Jan Pienkowski (translated by David Walser) |
Puffin |
0141382244 |
Oct 2005 |
|
This is a sumptuous season for fairy tales. Lauren Child’s covetable version of The Princess and the Pea is the sort of book all real princesses will want to hoard beneath their pillows. There is the much less crafted, but fun, Mixed Up Fairy Tales, from Hilary Robinson and Nick Sharratt, which lets children play around with all the familiar components – like the old game of Tops and Tails ‘ so Goldilocks can be bossed around by two horrid stepsisters, then move in with seven dwarfs before being woken by a band of forty thieves. |
Archives for October 2005
Zip’s Apollo
Philip Ridley |
Puffin |
1904442714 |
Oct 2005 |
|
Is the landscape of fairytales crumbling? Does its populace of familiar, universal figureheads – Kings, Queens, youngest sons – lose emotional impetus in modern urban environments? Should either statement contain even a vestige of truth, remedy can doubtless be sought in the modern urban fairytales of Philip Ridley… |
Mister Monday
Garth Nix ill. by Tim Stevens |
Collins |
1904442714 |
Jan 2004 |
|
‘He couldn’t believe he was in this situation. He was supposed to be some sort of hero, going up against Mister Monday, and here he was without any pants on, worrying about being bitten somewhere very unpleasant by Nithling Snakes. Surely no real hero would end up in this predicament.’ |
Barkbelly
Cat Weatherill |
Puffin |
1904442714 |
Oct 2005 |
|
Barkbelly is not like other boys: he was hatched from a wooden egg and he’s literally tough as teak. Brought up by humans in a village far from his kin, he flees his childhood home after an unfortunate accident ends in the death of a young boy. |
I, Coriander
Sally Gardner |
Orion |
1904442714 |
Oct 2005 |
|
Not since I feverishly immersed myself in the fantasy adventures of E. Nesbit and Elizabeth Goudge over twenty years ago have I been so utterly swept away with the fairies. As an adult I’ve enjoyed many ‘magical realism’ stories, and have at times revisited various interpretations of the traditional fairy tales, but Sally Gardner’s I, Coriander refreshed my imagination and enthusiasm for all things magical beyond any of these. |
The Sea of Trolls
Nancy Farmer |
Simon and Schuster |
068986096X |
April 2005 (paperback ed.) |
|
A rare thing in the current children’s market: a title that walks partly in the historical footsteps of Rosemary Sutcliff, Cynthia Harnett, Geoffrey Trease et al, and stands with the best of them. The Sea of Trolls is seemingly the story of an epic quest, steeped in Norse mythology. Jack, an eleven-year-old Saxon peasant, helping his family eke out a bitter living on their farmstead on the chill north-east British coast, is chosen by the village ‘bard’ (the Celts would have named him druid) to learn the secrets and uses of the Life Force. Yet he has only just begun his studies when Viking beserkers descend on the region and carry him and his sister back to their own lands as slaves. Here Jack enters a world that he never dreamed really existed, a world of trolls and half-trolls, sea-serpents and enchantment. With the little he has already learned of the Life Force, Jack convinces his new owner, the larger-than-life Olaf One-Brow, that he may have a use. His baby sister, Lucy, has been given to the half-troll Queen Frith, however, and Jack’s inexpert use of the Force (yes, the Force is with him) leads to her losing her famous silky hair and her human shape. To save Lucy from the dire consequences, Jack must journey into the heart of troll country to Mimir’s Well, at the place where the world tree Yggdrassil pierces Middle Earth. With him go Olaf One-Brow and Thorgil, a self-hating young girl bent on glorious death. |
Chasing Vermeer
Blue Baillet ill. by Brett Helquist |
The Chicken House |
1904442714 |
Oct 2005 |
|
What an excellent concoction this is! Especially recommended for that group of children referred to by the rather unpleasant phrase ‘gifted and talented’. It’s a book for the thinking reader, for the reader who likes puzzles and mysteries. It’s also a book that will make teachers who slavishly follow schemes of work think carefully about becoming more like Ms Hussey, the novel’s wonderfully spur-of-the-moment teacher. |
Duckie’s Ducklings – A one to ten counting book
Frances Barry |
Walker Books |
0744557798 |
Feb 2005 |
|
They say never judge a book by its cover. But it’s hard not to with this one, which stands out from the crowd with its unusual rounded edges. |