The Emperor of Absurdia
Chris Riddell
Macmillan Children’s Books
This is a smaller format edition of a wonderful dream of a story from the pen of Children’s Laureate, Chris Riddell. It’s told with a delicious humour and through his fantastical and amazingly detailed illustrations. The whole thing revolves around an endearing young character who has something of a wardrobe crisis and that’s despite facilitations from the Wardrobe Monster: the Emperor’s scarf has gone missing.
A hunt ensues, and the scarf retrieved – just in time for breakfast. Thereafter another hunt happens; but not before supper is served and the seeker is suitably replete –

or almost – for his lunch has hatched and taken flight.
This chase is done courtesy of the Emperor’s wonderful vehicle, his tricycle chair …

and culminates in the finding of not one but two dragons. And the mama dragon is anything but pleased to see him, chasing him back into the hugging arms of none other than the Wardrobe Monster.

Time to sleep …
Crammed with wonderfully whimsical imagery and sometimes, minute details, every scene, large or small, is simply superb. The delicacy of Riddell’s drawing is out of this world: do take time to compare the landscapes of the front and end papers …

Quite early on in the story, the Emperor himself declares, “This is exciting!” What child (or adult) could fail to agree? For the latter, the whole thing is a joy to read aloud – wonderful word combinations abound – ‘crumply coat, jingle-jangle socks’, ‘a loud, pointy-sounding squawk’; and smatters of repetition are judiciously dropped in to the text.
If this one doesn’t set the imagination of youngsters flying, nothing will. Me, I’m off to revel in the realm of Absurdia for a while. It rather reminds me of an adventure from The Edge, one of my all time favourite fantasy worlds.

In the same format and also from the current children’s laureate is another wonderfully quirky creation:

Wendel and the Robots
Herein inventor, Wendel’s latest robotic creation has gone out of control and doesn’t know when to stop: even the inventor mouse himself ends up being tossed down the rubbish chute and onto the scrapheap. The question is can Wendel and his team seize back control of his territory from the dreaded tidying fanatic, Wendelbot?

Enormous fun; but I certainly wouldn’t take a leaf out of Wendel’s ‘never threw anything on the scrapheap’ book. (although there’s one person in my household who definitely has!)
Both of these are great for those slightly older readers who may have missed out on the publication of these delicious books in their original, larger picture book format.

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