Faced with the prospect of being forced by her parents to marry a forty year old priest whom she does not love, young Alis chooses instead to escape the strict surroundings of her village and brave the outside world. In order to do this though, she must also leave behind Luke – a boy of her own age, with whom she is falling in love.
Life outside her own community may be less oppressively judgmental and controlling, but Alis faces other trials in the mercenary city, where one must toughen up to survive. Despite being reunited with her long-lost runaway brother, life is hard and eventually she is forced to return home and accept her fate. Thinking Luke dead, she submits and marries the priest - but their union is short-lived.
An enthralling love story in the Romeo and Juliet tradition, with some unexpected twists and turns – and a definite resonance with contemporary religious extremism issues - Alis is an impressively memorable debut.
When her family goes off to work in the morning, leaving her home alone, Sally the dog starts daydreaming about what jobs she might like to do. Teaching, zookeeping, archaeology, paleontology and farming all cross her mind; until her people arrive home and she realises that she already has a brilliant job – looking after her family.
Huneck's coloured woodcut illustrations give the book a distinctly retro feel, that brought back memories of psychedelic 70s children’s cartoon Crystal Tipps and Alistair. Whilst the story itself has a sweet sentiment, and the woodcuts are clearly accomplished, Sally's static expressions (inevitable by the nature of this medium) are sometimes mildly disturbing.
Unusually for a picture flat, The Magic Rabbit is illustrated almost entirely in black and white, with only occasional details being accented in yellow. But far from feeling drab, the use of monochrome actually adds to the magic of this atmospheric tale. There is more than a touch of the Sally Gardner about LeBlanc Cate's style, particularly in the boggle-eyed facial expressions and elaborately detailed spreads.
The opening spread pictures the two main characters - the magician Ray and his assistant, Bunny – in their urban apartment, which is brimming with books, trinkets and magical accessories. You could easily spend several minutes just contemplating this one scene, but for the promise of an intriguing story ahead.
As well as being business partners, Ray and Bunny are the best of friends, and go everywhere together, until one day Bunny gets scared by a dog during their act, and runs off into the busy street. As Bunny finds himself lost in the city crowds, he misses Ray terribly, and it's only when he starts nibbling on some discarded popcorn, that he spots a some magic stars and follows their trail all the way back to his own magic hat, and a delighted Ray. A charming little story about the everyday magic of friendship, brought beautifully to life by its skilfully evocative illustrations, The Magic Rabbit is an impressive début.
Pirates, sea monsters, submarines and winged mice – all the ingredients are here for a rip-roaring, swashbuckling adventure – and Alex Milway's debut novel certainly delivers. In his imagined fantasy world, mice in all their weird and wonderful incarnations are highly collectible commodities that grown men will go to extreme lengths to acquire. Young Emiline is a professional mousekeeper in the employ of a wealthy collector, Isiah Lovelock. But seeking more intrepid exploits, she joins the crew of a ship in pursuit of the notorious and fearsome pirate, Mousebeard - so called because of the mice who live inside his unkempt facial hair. Leaping head first into a dangerous world of pirate politics and maritime menaces, Emiline soon finds she has bitten off more than she can chew, and has to keep her wits about her to survive.
The story is interspersed with amusingly illustrated entries from the 'Mousekeeper's Almanac', which provides collectors with intricate details and care instructions for every kind of mouse known to man - from the semi-mythical Methuselah Mouse to the highly coveted Golden Mouse. The colourful cast of human characters are equally well painted during a series of nail-biting capers, which include some surprising twists and revelations. As with all the best adventure stories, things are not always as black and white as they first appear, and Milway does a good job of keeping you guessing up until the very last pages.
Written in collaboration with a primary school as an Arts Council funded project, the remit in creating this novel was to provide stories that children would want to read. Told from the individual points of view of six children, all of different ages, as well as third-person sections called 'Everyone's Story', it can be read either straight through or by choosing one or more characters to follow. Presumably this structure is designed to make the book accessible to different levels of reader, but it could potentially become confusing.
The story itself has a distinctly environmental, somewhat preachy message, as each of the children has to complete a task - invariably a test on their personal weaknesses - in order to save humanity. This all takes place in what was their school, but is fast disappearing, as 'nature' rises up to reclaim the world in protest at man's mistreatment of it. Very much reminiscent of the meandering stories that filled endless exercise books in my own childhood, I can see how children might well identify on some level with the naïvely constructed characters and far-flung adventures, although more advanced readers may find it all rather patronising.
