Featuring rebellion, cake, art, friendship, Paris, and many other wonderful things, this book is truly a delight.

I loved Good Sister June's opinionated and clever narration of Edie's journey. Edie and her friends navigate through the streets of France, they all take part in an incredible adventure to stop an art thief (making important decisions about sandwiches and other assorted snacks along the way). Such an adventure, children will be wishing their school was like this one. It really keeps you hooked from start to end, with the descriptions, characters, tension, mood atmosphere and more.

I loved the fact the book teaches the reader so much in the footnotes … it teaches children what footnotes are and that they are fun. Also it includes French phrases and explains what they mean, showing children not to be scared of the odd foreign phrase.

I loved the quote: “THERE IS A DUCK FOLLOWING US AND I THINK IT IS NOW TIME FOR THE SITUATION TO COME TO A HEAD.”

A truly brilliant novel that reminds readers why we love stories and reminds writes what power a good story has. Thankyou so much to Daisy May Johnson, I will 100% be reading more of her work.

A quick and enjoyable read. The characters were very funny and lovable, and I loved the setting off a boarding school. This book felt very nostalgic for me.

Was worried this wouldn't live up to my expectations as I loved the first book so much and Edie as a character in particular, but it's every bit as amazing - more amazing! With a brilliant backstory, fantastic sleuthing and outwitting of adults and a heart-wrenching ending this book provided it all - laughs, tears and a craving for biscuits!

I loved this book, so much fun and cake in one book shouldn't be allowed.

The book is a companion piece to How to Be Brave but is a standalone book in it's own right. As with the best stories the parents are removed from the scene so allow Edie and her friends to have great adventures, this time in Paris.

The book contains so many tropes from classic girls' fiction at the start of the 20th Century but they are used so lovingly that a kidlit fan will see them and smile and readers new to the genre will be gripped.

Another hit for me but as with the first book - make sure you have some emergency biscuits to hand as you read!

I read How to be Brave and loved it, immediately ordered a copy and shared it with children at school as well as colleagues. Everyone loved it. This did mean that this second book, How to Be True, had a lot to live up to and so I took a little longer to read it, as I didn't want to start it and enjoy it less! I shouldn't have worried, the book is amazing. Everything about these books is just perfect. I love the whole world that Daisy May Johnson has created. The humour is superb. I love the footnotes, the obsession that the nuns have with cakes and biscuits and the way it feels like a good old-fashioned adventure like Swallows and Amazons or a Famous Five story, until Calla gets a call on her mobile from her mum and you remember that it's now and that's even more exciting!

I can't wait for the next book from Daisy May Johnson and cannot recommend these first two highly enough.

Well, it’s a rare thing when I read a book for reviewing purposes and feel like I need to go back to check out the prequel for my own entertainment. This is one instance. So many books have taken the flippant route to present the most exuberant, outré, self-assured and confident child, over whom we are supposed to fawn and enjoy all they get up to, but none do it quite like this. In a book that wants to both honour and pastiche the good old English girls’ school drama, we start in France, with Edie’s parents meeting, and producing the most cosmopolitan, worldly-wise (and legally trained) genius child. When they gallivant off to do something worthy, like donate all their time and money somewhere, great-aunt takes control of Edie, and when Edie is found to be a bit too much, she is packed off to a big country house school, for finishing. Which is of course where everything really starts.

What that everything eventually proves to be is a mystery concerning a painting long lost to the world, but which great-aunt has stashed away in her private gallery, a gallery space that Edie is bound to dislike because it’s not, like, sharing enough. The way that Edie instils the French Revolutionary ethos – and lessons in barricade-building – into her classmates is just part of the wacky, nonchalant approach of the nuns at the school. But it’s a nonchalance that could come across as horrendous, when actually it’s really quite well done.

Also letting this book shine (although with some buffing still needed) is the style of presentation. It’s all done from the point of view of the headmistress of the school, writing up the shenanigans of her girls with consummate pride, copious snacks on hand, and at times some surprisingly lax grammar (“...a new life began for Edie even though she was not ready nor willing nor able to receive it”). Oh, and there are hundreds of footnotes, although they do tend to break the narrative up a little too much, especially when merely being a way of dumping a dreadful pun on the page.

