I was drawn to this because it promised to be written in a Mallory Yowers school story type way and it was a good read but for me it didn't quite deliver.
I liked the heroine Calla as she isn't worried about being different and some of the scenes with her and the other students were great.
However I have 2 issues with the book that prevent me given it more stars. First the footnotes didn't add anything to to to story and after a while I just stopped reading them as they were irritating me. Secondly there wasn't enough time ar school
Overall a good story that doesn't quote hit the mark

My full review will follow at filmstories.co.uk

What an unexpected delight! I really thought this was going to be more of a classic boarding school drama, but it's much cleverer and quirkier than that. It's got delicately handled grief, raucous slapstick and classic adventure all thrown in. I really enjoyed Daisy May Johnson's sense of characterisation - even the lighter, funnier characters felt rounded out and likeable. And it leaves just enough of a cliffhanger that I'll really look forward to the sequel. A real winner.

Calla lives with her mum, Elizabeth, who has an obsession with ducks (almost to the exclusion of everything else) which developed after an event when she was a student at the School of the Good Sisters. After being offered the chance of a lifetime to travel to Brazil in search of a particular type of duck, Elizabeth registers Calla at her old school and goes off on her travels. Many of Elizabeth's old teachers are there and have fond memories of Calla's mother, with the exception of the new headteacher, who has been jealous of Elizabeth for many years. Things take a sinister turn when Elizabeth misses scheduled phone calls with Calla, who is determined to find out why.

This book is brilliant. The characters are fantastic. I LOVE the footnotes and the narrator. The Good Sisters are fab, as are the other girls in the story. The characters could easily have ended up being samey, since they are pretty much all pupils or staff at the school but they are so well written and individual. I challenge anyone not to love them all, especially the marvellous Edie. I hope that there will be more books with further adventures for these characters.

This is a gorgeous, heartfelt middle-grade book that's both captivating and witty. Footnotes are my absolute favourite when they're done right, and they're done very well throughout How to be Brave. I loved how quirky this book was, and how it made the characters really jump off of the page. I liked how conversational the tone of the book was, it made me feel like I was right alongside the characters from the very first page.

This was great fun! A warm, quirky story of ducks and nuns and boarding school baddies (and friendship, of course), with more serious issues such as financial difficulties and foodbanks woven in to the narrative. The footnotes were a nice feature too.

How to Be Brave was a strange yet capturing book. The witty footnotes and POV were interesting and very enjoyable!

The story follows Calla North as she has to go to a boarding school when her duck-lover mum goes to an expedition to the Amazon. There she meets Edie and Hanna and the dreaded Headmistress. The girls start a revolution to stop the Headmistress' oppressive reign and save Calla's mum when she's kidnapped.

The plot was interesting and quite gripping. The writing and the constant mentions of confectionery were very funny. The story started as we followed Elizabeth and then it shifted to Calla which I found a bit odd.

The characterisation was brilliant. Calla was a well rounded character but Edie and Hanna were absolutely brilliant! They were very likable and we got a subtle hint of Edie's backstory. I wish it was more developed but it was great that we got to see a different side to her anyway!

Overall this was an enjoyable read and highly recommended! I would love this as a series!

Thanks to netgalley and the publisher for the E-arc!

I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves school stories, biscuits (or cookies, as we call them in the U.S.), and especially to Anatidaephiles.*

It’s funny, poignant, and full of adventure, and the footnotes are brilliant.

I love a book that mentions so many of my own favorites while increasing my TBR list. I’m sadly remiss in my reading of boarding school stories (unless you count Life With Mother Superior and Daddy Longlegs), but this book has inspired me to catch up.

*People who love ducks.

What an original story! This book left me a bit confused as it was kind of ... weird. I liked the narrative perspective and the use of footnotes. I also enjoyed the story's quirkyness and its nods to the traditional boarding school tale. However, something felt a bit off for me but I can't put my finger on what it was that threw me off. It is a fun read though and I'm sure younger readers will love it.

Thank you so much to Pushkin Press and Netgalley for the earc to read and review.

What an unusual story this is, I honestly still don’t really know what to make of it, there were parts I liked and other parts I didn’t. It was such a strange story but I’m happy to have had the chance to read it.