Much of Andy's childhood has been haunted by the memory of a terrible event he once witnessed in which a father and son drowned in quicksand on the beach near his home. Blaming himself for not being able to help them, the shadow of this harrowing experience hangs over him as he struggles to move on. His only escape is in daffodils, a passion he has inherited from his grandfather - also the most reliable male role model in his life. Then the beautiful Angie comes into his life, taking an unexpected interest in Andy's unusual horticultural hobby, she also becomes the object of his desire, as the rumblings of first love begin to stir.
Set in a rough industrial town in the Lake District, the title refers to a line of poetry from one of the area's most notable exports, William Wordsworth. And very much in the spirit of Wordsworth, the landscape is passionately and intricately evoked, setting an atmospheric backdrop to what turns out to be a compelling and moving rites of passage. The unusual slant of daffodil obsession gives a familiar story a refreshing twist, and provides some genuinely interesting facts along the way.
Following on from Santa’s Snow Cat and The Lighthouse Cat, this established author/illustrator team return with another fantastical feline story, this time featuring that winning ingredient, chocolate.
Mortimer’s lavish illustrations bring to mouthwatering life the exotic creations of the chocolate shop owner, whose cat acquires a taste for chocolate mice and takes it upon himself to deposit them all around the town. Soon business is booming and everyone is smiling, including the previously downcast chocolatier.
There’s no doubt that chocolate can lift the spirits, but it should be pointed out that it can actually be poisonous to cats, so please don’t try this at home!
In the spirit of 'Holes', with splashes of subtle magical realism, Couvillion's debut is a highly compelling and ultimately uplifting 'rise of the underdog' morality tale. On Horse Island, where nearly everyone is a chicken farmer with an alliterative name, the Schmidt family are relative outsiders, bequeathed their house by an uncle on the condition that they continue to care for its chickens.
Ignored and resented by his parents, Don Schmidt spends most of his home life trying not to annoy his neurotic chicken-hating mother. School isn't much better, until one day he wins a chicken-judging contest and becomes suddenly popular, so that even his parents are forced to notice him.
Meanwhile, Don has accidentally discovered that his name used to be Stanley, and is anxiously following a trail of clues about his past, desperate to find out why it was changed and what exactly his family has been hiding from him. As the truth gradually unfolds, with some cleverly plotted twists and turns, the story becomes ever more enthralling. Don/Stanley is a perfectly constructed hero – humble, naïve, kind and courageous - and you can't help but be consumed by his plight.
A deeply moving and provocative novel that boldly confronts attitudes to disability from the perspective of a sixteen year old with cerebral palsy. Set in a 1960s holiday camp for what would now be called 'special needs' children, it is the antithesis of the politically correct 'issue-based' book.
Jean goes to Camp Courage to please her parents, who have always tried to give her as normal a life as possible, and are keen to foster her independence. During Jean's stay she meets Sara - a veteran of what she herself calls 'Crip Camp' - and an outspoken rebel against the patronising influence of the camp leaders, and other 'normal' people in general.
Refusing to submit to society's expectations of her, Sara opens Jean's eyes to a whole new way of thinking about her disability. Based on the author's own experience of growing up as an invalid in even less liberated times, Accidents of Nature is not always a comfortable read, but all the better for that.
A simplified retelling of the Persephone myth for early readers. For anyone unfamiliar with the story – Persephone (or 'Sephy' in this version) is kidnapped by Pluto, the God of the Underworld, and tricked into agreeing to be his wife. Sephy's mother Demeter (Goddess of the Harvest) is distraught by her daughter's disappearance and stops caring for the earth, prompting Zeus (King of the Gods, and in the original myth, Persephone's father) to intervene.
After some negotiation, Sephy is allowed to live half the year above ground but must remain as Pluto's consort the rest of the time - thus explaining the changing seasons. Whilst Julia Green (best known for her young adult novels) does a decent job of condensing and conveying the essence of the story, the subject matter seems somewhat inappropriate for the intended age range. The fact that Sephy is portrayed as a little girl, forced against her will to live with a beardy old man, makes the whole thing frankly rather sinister.
Unlike many author/illustrator teams, who often work in isolation, Karen and Jim appreciate the benefits of having a constant “sounding board” for their work, which they describe as their “baby”. Their first book, Letterbox Lil (OUP) was a labour of love, born out of long held ambitions to illustrate and write respectively. “We sent it off to lots of publishers, without having much of a clue about how to get published” says Karen “we just kept persevering until someone noticed us”. Although Letterbox Lil did eventually get published, its rhyming nature was a stumbling block to foreign translations, which is partly what led them to doing something different for their next venture.