But, beyond even all that, the book proves to have a much more mature heart than some may have assumed. The footnotes noticeably drop away, and the serious side comes out – again, perfectly measured. It’s the blend of bonkers and bravura that can definitely make this stick in the mind, and again wonder how the original visit to this school played out, with its semi-kidnap plot of some kind or other. While that book has to wait for another day, this one is the one to get a hearty recommendation, and a four and a half star rating. I would say ‘read it before it becomes a film,’ but honestly there are so many damned biscuits and cakes and snacks none of the cast would get to the end of the shoot before developing diabetes. Even without that urgency involved, I suggest you snap this up fast.

How to Be True is the kind of book that brings joy to its readers simply by existing.
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Having read Daisy May Johnson's previous book, How to Be Brave, I was looking forward to the second instalment, and it did not disappoint! Featuring rebellion, cake, art, friendship, Paris, and many other wonderful things, this book is truly a delight.
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One of the elements that makes this so great is Good Sister June's opinionated and clever narration of Edie's journey. As Edie and her friends navigate through the streets of France, they take part in an incredible adventure to stop an art thief and make important decisions about sandwiches and other assorted snacks.
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Books like How to Be True remind readers like me why we love stories. They remind other writers of the power a good story can have. For that, I say thank you, Daisy May Johnson. This is a book I will remember and return to, and as always, I'll be first in line for the next one!

I felt like I might be the kind of adult reader this book is aimed at - I loved reading boarding school stories as a child and I also adore books that feature nuns. Unfortunately, the narrative voice didn't work for me. It was just too much - too quirky, too twee, too deliberately self-referential. I liked the idea of Good Sister June writing the story (shades of Oswald in The Story of the Treasure Seekers!) but I felt that the other characters' voices needed to be more strongly differentiated from hers so there was a bit more realism to balance the frills. I also got unreasonably irritated with the obsession with cakes, biscuits, macaroons, doughnuts etc. - I like a good food description in a book, but it was just relentless. To be fair, I wasn't a huge fan of Murder Most Unladylike, either, which is probably this book's closest modern readalike, so maybe this will appeal more to other readers, especially in the target age group. DNF @51%.

trigger warning
<spoiler> gun violence, grief, memory loss </spoiler>

A bunch of schoolgirls is let loose on Paris, one châuteau, one grumpy grandma and one mysterious art thief.

In How To Be Brave we met Calla and her two best friends in the world, one of whom is the protagonist of this novel which leads me to hoping a third book will be about Hannah, because if this were a meme and I had to tag myself, I were Hannah, the bookworm. But I digress.

Edie is born to a family who makes the good kind of trouble. She is on her first demonstration as she is but three years old, and in her boarding school dorm hang posters of people like Ché Guevara and Rosa Luxemburg. When given the opportunity to teach a class, she teaches how to make barricades because you never know when that will come in handy.
In short, Edie is the person you want to have on your side because she <i>will</i> take action, just hope it's not against you.

Which is exactly what the guy who wants to steal a painting from Edie's grandmother is going to find out.

This is a mix of St. Trinian's and Emil und die Detektive in which a young boy enlists a Berlin child-gang to help him get back money that was stolen, but add in weird nuns who insinst on delicious food.
Fair warning, you <i>will</i> get sugary cravings.

Special mentions go out to the watch duck. If you want to know more about the watch duck, you'll have to read this book. Bonus points for teaching children that footnotes are fun.

This was fun, I would recommend it, I would read on, you know the drill.
The arc was provided by the publisher.

“We need you to come on a QUEST with us!”

The nuns of the School of the Good Sisters teach their students all of the important things in life, like helicopter maintenance and “how to build the most perfect library ever”. The school has secret passageways, towers and emergency biscuits so you’d need to come up with a pretty compelling reason for me to want to leave. Cue a field trip to Paris…

Edie’s Grand-mère has offered the school use of the family’s château while they’re in Paris, which sounds like an incredibly generous offer. Edie isn’t so sure, though, because she and her Grand-mère don’t exactly see eye to eye. However, being in close proximity to a mystery you’re trying to solve can be mighty helpful.

