Tag Faber & Faber

The Thief of Farrowfell

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The Thief of Farrowfell
Ravena Guron, illustrated by Alessia Trunfio
Faber

Twelve year old Jude Ripon is part of a criminal family and so desperate is she to impress the other family members, in particular the patriarch Grandleader, that she steals some rare magic from the Westons, one of the most powerful families in all of Farrowfell. Surely that will make them take notice of her so they’ll allow her to do more than keep watch while they carry out daring heists.
However, she learns that the magic – which can seriously impair her family’s business – is protected by a curse that can only be lifted by returning it to the rightful owners. This though isn’t possible, as Mr and Mrs Weston have been missing for more than a year.

Reluctantly, Jude joins forces with the Weston children to find their parents and break the curse. While doing so, she begins to question her loyalty to her own family and consider whether she really wants to be a true Ripon at all.

The three children search for clues and piece together evidence, taking care to evade any Lilthrum, the blood-thirsty monsters formed from raw magic, whose deadly attacks on people have recently been increasing at a disturbing rate. The more time Jude spends with Eli and Fin, she cannot but appreciate and enjoy their kindness and friendship, things she’s never before experienced. This makes her feel even more at odds with her upbringing in a criminal household.

With edible magic (I’ve not met that before), a flawed hero and a twisting, turning plot with Alessia Trunfio’s interesting chapter heading illustrations, this is the first of what will become a series; it’s hugely exciting and full of dark humour. I envisage children around Jude’s age will be eagerly anticipating the next adventure; this reviewer certainly is.

Poetry Parade

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Silver
Walter de la Mare and Carolina Rabei
Faber & Faber
‘Slowly, silently, now the moon
Walks the night in her silver shoon;
This way, and that, she peers, and sees
Silver fruit upon silver trees;‘ …
It’s lovely to see Carolina Rabei’s enchanting visual interpretation of a de la Mare poem that was a childhood favourite of mine. I still have all the words in my head and often used to visualise a moon wandering silently in those ‘silver shoon’.

The illustrator imbues the whole thing with dreamy magic as she portrays the moon as feline, tiptoeing among the silver fruited tree branches, and then across the ground pursued by two small children and a host of faery folk, past the log-like sleeping dog …

and watched by all manner of nocturnal creatures that all gather in a clearing …

before some of them take a small boat and glide across the water while ‘moveless fish in the water gleam’ and the two children fall fast asleep. AAAHHH! Gorgeous.

Little Lemur Laughing
Joshua Seigal
Bloomsbury Children’s Books
I’m always excited to discover new poets and was delighted to receive a collection from rising star, Joshua Seigal. Playful is the name of the game where these poems are concerned: they cover all manner of topics from food (for instance Johnny and The MANGO wherein a boy retires to a warm tub to consume his favourite tea) to Fireworks; Seagulls to Stickers and Conkers to Colours and Chat. Alliteration abounds – indeed there is a page at the back of the book in which Seigal talks about his use of this in the title poem; there’s a generous sprinkling of concrete poems –

and some, such as Turvy & Topsy are completely bonkers, but went down well with my listeners.
In fact there isn’t a single one that isn’t lots of fun to read aloud to younger primary children. I’d certainly recommend adding this to a KS1 or early years teacher’s collection and buy it for any youngster whom you want to turn on to poetry.

The Fire Horse
Vladimir Mayakovsky, Osip Mandelstam & Daniil Kharms
The New York Review Children’s Collection
This contains three longish poems, one from each of the authors, all being translated by Eugene Ostashevsky and each having a different illustrator. The title poem has wonderful art by Lydia Popova; Mandelastam’s Two Trams artist, Boris Ender, used a limited (almost exclusively, black, grey and red) colour palette for his superbly stylish portrayal of the two tramcars. The final work, Play portrays verbally and visually three boys absorbed in their imaginary play worlds, the illustrations being done by Vladimir Konashevich.
For me, the book’s illustrations make it worthwhile, showing as they do, Soviet book illustrations from almost a century ago.
For book collectors/art connoisseurs rather than general readers, I’d suggest.

