‘Fictional food’s not reliable,’ says Alexei, a character from Katherine Rundell’s third children’s novel the Wolf Wilder. This incorrect assertion is something Rundell disproves again and again in her delicious books. As she says, ‘I think food grounds a story: gives realism to the maddest plot, gives breathing space to the wildest action, brings comfort …
Last week saw the 50th anniversary of the hugely influential Puffin Club, the children’s book group that brought a generation of readers together with each other and their favourite authors. By coincidence I had arranged an interview that day with the woman who was responsible for many of the practical and creative aspects of the …
One of my favourite ever exhibitions was curated by Quentin Blake at the National Gallery in 2001. Entitled Tell me a Picture, the idea was to take one work of art for every letter of the alphabet, which visitors were then invited to ‘read’. As well as introducing me to artists including Lisbeth Zwerger and Roberto …
During the 1960s and early 1970s, Raymond Briggs laboured over several books and two massive treasuries containing countless fairy Tales and nursery rhymes, creating one of the most complete visual libraries of Mother Goose and Co. by a single artist. It’s not difficult to see why these often outlandish poems and songs might appeal to someone with Briggs’ …
Some of the great characters from children’s literature take the Hare PCL-R test for psychopathy. Think of villains like Lord Voldemort, Miss Slighcarp, the Twits – extreme psychopaths. But what of the heroes? Psychopaths aren’t necessarily sadistic murderers, they can be people in positions of power: surgeons, politicians, CEOs of chocolate factories…
Having read Andy Miller’s ‘The Year of Reading Dangerously’, a book in which he changes his life by reading fifty classic books, I’ve been forced to take a long hard look at my own reading habits. Like most people I am not entirely honest about the books I read. Sometimes it’s just easier to say …
I avoided the books of Alan Garner as a child. A 1970s Armada Lion edition copy of Elidor sat on my shelf, always taunting me. It might have been the threat of Tolkien-esque high fantasy suggested by its cover that put me off, or maybe, just maybe the sense of dread that permeated its pages …
It’s been twenty years since Philip Pullman published Northern Lights, the first part of the His Dark Materials trilogy. Since then the books have become classics and are responsible for kickstarting the current boom in children’s publishing. Northern Lights has also spawned a movie adaptation, stage play and a two further novellas set in the …
‘In the lands of the North, where the black rocks stand guard against the cold sea, in the dark night that is very long the men of the Northlands sit by their great log fires and they tell a tale…’ So began every episode of the Saga of Noggin the Nog, an animated TV series … Continue reading
1823 is where it really began for illustrated children’s books in Britain; with the first publication of tales from the Brothers Grimm in English, illustrated by George Cruikshank – a man who had found fame drawing pictures of the Prince Regent blowing off. There had been publications for children before Grimms’ Fairy Tales; publishers … Continue reading
I’ve been having a bit of a Beatles week, listening my way through their records and revisiting their films. All of which provided the backdrop against which I read two recent picture books by the Superhairies – the creative team of artist Angus Mackinnon and writer James Thorp. The Lobster, Weasel, Puffin, Unicorn, Baboon, Pig … Continue reading
In 1982 Maurice Sendak was interviewed by the BBC’s arts documentary series Omnibus. ‘The highly reclusive writer’ had just completed designs for a production of Profokiev’s opera, The Love of Three Oranges. He speaks candidly and widely about his life and career in children’s book illustration. The interview showcases Sendak‘s sharp mind and even sharper … Continue reading
A novelty tie in of a much loved children’s book normally means a poorly stitched soft toy stapled to the front cover, or perhaps a collection of screen grabs taken from a lacklustre animated movie with text written by somebody in the publicity department. In the case of the Fungus the Bogeyman: The Plop-Up Book, … Continue reading
We went out for one of our little new year’s traditions this morning, breaking the tedium of the New Year’s restock and raiding the supermarket shelves for cut price Annuals. Steering the children skilfully away from a Flappy Birds cash in, we came away with the old reliable Beano Book and a reprint of some … Continue reading
Let’s finish this third advent calendar where we began, with Dylan Thomas’s recollections of his childhood Christmas in Wales. ‘One Christmas was so much like the other, in those years around the sea-town corner now, out of all sound except the distant speaking of the voices I sometimes hear a moment before sleep, that I … Continue reading
Like Kay Thompson’s Eloise or Astrid Lindgren’s Lotta in pig form, Olivia just wants to help with Christmas, to be involved. She also lacks any type of patience. Things must happen, NOW, and if they don’t she’ll make them happen. It’s the perfect cocktail for a non sentimental Christmas book that all children will be … Continue reading
I first became aware of Barbapapa a few years ago when visiting the children’s sock department of my local H&M. Assuming they were a piece of hip retro Swedish kitsch, my children spent the next couple of years hoofed in the blobby little shape shifters. Turns out Barbapapa is real 70s retro kitsch, which in … Continue reading
Christmas and comic book sci-fi don’t always go together that well. It’s there at the kitschier ends of the genre – ‘Happy Christmas Superdog. And thank you Wonder Woman, you’ve done a neat job turning my Fortress of Solitude into a winter wonderland.’ Or ‘Holy immaculate conception Batman.’ That sort of thing. There’s one notable … Continue reading