“We’re going to figure out why somebody keeps trying to steal one of the paintings downstairs and we’re going to stop him because we’re very good at that sort of thing.”

I was disappointed when I figured out this book wasn’t going to be answering the questions I had at the end of How to Be Brave, particularly those about the people the villain worked for. My disappointment lasted all of three seconds, then I realised that this book was Edie’s story. Edie, the mischievous spitfire with a revolutionary spirit! My favourite character from the first book!

“I love you a little bit,” said Edie. “Not as much as macarons, for I cannot love anything more than macarons, but definitely more than doughnuts filled with jam.”

Everything I loved about the first book was here too: copious amounts of footnotes of the interesting, helpful variety (who knew that was a thing?!), biscuits and other yummy treats as far as the eye can see and fun, quirky nuns. With self defence skills, no less.

There were also three dogs, a duck, some poison darts, a very important painting and a library I could live in for the rest of my life. With one of a kind swearing (“CHOCOLATE CAKE FILLED WITH JAM!”, “KALE CUPCAKES!”) and a cheese-themed riot, there was plenty to smile about, although there were some serious moments too.

Edie and her friends, Calla and Hanna, proved that they still have their priorities straight: “we must go and investigate and SOLVE things and possibly also get some hot chocolate from the kitchen to fortify our souls.”

No, the website mentioned in the book doesn’t exist (yet). It would have been fun to visit though. One day a publisher is going to figure out that some readers visit every website and send emails to every email address mentioned in a book hoping that just once it’ll result in the discovery of a fun Easter egg.

Favourite quote: “THERE IS A DUCK FOLLOWING US AND I THINK IT IS NOW TIME FOR THE SITUATION TO COME TO A HEAD.”

This series is absolutely delightful and I need it to continue for a very, very long time. Hopefully my next visit to the School of the Good Sisters will be suitably bookish. So far we’ve accompanied Calla and Edie on adventures so it simply has to be “more book than person” Hanna’s turn next.

“Will all our school trips be like this?”
“Yes,” said Hanna happily. “Isn’t it great?”

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Pushkin Children’s Books, an imprint of Pushkin Press, for the opportunity to read this book.

'How to Be True' was a JOY to read. I absolutely loved the author's first book and so I was excited to catch up with my favourite characters again. 'How to Be True' follows Edie* and tells us a little about her upbringing in Paris**. It also invites the reader into the mystery of the locked room in her grandmother's castle that holds a vast amount of paintings, sculptures and other treasures, and introduces us to a (not very good) thief who is repeatedly trying to break in and steal one painting in particular***
The nuns of the story are as delightful and kooky as ever**** and there is a lot of mention of cake, so readers best have a good Victoria sponge ready to enjoy while eating this book*****

LOVED it!

*Readers may remember Edie as Calla's very good, yet slightly crazy, French revolutionary friend from 'How to Be Brave'

**the author's description of Paris made me want to book a trip to Paris right away so that I too could walk the streets of Paris visiting bookstores and cafe's.

***The thief is often outwitted by Edie and her friends, and also by her grandmother's guard dogs and rather unusual guard duck. I was particularly happy to read this as ducks were one of my favourite parts of the first book 'How to Be Brave', and well, you can never have too many ducks in a story in my opinion.

****thank goodness! I wish my school had been this interesting

***** or emergency biscuits for the tense bits!

My daughter aged 8 LOVED this , so much so , she asked to go to bed to read it , unheard of asking to go to bed! She really enjoyed the fast pace of this book and the twist at the end and has gone back to reread the book already.

Her review: I really really liked this book. The cake references, the footnotes, the characters and the message of the book and how you can stay the same even if you look differently. I will read more of this writers books.

This was a really pleasant read that focused on contemporary concerns including activism, perfect for younger readers aged 9-13 in my opinion.

The characters were extremely lovable and fun, and as an older reader, I still enjoyed the book.

Quirky. A very enjoyable read - a more believable plot than the first book but still surreal. Fast paced so more plot focused than character focused