The idea for book two came from a drawing Karen had done in her capacity as a toy designer, from which Jim came up with the story of Who Are You Stripy Horse? (Egmont). The 'long forgotten shop' in which Stripy Horse wakes up and finds himself was inspired by a real life antiques market with which Jim was fascinated as a child. “There was this cavernous second hand shop called Sid Plummers in Shepton Mallet” he recalls with glee “full of amazing bits and pieces”. When I mention a certain likeness to Bagpuss's shop, they both admit to a love of Oliver Postgate, but deny any direct link between the saggy old cloth cat and Stripy Horse.
According to Jim, the first Stripy Horse story is all about identity: “The main motivation was for Stripy Horse to find out what he was for, so I put him with a bunch of distinctive characters who all have a specific job” he says. Most of these characters are directly based on the various bric a brac objects Jim has collected over the years. Once the elaborate cast of characters had sprung out of Jim's imagination, it was Karen's challenge to visualise them, and a process of conferring between the two began. “We don't always agree” says Karen “but then you'll wake up and realise that the other person has a point”.
Like many illustrators of her generation, Karen cites Quentin Blake as a major influence, and though her own style is quite different, she aspires to inject the same sense of “silliness, warmth and heart” into her drawings. Jim's literary heroes – among whom are Roald Dahl and Spike Milligan – seem to match this humorously anarchic bent perfectly.
Having done two Stripy Horse books (and with a third planned for next year), Karen and Jim are now moving onto something different, with the publication of Oh No, Monster Tomato! (Egmont) this autumn. In the tradition of classic fairy tales such as The Enormous Turnip and Jack and the Beanstalk, Oh No, Monster Tomato! was inspired by Jim's love of growing vegetables, and tomatoes in particular. “I'd heard of this festival in Spain called La Tomatina where everyone throws tomatoes” says Jim “and the idea came to me.” But instead of Valencia, the setting for this food incident is the made up town of Grislygust, where everyone is fiercely and hilariously competitive about their veg growing.
I am charmed to discover that some of the tomatoes in the book are photographed from Jim's own prolific produce, along with other bits and pieces of collage that accompany Karen's vibrant watercolours. Such personal touches reflect the deep intimacy that clearly underpins Karen and Jim's creative partnership and makes their books so warm and likeable. It seems likely that the inhabitants of Grislygust will get another outing at some point, as Karen and Jim talk enthusiastically about ideas for future stories featuring the same characters.
As well as their joint picture books, Jim also has aspirations to write something longer at some point. “I'm working on a novel that I pick up and put down every few months” he says. Meanwhile, the couple are keeping busy working on current projects and are starting to do more events - recently making their first festival appearance at Edinburgh. “I do all the talking while Karen draws” says Jim, making Karen chuckle playfully, but not in the least resentfully. Much like the other finely tuned aspects of their partnership – working or otherwise - it's obviously an arrangement that suits them both. While Jim grows tomatoes, Karen grows flowers and while he thinks up the stories, she brings them to life in pictures. If that's not domestic bliss, I don't know what is.
Originally published in 1989, Frog in Love was the first of 17 books to have been published in this classic character series. Taking the very grown-up theme of romance and presenting it on a level that children can appreciate is quite an ambitious endeavour, but this gentle and touching tale manages to pull it off with grace and sincerity.
At first Frog thinks the thumping in his chest must be an illness, until Hare diagnoses him as being in love. Anxiety turns to elation as Frog proclaims the object of his desire to be a beautiful white duck, and then back to anxiety again as he is too shy to tell her his feelings. But despite Pig’s reservations about the feasibility of an inter-species relationship (slight political undertones perhaps?), Frog finally gets Duck’s attention by showing off and doing the biggest jump EVER.
For such a simplistic character who really bears little anatomical resemblance to an amphibian, Frog is unfalteringly lovable and bursting with personality. Let’s hope that the re-release, with its more contemporary cover design, will keep Frog bouncing through the generations into the hearts of children for years to come.
Mousse the dog loves Muddy Bear almost as much as his best doggy-friend Nut. So when Muddy Bear gets accidentally rolled up into a snowdog, Mousse is distraught and sets off to find him with the help of Nut. Some well-meaning but misguided rabbits send them off on an erroneous mission to confront Big Bear, whom they think might have taken Muddy Bear, but they only succeed in needlessly waking a grumpy Big Bear form hibernation. Eventually Muddy Bear turns up, but not before Mousse has endured a fretful night without him.