As a child I became a bit obsessed by the mythical sounding football match that took place in the trenches of the first world war when it featured in the video for Paul McCartney’s Pipes of Peace. Now, in the centenary year we’ve had Sainsburys flogging groceries off the back of it. But somehow, whether … Continue reading
‘It was Christmas Eve and twelve of the clock, when the message was heard, on the wind in the trees, on the air, underground and humming through wires and slipped into dreams.’ Can it Be True? follows the news of the birth of the miraculous child. From the blood beaked owl and the scurrying shrew … Continue reading
‘Jingle, jingle, jingle here. Jingle there. Jingle Christmas everywhere.’ Let’s step out of the cold and return to the New York Plaza hotel once more to spend Christmas with its most famous resident, six year old Eloise. If you’ve not met her before, she’s the part feral product of wealth and delegated parenting, who may … Continue reading
In previous years we've seen a modern update and a tactile app version, but this folksy 1980 edition takes us about as close as it is possible to the mid 19th century America of its author Clement Moore's imagination. Tomie dePaola, author of the magic pasta pot adventures of Strega Nona, sets his version … Continue reading
Tom Fobble’s Day is the last part in a quartet of books inspired by Alan Garner’s working class family, who lived at Alderley Edge, a hill of Arthurian legend in Cheshire. It is crafted with such symmetry and beauty that you gasp, just as much as its hero as he takes his maiden journey down … Continue reading
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a version of the Twelve Days of Christmas quite like this. George Buchanan takes the central premise and plays it out to its full comic potential. Set against the backdrop of a snowbound house straight out of the Good Life, we meet a young couple.Boy attempts to explain the … Continue reading
This 1964 Ladybird book explores practically every element of the festive period in a surprising amount of detail. N. F. Pearson reveals the origins of our best known customs, revealing the largely non Christian roots of the great winter blowout. It's the first Ladybird book written by Frank Hampson, the comic book genius behind Dan … Continue reading
The Church Mice series which began in the early 70s, reached the inevitable Christmas episode in 1980. It’s a bit like a made for TV adaptation of The Tailor of Gloucester starring Leonard Rossiter and the cast of Dad’s Army. Hard to think of something more of its era. The mice are out to party, … Continue reading
Tove Jansson knew a thing or two about merchandising. Like a one woman Nordic Disney she was, as early as the mid 50s selling handkerchiefs, piggy banks, dustbins, suspenders and marzipan Moomins. Although she did stop short of allowing a line of sanitary towels for young girls – the company wanted to brand them ‘Little … Continue reading
Here’s a book – in fact a series of books – that deserve to be much better known, at least in the UK. Ernest and Celestine, the creation of the Belgian author and artist Gabrielle Vincent, are a musical bear and his adopted daughter, a sensitive young mouse. It will appeal to anyone whose enjoys … Continue reading
Astrid Lindgren’s Lotta is a character every bit as strong as Pippi Longstocking, if not in body, then in sheer wilfulness. Think of her as a Swedish cousin of My Naughty Little Sister, or Lauren Child’s Lola (whose best friend is perhaps un-coincidentally also called Lotta). This series is aimed at a slightly younger … Continue reading
In Once Upon a Northern Night the French/ Canadian illustrator Isabelle Arsenault collaborates with writer Jean Pendziwol, who draws on her native Lake Superior and northern Ontario. Arsenault’s style is painterly but with a strong graphic design element that helps create artwork that take your far beyond the world in which they are set. It’s … Continue reading
After two years and 55 advent blog posts I'm finally get round to writing about Raymond Briggs’ The Snowman. I’ve kind of been avoiding the book. It's not because I don’t like it, but rather that I’ve always thought, what more is there to say about a book that everybody knows inside out and back … Continue reading
‘It was Christmas Eve. The children were excited, but mum was hot and Dad was cross. “Christmas is hard work,” said Dad. He wanted the children to help, but they didn’t want to. They were watching television.’ I flipping love the Oxford Reading Tree books. The never ending series of ‘learn to read’ series by … Continue reading
December: ‘This, as you know is the month when two good things happen. The term ends and Christmas comes.’ In the last year of his life Roald Dahl wrote a diary of the changing seasons around his home in Great Missenden, intertwined with memories from his youth and spiky observations of the world around him. … Continue reading
W is for Warsaw. ‘Neither Germans nor communists will keep me from a fish steak this Christmas Eve.’ ‘What does German look like?’ Lucja asked. ‘Like a communist’, Grandpa Feliks said crossly. ‘But with better boots.’ If you’re after an original, heartwarming Christmas book without the usual turkey or trimmings, then look no further than … Continue reading
There are certain smells and sounds that can transport you straight back to childhood. For me paint and pencil textures do exactly the same thing – Shirley Hughes deep nostalgic hues, Quentin Blake’s busy, youthful lines and perhaps deepest of all the work of John Burningham. While Mr Gumpy’s Outing captures all the heat and … Continue reading