So the story is told through Good Sister June who is heavily obsessed with biscuits and cakes, though pretty much every character in this book is too. She starts by telling Elizabeth’s story, then she hits fast forward to tell Calla’s story. We also meet up with a few characters that played a part in both stories, and one is the central villain in both.

What a variety of characters this book held though honestly there were so many, all so very different and each offered something different to the story. The best of the characters for me though was Edie, she was hilarious, her uprising was amazing, she was my favourite part of this whole book. She held it together in my opinion and just as I personally found I was getting a bit bored she made it so much more fun, so she gets a mention.

I loved that in both parts of the story the girls made a lifelong friendship, they found something to hold onto while at the school, both had the same bully and both ended up learning more than they thought and actually enjoying their stay at the boarding school.

Something I found I didn’t like all that much was the footnotes, now I get that some held a bit of extra information that we needed but the back and forth between the story to the notes was a bit much. I kept getting confused and a bit annoyed by having to interrupt the story to find out what the Good Sister June wanted to share as an extra fact.

I don’t care at all for the very abrupt ending, it didn’t actually close up the story or end it at all, I would have loved one finally chapter to close the story up completely. I still had a couple questions that weren’t answered, a few pei es if information that I felt could and should have been shared. I also would have loved a little more on Elizabeth when she was at school her story wasn’t as long as it could have been.

Overall I did enjoy the story as a whole, it was a fun albeit very unusual read. It held a huge array of characters both good and bad, the actions the girls pursue gave me St. Trinian’s vibes which was funny to read those parts. I love a fun boarding school and friendship based book and this one met the goals of that. It was certainly not at all what I expected from this book but it was still a fun and interesting read.

Elizabeth, orphaned at a young age and sent to a very singular boarding school, finds an injured duck and nurses it back to health and freedom. Many years later, an expert on ducks, widowed, impoverished and with a daughter named Calla, Elizabeth gets an offer she can’t refuse: a chance to study the elusive, rare duck she once found as a child in its usual Amazon environment. While she is away, Calla will attend the boarding school where her mother was eventually happy and loved as a child. However, when Calla arrives, she finds that the school has undergone a very recent and unwelcome change of management, which has sparked a resistance movement amongst the pupils, and seems to have a strange link with her mother’s mission.
The distinctive voice of the narrator, a character in the story, adds to the humour of the novel. Witty, amusing and full of sparky, eccentric characters, this is a thoroughly entertaining read and a twist on the school stories that I read during my own school days. With slapstick reminiscent of St Trinians, what lies at the heart of the novel is the warmth of the friendship between the characters and the recognition that family is not just those to whom we are related.

How to Be Brave is a funny and engaging book uniquely told through the power of footnotes. With a chatty style, the reader is pulled right into the story almost as an additional character. The narrator breaks the fourth wall by addressing the reader directly, drawing us into every questions, dilemma and decision.

Calla lives with her eccentric mother, Elizabeth. Times aren’t always easy but they have each other and are always ready for an adventure. Then, one day, everything changes. Elizabeth is offered her dream job studying rare ducks in South America. Unfortunately, Calla can’t go with her. She is going to be sent away to The School of Good Sisters – the same boarding school her mother attended as a girl. The nuns there will care for Calla and help her to learn everything she needs to know. New friends and new adventures await.

However, when Calla arrives at school, it isn’t as friendly and happy as she expected. There’s a new headteacher – someone from her mum’s past who is holding a grudge. Suddenly, there’s a mystery to solve. Will Calla be able to work with her new friends to find out the truth?

A story that transported me back in time to my love of classic adventure tales, a Malory Towers inspired novel with a modern twist akin to A Murder most Unladylike. How to be Brave follows an army of fierce, patisserie-obsessed heroines in a plight against an overbearing and overcontrolling headmistress, who has seemingly digested Miss Trunchbull's rulebook.

Calla's mum, Elizabeth, has never been normal by any stretch of the imagination, the type who turns up in her pyjamas for the school pick up and whose every waking hour is consumed by ducks, always has been.

