Hi ForeverBookers,
How are you all today? I hope you’re good!
I’ve just finished reading Pages & Co - Tilly And The Bookwanderers by Anna James and I LOVED it!!! It really was “Delightful! A Joy of a book” as Kiran Millwood Hargrave quotes on the front cover.
We follow Tilly, a curious 10 year old girl, as she finds out about her origins and her life through the world of books. She lives with her grandparents and has a best friend, Oskar who are all present in quite a lot of the story. Oskar has dyslexia too. It was nice to see disability representation. I liked how “Tilly And The Bookwanderers”was set in England too, as it’s where I’m from. I guess it felt homely in a way.
I read Tilly And The Bookwanderers for a few readathons. They were:
Reading Rivalry - book with an insect/bug on the cover - there’s a bee, which is a reference to something I don’t want to spoil in the book!
Always Fully Booked Challenge 2026 - Stars on the Cover - on my hardcover edition there are gold stars on the cover!
Always Fully Booked Challenge, On The Cover Challenge - a silhouette - Tilly, herself is silhouetted on the cover.
Pages & Co - Tilly And The Bookwanderers is a middle grade story, which I don’t generally reach for anymore but I’m very glad that I picked this one up. It was just very wholesome and what I was looking for!
Spoilers below…
“Oh her,” grandma said slowly. “That’s Lizzie — she’s an old friend. You caught a glimpse of her, did you?”
“She was literally just sitting here as I came up the stairs,” Tilly said, confused. “Where’s she gone?”
“She must’ve slipped past without you noticing. You know how this place is like a rabbit warren; it’s impossible to keep track of everything and everyone. I’m forever losing you in here!” Grandma said, more composed. “Anyway! Enough of that! How’s your book?”
Tilly had the distinct feeling that Grandma wasn’t telling her something.” - 27
Tilly is in fact a bookwanderer. She can see and speak to fictional characters as well as literally step inside the pages of books! We never learn, at least in this first book who Lizzie is, but I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s Elizabeth Bennet from Pride & Prejudice, in fact at the end of this story there’s a guide to the books that are brought into Pages & Co - Tilly And The Bookwanderers, and Pride and Prejudice is one of them. This isn’t the main plot of the story, though.
The main plot revolves around A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnette. I haven’t read that book yet, although I own it. I’ve seen the film lots of times, though. Tilly is Captain Crewe, Sara’s father’s daughter! Her mother fell in love with him when she was bookwandering in the pages of “A Little Princess!”
“I went to the tea party in Alice In Wonderland, and then to school with Anne Shirley.” -159/160
Tilly explains her adventures to her grandparents. It was really nice to see a book where the adults are in on the magic system. Often in YA and middle grade novels, it’s just the main character that experiences the magic or special abilities they can somehow use, whereas in Pages & Co - Tilly And The Bookwanderers, Tilly’s grandparents, Archie and Elsie Pages, know all about bookwandering. THEY are Bookwanders themselves, which is how Tilly’s mum was too.
There is of course an antagonistic character in “Pages & Co - Tilly And The Bookwanderers.” Enoch Chalk is his name. He’s revealed to be a fictional character that appears in the human world and as a part of the Underlibrary, a secret repository for bookwanderers. What his main goal is wasn’t revealed in “Tilly And The Bookwanderers.” However, I’m excited to find out what it is at the end of the series.
The artwork in Tilly And The Bookwanderers is really fun!
Overall, I loved “Pages & Co - Tilly And The Bookwanderers” soooooo much! It was quaint and easy to fly through. I literally read 3 quarters of it in a day! I would have read the whole thing in a day if I hadn’t had a headache! I’m really excited to read the rest of the series sometime soon!
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