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Wanted The Chocolate Monster

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Wanted The Chocolate Monster
Pip Jones and Laura Hughes
Faber & Faber
Hide all your yummy confections, there’s a ‘mighty, sticky thief’ aprowl in the neighbourhood. How do we know? A public announcement has just been aired on the opening page of this book. Moreover, this creature, aptly named The Chunk, is a silent beast with a bulbous nose, eight feet tall and a master of disguise. Hmm!

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Nothing with a tiny hint of chocolate is safe, not your pudding, your flan, that mousse, eclairs or cakes will escape his clutches and he has, reputedly, a special penchant for pricey truffles (he can have those any day so far as I’m concerned); and the cheeky beast will then have the audacity to plant the wrappers in your mum’s bag.
Worse than that; he’ll snatch your favourite cookie and plaster your face so you get the blame for over consumption …

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It just isn’t fair but does he care? Oh dear no; he’ll just make a silent dash for another home to raid. Surely there couldn’t be anything worse; or did I just hear he was heading for a wedding party where there happens to be a certain kind of fountain ?
Will he ever be caught? What do you think?

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Not only will I be hiding my chocolate; but after sharing this delectable rhyming treat with young listeners, I’m going to be hiding my copy of that too, for fear one of the eager story consumers decides to emulate The Chunk and snatch the book.
Mind you, Laura Hughes’ deliciously mock scary, sometimes brilliantly funny (as in the rollers-wearing scene)  portraits of same beastie might deter them doing that; but one never knows. All I can say is, I hope he gets terrible toothache soon and has to have lots of fillings.

Jellicle Cats

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Jellicle Cats
T.S. Eliot and Arthur Robins
Faber & Faber
In the fourth of his Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats visual interpretations, Arthur Robins renders the jellicle Cats as total pleasure-loving felines cavorting ‘neath the Jellicle Moon, clad in all their jazzy gear, having first had a sneaky practice of their ‘airs and graces’ while waiting for that lunar object to illuminate their revels.

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These black and white beauties take their preparations seriously for: ‘Until the Jellicle Moon appears/ They make their toilette and take their repose:’

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Note the Parisian perfume – just one of the numerous enchanting details that make Arthur Robins’ illustrations such tremendous fun.
Mornings and afternoons are mostly for repose and ‘Reserving their terpsichorean powers’ for the much-anticipated moonlight dancing, adverse weather permitting, that is …

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Every one of Robins’ spreads will surely bring a smile to readers and listeners who will delight in the revelry and the action inherent in each scene be it indoors or out.
If you want to encourage young children to become poetry lovers, then share this with them and then cavort like those Jellicle Cats.

This is a Serious Book

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This is a Serious Book
Jodie Parachini and Daniel Rieley
Faber & Faber
Make no bones about it, this is a serious book; we’re told so at the outset: ‘Nothing silly is allowed.’ Errrm – what’s that donkey doing popping up right on the first spread and almost immediately proceeding to sabotage everything our solemn narrator is trying to tell us? Moreover, he’s got the audacity to emit a bottom parp, then proceed to don ridiculous ducky pjs. and do some showy-offy balancing on a unicycle …

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Oh and then, while wearing that ridiculous multi-coloured titfa, he has the cheek to introduce us to a zebra – yes he is appropriately coloured in accordance with the narrator’s ‘a serious book must be in black and white’, but serious? Hmmm! Their efforts at ‘pretending’ don’t look as though they’d fit the serious bill at all.

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And what the heck is a snake doing slithering onto the scene? Not to mention the penguin and that troupe of monkeys …
Eventually our long-suffering narrator yields control of the whole book to the invaders …

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And guess who – with a few deft strokes – has the last word(s) …
At once, silly and sophisticated, this book puts me in mind somewhat of Bingham and Zelinsky’s Z is for Moose and Circle, Square, Moose and can certainly be appreciated at lots of different levels. Youngsters will revel in the comic portrayal of donkey’s rule-breaking in particular and older readers will appreciate the meta-book style of the whole anarchic thing.