When offered the job of a lifetime, the remedy to their teetering, threatening stack of eviction and final notices, Calla knows she must be brave. She must attend the beloved boarding school of her mum's childhood while her mum travels to the Amazon Rainforest.

Realisation soon dawns on Calla as she enters the unusual boarding school her mum talked fondly off. A revolution is bubbling new regime is pushes the girls to the boiling point, Calla's presence and the kidnapping of her mother provide them with the right ammunition to flip the switch.

A punchy, comical immersive story perfect for upper KS2 weaved with ribbons of strength, friendship and bravery. The appearance of footnotes adds a certain flair to this story - drawing the reader in on hidden secrets and perspectives.

I requested this book because I follow the author on Twitter and share her interest in classic girls' school stories! How to be Brave wasn't quite what I was expecting, as it's a lot more quirky and whimsical than the classic stories tend to be - far more St Trinian's than Malory Towers! - but it's an enjoyable romp of a book. Calla's mum is an expert on a very rare kind of duck, and when she has the chance to go to the Amazon to find it, she sends Calla to the same boarding school she attended and loved, but it's a very different place now! The girls at the school end up on a mission to take down the evil headmistress and rescue Calla's mum from kidnappers, and that isn't even touching on the zany places this goes...

The narrative voice is so strong with this one that you'll either love it or hate it instantly - I thought it was great! I really enjoy footnotes in fiction, and there are a lot here (perhaps slightly too many, but that depends how much you like constant asides about biscuits). While I found the school side of things a bit lacking (since I like the quiet, low stakes of boarding school stories and this is anything but that!), I really enjoyed the story behind the quirkiness, about Calla and her mum's unconditional love, and believing in your own strength.

Every so often, a book comes along that, despite being firmly anchored in the tradition of British children’s literature, is like no other. “How to be Brave” is one of those books.

This is a book that expertly weaves motifs of traditional school stories with elements contemporary life, making it both timeless and very much of its time*
The school might be look like a traditional boarding school (it’s really not), the majority of its students might look privileged, but at the heart of the tale is a much loved child that knows hardship, worring whether bills will be paid, receiving parcels from the food bank. And love, love in all its forms, defines this story. Parents do need to be out of the way for children to have a proper adventure, but it is never of any doubt that Calla is loved and cherished by her mother.
Of course there is adventure galore, clever and resourceful children, plenty of baking talk too, as well as a good dose of rebellion against the rules; all quintessential to good school story.

The use of footnotes (much underused in literature in my opinion) is a glorious addition. It brilliantly showcases the author’s agile repartee (mentions of dress with pockets and musings on custard creams, to mention a few) and allows the narrator to build a special relationship with the reader. We know how the narrator feels, they invite us in, we are not just bystanders.

It’s glorious, it really is, to the very end**. And there is no doubt about it: Calla, her mother, her friends, the splendid blessing of nuns*** and their creator Daisy May Johnson are a new force to be reckoned with.


* I know, I didn’t think it made sense either. But you’ll understand exactly what I mean when you read it.

** Spoiler: I cried.

***I never thought I’d ever write this in a review!

I absolutely loved this book. In some ways it's quite old-fashioned in tone but in other ways it feels almost daring in a market place that is saturated with quite similar books with similar styles and POV. The story is told in a very roundabout way by one of the Nuns who stars in this story. She has an obsession with footnotes (and this is done so so much better than I've seen elsewhere) and baked goods of all kinds (but never chocolate cake with jam). It's a joyous read filled with biscuits, ducks, classes held on the roof, secret passages and a Nun flying a helicopter. I have already started raving to some of my readers about this even though it won't be out for ages. Genuinely joyous, funny and quirky stories are actually rare to find and this book is all of those things. St Trinians meets Malory Towers with a strong bake-off vibe is how I'd describe this book.

I absolutely LOVED this book. The storytelling was so unique and unlike anything I've read before. The plot was compelling and the characters were likeable (and thoroughly unlikeable in the case of the villain).

How to be Brave tells the story of Calla and her mother Elizabeth North, who has an expert knowledge of ducks that manages to get them both into trouble.