If you’ve ever wondered where Santa fits in to the whole commercialisation of Christmas debate: Working class hero or corporate stooge? Then One Thousand Christmas Beards is the book for you. Roger Duvoisin, author of Petunia’s Christmas, brings us a Santa who is both befuddled and enraged by the festive jamboree. The objects of his … Continue reading
Welcome to tygertale’s third (THIRD!) advent calendar. Each day I’ll be revealing a christmas or winter themed children’s book ranging from seasonal classics, through obscure vintage finds to brand new holiday favourites. Continue reading
In Snow we meet a boy and his grandad as they prepare for a day out in the snow. As the boy impatiently tries to get out of the door, his grandad understands that a little delayed gratification, particularly at Christmas time, is sometimes the best thing. The boy is tortured by the sight of … Continue reading
We all love receiving a good book at Christmas, particularly one with a heart warming message full of goodwill and the spirit of the season. Pity then the children of the 19th century, who instead of cosying up on the sofa with mummy, daddy and the Snowman were sent packing to their draughty nursery with … Continue reading
In the ‘difficult’ final Moomin novel, Tove Jansson takes the audacious step of entirely excising her core cast, focusing instead on a disparate group visitors who gather at the family’s home, but find them missing. It was a move that didn’t exactly go down well with readers at the time; Moominvalley in November was as … Continue reading
As Ella Bailey said earlier this week, there are few better ways to celebrate Halloween than with a bit of Edward Gorey. Thia year I have taken the brave step of discovering what dreadful things await me, as foretold by the Fantod Pack, a deck of Gorey designed Tarot cards. The cards are interpreted by … Continue reading
In No Such Thing a girl called Georgia notices that things keep going missing in her beautifully appointed home. Her brother, cat and the old lady across the way are all in the frame. But despite Georgia’s rational protestations, perhaps there’s another explanation – ghosts. I asked Ella Bailey, author of this stylish halloween treat … Continue reading
What do you do after you’ve created the greatest picture book of all time? It’s a question only Maurice Sendak could answer. In between his two great triumphs – Where the Wild Things Are and In the Night Kitchen he turned to his two great inspirations, the fairy tale and his dog Jennie. The resulting … Continue reading
It’s not often that I see my dad avidly reading a children’s book. He usually prefers something with a bit more espionage, or physics. But I came home recently to find him leafing through my copy of J.B.S Haldane’s My Friend Mr Leakey. ‘He was a very well known scientist you know?’ he told me … Continue reading
You can’t beat a good flood. Ever since Noah got fed up with the rotten weather it has provided inspiration for countless end of the world stories. From Pat Hutchins’ The House That Sailed Away to J.G Ballard’s Drowned World, the end of the world as maritime adventure narrative has been a compelling one. The … Continue reading
The Moomins and I have been on our holidays. Not on the Riviera, but to Cornwall and the Eden Project. Paper Moomintroll, Little My, Snuffkin and the Hattifatteners travelled with us from the sunflower soaked fields of southern France to the bountiful rain forests of Malaysia, before encountering their ‘ancestors’ in deepest Africa. Tove Jansson … Continue reading
K is for the island of Klovharu. Tove Jansson would have been 100 this week, an event that provoked a huge outpouring of affection. Much of this has to do, of course, with her timeless Moomin stories, but there’s another part of her life, an idea, that has proven to be just as enticing to … Continue reading
I’m a big fan of the new Penguin Classics cover for the 50th anniversary adult edition of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. But judging by the reaction on twitter and the media at large, I may well be in a minority of one here. The illustrator Sarah McIntyre has already put up a good defence … Continue reading
P is for Paris. This is one of the most unusual children’s books you’ll ever read. Some might say it’s more than a children’s book; a piece of micro modernism to file alongside James Joyce’s Ulysses or a junior Bout de Soufflé. Zazie dans le Métro is all these things, it is also the sort … Continue reading
Pepper and Jam is the story of two oversized cats, the aptly named Longbody and his noisy brother Tractor. They live in an end of terrace house in Swindon with their humans, the social climbing Mrs Pepper and her son Reginald, who also provides the illustrations. When Mrs Pepper plans a holiday the cats do … Continue reading
Marianne is a twelve year old girl confined to bed for months with a debilitating illness. Tired but restless she plunders a keepsake box handed down from her great grandmother to her mother and finds amongst the shiny trinkets a nice pencil, ‘It was one of those pencils that are simply asking to be written or drawn with.’ Continue reading
‘Lyra barged open the door, dragged her rickety chair to the window, flung wide the casement, and scrambled out. There was a lead-lined stone gutter a foot wide just below the window, and once she was standing in that, she turned and clambered up over the rough tiles until she stood on the topmost ridge … Continue reading
‘I must now regretfully become one of those unpopular giants who tells you WHAT TO DO and WHAT NOT TO DO. This is something I have never done in any of my books. I have been careful never to preach, never to be moralistic and never to convey any message to the reader.’ I confess … Continue reading
‘It was so appallingly awful… Snuffkin overslept after a party and didn’t turn up at all, the lighting was all to hell, some of the props were missing and everyone gave a feeble performance.’ Not a review of Polka Theatre’s wonderful new production, Moominsummer Madness, but Tove Jansson’s own verdict on the dress rehearsal … Continue reading