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The Shrew That Flew/ The Dragon & the Nibblesome Knight

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The Dragon and the Nibblesome Knight
Elli Woollard and Benji Davies
Macmillan Children’s Books
Told through faultless rhyme – no easy matter despite Elli making it appear so – (with plenty of repetition, and sprinklings of onomatopoeia (FLASHes SPLASHes, FLAPs and CLAPs etc.) and awesome visuals – but one expects no less from Benji Davies – this is a stupendous offering. But, it’s the interaction of text and illustrations that makes the whole thing such a bobby dazzler of a book.
The tale revolves around Dram (love that name), an infant dragon, ejected from the Dragons of Dread family nest to search for ‘dribblesome, nibblesome, knobble-kneed knights.’

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In other words what he has to do is stand on his own feet, or rather fly with his own wings, and get his teeth and claws into a nibblesome knight. However that’s not quite what happens due to a prevailing wind – a looping, curling gale no less – that whisks young Dram ‘away to the End of the World’ depositing him unceremoniously into a lake beside which sits a diminutive knight. Said knight, James, takes the “duckie” under his wing …

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tending to his wounds and generally ministering to his injuries and sore parts,

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not to mention supplying nourishment for both Dram’s body and mind …

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The infant dragon however hasn’t forgotten his nibblesome knight procurement mission, so what will transpire when finally the dreadful realization dawns – that his new best friend is in fact, nothing less than a knight?

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Yes, there are faint echoes of Donaldson’s Zog here, but that is not to detract from its brilliance: if you want to do your bit to make children into life-long book lovers, there’s no doubt this is a MUST have book.

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Another Red Reading Hub favourite creative partnership is responsible for :

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The Shrew that Flew
Julia Copus and Eunyoung Seo
Faber & Faber
This is the third wonderful ‘Harry & Lil Story’ and they just seem to get better and better. In this adventure, Candy Stripe Lil and Harry the Hog (along with the other creatures on Piggyback Hill) having received this invitation …

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are busy preparing for Badger’s do. It’s already 2pm; Harry has donned his spotty, dotty, pointy, flat titfa’ and Lil’s is still drying out on the washing line. Until that is, along comes a sudden gust of wind that whisks the object right up onto the roof.

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Disaster! There follows an amazing sequence of hat-retrieving attempts involving a brolly,

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a portable fan and all manner of other discarded ephemera retrieved from the shed.

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But can they manage to get the thing down and onto Lil’s head in time for the party? It’s certainly not a simple task, but however formidable it might be, Lil is the eternal optimist (Oh Lil we need you NOW!). “NEVER SAY NEVER” is her maxim and with a bit of timely assistance from another of the party goers …

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it looks as though, they might, just might, be successful …

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Glorious, totally uplifting, a wonderful celebration of friendship and perseverance; Harry & Lil are eternally endearing. Eunyoung Seo’s delectable scenes, coupled with Julia Copus’ tongue-tingling rhyming text – here’s a sample
‘Lil gripped very tight; the umbrella bent
   and trembled,
         then tugged,
               then – whoosh! – up she went!
And floated off – past the sycamore stump …’
are guaranteed to bring joy to listeners and readers aloud, at every turn of the page. Spectacular!

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Summer Evening/Unbelievable Summer Truth

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Summer Evening
Walter de la Mare illustrated by Carolina Rabei
Faber & Faber
What a glorious evocation of the countryside in summer is this book. Just eight lines penned by one of our best loved poets, have now been made into a glowing portrayal of a group of people delighting in their rural life as the sun slowly sinks over the hills.
We share the red, orange and golden sunset with the Farmer, a woman and two children, a cat and a dog,

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‘Old Rover in his moss-greened house/ Mumbles a bone, /and barks at a mouse.’
We then see the children following a cat-and-mouse chase as it unfolds inside and out …

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until finally, peace and harmony are restored, the animals all fed and the sun has given way to the moon.
You can almost hear that scintillating shimmering sun and feel that incandescent haze of high summer

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coming off the pages through Caroline Rabei’s scenes in this beautiful synthesis of poetry and pictures.
A ‘must have’ for the family bookshelf and for all early years settings and primary schools.