The lost toy scenario is one which has been tackled by many a children’s book before, but the winning combination of lovable yet quirky characters, some clever tension building and a heart-warming happy ending make this a pleasantly refreshing take.
Most children invent an imaginary playmate at some point, and for the little boy in this book, it’s an elephant. But is it imaginary? Just like Bernard’s monster in Not Now Bernard, the parents (or in this case, grandparents) can’t see the child’s unusual companion, and the child gets blamed for all the mess and destruction caused. But this un-named boy enjoys many an adventure with his elephant friend, and eventually the grandparents join in the game.
Softly drawn with grey scribbly skin and a docile friendly face, the elephant is surprisingly inanimate and lacks the personality of his anarchic anthropomorphic forbears - The Tiger Who Came to Tea, The Wild Things or even Bernard’s monster. The repetitious expressions on the human faces also make the characters feel slightly cold and removed, though the illustrations are by no means unpleasant. A simple if rather dispassionate tale, the themes of make believe and making a mess will surely appeal.
Alison Allen-Gray’s first novel Unique, published back in 2004, received widespread praise and several well-deserved award nominations, including a spot on the coveted Booktrust Teenage Prize shortlist. An edgy and provocative thriller, it tackled the controversial theme of cloning from the perspective of a boy who finds out he is a clone.
Five years later, Gray returns with another hard-hitting, action-packed teenage novel that lives up to, and even exceeds her excellent debut. In the tradition of Brave New World and 1984, Lifegame imagines a future dystopia in which people are constantly under surveillance, can no longer write with a pen and paper, and live in a strictly controlled class structure.
The book begins on a cloistered island that is believed by its inhabitants to be the last bastion of humanity following some kind of global chemical disaster. Fella is an orphan in this isolated world and knows nothing about his family other than that his mother supposedly died in a car crash when he was a baby. Along with his best friend Grebe, Fella begins to question the stories he’s been fed by the Powers that Be and with the help of a journal left by his mother, starts to unravel the truth about his background - which in turn leads to some shocking revelations about the island.
Utterly compelling in terms of both subject matter and plot, Lifegame poses some uncompromising political and philosophical questions about the nature of society, the possibilities of science, and how the two can dramatically impact on each other. The development of the two (very likable) central characters - from subjugated, frustrated teenagers to revolutionary young adults, and the gradual blossoming of the romance that accompanies it - is truly enchanting. Unputdownable.
Set in an outwardly innocuous and mostly uneventful German backwater town, The Vanishing of Katharina Linden is an atmospheric, slow-building thriller in which nothing is ever what it seems. Peppered with German phrases and colloquialisms that conjure the spirit of the setting and its people, Helen Grant’s portrayal of place is cleverly and vividly executed.
A sometimes uncomfortably close community of curtain-twitchers and busybodies, everyone knows everyone else’s business in Bad Münsereifel, or thinks they do. For Pia, the schoolgirl infamous and ostracised for having an exploding grandmother, the unfolding of a sinister murder-mystery becomes a welcome obsession on which to focus her frustrated energies. She and the other school pariah, ‘Stink Stefan’ - thrown together by default - team up to try and figure out what is happening to the girls of the town, who keep disappearing.
Apart from said disapperances, the odd allusion to dubious incidents of the past, and some imparting of spooky local folklore, the first three-quarters of the book ticks along gently without much actual hair-raising. It’s not until right at the end that the pace really picks up and all of a sudden explodes into a startlingly chilling climax, packed with twists and turns and some genuinely stomach-churning moments. Gripping stuff, but not for the faint hearted.
Despite its highly accomplished and beguiling illustrations, the presence of both penguins and polar bears in a single environment (a classic schoolboy error) was an immediate turn-off to this otherwise magical tale.
Topographical technicalities aside, Miki is a sweet and ethereal character, whose midwinter wishes take her on a strange underwater voyage where she encounters all kinds of weird and wonderful creatures.
In an unfortunate design flaw, black text on a dark background made bedtime reading difficult on several of the pages - interrupting the pleasantly rhythmic flow of the text. The author/illustrator Stephen Mackey, an established commerical artist, has certainly carved himself a new niche in the children’s picture book market with this enchanting tale - let’s just hope he does his geography homework in future.