One of the current Batman storylines has seen the Dark Knight travelling the world in search of his son’s corpse. The former Robin, Damian Wayne has been murdered by his clone brother and dug up by his evil grandfather and is being dunked in every life restoring Lazarus pit from Gotham to Timbuktu. But a … Continue reading
‘Even if Einstein thought it was theoretically possible to travel in time, he never proved it, and if all the minds at the great universities haven’t managed to do it yet, then the likelihood of a 1920’s bungalow managing to invent a time machine, unaided, is very, very small. Time travel is far too complicated … Continue reading
There’s a lot of horror in Tove’s work, Grokes, Hattifatteners and in the psychological short story A Tale of Horror (1962), monstrous Little My. ‘That girl… you’d never believe… I’m not going back there, not in a thousand years,” the Whomper continued savagely. “She tricked me! she told such stories! She makes people sick with her lies!’ Continue reading
I’ve only had one recurring dream in my life. It’s quite hard to explain, as these things often are, but it involves me flying, or rather floating, like Alice down the rabbit hole, through some sort of shaft. Sometimes things go rather smoothly and I swoop and saw. Other times I’ll be flailing about, crashing … Continue reading
OK some serious SPOILERS coming up, but it's hard to write about this book without mentioning the big reveal in this 1977 classic school story by Gene Kemp. Following on from last week's piece that touched on gender labelling in children’s literature, here is a book that challenges readers’ expectations of girls and boys roles … Continue reading
There's been a lot of to do lately about the negative effects of gender labelling in children's books – things like the Sally Sparklebuns: Star Baker series for girls or the Barry Strongbones Football Academy books for boys. These things exist for a very good reason – kids lap 'em up and parents for the … Continue reading
‘Tell me something, are you one of those people who is prevented from doing great art because they draw comic strips?’ In 1978 Tove Jansson published a short story called The Cartoonist. It deals with a young artist who gets a job at a newspaper drawing a long running comic strip about a round, blue … Continue reading
Voici Charlie. Bonjour, Charlie! Bonjour, bonjour et re-bonjour. In 1967 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was published in France for the first time. As I mentioned in my previous article this was nearly a full year before any British publisher thought it worthy of publication. It came with brand new illustrations by Michel Siméon the … Continue reading
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is the most important children's book of all time. Not his best, and not my favourite but definitely the most important. It's the book's fiftieth anniversary this year so I thought I'd take the opportunity to explain why it's so damn IMPORTANT, and while I’m at it showcase some of … Continue reading
There are some children’s books I feel slightly uncomfortable reading. Not because I’m embarrassed to be reading a children’s book per se, but because I’m so far from the intended readership I feel a little voyeuristic. Susie Day’s Bluebell Jones might be a good example of this, dealing as it does with a girl on … Continue reading
S is for St. Ives. “What I want,” Laura declared,”is to have a life packed with excitement like some of the characters in my books.” The series of adventures starring pre-teen detective Laura Marlin have been described as ‘Nancy Drew meets the Famous Five’. Certainly its got all the ingredients of a mid 20th century … Continue reading
So far I've been looking at wonderful vintage children's books about the seaside and more contemporary titles that look at fast fading childhood memories. So this week I thought I'd share some brilliant contemporary books featuring really bold heroines as they face coming of age – and the more dangerous coming of the tide… The … Continue reading
‘This is Pancake day,’ said the Professor, taking his four pairs of spectacles off, and getting them just as mixed up as he usually got his five pairs. ‘It is a festival that is inclined to die out, because although people like pancakes they won’t trouble to cook them. Too much trouble. Too much mess. … Continue reading
In 2007 Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill published The Black Dossier, the third volume in their comic book series ‘The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen‘. Spanning an alternative 20th Century the League are a group of government agents based on characters from Victorian genre fiction. In The Black Dossier the league square up to a very unreconstructed spy called ‘Jimmy Bond’. But they’re aided by an even more controversial figure. Continue reading
What a wretched January that’s been. Mild, wet and endlessly boggy. It’s at this time of year that we really need something to cheer us up, but Christmas has already blown its load and all we’ve got to look forward to is a drab February that isn’t even offering up any pancakes this year. The … Continue reading
Two more things I love about the seaside: Weird attractions and twice hourly puppet shows starting at a quarter past and a quarter to the hour. Neil Gaiman delivers both of these in the Comical Tragedy, or Tragical Comedy of Mr. Punch. The story takes place in, what Morrissey would describe as the seaside … Continue reading
I had originally planned to begin this series a little later in the year, but as it's such a bloody miserable January let's do it now. I'm talking seaside books. Books about long empty beaches, old towns stuck in time and mysterious things washing up on beaches. Or popping out of clam shells. Black sock … Continue reading