I loved the setting of the boarding school run by eccentric nuns with a love for all things cake and biscuits! I also thought that the tough financial situation that Calla and her mother experience, which means that they have to visit food banks and go without heating sometimes, was really well written and handled.

I'm a huge fan of all things Eva Ibbotson, and I think this book would suit readers who enjoy her work.
I will definitely be recommending this book to others when it is released.

An interesting take on the school story. I appreciated the depth of knowledge behind the writing and really enjoyed the footnotes. A little too unrealistic in places and perhaps the pacing could have been tweaked (it ends somewhat abruptly) but overall, a good book for the 7-12 range

Calla and Elizabeth North are the unlikely strong female role models girls need these days.

When Elizabeth North, duck expert and, admittedly, flighty mum, gets the opportunity of a lifetime to study ducks in the Amazon, she and her daughter Calla both know she can't pass it up. So Calla is shipped off to her mum's old boarding school, which Elizabeth has fond memories of from when her own world turned upside down. But things have certainly changed since Elizabeth's school days - and not in a good way! Calla finds herself caught up in trying to rid the school of its new, evil headmistress - while also trying to save her mum!

Calla is the picture of unconditional love for her mum. Despite Elizabeth's tendency to forget to (or be unable to) pay bills or afford food that doesn't come off the bottom shelves of the supermarket, Calla supports her mum's dreams fiercely, making sure she takes the opportunity in the Amazon. She is strong while still showing vulnerability and is exactly the kind of role model girls need - to see that soft and strong are not mutually exclusive.

Daisy May Johnson has created a thing of beauty with this story. It's written in a fresh way and the use of footnotes in a novel is highly unusual but really effective here. Although it ended before I was really ready, it just means, hopefully, that things are all set for a sequel, and I for one can't wait to read it.

trigger warning
<spoiler> grief, being orphaned, being held hostage </spoiler>

Calla is glad to leave her old school but sad it has to be under these circumstances: Her mother is going on an expedition she has planned since girlhood, and since there is nobody else who could care for Calle, our protagonist goes to a boarding school where things are not all right.

I was confused by the unexpected beginning of this book, which is about Elizabeth, Calla's mum, who in turn went to the boarding school we're reading about. But in retrospect I can tell you that it was the right start for this story.

It boils down to a kind of Umbridge situation where pupils and teachers conspire against the headmistress because she's an awful human being. Most often I don't have any feelings towards the antagonist, but oooh I have them today. <i>She replaced all the fiction books in the library with algebra books!</i>

I wanted this to go on longer and was upset as I had only 50 pages left because I knew it would end soon. If this going to be a series, I want to know as soon as possible.
I liked the characters, the plot, but especially the writing. Footnotes make everything better. If intended or not, the puns were awesome. (What do you call it when it rains ducks? Fowl weather.)

This might be one of those rare cases where I will purchase a physical copy of an arc later on because I need it in my life. If you're into middlegrade fiction you'll love this.

The arc was provided by the publisher.

This brilliantly bonkers book left me feeling very confused upon finishing it. I can’t quite figure out whether or not I loved it or if it just totally baffled me.

How to be Brave is almost an ode to the boarding school books of the past. It gives a knowing nod to the worlds of Enid Blyton, Eva Ibbotson, and even more up to date references, such as Robin Stevens. The school of the Good Sisters combines the best of all fictional boarding schools and is a place of midnight feasts on the roof, nuns teaching helicopter maintenance, baked goods galore, secret passageways and, above all else, sisterhood.

I hadn’t read the blurb before reading it, so after reading the introduction, I assumed it was based on a true story as it feels like a factual read. Pretty quickly I realised that this assumption was incorrect. I then thought it was going to be an Eva Ibbotson ‘girl-suffers-misfortune-before-finding-herself-in-a-boarding-school-where-she-embarks-on-a-marvellous-adventure’ type of story. And in a way it was, but it again twisted to be something different. It quickly became more outrageous - more humour, more suspend disbelief, more utterly unrealistic. Less plot driven, more spirit of adventure led.

I enjoyed the narration style of talking to the reader. I also thought the footnotes were a fun addition (although less fun on an e-reader). At times I loved this book, but I perhaps feel that it - or I - lost its way. At the very least, it’s definitely original!