Tag Quest

They Came from Planet Zabalooloo!

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They Came from Planet Zabalooloo!
Sean Taylor and Kate Hindley
Walker Books
Sean Taylor does crazy stories supremely well and this one surely tops the pops for craziness.
Three aliens, inhabitants of the planet Zabalooloo head to earth in their spaceship and they have a mission. There’s the brainy one, that’s Zoron our narrator; Bazoo, the strong one and Zob, prone to hyper-exuberance and crazy wiggle-woggle dancing.
Their aim is to be the first to capture a “BIG-SIZE thing” by means of their supersonic-sucker with special shrinker nozzle and take it back to their own planet. Quite a challenge judging by the relative size of the aliens and their prey, Undaunted and with supersonic sucker at the ready, the three creep up behind the creature ready to strike.

But then Bazoo wants to stop for a photo shoot. PHOOAH! Big mistake! Followed by rapid retreat back to spaceship.
Maybe they’ll have more success with MEDIUM-SIZED thing. Or maybe not …

Surely nothing can go wrong capturing a SMALL-SIZED thing; after all it would still be a first for their planet.
But even aliens from Zabalooloo cannot resist feeding our earthly ducks and it’s a case of love at first sight for both Zoron their intrepid leader and the target duck.

So is their mission doomed to failure or could there perhaps be another way of capturing their prey?
Sean Taylor’s deliciously zany text, some of which is rendered through colour-coded speech bubbles, is full of utterances guaranteed to make you splutter with laughter. Take this one for instance ‘I am COMPLETE BIG-GOB NINCOMPOOP WITH PANTS ON INSIDE OUT!”
Perfectly complementing Taylor’s words are Kate Hindley’s sublimely silly, intricately detailed visuals of the diminutive Zabaloolooian explorers and their tin can craft complete with steering wheel and party area, going about their mission.
Human explorers of the pages will find many more small-sized things including a wealth of insects hovering on, and buzzing around, the various kinds of plants liberally scattered throughout the terrain of the aliens’ hunting ground.
Epic!

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Arthur and the Golden Rope

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Arthur and the Golden Rope
Joe Todd-Stanton
Flying Eye Books
From the trailing golden rope on the cover of this beautifully produced book (it is Flying Eye after all) you know you’re in for a treat. From the enormous beast snarling at you even before you start reading, you know there’s going to be much to excite. It’s a wondrous tale of myth and magic – the first of a series so I understand.
We begin in the family vault of one Professor Brownstone, who is a kind of custodian cum storyteller and indeed it’s he who acts as the narrator of the very first tale in his treasured collection, that of Arthur “the unlikeliest of heroes.”

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Arthur was an Icelandic boy independent, brave and always up for a challenge. Which is just as well, for having been accused of being a meddler and probably responsible for his town being terrorised by the monstrous black wolf Fenrir, the lad embarks on a dangerous quest to visit the hammer wielding Viking god Thor to enlist his help in saving the town from total freeze-up.
That’s only the beginning though. A deal is struck …

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and Thor dispatches Arthur on a challenging mission to secure two vital ingredients needed in the creation of the Golden Rope of the title, an object necessary to overcome Fenrir and rekindle the town’s fire.
Sumptuously illustrated, rich in detail and a fusion of graphic novel, picture book and comic, this is a true celebration of the power of story, the oral tradition and in particular myth to grip the reader and hold them spellbound. It’s so cleverly executed in the way it moves from wordless comic strip …

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to intricately detailed spread with Arthur teetering on ladders as he does his research, there’s even a spell emanating from an open book on the floor …

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It’s a book for pausing and losing oneself in the detail of the visual images and then letting the direct telling move us forward to what comes next.
For those readers wanting something sophisticated without too much text Arthur’s tale is pure gold. For those who enjoy a great story, ditto. Let’s just say, Joe Todd-Stanton and Flying Eye (yet again!) have struck gold with this one.

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Magic Forest Forays

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Super Happy Magic Forest
Matty Long
Oxford University Press
Billed as Tolkien for toddlers, this epic quest assuredly has the right ingredients to engender enthusiasm for the fantasy genre in young children. So, let’s go to Super Happy Magic Forest wherein our story starts. It’s full of fun, frolics and picnics all year round; life’s pretty peachy you could say.

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But then disaster strikes the Forest: the Mystical Crystals of Life – source of all that’s joyous therein – are stolen.
It must be Goblin work announces Old Oak at an urgently called meeting of forest residents. Five brave heroes are selected to reclaim the Mystical Crystals …

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And despite their reluctance off they set on the journey of a lifetime but of course, their epic quest will not be an easy one. There are frozen tundras full of fearsome creatures to battle through, a haunted forest and dreadful dungeons to test their nerves and skills to the utmost and even then there’s no escape from enemies …

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Finally Goblin Tower is in sight but will the five locate the missing crystals within its walls? There’s plenty of unexpected confectionary items but crystals well err …
Certainly it’s a celebratory finale but is it cake or crystal induced?? Hmm …
Let’s just say, there’s a twist to this crazy magical saga of epic mischief and silliness. I’m not sure who will get more enjoyment out of this one – the ‘toddlers’ billed as its target audience or those older readers/adults who are the book’s mediators to the very young. Certainly the former will enjoy spotting items in the fantastical visuals but some of the subtle and not so subtle humour will definitely go way over the heads of most four or five year olds. But then that’s the thing about a good book – that multi-layering, which means it offers something to a wide audience.

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Ella Bella Ballerina and A Midsummer Night’s Dream
James Mayhew
Orchard Books
Young Ella Bella returns once again and on this occasion, dance teacher Madame Rosa’s magical music box is playing Mendelssohn’s Midsummer Night’s Dream for the ballet class to dance to.

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Inevitably, after the lesson Ella Bella cannot resist opening up the musical box lid for one last dance in her fairy costume. And thus she meets Puck who whisks her, with her floral headband, away to a fairyland forest where Oberon waits for the ‘magic flowers’ with which he hopes to cast a spell upon Queen Titania.

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James Mayhew’s elegant watercolour illustrations evoke a timeless quality to this engaging tale of magic and mischief and dance.

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Quest

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Quest
Aaron Becker
Walker Books
At the end of Journey, Becker left his two child protagonists pedalling their tandem towards as we now see, their next adventure. Also wordless, Quest begins with the pair having left  the bike leaning against a wall, sheltering under a bridge from heavy rain.

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In the wall is a door through which a distraught-looking king bursts. He thrusts a strange map into their hands, one showing the hiding places of six magical crayons that the two children must find and so bring about the defeat of the enemies of his kingdom.

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Thus charged, the boy and girl (the latter wearing a bandolier from the king in which to store the crayons) set forth on their mission. Like Antony Brown’s Bear and Harold (of purple crayon fame) the children use their trusty red and purple crayons to draw themselves means of escape from danger. They travel to the depths of the sea

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and over land (I love that it is a rhino with a howdah and not an elephant that they draw to carry them overland) and water to a climatic rainbow-hued defeat of the evil forces of darkness

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culminating in a glowing, multi-coloured victory for the monarch and his kingdom.
All manner of architectural marvels are depicted in glorious watercolour and ink spreads that are packed with a multitude of amazing details. With a broader, richer colour-palette and greater emphasis on dramatic action and high adventure than its predecessor, this is again a stunning testament to the power of the imagination, art and pictorial story telling. Awesome.

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