This book was amazing! Ive read it 3 times and i love it every time! The characters are well described and the sense of mystery is always there. The ending was very good and overall the story line was very well thought out and executed perfectly! I did a spoiler-free interview with author Vashti Hardy on my YouTube channel, which you can watch here: https://youtu.be/GFD21aGDSVE I am a huge fan of Vashti Hardy’s books but haven’t read many of her books that aren’t part of the Brightstorm series.

The twins don’t believe the news, and they answer an ad to join a new attempt to reach South Polaris. It’s their only hope of learning the truth … and salvaging their family’s reputation. Will Arthur and Maudie find the answers they seek? They join a crew of adventurers in a new exploration attempt in the hope of learning the truth.

Vashti loves adventures and invention and has always been excited by real-life explorers from history. With the use of journals, Vashti creates fantasy worlds during her free time. After quitting teaching, she became a copywriter and digital marketing executive. Your class will focus on the suffixes: al/ol/le/el in this activity. Using the words from Chapter 17, your children will extend their vocabulary as well as being challenged to locate the words containing the listed suffixes within the chapter.

Maudie and Arthur were not only orphaned and sold to a cruel family, their father and their name was disgraced. The twins know their father didn’t do what he was accused of doing and they are determined to become explorers like their father and clear his name. Twelve-year-old twins Maudie and Arthur’s world comes crashing in when their explorer dad is reported dead in his mission to get to South Polaris, and they race to restore the family name.A real edge-of-your-seat Victoriana romp.What a wonderful book this one is, with so many important themes and messages about nature and technology, as well as our relationship with both, but told in such a fantastical way, in a way only Vashti Hardy knows how!

I really enjoyed this book. It was not quite as good as the Brightstorm books for me but I still really enjoyed it! Vashti Hardy is so easy to read and so much fun! I liked Orin and the world of Ironhold and the tree it was really well done. There is an emerging genre (sub-genre?) of fiction called climate fiction (cli-fi.) It's often speculative, ranging from dystopia leaning to science fiction or fantasy leaning. Regardless of where it falls in the other genres, cli-fi books always focus on environmental damage and human's involvement in it - usually them trying to save it as well as how they've destroyed it. The twins are so determined to find him, and their newly discovered aunt is also in the search. Arthur, Maudie, and Harriet Culpepper doubt that the investigation is for covering something else. What might Eudora Vane be looking for in the Eastern Isles? The Eastern Isles are not easy to find and holds a lot of secrets. The twins are for the first time separated to live in places they know nothing about. Will they later be reunited? Will they be able to find out what Eudora is up to before it’s too late? All across the USA, people are showing up dead. The deaths don't appear to be connected in any way until one particular death occurs and gets the Secretary of Defense's attention. He arranges for a task force to investigate.The Brightstorm books are superb. However, the ‘SteamPunk’ for kids genre is becoming a little stretched now. I liked the concept of this story, the ecological theme, the importance of caring for natural resources and how rampant technology and urbanisation can be destructive- I get it. In this activity your children will work on the use of apostrophes from chapters 1 and 2. Some of your children will recognise and identify how an apostrophe is used for a contraction and others will look at apostrophes to show possession.

I love the environmentalist theme of the story. I normally don’t really love political statements, but the environmental issue is near and dear to my heart. (I have a hippie mom to thank for that.) I love nature and I want my great grandchildren to enjoy it as much as I do. Anyhow, Maud and Arthur are on a ship powered by water instead of pitch. This gives them an advantage in the race south because water is a readily available resource, unlike pitch. They also visit a city that has converted to hydro and wind power instead of pitch and has experienced great success. Hmmm. A parallel to any current issue? I think so! What can we Learn from Hardy?

It drew me in instantly as a fabulous call to adventure and I began to consider what sort of person would reply to such an advert. What if two children, a boy and a girl, replied? They would need an extremely compelling reason. Then Arthur and Maudie Brightstorm arrived in my imagination and I started building their story and the situation with their explorer father and the history of their mother. I decided on a fantasy world with similarities to our own, yet with many more places waiting to be discovered, populated by humans and creatures just as intelligent called sapients. The world of the Wide was born. They are devastated by the news and confused, and they don’t know what to believe. After investigation, the Lontown Geographical Society has found Ernest Brightstorm guilty of destroying the expedition of Eudora Vane, his competitor. A mysterious clue makes the twins question the story they’ve just been told. To discover the truth, they’ve to go on a lifetime journey. Brightstorm a sky ship adventure is an amazing book! I honestly was not expecting it to be this good when I first got it but it was incredible! It’s about twin siblings, Arthur and Maudie Brightstorm who’s father, an explorer has died on a failed attempt to reach south Polaris. They stay to live their housekeeper, Mistress Poacher, but she has absolutely no interest in the twins and simply sells them to Mr and Mrs Beggins, poor people who treat the twins very badly and make them servants! The children live in the slumps (slums) until one day they find an advert for a race to claim South Polaris for the 2nd time. They decide to join Miss Harriet Culpepper, who is also an explorer just like their father, and her team (which includes Felicity Wiggety) on a race to South Polaris. Many exciting things happen to the crew of the Aurora sky ship as they journey deep into the unknown. Will the Aurora team reach South Polaris first? Or will they be beaten to it by Madame Eudora Vane on board her sky ship Victorious? Read the book to find out! If you have a young reader interested in adventure, books about animals, and airships, this is a perfect book for them. This amazing book by Vashti Hardy keeps the reader engaged and hooked as you go on an epic adventure.