lots of breeds of dogs and along with them the story develops.

The story is built around the dogs adventure, and although humans feature, the dogs are usually trying to be secretive and the humans don’t really know what the dogs are up to. This makes it a really fun read and appealed to my daughter.

We really enjoyed this story and would definitely look forward to more of the series, especially as the characters were really lovable. We would enjoy hearing about what they got up to next!

I absolutely LOVED this book! I requested it as soon as I saw the mini dachshund on the front cover and he looks so much like my own dog. News Hounds is such a treat and I loved the bright, colourful images and the story itself was so charming. I will definitely be getting a copy of this for my future children!

Although I'm not a huge dog person, I love reading this, and it may have turned me into a dog person! I loved learning about all the dog species and enjoyed reading about their adventures. I'll be looking forward to reading more from the authors.