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Joanne Owen - Editorial Expert

Joanne Owen is a writer, reviewer and workshop presenter whose lifelong love of books began when she was growing up in Pembrokeshire, Wales. An early passion for culture, story and folklore led her to read archaeology and anthropology at St John’s, Cambridge, after which she led the UK children’s book team for a major international retailer, going on to market books for Bloomsbury, Macmillan, Walker Books, Nosy Crow and Rough Guides. She now divides her time between writing, travel writing, reviewing and hosting writing workshops.

Joanne is the author of several books for children and young adults, among them the Martha Mayhem series, the Carnegie Medal-nominated Puppet Master, and You Can Write Awesome Stories, a how-to guide to creative writing. She’s also worked on a major community story project for the National Literacy Trust (Story Quest), and a number of travel guides, including The Rough Guide to Responsible Wales and guidebooks to the Caribbean region. In additional, she’s an occasional chair of LoveReading LitFest events, and judge for the 2023 Branford Boase Award.

Latest Features By Joanne Owen

Christmas creations — four festive writing prompts sparked by the season of sparkle!

Witchy words and potent potion poems - writing activities inspired by witches

Word-themed walks on the wild side - taking creative inspiration from enjoying autumn in the great outdoors.

Summer sizzlers for Young Adults – the best YA novels set in summer

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Latest Reviews By Joanne Owen

Knutz and Boltz and the Cosmic Code: A STEAM Puzzle Adventure

Tim Collins’ Knutz and Boltz and the Cosmic Code — part of the STEAM Puzzle Adventure series that employs the forward-thinking STEAM approach of using science, technology, engineering, the arts and maths as a means of fostering critical thinking — is itself a brilliant blend of wacky space adventure, graphic novel and brain-boggling puzzles and challenges. Featuring STEAM whizz-kid Knutz and his canine inventor companion, Boltz, this sees the daring duo blast off to a TOP SECRET space station on a mission to save the world from being blasted by a gigantic asteroid. Throughout the high-octane, high-stakes race against ... View Full Review

Radiant with pick-me-up appeal — from its gloriously green cover, to its protagonist being billed as “Froggy, Fearless, and Ready for Adventure!” — Matt Long’s hilarious Croaky: Caverns of the Gemosaurus is an utter (ahem!) gem of a book for newly-confident readers who are mad about funny fiction, and madcap adventures. Second book in a series, this can be enjoyed afresh, thanks to the funny first pages that introduce us to the endearing crazy cast of characters, not least Croaky himself, “an excitable and enthusiastic frog who leaps before he looks”. And ... View Full Review

Celebratory in spirit and compellingly designed — with dazzling full-colour illustrations by Ruth Burrows on every page — Simon James Green’s A Year of Pride and Joy showcases the lives and passions of 52 LGBTQ+ individuals of our times. The overarching vibe here is joy, as set out by the author in an introduction that sees him define joy as something that runs deeper than happiness alone. Rather, joy is something that “gives us a sense of purpose and meaning, sparks pleasure and makes life worth living”. What follows are 52 ... View Full Review

Traversing modern America and Japanese folklore, music, myth and history, Clara Kumagai’s Songs for Ghosts weaves a wondrous story of love, loss and longing. Told through the intertwined narratives of a contemporary Japanese-American teenager and a young Japanese woman’s diary written a century ago, it explores universal themes of heartbreak, identity and displacement with subtle power. The story begins when Adam finds the diary in the attic of the house he shares with his dad, step-mom and little brother Benny. Sore from being dumped by his boyfriend, Adam can’t draw ... View Full Review

Penned by Ben Lerwill and superbly illustrated by Paula Bossio, The World at Night does a dazzling deep dive into the nocturnal wonders of our world. Traversing the globe — from tropical Caribbean oceans and Amazonian rainforests, to the Arabian desert and Antarctica — it’s suffused in an infectious spirit of exploration as it shines a light on marvels of the dark, among them glow-in-the-dark mushrooms, bioluminescent plankton, the Northern Lights, and (a personal favourite!) Bornean bearded pigs that migrate by night. While the topics covered are wonderfully presented — lucid, engaging and richly ... View Full Review

Though billed as romantasy, Cassandra James’ Capitana debut is so much more than that classification suggests. Yes, there are fantastical elements, and simmering frissons of romance through a thrilling adventure that sees a young woman, Ximena, fight pirates in the name of the law. But Capitana is, at its core, a story of intense conflict between family bonds and loyalties to its protagonist’s zealous dedication to her empire. While Ximena is devoted to her ambition to become a cazador — a highly-skilled, fearless seafarer whose mission it is to rid the ... View Full Review

Taking it’s cute and quirky cue from Ferris Bueller's Day Off, K.L. Walther’s While We’re Young sees four high-schoolers on the cusp of college enjoy an extraordinary day to remember when they take a day off school. While Grace has her future mapped out — she’s a straight-A student and the student president — she’s haunted by the fact that her one-time trifold friendship with Isa and Everett is broken, a result of the latter splitting up as a couple. So, ... View Full Review

Winnie & Wilbur: Winnie's Witchy Bedtime

Winnie's Witchy Bedtime, the latest Winnie and Wilbur picture book from the Valérie Thomas and Korky Paul dream team, ticks all the boxes for little ones who love characterful stories and digging into illustrative details. It’s midnight chez Winnie and Wilbur’s magnificent castle, which means it’s bedtime for witches. But while Wilbur the big black cat has no trouble dropping off to sleep in his cosy basket, poor Winnie is struggling to do the same. So, Winnie checks her Witchiphone for tips and tries the tactic of counting sheep and frogs, but ... View Full Review

Created in conjunction with the Royal Ballet and Opera, and enhanced by QR-code activated original music, Rachel Fuller’s Bee celebrates difference and the freeing magic that comes of following your own path, rather than trying to fit in. In line with its inclusive message, the book was created when its author, composer and writer Rachel Fuller, bonded with illustrator, Emilia Wharfe, while they were both working on another project — Bee was born as a result of their shared experience of ADHD. While Bee feels happy and flies free with their fairy friend Sprout in their private magical ... View Full Review

Fuelled by a fabulous concept — a magical school within a school, a missing dad, and two super-sleuth kids, Siddy and Zadie — Erica Gomez’s School for Fireflies is delivered in a wittily lively style. It’s also energetically characterful, as demonstrated by Zadie’s amusing, endearing quirk of speaking in punctuation — “Ampersand” when she needs more info, “EXCLAMATION MARK” when something weird or funny happens, “Question mark” when she needs more answers. More answers are definitely needed when the friends’ everyday life ... View Full Review

Fast-paced and outrageously funny, James Davis’ Scarlet debut sees its eponymous heroine embark on a madcap intergalactic adventure that fizzes with energy and visual verve. After amusing preamble around whether the reader might be “fantasising about bamboo” and “huge and cute and cuddly-looking” (in which case, they’re directed to “put this book down, because you are a panda, and this is not a book for pandas”), nine-year-old Scarlet’s story kicks off with a tap-tap-tap at her window. When she goes to investigate, she’s met by the strange ... View Full Review

Written and illustrated by Greg Stobbs, Cloud Boy is a soul-stirring beaut of a book that will chime with little ones who struggle to find their feet in a world that all-too often overlooks imaginative magic, and thinking differently. While Bobby tries his very best to pay attention, he’s forever distracted from one thing to the next, and who can blame him? “Ooh, a snail! Ooh! A very smelly smell! — the world is simply full of fascinating phenomena. Bobby’s brilliant imagination also sees him ponder all manner of big questions that trigger chains of ... View Full Review