Blue Peter Book Club: Juniper Mae: Knight of Tykotech City

This guide is produced in partnership with Blue Peter.

Juniper Mae: Knight of Tykotech City, written and illustrated by Sarah Soh, is the fourth title in the Blue Peter Book Club.

The book is about young inventor Juniper Mae and her incredible gadgets. When she's stranded in the mysterious forests surrounding Tykotech City, she discovers her home is in danger. It's up to Juniper Mae and her friend Albie to protect the city.

You can get a sneak peek of the book over on Blue Peter.

Juniper Mae: Knight of Tykotech City by Sarah Soh, uses both words and amazing images to tell a story.

In this graphic novel, words and images work together to move the story on in an entertaining way.

Instead of using only words to build and tell the story, graphic novels use:

• pictures
• text boxes
• speech bubbles

They do this in a clear order (sequence), with lots of actions - a bit like a comic.

By combining words and text, it helps you (the reader) imagine and understand the story in your mind.

Do you enjoy the way that graphic novels like Juniper Mae: Knight of Tykotech City uses fewer words to tell a story and instead rely on vivid, detailed pictures?

You'll notice that Juniper Mae: Knight of Tykotech City uses speech bubbles to tell the story.

Speech bubbles are a handy tool in any graphic novel. They're used to share what the different characters are saying.

Just like speech in a normal book, speech bubbles deliver information. However, there's some key differences when using speech bubbles from normal speech.

• You don't need to use inverted commas (speech marks) around the words a character is saying.
• You don't need to use words like 'said', 'shouted' or 'whispered'.
• To show how a character is talking you can use punctuation instead. You can use capital letters. For example, to show that a character is shouting - look at this image from page 16.
• To make it clear who is speaking, you can draw a 'tail' from the speech bubble to the character that is speaking.

You might have noticed that the text boxes in this graphic novel contain extra detail to make it more interesting for you to read.

One way the author, Sarah Soh, has added extra detail is by using fronted adverbials.

Adverbials are a word or phrase that gives you extra details about the action (verb) that is happening in the sentence. They can tell you things like:

• when the action is happening (time)
• where the action is happening (place)
• how the action is happening (manner)
• how many times the action happened (number)

Adverbials can appear in different places within your sentences. Sometimes, you can use them at the start of a sentence - when this happens we call it a fronted adverbial. They usually have a comma after them to separate them from the rest of the sentence.

Sarah Soh, the author of Juniper Mae: Knight of Tykotech City, has used fronted adverbials very effectively.

Take a look at these examples:

"Many years ago, Tykotech Corp invented The Core: an energy source to power the whole city wirelessly."

This is a fronted adverbial of time as it tells us when The Core was invented.

"As they headed homeward, Juniper's mind raced with countless questions."

This is a fronted adverbial of place as it tells us where they were going as Juniper thought of questions.

"To Juniper's surprise, she recognized the daughter of President Kozen."

This is a fronted adverbial of manner as it tells us how Juniper felt as she recognised the President's daughter.

Did you notice how suspense was created throughout this gripping story? Suspense is when you feel nervous or excited because you are wondering what will happen next.

One way to create suspense is by using ellipsis. They look like this …

Look at this example from page 32.

By using an ellipsis here, the author is creating suspense by making you want to read on… (To find out if Juniper could finally figure out how the energy in the kabbage seeds worked!)

To learn more about ellipsis, watch this video.

Look at these images.

Can you draw and write a speech bubble for the characters in each image?

Use the speech bubble to tell the story or share what the character is feeling or thinking.

During Juniper Mae: Knight of Tykotech City, a mysterious stranger appears in Kaya's home and says:

Now imagine that you're the author, Sarah Soh.

Your task is to write what will happen in the next chapter of Juniper Mae: Knight of Tykotech City.

Will Juniper save Tykotech City with her Kabbage seed energy?

Will Kaya escape and steal The Core once more?

Will the humans of the city venture into the forest again?

You decide.