Tag Will Mabbitt

This is NOT a Fairy Tale

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This is NOT a Fairy Tale
Will Mabbitt and Fred Blunt
Puffin Books

Dad and his story sabotaging daughter, Sophie, return in a sequel to This is NOT a Bedtime Story; now though, the time honoured fairy tale is under attack and all because Grandad couldn’t keep his eyes open long enough to finish the story.
No matter, Dad is on hand to take over, or rather attempt to; but he’s reckoned without the creative interjections of the opinionated subverter of narratives sitting right beside him.
Let the imagination roll… and roll it surely does.
Sophie’s having none of your pathetic princess stuff: her young royal female is the one wearing the armour and she’s all for using the latest mod cons – a combine harvester transformer for instance – to save time and perform heroic deeds involving dragons.

Fast paced, metafictive mayhem is the order of the day in this deliciously bonkers book.
Yes there IS a prince – a slumbering bald one whose fate it is to be rescued …

(although he does inadvertently have moments of less inert, even momentarily useful and agonisingly ROAR worthy activity, where dragon’s bums are concerned). YEOWCH!

Giggles aplenty guaranteed. The super-crazy team of Mabbitt and Blunt have scored another ace with this one.

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I Can Only Draw Worms

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I Can Only Draw Worms
Will Mabbitt
Puffin Books
Bonkers! A book that can reduce two adults to fits of helpless laughter on a dull day has got to be worth something: it’s what Will Mabbit’s foray into picture books did to one reviewer and her partner. It’s billed as ‘an unconventional counting book’ and it surely is that, and a whole lot more. In truth I suspect pretty much anybody can draw worms, but only Will Mabbitt could make quite such a ridiculously and gloriously silly book as this one with its day-glo pink and yellow annelids wriggling all over it. Yes we’ve had wormy books before: Janet Ahlberg’s The Worm Book, Superworm from Julia Donaldson and Leo Lionni’s Inch by Inch to name but three; but nobody (to my knowledge) has given the reason, as the title proclaims, for devoting their entire picture book to them. In fact there is absolutely nothing else between the covers other than words of course. Other characters do crop up though; Worm SIX, is said to be ‘riding on a flying unicorn!’ Of course, no unicorn appears (you just have to imagine); instead, guess what? Mabbitt has drawn worm FIVE again. Hmm …

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and then has the audacity to go on to relate that worm SIX actually rides this unicorn off to meet the seventh worm who lives um, in outer space.
This Mabbitt guy clearly doesn’t know his cardinal numbers from his ordinal ones though, at least where worms are concerned (and as for whole and half numbers, let’s not even go there. If you doubt what I say then listen to this bit: ‘THERE’s BEEN A DREADFUL ACCIDENT.’ That whole thing about cutting a worm in half and getting two worms has just been disproved OUCH!: instead, all you get is two half worms … like this …

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Moreover, worm NINE has gone AWOL to the concern of the others (won’t even try counting them as I’ll get bogged down in the halves and wholes thingy.) Next, more craziness in the way of an identity mix-up and then along comes number 10 worm. And he (actually Will, take note, worms are hermaphrodite) is accompanied by the missing number NINE (back from that urgent loo break). Now let the counting proper – or rather, almost proper – begin …

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That’s it.
Sunglasses out and off you wiggle, and giggle! I’m off out to dig worms; but that’s another story …

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This is NOT a Bedtime Story

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This is NOT a Bedtime Story
Will Mabbit and Fred Blunt
Puffin Books
If you like your bedtime stories to be of the calming, wind-down variety then you might find yourself in agreement with the title of this book – it’s certainly not one of those, thanks to the determined efforts of young Sophie. This lively miss has just persuaded her dad to share one more story before she beds down for the night and Dad has her chosen book ready for a short one. That’s his plan; but from the outset, his daughter is unimpressed and ready to jazz up what appears to be one of those cutesie pink narratives: here she goes …

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Pretty soon – the fifth spread to be precise –things look a whole lot more exciting with Pink Kitten wielding a lightsabre, a ‘real lion’ on the scene (introduced earlier),

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a dinosaur on the loose and Barney in grave danger.
By now Sophie has completely subverted the plot and everyone including Dad and the household have been sucked in to the excitement –

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Tension builds as Pink Kitten has to rev up her helicopter; with built-in rocket launcher it’s crucial if they want to save Barney, now in the clutches of The Robot Dinosaur.

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Looks as though they’re heading for annihilation ,which is where we’ll leave them and cut to

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where we see once again the various toys that have fuelled Sophie’s runaway imagination in this humdinger of a metafiction.
Like Sophie (or should that be author, Will Mabbit?), illustrator, Fred Blunt has given full rein to his imagination (not to mention placing his first picture book, Captain Falsebeard strategically on Sophie’s bedroom floor in the opening scene.)
Particularly effective is the contrast between the artistic style he uses for the saccharine Pink Kitten story at the outset, and the zany ‘real’ characters in ‘our’ story. That, and the way the Pink Kitten story morphs into anarchy with the unfolding adventure that Sophie (and Dad) become engulfed in. Maybe not a bedtime story, but certainly one not to be missed.

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