Michael Lawrence

Orchard Books

1846162270

Jun 2006

‘One for all and all for lunch’

With work that defies easy classification, traversing many genres and all age-ranges, Michael Lawrence deserves to be a much bigger, brighter star amidst the skyline of children’s literature. The ‘Aldous Lexicon’ trilogy, due to draw to a close in October with the highly anticipated, ‘The Underwood See’, showcases his skills as a powerful, thought-provoking novelist. Meanwhile, his irreverent ‘Jiggy McCue’ stories have found firm readership with children for the anarchic sense of fun and frivolity that fills their pages, an affectionate base lies beneath the mad-cap antics in the latest, ‘Ryan’s Brain’.
It is characteristic reluctance rather than the bravado shown by many a book’s hero that drives Jiggy McCue, Pete and Angie ‘ this century’s new, self-professed, three musketeers, into their eighth exciting adventures. Taunts on the football pitch between Jiggy and arch-enemy, Bryan Ryan, culminates with a show down whereby Bryan Ryan prepares to head-butt Jiggy, takes his aim, fires and’ misses, hitting the wooden goal post instead and suffering immediate concussion!
Pandemonium ensues as events appear to transpire to avenge Jiggy, seemingly manipulated through psychokinesis by the sub-conscious of the eponymous Ryan’s brain. Together with Pete and Angie, Jiggy attempts to convince the brain to reach a truth and in so doing encounters giant slugs, ravenous dogs, marauding horses and eventually uncovers the true culprit responsible for these torments.
Jiggy celebrates his thirteenth birthday in the novel, early teenage behaviour is typified through belligerence and an unerring ability to sleep. Lawrence’s awareness that the absurdity of storylines is what makes this series such a riotous read is belied by the encouragingly warm depiction of unswaying and unconditional brotherly love, respect and admiration that is firmly at the centre of this book. An at once savvy, sensitive but not remotely sentimental story’

Jackie French

Catnip

184647003X

Apr 2006

‘No, it’s not the moon Callisto that orbits Jupiter in our solar system. Callisto is a sun too, a gazillion light years from Earth, and Callisto 4 is the fourth planet away from that sun. All the other planets circling Callisto are either too hot or too cold for humans, but Callisto 4 is like Earth used to be, just about perfect.’

Catnip are a new publishing venture incorporating the established Happy Cat Books list. One of many exciting publications featured within their list this year is the award-winning Jackie French’s ‘Callisto’ series. Perhaps most familiar to readers in the UK as the author of the thought-provoking ‘Hitler’s Daughter’ Jackie French is an author whose breadth and diversity of work frequently broaches territory that is both challenging and uncharted!
Billed as a comedy and whilst being genuinely humorous, ‘The Caf’ on Callisto’ is as much a poetic treaty on the role the natural environment plays towards the healthy development of children. Sam and her dad live in a future Earth, twenty-five levels beneath the ground. They live not only in the darkness beneath the ground, but also in the shadow of the tragedy that befell Sam’s mother, an event that lead to the impetus for transporting the family towards the stars to be lost.
All of this alters when a caf’ becomes available on Callisto 4 and Sam and her chef father are able to claim residency in this brave, new inter-planetary world! Together the pair must make their living through selling food on a planet where food and its sharing is a cultural way of life’ Will they succeed and be able to carve a living for themselves?
Exposition on nature versus artifice and the eventual need to escape Earth to attain towards the natural locates the novel firmly in the realm of simulation and simulacra which Baudrillard hypothesised as constitutes of the hyperreal. Here is a science fiction work that glances forward to see the importance of our pastoral pasts’ Fans can look forward to its sequel ‘Space Pirates on Callisto’.

Dominic Barker

Bloomsbury

074758074X

Feb 2006

Irresistibly irreverent, ‘Blart’ is one of those all-too-rare, laugh-out-loud books. A hapless sort of a chap, Blart, our eponymous protagonist and unlikely hero is a pig farmer by trade and all things porcine certainly form the basis for his comfort-zone. Together with the cantankerous wizard, Capablanca, blowhard warrior, Beowulf and petulant Princess Lois, Blart unwillingly becomes a part of the motley crew who aim to do battle against evil over-lord Zoltab and the minions and Ministers who seek his return.
Wreaking havoc at every point of their voyage and leaving in their wake a trail of, for the most part accidental, death and destruction ‘ quarterised pet dragons and a couple of very flat dwarves – one would be forgiven for imagining the future of the world not to beentirely within safe hands.
Despite the varied and various misfortunes that befall our heroes, through a series of coincidences things amazingly fall together towards the end of this misadventure in a way that has to be read to be believed. Whether in the Cavernous Library of Ping, or the Even More Cavernous Library of Zing, Blart is the most unlikely hero you’re likely to read about any time soon ‘ essential reading for anyone with fantasy leanings and a sense of humour!