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The Truth About My Unbelievable Summer
Davide Cali and Benjamin Chaud
Chronicle Books
The summer hols. are over (that really must be a bad dream; they’ve not even started yet: but back to the story). “What did you do this summer?” the teacher – as they always do – asks the young narrator of this crazy tale. Instantly we’re on the beach where the lad, accompanied by his dachshund, finds a treasure map only to have it snatched immediately by a passing magpie. Thus begins a chase which takes boy and dog (and readers) onto a pirate ship …

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and thence into a fast moving adventure involving a giant squid, a submarine …

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a film set with a very helpful actress who assists in the retrieval of the map.

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With the treasure hunt back in full swing so to speak, there follows a trip in a hot air balloon, a foray into the desert, a timely rescue by the boy’s uncle (in his flying machine) who drops his nephew onto a desert island where the pesky magpie (yes, the same one) seizes the map once again.

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Operation map retrieval is thus resumed taking our hero to the Taj Mahal, the Great Wall of China and a snowy land populated by yeti.
Yes, in case you are wondering, the boy does finally discover treasure which, after all that, is something of a let down, although it’s not actually THE treasure but hey! the underwater scenes are still pretty wonderful. (Observant readers won’t miss what the boy does.) And that’s not quite the end of this bonkers book; there’s something of a twist in its tale; something that took place a few months earlier … bringing us back full circle to where we began, and I suspect readers back to the start of the book searching for clues of a visual nature, in Benjamin Chaud’s gigglesome, detailed pen-and-ink illustrations.
Another winner from the Cali/Chaud partnership.

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The King Cat & Mr Mistoffelees

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The King Cat
Marta Altés
Macmillan Children’s Books
The feline narrator of this story has had things pretty much his own way for a very long time. He does however provide occasional entertainment and regular nocturnal protective duty for his ‘people’ in return for being left to slumber during the daytime, not to mention a little bit of relaxation therapy proffered by human hands. All in all life couldn’t be better for this – in his own words – GOOD, SUPER CUTE king.
Then one morning without so much as a by your leave, everything changes.

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The rules of the kingdom are upheld no longer.

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Time to reinforce the status quo decides our erstwhile domestic king and before long peace and normality are restored. So why does the realm seem so quiet – too quiet perhaps with the old rules back in place.
Oh! what’s that …

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Maybe some negotiation could work after all …
I love the droll illustrations and straightforward manner of telling of this comic tale of domestic rivalry. Indeed it could well be a metaphor for sibling rivalry with the arrival of a new infant in the household. Don’t forget to look closely at the details in fore- and endpapers for the story really begins and ends thereon.

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Mr. Mistoffelees
T.S. Eliot and Arthur Robins
Faber & Faber Children’s Books pbk
We’ve already been treated to Arthur Robins’ hilarious illustrative rendition of Macavity; now it’s the turn of the Mr. Mistoffelees the ‘Original Conjuring Cat’ to take centre stage and that is exactly what he does. In close up we view a performance of his confusion-causing illusions,

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of one kind … and another.
This small black feline character takes us through his whole repertoire of sleights of hand and more,

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while deceiving us all that his sole occupation is mouse-hunting . And as for shyness –well that’s what he’d have us believe but

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we know better.
Even I, with my cat allergy and phobia find this Mr M. totally irresistible, which only goes to prove that he truly is, as Arthur Robins has so admirably shown, ‘Magical Mr. Mistoffelees’.

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The five year old maker of this puppet certainly thought so too.

 

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Clever Cats

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Gracie was highly amused by Macavity’s antics.

Macavity The Mystery Cat
T.S.Eliot and Arthur Robbins
Faber & Faber pbk
Macavity has taken on a new incarnation courtesy of Arthur Robins in this 75th Anniversary Edition of one of the inhabitants of Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats and a truly splendid tribute it is too.

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Robins’ wibbly wobbly outlines work wonderfully for this purpose of celebratory depiction of the activities of that levitating, gravity defying, feline fiend who has Scotland Yard, the Flying Squad and the Admiralty flummoxed.

