Posted on: 17/03/2015
For our spring literature review, we’ve picked three very different books. One appeals to the escapist, lover of fantasy in us, one appeals to our sense of humour and sense of the ridiculous, the last to the animal lover within us. We hope you enjoy them as much as we did.
We love a good collaboration, and they don’t come much more epic than that of author SF Said and illustrator Dave Mckean, who have teamed up to bring us Said’s third novel Phoenix. This is a fantasy story that will resonate with many a young reader; its central character, Lucky (a name which works on several levels) is a seemingly ordinary boy who discovers he has special powers and is destined for much greater things. The story weaves its way through space, against a backdrop of interplanetary war, where he meets a range of interstellar characters and learns that his own personal search for his father is only one of the quests he faces: the other being the battle to save the very universe he is exploring. This complex narrative is told beautifully and simply, and yet its influences and inspiration are drawn from mythology in both classic and modern literature. This book comes highly recommended.
In another story that is about the desire to be ‘more’, Dog on Stilts is the story of Medium Dog. In a world inhabited with colourful dogs, big dogs and small dogs and fed up with being ordinary in just about every way conceivable, he dreams up elaborate and extraordinary ways to be noticed. This book’s rhyming text only tells part of the narrative; the rest is told through its bold, layered illustrations, using the full scope of both portrait and landscape illustrations. We are big advocates of these sorts of texts for their ability to empower children to tell their own narratives and make activate their inferential skills as a reader. Whilst a comic and engaging story, the themes pack a mean punch, dealing head-on with our insecurities about the way we look, the desire to be individual and the ultimate realisation that however we may try to change ourselves, we are perfect just the way we are!
We are big fans of Patrick George (aka Peter Scott) and the effortless way the illustrations work with the paper engineering to tell a story and raise complex issues to young readers in an engaging and ingeniously simple way. Animal Rescue is no different. Opening the first page, we are struck with the image of a tiger-skin rug. Peeling away the acetate overlay, we can free the tiger and return it to its natural habitat, where the clever addition of a smiling face and a poking-out tongue change him instantly from distraught to happy. Of course, the genius of the overlay is that it can easily work the opposite way around, depending upon how we turn the page, smartly raising the issue that it is humans' own choice to hunt and entrap these beautiful creatures and it is up to us to free them. Whilst the issues are serious, the illustrations are never dark and there is a charm and warmth to the George’s block print style. Our personal favourite is the crocodile-skin boot that o-so-cleverly overlays to become its body as we turn the page. With fifty pence from the sale of every book going directly to the Born Free foundation, who can refuse this wonderful text?
