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Emily Sparkes #2
Emily Sparkes and the Competition Calamity
Emily Sparkes might have found herself a new best friend and avoided humiliation at the hands of the grossest boy in the universe, but now her creativityness has landed her in a whole new world of trouble . . .
Emily has absolutely accidentally entered her mother into a competition to find the nation's Mum in a Million. So when Mrs Sparkes is shortlisted, Emily is more shocked than anyone! Desperate not to be publicly humiliated on TV, she has to come up with a plan for a mum makeover. Because her eco-warrior, allotment-loving, generally horrendously embarrassing parent can't make her star appearance in a granddad-cap and wellies - can she?
Oh. And Chloe Clarke comes back. Need we say more?
Emily has absolutely accidentally entered her mother into a competition to find the nation's Mum in a Million. So when Mrs Sparkes is shortlisted, Emily is more shocked than anyone! Desperate not to be publicly humiliated on TV, she has to come up with a plan for a mum makeover. Because her eco-warrior, allotment-loving, generally horrendously embarrassing parent can't make her star appearance in a granddad-cap and wellies - can she?
Oh. And Chloe Clarke comes back. Need we say more?
279 pages, Paperback
First published July 2, 2015
8 people are currently reading
34 people want to read
About the author
Ruth Fitzgerald
15 books9 followersRuth Fitzgerald is the author of the 'Emily Sparkes' series, published by Little, Brown UK. Ruth grew up in South Wales, and has spent most of her adult life in Suffolk, via Brighton and Japan. Ruth finds it very difficult to be serious for more than three minutes at a time. One day she realised she was a grown-up and tried to do 'proper' jobs. In fact she tried around 23 proper jobs, but her habit of giggling in management meetings meant she didn't get on as well as she should have. Fortunately, Ruth found that children also find it hard to be serious for more than three minutes at a time and they also hate management meetings. Since realising this she has stopped going to meetings and started writing funny stories. Now everyone is happy
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
June 28, 2016
After really enjoying the first book of this series I decided to get book 2. I wanted to know more about Emily, about her friends, and also about her life.
Once again though I had a bit of a problem with the parents. The dad kept putting his stuff in the living room (which is a big no no considering you have 1 baby, sure, she can’t do much now, but can you imagine the danger when she is starting to move around? Do you want your kid to get all those pipes on her head?) and often he was just not really there with his head, the mom was constantly absent. Yes, the mom did an amazing thing at the end for Emily, and also the school project was nice, but I still felt like the parents were lacking. How often didn’t I read that Emily ate the same kind of food over and over again? How many times was Emily searching for clean clothes (especially a school uniform)? How often did Emily come home and find the house in disarray? Too often is the answer on all these things. I can imagine mom, that your baby is taking a lot of time, that you might feel overwhelmed, but you still have another kid who also needs love and a good home.
Add to that a new character, who, without much agreement just takes over Emily’s room. What? So now she has to sleep with her baby sister?
But, I also loved this character, he really was like a real-life Hagrid, and he was also really kind, and tried to make sure that Emily had some nice things to eat, or that she was happy.
I do hope we will see more of him in the next books, it would just be so much fun.
Lucky this book is also full of other things that were a delight. Like being embarrassed because of your mother and the fact she is now working at school. I can just so imagine how she must feel. Life at school is already not the easiest, and when your mom pops up in the most horrendous clothes I can just imagine you want the ground to eat you up. :)
It was quite fun to see how Emily went about to make sure no one knew that was her mom (of course you can imagine what happens later on though), and to make sure no one knew about the club.
But we also have friendship (not only with a further away friend, but also school friends), a sister relationship that I hope will continue even later when the baby is a bit bigger (I especially loved that Emily went to Clover for advice every time, and I loved how the author wrote the conversations between the two), school project which just sound so much fun and I wouldn’t mind joining, a competition for the best mom and what comes with that (lots of stress, chaos, and even more hilarity to see Emily fly about to make everyone happy, to make her home a bit decent). We also have a runaway rat which makes appearances through the house, and which kind of amazed me that no one noticed anything (well with the exception of Emily and her uncle), as I know rats can really stink (a friend of mine had rats, and they were a bit smelly) and they also have droppings everywhere.