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A rip-roaring read of the first order and herein we are introduced to a bumbling bloodhound police detective who has taken charge of the task of investigating the moggie’s misdoing, but of course, after each dastardly act ‘Macavity’s not there!’ All we, but seemingly not the inept, flashlight- and binocular-waving investigator, catch sight of is a tail,

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a paw, or perhaps an ear, at the scene of a crime.
Wonderful to share with youngsters, friends, cat lovers, poetry lovers, word lovers, pretty much anyone in fact. And if any of those and I’m sure they will, enjoy the adventures of the scraggy, ginger tom, that Napoleon of Crime, then direct them straightway to the further feline frolics found in Eliot’s Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats in its entirety.
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William & the Missing Masterpiece
Helen Hancocks
Templar Publishing pbk
The ’William’ of the title is an international cat of mystery who has to postpone his holiday to rush to the assistance of Parisian art gallery owner, Monsieur Gruyere. Mr Gruyere is in a stew because his gallery has planned an exhibition for National Cheese Week and the Mona Cheesa masterpiece has been stolen.

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There are no suspects, William is told on arrival. His close search reveals – take note – two items of significance: a strand of red wool and a little hole in the skirting board.
A visit to two close friends proves fruitless and William accepts an invitation to their  competition opening. In the meantime, while having a bite of lunch he espies a decidedly overdressed character passing by carrying a large, flat shaped parcel and heading for a fancy dress shop.

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When the same character leaves with another parcel our special investigator follows him for a while but then loses the trail and instead heads to the competition venue. Therein, he learns of a splendid last-minute entry by an unknown.
William inspects it closely, visualizes the day’s events thus far, ponders on the cheesy nature of the prize

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and just as the winner is about to be announced, he dashes in and unmasks, not only the painting but also the so-called artist …
A feline frolic of the first order is Helen Hancocks’ latest offering. It’s packed with deliciously cheesy wordplay, ‘ THE ROBBERS HAD THOUGHT THEIR MISSION TO STEAL THE MONA CHEESE A ‘FETA-COMPLI’ AS THEY WERE HANDED FIRST PRIZE AT THE ANNUAL HOMAGE TO FROMAGE COMPETITION. …
“TO SEE THE THIEVES GO UNPUNISHED REALLY GRATES,” SAID MONSIEUR GRUYERE,’ visual art references, droll pictorial details with the Parisian spirit very much in evidence.

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My Name is Bob
James Bowen, Garry Jenkins and Gerald Kelley
Red Fox pbk.
Forced by a chain of circumstances, into becoming a street cat following the death of his kind old lady owner, the feline narrator is cold, friendless and mistreated but then, attracted by beautiful music being played, he comes upon a man playing a guitar.

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Having followed the man home and then got himself injured, our narrator is taken in by the kind guitarist, James who feeds him and gives him a new name, Bob. Once his leg was better, Bob accompanied James everywhere and they became a busking duo and so they are today: inseparable.
This heartwarming tale told in a matter of fact manner without a hint of sentimentality, will appeal to cat lovers young and not so young, in particular to those who enjoy a true story with a happy ending.
Don’t forget to read the pawprint information about the chief protagonist on the back cover too.
Kelley’s true to life paintings add to the reality of whole book, which is actually billed as a picture book prequel to the worldwide bestseller ‘A Street Cat Named Bob’.
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A Search in the Fog, A Race in the Forest, A Flight from Danger

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Hog in the Fog
Julia Copus and Eunyoung Seo
Faber & Faber pbk
Shrew, Lil has invited Harry the Hog for tea at three:
‘There were chocolate-chip beetles and slug-flavoured chips
and warm jellied maggots with fruit-flavoured dips;’
and all manner of other goodies already on the table.
Three o’clock comes, then a quarter past; Lil looks anxiously out at the gathering gloom. By four she can wait no longer so donning her raincoat she sets out,

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‘Pittery pattery, tippety tappety’ up the hill in search of Harry.
First she encounters a sheep, but the sheep’s not seen a hog, just a hedge so she thinks, ”where no hedge was before.”