Here begins the year of Tove Jansson. 100 years since her birth, The Egg theatre in Bath bring us the UK’s very first staging of one of her Moomin stories (ridiculous!). The year also sees their first original motion picture outing in Moomins on the Riviera and a stage musical of Moominsummer Madness. But I’ll … Continue reading
You didn’t think I could get through an entire Advent without a bit of Raymond Briggs did you? This time last year we met the thoroughly working class Father Christmas as he grumbled his way round the ultimate night shift. A right Blooming Christmas it might have been, but there were signs that the rest … Continue reading
I've just been watching the strangely affecting BBC Four Christmas offering The Fir Tree, a Danish drama about the life of a Christmas tree; from birth through his brief, shining glory to a tragic death, it's quite unusually told by the fir itself. The story is based on a rather pessimistic tale by Hans Christian … Continue reading
Arnold Lobel, who would have been 80 this year, wrote his Frog and Toad books to help children learn to read. But like Dr Seuss, Lobel achieved much more through his characters, creating one of the most tender and believable representations of friendship in literature. In Frog and Toad All Year we follow the pair … Continue reading
We lost another great illustrator of children's books this year. Antonio Frasconi, who died in January was a master of the woodcut, inspired as much by comic books as he was by impressionism, Jazz and politics. In this sense he was a true American artist, but Frasconi was born in Uruguay, and according to wikipedia … Continue reading
It’s a peculiar thing, this love we have for ghost stories at Christmas. Begun by Dickens but perfected by Montague Rhodes James, the Cambridge scholar who combined his knowledge of history with the darkest recesses of superstitious belief, concocting the perfect stories to chill the heart on a chill December evening. The Tractate Middoth is … Continue reading
Sometimes you come across a book that makes you long to be a children's illustrator. Kazuno Kohara makes books that make you think that it might actually be possible. Her beautiful linocuts look deceptively simple, but I bet they're not. The effortless lines and simple vivid colour scheme captures the seasonal setting perfectly. Jack Frost … Continue reading
The Jolly Christmas Postman is that rarest of things: A sequel, and a Christmas spin-off of a bona fide classic that turns out to be better than the original. We follow the Jolly Postman (him again!) as he slip slides his way around Banbury Cross with an even more interesting load, packed full of cards, … Continue reading
We return to New York today and take a ride on the Magic Carousel of Central Park. This is not the richly colourful New York of Ezra Jack Keat's The Snowy Day, but one that is shot through with splashes of grey and only occasionally enlivened by beaming baubles and enticing store fronts. Artist Ati … Continue reading
You know that bit in Raymond Briggs' Father Christmas when the old grump is dragging his sack across the roofs of a terrace of houses. Some of the windows below him are radiating amazing warm light, suggesting the sort of Christmas Eve excitement that Father Christmas will never be party to. Did you ever wonder … Continue reading
Last year I wrote about the future of book apps, and it seemed pretty hopeful. As well as these Christmas ones, there were excellent game books and experimental adaptations. Since then e-book sales for kids have also risen. So why does it feel as though innovation in the next generation of children’s books has gone … Continue reading
N is for New York. Sometimes a book can get weighed down by its cultural baggage, The Snowy Day more than most. In 1962 New Yorker Ezra Jack Keats produced one of the first children’s books with a black protagonist. At first it was hailed as a landmark in publishing, but as time went by … Continue reading
If you grew up in the 80s you'll remember how Scooby Doo was ruined for a generation of children by the addition of an irritating, wise cracking puppy called Scrappy Doo. Bringing new sidekicks into a long running series is usually a sign of desperation and artistic bankruptcy. So I did have to wonder about … Continue reading
After yesterday's gloomfest I feel obliged to bring a bit of happiness back to the advent calendar. And what could be happier than The Happy Christmas Book, an annual of the old fashioned kind, comprising of classic poems, carols and stories alongside comic strips, puzzles and things to make and do. The Happy Christmas Book … Continue reading
Some people find Raymond Briggs' The Snowman a little depressing. My daughter howls uncontrollably when the John Lewis ad with the Bear and the Hare comes on. Well those two ain't got nothing on The Little Match Girl, the bleakest of all Christmas stories. It's the last day of the old year and the Little … Continue reading
For some it's The Snowman, others It's a Wonderful Life, somebody somewhere chooses Santa Paws 2: The Santa Pups. In our house though, Olive, the Other Reindeer is the TV Christmas treat. It all started when the children were small and getting up at ridiculous o'clock on Christmas Morning. Having weighed through TV specials of … Continue reading
Nobody does Christmas quite like Pippi Longstocking. Last year the pigtailed pirate’s daughter put on an after christmas party that culminated in the guests climbing the tree to recover their presents. In Pippi’s Christmas Guests, taken from the second volume of comics by Astrid Lindgren and Ingrid Vang Nyman, our hero faces spending December 25th … Continue reading
