Just So Stories

Hachette Australia

Oct 2025 | 9781444982398 | RRP $22.99

Preorder the P/B: Apr 7, 2026 | 9781444979435 | RRP $17.99

SO much fun to be back with the most famous starwalker, bounty hunter and Story Maker, Horizabel the Grimm, along with O’Hero-Smith children for another intergalactic, totally bonkers adventure. Cressida Cowell’s Which Way series is every bit as exciting, dramatic, crazy and fun as her previous series. I actually read this when I first received it [book cheated on a couple of others at the time] back in October, but with Picture Book Month and Xmas Countdown, the review is only just going out now but it is in plenty of time for you to pre-order the paperback.

As usual the pace is frenetic so where to start?

We discover a lot more about Horizabel, who is far from being as heartless, tough and untouchable as she has always maintained. When she is trapped by the evil High Witch of Illyria, the pseudo-mother who raised the abandoned baby, Horizabel, she knows she has no choice but to call on those dratted human children, with their magical powers, resourcefulness and downright uncanny luck to rescue her.

Meanwhile, the O’Hero-Smith kids are trying hard to pretend to be a normal family, when Daniel’s mother is visiting – extremely difficult in such a weird and wonderful home filled to the brim with magic and mayhem.

Izzabird is desperate to discover her own magic and Mabel has yet to reveal hers. Then there’s Everest O’Hero, father of Izzabird and K2, who has returned to the family home, not only hidden but miniscule. In fact, so tiny that only baby Annipeck notices him at all. Miniature Efferest and Annipeck almost completely steal this show – they are such great characters, small as they both are.

Despite their ban on intergalactic travel, adventures and generally getting into trouble, the children know they must go to Horizabel’s aid. But there’s not only the High Witch to thwart but the Excoriator and Vorcxix the Vile, the Were-Dread Enraptor, along with teams of ugly, brutish, nasty, huge, smelly and absolutely no-good bounty hunters in the High Witch’s Ultimate Bounty Hunter Competition – which the children must win if they are to save Horizabel.

Once again it is full of laughs and ridiculousness but also those themes of courage, initiative, loyalty, and family that we have come to associate with all of Cressida’s stories. I actually love that, each in their own way, the characters are all misfits i.e. not quite the regular type of children (or indeed adults), yet together they form an indomitable force with which to be reckoned. Will there be more to come?

I certainly hope so! It gets a sparkling intergalactic 5 🌌🌌🌌🌌🌌rating from me for capable readers from around 9 years upwards.