Tag The Fan Brothers

Barnaby Unboxed!

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Barnaby Unboxed!
The Fan Brothers
Frances Lincoln Children’s Books

The Fan Brothers (with Devin joining his older brothers for this story) take readers back to the recently reopened Perfect Pets store selling boxed creatures that have interactive personalities that have been genetically created. One such is Barnaby, ‘half mouse, half elephant’ and a tiny bit of flamingo to add the pink colour: he’s been on the shelf far too long and is eager for somebody to come in and choose him to be part of their family. Then one day, somebody does: a little girl who immediately falls for him.

Before long the two are inseparable: the girl reads him bedtime stories,

they watch the Saturday tv programme ‘Barnaby and Friends’ and go on walks together. Life is as near to perfect as possible until one Saturday morning everything changes: when they turn on the tv to watch their favourite programme Barnaby has been replaced by the new Rainbow Barnaby.. The following day the little girl asks her father to buy her a Rainbow Barnaby pet which he refuses to do. Barnaby is relieved but then notices a change in the girl’s attitude towards him as little by little she loses all interest in her playmate.

Now it’s the girl’s father who takes Barnaby on his Saturday walks and on one such, the little creature slips free of his lead intending to run away ‘just long enough for people to miss him.’ However as days turn to weeks and then months Barnaby is unable to find his way home; instead having had a narrow escape from a feline, he bonds with other lost pets, makes new friends including some squirrels that help him survive the winter. Come the spring the little girl, searching for her lost pet, comes upon a very bedraggled little creature: could it possibly be Barnaby?

She does various things to try and trigger his memories of their life together and now all she needs to do is to take him home and regain his trust: will she succeed?

Poignantly told and with its detail and varied viewpoints, an absolute delight visually, the story – longer than average for a picture book – has messages about accepting imperfection, responsibility, pets and long term commitment.

Lizzy and the Cloud

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Lizzy and the Cloud
The Fan Brothers
Frances Lincoln Children’s Books

The Fan Brothers set their story in a bygone era when zeppelins hovered above the row of shops and people rode penny farthing cycles.

Every Saturday Lizzy and her parents go walking in the park. Most of the children visiting make straight for the roundabout or the puppet show but not Lizzy: despite clouds being ‘a bit out of fashion’ in those days, she makes for the Cloud Seller. From him she buys not one of the fancy animal clouds on a string, but an ordinary cloud. This she names Milo. (Naming your cloud was the first instruction in the accompanying manual.).

Lizzy takes great care of her cloud, following the instructions, watering it daily, taking it for walks and allowing it to go soaring out of her window while she held the string firmly in her hand.

Over the months, Milo grows … and grows until one day it covers the whole ceiling.

There’s no instruction in the book to help fix the growing problem, then one night there’s a thunderstorm. It’s this that steers her towards a vital realisation: Milo has outgrown her room; she can’t contain him any longer: her cloud needs a bigger sky. Lizzy must do what is best for Milo and so she sets it free.

This beautiful meditation on letting go is brilliantly imagined and by blending the ordinary everyday with the extraordinary, the Fan Brothers deliver a truly original fable. It gently shows children that sometimes one needs to allow somebody (or something) you love to move on and that in time, those raw memories will become something sweet to be cherished always.

The delicate, dreamy illustrations in soft greys and browns with muted colours, are perfect for showing the alternative reality in which the tale unfolds. Whimsical and wonderful.

The Darkest Dark / Ludwig the Space Dog

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The Darkest Dark
Chris Hadfield and The Fan Brothers
Macmillan Children’s Books
‘The dark is for dreams – and morning is for making them come true.’ So says Chris Hadfield, retired Canadian astronaut on whose childhood this book is based. Herein we meet him as a boy, a boy who dreams of becoming an astronaut, flying to the moon or Mars.
Chris however, was afraid of the dark. For him the darkness that filled his bedroom when the lights were turned out was a darkness filled with aliens, very scary aliens.

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One particular night, he has to overcome his fears and sleep in his own bed or miss the opportunity to visit a neighbour’s house the following evening to view the Apollo 11 lunar landing. So on the night of July 20th 1969, as he watches the TV (the only one on their island home) and sees the events unfolding, he realises just how dark space is – ‘the darkest dark ever’.
This is a turning point for the would-be astronaut. Chris has lost his fear and for the very first time he appreciates ‘the power and mystery and velvety black beauty of the dark.’ And in that dark your dreams await, dreams that can become your life, not tomorrow morning but some time …
The illustrators of this story really bring out both the mystery of darkness and the depth of young Chris’s nyctophobia when everything around him takes on a brooding, sinister appearance …

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Certainly this is an inspiring story to share with youngsters who fear the dark, as well as those with an interest in space, whether or not they aspire to become astronauts: one never knows. Stories can generate dreams and you’ve read what Chris Hadfield has to say about those …
There’s more for space lovers in

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Ludwig the Space Dog
Henning Löhlein
Templar Publishing
I guess if I had to choose an alternative world in which to live, I’d be pretty happy with the one wherein Ludwig and his five friends reside. It’s a world of books no less and unsurprisingly Ludwig loves to read, especially books about space. These books – as books generally do – generate dreams and ideas; and for Ludwig those ideas are about space and flying.
Try as he might though, Ludwig just cannot stay in the air for more than a very short time;

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but then something unexpected crash lands right before his eyes. From that something steps its pilot – a space explorer who is in urgent need of assistance. And that is the starting point for a whole new life for Ludwig. Having fixed the rocket’s engine, he accepts the explorer’s invitation and finally takes flight on an amazing exploration of space.
Children can enjoy entering the bookish world of Ludwig and his friends, and joining the dog on his space adventure through the 3D glasses provided in the pocket inside the book’s front cover.
I love those quirky collage style illustrations of Henning Löhlein, which, even without the glasses, have in places, a three-dimensional look.