I really loved the competition and also loved that we saw the other finalists. I also had quite a laugh that no one, but Emily and her friends knew the truth about Emily’s mom. That she wasn’t that good. She wasn’t good at cooking (she burned a lot), she wasn’t good at sewing (well at least not the one with cloth), she wasn’t really good at cleaning. It was quite fun to see her friends panic (well especially one of them, the other quickly also found out that there was a lot to do if they wanted to win).
What happened to the competition and who won in the end? Well it was no wonder.
There were so many other parts that had me laughing, that had me in stitches. It was a delightful book, and the characters are becoming better and better with each passing page. I will be sure to get book 3 soon as I want to know what happens in that one.
Review first posted at https://twirlingbookprincess.com
Once again though I had a bit of a problem with the parents. The dad kept putting his stuff in the living room (which is a big no no considering you have 1 baby, sure, she can’t do much now, but can you imagine the danger when she is starting to move around? Do you want your kid to get all those pipes on her head?) and often he was just not really there with his head, the mom was constantly absent. Yes, the mom did an amazing thing at the end for Emily, and also the school project was nice, but I still felt like the parents were lacking. How often didn’t I read that Emily ate the same kind of food over and over again? How many times was Emily searching for clean clothes (especially a school uniform)? How often did Emily come home and find the house in disarray? Too often is the answer on all these things. I can imagine mom, that your baby is taking a lot of time, that you might feel overwhelmed, but you still have another kid who also needs love and a good home.
Add to that a new character, who, without much agreement just takes over Emily’s room. What? So now she has to sleep with her baby sister?
But, I also loved this character, he really was like a real-life Hagrid, and he was also really kind, and tried to make sure that Emily had some nice things to eat, or that she was happy.
I do hope we will see more of him in the next books, it would just be so much fun.
Lucky this book is also full of other things that were a delight. Like being embarrassed because of your mother and the fact she is now working at school. I can just so imagine how she must feel. Life at school is already not the easiest, and when your mom pops up in the most horrendous clothes I can just imagine you want the ground to eat you up. :)
It was quite fun to see how Emily went about to make sure no one knew that was her mom (of course you can imagine what happens later on though), and to make sure no one knew about the club.
But we also have friendship (not only with a further away friend, but also school friends), a sister relationship that I hope will continue even later when the baby is a bit bigger (I especially loved that Emily went to Clover for advice every time, and I loved how the author wrote the conversations between the two), school project which just sound so much fun and I wouldn’t mind joining, a competition for the best mom and what comes with that (lots of stress, chaos, and even more hilarity to see Emily fly about to make everyone happy, to make her home a bit decent). We also have a runaway rat which makes appearances through the house, and which kind of amazed me that no one noticed anything (well with the exception of Emily and her uncle), as I know rats can really stink (a friend of mine had rats, and they were a bit smelly) and they also have droppings everywhere.
I really loved the competition and also loved that we saw the other finalists. I also had quite a laugh that no one, but Emily and her friends knew the truth about Emily’s mom. That she wasn’t that good. She wasn’t good at cooking (she burned a lot), she wasn’t good at sewing (well at least not the one with cloth), she wasn’t really good at cleaning. It was quite fun to see her friends panic (well especially one of them, the other quickly also found out that there was a lot to do if they wanted to win).
What happened to the competition and who won in the end? Well it was no wonder.
There were so many other parts that had me laughing, that had me in stitches. It was a delightful book, and the characters are becoming better and better with each passing page. I will be sure to get book 3 soon as I want to know what happens in that one.
Review first posted at https://twirlingbookprincess.com
February 1, 2018
This book was about poor Emily Sparkes and her embarrassing family, house and school. I enjoyed this book very much! I could not put it down because it because you knew every new chapter would involve jokes, sarcasm and embarrassment . This book is for kids 8-12.
October 29, 2017
http://www.leslecturesdemylene.com/20...
16/20 - des rires, une famille déjantée et une Emily que l'on prend plaisir à suivre <3
16/20 - des rires, une famille déjantée et une Emily que l'on prend plaisir à suivre <3
September 21, 2015
I wish these books were around when I was the right age to read them, though I suspect I may not have appreciated them then. Emily Sparkes 2 is even funnier than the first book, throwing together a TV competition, a new house-guest and gardening jokes by the spadeful. It's nice to see the return of characters from book 1, along with some new faces. Eminently readable, clever and full of humour.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Want to read
November 26, 2016I have not actually read this book but I have read the first Emily Sparkes book and it is really really good! I am so excited about reading this book and I am sure it will be as good as the first one! ;-)
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews