Morning all~!

Welcome to the Blog Tour for Jason Tucker’s newest book: Operation Clean Up. A book full of imagination!

On the left you can see the tour banner so you can check out others on this tour!

I have many fun things for this blog tour. Like my review for the book, but also book/author information, and excerpts (done a bit differently this time).

Let’s get started!

Review
I received this book from the publisher in exchange of an honest review.

Two boys want to go swimming, but…. the house is a mess and it is time for them to clean up first. Follow our boys on 6 missions (yes, missions!) and see their adventures as they clear each mission.

A book that brought back fond memories of my childhood. Just like those kids, the mess wasn’t just any mess, it was -insert scene of imagination-. Each mess symbolises something for the kids. From a stairs covered in toys turning into a mountain which they must climb to a bath that turns into a sea monster’s domain. I was definitely laughing, and enjoying, seeing what these kids were up to and what they would tell their mom this time.

But like any book about cleaning, mom isn’t going to be persuaded to leave the mess. Oh no. This mom wants her house to be clean, and dang it, I can imagine. Those boys sure made a lot of wonderful imaginary worlds, but also a gigantic mess. Even the dog looks sadly at the fact that his favourite water bowl (the toilet) is occupied. 😛

The ending was great, and I was happy for the boys (and for the mom). I also like the promise they tried to make, but we all know that promise will be broken in a few seconds flat when the boys are back into their imaginary worlds.

The art is pretty good. I am not sure about the humans and how they look, but everything else is fabulous. There are so many details to be found in each story. And I just adore the effort the illustrator put in the backgrounds. So pretty!

All in all, I would recommend this fun, laugh out loud book to everyone.

Some information on the book:

This is the story of two very imaginative little boys and their resistance to cleaning up their toys…

Two little boys are about to go out for the day to the swimming pool as a treat. But before they can go, they must tidy up all their toys – which are all over the house – as requested by their Mummy. The boys consider this a mission! The boys attempt to clean up their toys in various parts of the house while making all sorts of excuses to Mummy to leave the toys where they are. The boys are easily side-tracked when attempting to clean up each room, as they find themselves playing with their toys again, their imaginations taking over. They find themselves driving trains, defending castles from ogres, climbing high mountains, flying spaceships, catching sea serpents and meeting prehistoric dinosaurs. All while trying to clean up their toys!

Written by Jason Tucker and stunningly illustrated by Nick Roberts, Operation Clean Up Day is a fantastic journey through the imagination of two children, who can turn a simple set of toys into an entire fantasy world, whilst teaching children the valuable lesson of tidying up their toys after playtime!

Buy it here: Amazon

About the author:

Born and raised in London, Jason Tucker is married and is a father of three young boys. He is enjoying an international working life basing himself between London and Dubai. This is his first published work with a number of other titles in the pipeline as well as working on a number of other ventures including TV, Film & graphic novels.

Excerpts + explanation from the author on the choiceIt was difficult to choose a particular extract as I am passionate about the entire book; Nick Roberts did an excellent job on the illustrations and has really brought my first book to life – But I’ve chosen this one extract due to a little bit of sentimental value on this occasion, when the book was being developed we finished this particular mission page at a later point of the process and it was the first real point of excitement for me as it felt that this book was now becoming a reality in terms of publishing to the wider audience.
The other piece is that like all the other pages, this really captures the essence of the book with the children being in a bathroom playing with some toy ship and a rubber toy sea animal looking thing and then the imagination of the children takes fully over with this wide epic ocean feel, real pirate ships circling and this very detailed sea serpent entity rising from the water – There is a real sense of action and fun here and It’s exactly the message what I wanted to get across. Anyway I hope that you all enjoy my book.