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She offers to help Lil search though and off they go together. The deer they meet has seen, he thinks, only “The wings of a bat … pinkish and flat.” But he’ll help look for the missing hog; so too will the crow who has seen naught but a sleeping snake on a log.

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Into the woods go the four as the swirling fog gets ever thicker until, around the next corner …
What’s that THING. The bush? The bat? The snake?
By now, young listeners will be unable to resist shouting the identity of the large hairy, ‘bog-soaked, mud-smeared’ creature that, after a whole lot of pulling and pushing, eventually comes slippily, slurpily, gluggily, gurgly from the muck. And guess what; he’s absolutely starving.
Good job that at her house, as Lil says, “it stays TEA o’clock for a very long while.”  Tuck in everyone!
Delicious, delectable and such enormous fun to read aloud. The rhyming text just trips, like those loving prepared treats of Lils, right off the tongue.
Equally praiseworthy are the wonderfully expressive watercolour illustrations, which capture the drama and the gentle humour to perfection making every turn of the page a treat too. Particularly gorgeous and an unexpected delight are deer’s fantastical , butterfly-attracting, flower-wrapped antlers.
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Billed as ‘A Harry & Lil story’ I hope this indicates more to come from the charmingly unlikely wild boar/shrew duo.
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The Great Race
Nathan Kumar Scott and Jagdish Chitara
Tara Books
In the third of the series of folk tales featuring trickster, Kanchil we find the boastful mouse deer proclaiming himself to be ‘the fastest animal in the forest’ and challenging the other animals to THE GREAT RACE OF THE JUNGLE. Having called upon the help of scarlet macaw, Kakatua to spread the word thoughout the forest, Kanchil waits by the riverbank to see who takes up his challenge.

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Soon, every animal appears but none save one tiny voice speaks; the voice is that of Pelan the snail. Laughable, thinks Kanchil on discovering the only contestant is to be a tiny snail; his laughter is echoed by the other animals but none steps forth other than tiger Harimau with an offer to act as referee and Gajah the elephant, the finishing judge.
The race begins, off zooms Kanchil, only to reach the finish in – shock horror – second place.

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A second race is called by Kanchil, against the river flow this time, but again Pelan gets there first.
How did a slow snail beat a fast deer? Have you guessed? Suffice it to say that the over-confident Kanchil is outwitted by a guileful Gastropod (or two).

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This amusing story (a kind of Hare and the Tortoise tale) is Nathan Kumar Scott’s retelling of an Indonesian folk tale brilliantly brought to life by Gujarati, Waghari artist, Jagdish Chitara. Jagdish used the same ancient artistic techniques and traditional blood red, brilliant white and black colours to portray the animals in this secular book as are used for the special ritual cloths for the Mother Goddess, called Mata Ni Pachedi (the cloth of the mother) traditionally used as temple hangings.
Another stellar book from the Indian publishing house that specializes in books illustrated by highly talented Indian artists.
Look out soon for quality paperback editions of some of Tara’s backlist to be available shortly.
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Dylan’s Amazing Dinosaurs: The Tyrannosaurus Rex
E.T.Harper and Dan Taylor
Simon and Schuster pbk
In Dylan’s incredible tree house he keeps important things; things like Wings, his toy pterodactyl and Grandpa Fossil’s Dinosaur Journal. Opening the latter brings the former to life and he becomes the vehicle for Dylan’s journeys of discovery.
We join Dylan as he and Wings set off to discover the number of teeth the T.Rex had. Their search for the answer results in a face-to-face encounter with the enormous creature itself – WOW! Those gnashers.
Quick Dylan, find something for it to sink those teeth into and flee for your life …

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So does our young hero escape and does he discover the answer to his dinosaur dentition question?

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Take a look at that log…

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then turn to Dylan’s T.Rex fact file and find his latest numerical entry.
With its ever popular topic, some delicious alliterative sound bites, fascinating, embedded facts (the author is herself a palaeontology professor), boldly rendered action scenes and a removable pop out T.Rex, this, the first Dylan adventure, is bound to be popular with young children particularly budding palaeontologists.
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