Roger Duvoisin, the Swiss born American writer and illustrator has great form when it comes to Christmas – with titles like White Snow, Bright Snow and the Santa revenge fantasy One Thousand Beards (‘Am I angry! . . . I’ll put an end to those false Santas! There is only one Santa Claus, and that’s … Continue reading
It’s a great shame that Roald Dahl never actually wrote any full length Christmas stories. The subject is the perfect territory for him. Christmas delivers all the trappings of a good morality tale, with its mixture of greedy children, stupid adults spoiling them and in Father Christmas, a central figure who is a mixture of … Continue reading
SO here we are again. Last year’s advent blog, which I had conceived imagining myself sitting by the Christmas tree, whisky in one hand, iPad in the other while the children sang carols in the background, turned into a bleary eyed marathon. Apparently there was other stuff that needed doing for Christmas. Who knew? This … Continue reading
Here's a special thing – a Christmas thriller by the author of Brighton Rock and The Third Man, drawn by the illustrator of Stig of the Dump and Little Tim, with a hero to rival Thomas or Ivor. The Little Steamroller was Graham Greene's final tale in a series about plucky little transporters. Following the … Continue reading
A latke is a potato pancake, traditionally eaten during Hanukkah, the Jewish festival of lights that ends tonight. Oil is central to Hanukkah, and this is where the Latke’s troubles begin. Nearly everything in this world is born screaming, and the Latke was no exception… fashioned from grated potato, chopped onion, beaten eggs and a … Continue reading
Coming a close second (after Sir Raymond Briggs) in my list of children’s authors who capture Christmas, is Dame Shirley Hughes (not actually a Dame or a Sir, but that’s surely a technicality). Last year I was taken back to my own 70s childhood when I re-read Lucy and Tom’s Christmas. This year, we go … Continue reading
The bugs are back for Christmas.Those party loving, intolerant insects first seen in Bugs in a Blanket are attempting to come together for a Christmas party. Trouble is they all want to do Christmas the way they do at home. That's the trouble with Christmas. You do it with your family – the right way … Continue reading
Here's a little treat for anyone missing Maurice Sendak this Christmas. Not an undiscovered book I'm afraid, but a story by one of his contemporaries, another New York author/ illustrator from Poland, Uri Shulevitz. Snow, first published in 1998 has that same distinctive mid-century style. His stylish caricatures are both crooked and curved. Beyond the … Continue reading
The Moomins aren’t a naturally Christmassy species. They prefer to spend their winters tucked behind an old boiler, or huddled together in their drawing room. You wouldn’t have thought the irascible Hemulens would have much truck with the celebration either, other than to give them something else to get cross about. But in The Fir … Continue reading
In 1968 three films were released that showed that Sci-Fi was versatile and capable of reaching a mass audience; 2001: A Space Odyssey proved SF could be truly mind-expanding; Barbarella made the genre sexy; Planet of the Apes proved that high concept craziness could make an awful lot of money. Also that year came a … Continue reading
When the Kate Greenaway medal for illustrated children’s books was announced the other week I was a little astounded; Jon Klassen’s instant classic I Want my Hat Back had been passed over. Surely there was nothing else out there to match the elegant wit of Klassen’s hat based comedy sequel? Turns out it’s been an … Continue reading
This week I thought I’d review a book written in French. I don’t speak French beyond blustering level, so armed with google translate I tentatively opened my copy of Jane, le Renard & Moi (Jane, the Fox and me – see, it’s all flooding back now). I needn’t have worried really. Although I didn’t actually … Continue reading
Now I love the old superheroes as much as the next nerd, with their utility belts, S&M gear and fascistic tendencies. But with Bats and many of his super friends now in their eighth decade isn’t it time for what Entertainment Weekly would call ‘A new generation of superhero’, or even better a ‘new science … Continue reading
The thing that really got me interested in this whole sci-fi thing in the first place wasn’t Star Wars or Doctor Who, it was a story about a witch called Meg who takes her scraggly cat Mog on a birthday outing to the moon. But she wasn’t the first witch in space, and she wouldn’t … Continue reading
This week I discovered a lost classic. Lionel Davidson’s Under Plum Lake is a strange and unsettling book that draws you in and keeps you there until the end. Then it keeps you there some more, and like the book’s hero Barry, I’m not sure if that’s such a good thing. The lysergic splurge of … Continue reading
When I told my dad I was writing a children's Science Fiction book, ever supportive he said, 'Mhhh, well I hope it's not Science Fantasy.' I said, 'Well, it's about a girl who goes to school in a satellite, and has adventures with a cowardly band of space pirates. What do you think?' He's a … Continue reading
My daughter, who's seven, has been 'doing space' at school this term. It's something she's already a little obsessed by thanks to the Tintin story Explorers on the Moon. So we went out to look for some other space themed books for younger readers. It was a pretty depressing experience, particularly for her age group … Continue reading
Back in May I wrote about a fabulous, strange old book about two warring nations, one fat and one thin, who live far beneath the surface of our own world. Originally published in the inter-war years, Fattypuffs and Thinifers simultaneously offers comment on the Great War and a warning of the war that was yet … Continue reading
I’ve been properly obsessed with Pippi Longstocking since the first volume of comic book adaptations was released last year. First produced for the Swedish children’s magazine Humpty Dumpty by the original creative team Astrid Lindgren and Ingrid Vang Nyman in the late 50s, it’s the first time they’ve appeared in English. As I was counting … Continue reading
‘There’s so much to see and smell here! Whole levels of the library that nobody has been into for a hundred thousand years! Locked rooms full of ancient secrets. Treasure! Knowledge! Fun‘ Garth Nix’s Lirael. When Birmingham’s new mega library opened last week I was blown away by the sheer scale and heartened by a … Continue reading
We're off for some Lucy and Tom style frolics at the seaside. See you in september with some fantastical libraries and out of this world adventures for younger readers. Continue reading
‘I know who I WAS when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.’ Alice to the Caterpillar. For a character so firmly fixed in the popular imagination as a blonde girl in a blue pinafore dress, with a white apron, Alice has … Continue reading
As I am currently obsessing over how to begin a story, I recently came back to one of my all time favourite opening chapters for inspiration. In How Nobody Came to the Graveyard, from The Graveyard Book, Neil Gaiman pulls off one of the most thrilling, disturbing opening sequences in children's literature. Gaiman sets out … Continue reading
When I was researching my piece on Matilda the other week I came across the rather delightful fact that Roald Dahl had initially intended for her to be an absolute horror. His template for the character was another Matilda, the doomed anti-heroine from one of Hilaire Belloc’s Cautionary Tales for Children. This Matilda, so the … Continue reading
In The Children of Noisy Village, or Alla Vi Barn I Bullerbyn to give it it’s Swedish name, Pippi Longstocking author Astrid Lindgren returns to the landscape of her childhood for a series of vignettes about a perfect childhood in a rural Swedish village. This is how Astrid remembers her childhood, ‘That beautiful environment which … Continue reading
In ‘Miss Honey’s Cottage’ a small, clever girl walks to her teacher’s cottage in the woods. Once inside the hovel kind Miss Honey prepares her pupil tea and bread with margarine. Chapter 16 of Matilda doesn’t have the most thrilling synopsis you’ll ever read, but this is undoubtedly one of my favourite chapters in all … Continue reading
Today is tygertale’s 1st birthday. By happy coincidence (and much more importantly) it is also Judith Kerr’s 90th birthday. To celebrate I went out and bought a copy of her autobiographical new book Creatures. ‘That book is simply gorgeous‘ the charming young man behind the till in Foyles rightly pointed out as I went to … Continue reading
I’ve been banging on about Roald Dahl without Quentin Blake for quite some time now. So I thought I’d better redress the balance and look at the work of the man who was in my opinion an equal partner in their creative relationship. Another equally important collaboration began several years before his work with Dahl. … Continue reading
Has there ever been a bad girl with a better pedigree than Eloise? Created by a Hollywood musical star and featuring a six your old free spirit who lives at the Plaza Hotel in New York with her beer swilling British nanny, a trainer wearing turtle and nary a parent in sight. Eloise's life at … Continue reading
A couple of weeks ago I did something I hadn’t done since the days when records were records, made out of round plastic and sold in shops made of bricks – I left work at lunch time and rushed down Park Street in Bristol to buy something on its day of release. It wasn’t an … Continue reading
Another year, another amazing book for teenagers wins the Costa Book Award. Last year we had Patrick Ness’s A Monster Calls, a story that screamed INSTANT CLASSIC at you in CAPITAL LETTERS. Well here we are again, with Sally Gardner’s Maggot Moon, a book which is possibly even more perfect. Although they’re very different books … Continue reading
Being a massive Alice and Narnia nut I’m a sucker for any book that takes me through a crack in our world and into another, much stranger place. It’s the ultimate fantasy device, playing directly into children’s imaginative games. Revisiting these stories later in life is a direct reminder of what it felt like to … Continue reading
Lane Smith is one of the great American illustrators of recent times. His work proves the point of this series of articles: No matter how beloved and wonderful the Blake / Dahl partnership was, it’s a crying shame that Penguin don’t give contemporary artists the chance to give us their take, show us some new perspectives. Continue reading
We’ve seen witches round these parts before – in a Czech edition of the Roald Dahl story illustrated by Adolf Born. And here they are again, this time drawn by German illustrator Amelie Glienke. So why are there all these different versions of this book, particularly as it’s one of Quentin Blake’s finest Dahl collaborations? … Continue reading
T is for Thule, Greenland. As I impatiently wait for the second volume of Pippi Longstocking comics to come out, I thought I’d dig a little further into the back catalogue of the artistic genius behind them, Ingrid Vang Nyman. Having completed the first Pippi book in 1945, Vang Nyman teamed up with her cousin … Continue reading
I grew up in the 1980s, a child of Thatcher raised to loathe the monstrous metal mother. Not that I needed much prompting, her regular appearances on TV were enough to send me scuttling behind the sofa. But to make sure I stayed on message, my parents bought me a children's book on the subject: … Continue reading
For anyone who has never quite got the Brothers Grimm, or never heard their 'Märchen' (household tales) at a young age, here’s a great description of what they've been missing. 'The dictionary definitions – tale, fable, legend – are all inadequate when I think of my little German Märchenbuch and what it held for me. … Continue reading
Here’s a little curio from the Raymond Briggs Treasury, the Champion Books, a series of six non fiction titles covering the crowning achievements of great figures from the 20th Century. Briggs rarely touched non-fiction subjects, though as we saw with Sledges to the Rescue he was constantly drawing on his own family history. In 1967 … Continue reading
Doctor Who is 50 this year and on top of the new series and the Mark Gatiss drama it seems likely there will be a special episode featuring a coming together of some of the actors who have played the Doctor over the years. Whether that means wheeling Tom Baker out of the pub or … Continue reading
Before Watchmen came The Ballad of Halo Jones, Alan Moore’s earlier attempt at subverting the comic book action template. It contained everything that was unlikely to appeal to the average reader of its home 2000AD. It was about girls, shopping, isolation and mourning, but worst of all featured virtually no violence. Halo is not an … Continue reading
I’m having a big dragon-fest at work recently, which has given me a good excuse to trawl some of my favourite picture book beasties, plus some brand new ones. In the 1960s Tove Jansson, best known for creating her very own Moomin shaped folk legends, turned her hand to illustrating some British children’s classics including … Continue reading
Some lovely person recently nominated me for a parent bloggers award, and looking down the list there are a lot of us. Checking some of these super prolific children’s book bloggers I noticed that many featured heavy contributions from their children. They’d read together, dress up as their favourite characters, create book inspired works of … Continue reading
The trouble with Robin is that he’s dead. If you’d bothered to read part one of my history of Batman’s perky teenage pal then you’d already know that this is nothing new. Back in the 1980s DC comics held a phone vote to decide whether troublesome Jason Todd (Robin #2) should die at the hands … Continue reading
As Alice so wisely said, ‘what’s the point of a book without pictures?’ Not a lot I thought – particularly when it comes to something as visual as the Grimm tales. To prove the point I thought I’d have a look through some of my favourite illustrated tales from Grimm from the last hundred or so years. Continue reading
Maurice Sendak’s final work was published recently, My Brother’s Book, a tribute to Jack Sendak who died in 1995. His older brother was also a children’s book author, little remembered but with a pleasingly surrealist bent. Maurice and he worked together on a number of works including The Circus Girl and The Happy Rain, but … Continue reading
This graphic memoir (comic book to you and I) begins this very day, February 2nd – James Joyce’s birthday. It’s the jumping off point for a narrative that weaves the young lives of Mary Talbot and Lucia, daughter of James Joyce. The two were born generations apart, but had in common their ‘cold, mad, feery fathers’ – Mary’s dad James had been a Joycean scholar. Continue reading
After Raymond Briggs left art college in 1957 he took his portfolio to Oxford University Press where he was asked by editor Mabel George 'How do you feel about fairies?' Biting his tongue and suppressing his art school cool he replied 'Yes, fairies, lovely'. Briggs soon discovered that Fairy tales and nursery rhymes were, 'the … Continue reading
Are your kids complaining they’re bored, despite the mountain of ruddy toys they’ve conveniently forgotten about? Well look no further than Tygertale’s handy selection of things to make and do as you hobble through the last few days of the Christmas holidays. The Ladybird Book of Things to Make, is full of delights, like this … Continue reading
What did you expect to find behind the last door? The baby Jesus? No. Like all good advent calendars it has to be Father Christmas – and not just any Father Christmas. Raymond Briggs’ 1973 picture book is my absolute favourite Christmas book. I ritually re-read it every year and get something new from it … Continue reading
This little gem arrived in the post just as the past week’s snow finally began to melt and the head fell off our snowman, crushing the small family of snowdogs in the process. The irony was lost on my distraught children but we have fortunately been able to console ourselves reading Raymond Briggs’ very first … Continue reading
I ummed and aahed for a long time about which Quentin Blake book to include in the advent calendar. Although he never produced a Christmas story with Roald Dahl (as if), he has brought his own unique take to many other seasonal tales, from A Christmas Carol to Michael Morpurgo’s nativity story, On Angel Wings. … Continue reading
H is for Hemingford Grey. As I’m sitting on a train crawling past flooded fields and impassible roads it strikes me that there’s no more fitting book to be reading this Christmas than Lucy M. Boston’s The Children of Green Knowe. The weather plays a central role in the book, the plot turning on a … Continue reading
Pippi Longstocking, as you might imagine, is the type of girl who does Christmas her way. In this short story we join her in an igloo at a special after Christmas party for the children of the little town. As ever, the irrepressible young Pirate Princess is fulfilling one of those childhood fantasies; in this … Continue reading
I never had a cat growing up, which was a shame. But I didn’t really need one, I had Mog. Judith Kerr’s beloved tabby cat is that rare thing in children’s literature, an animal that doesn’t talk or embody all sorts of human characteristics. Instead she looks and behaves like a real animal. In Mog’s … Continue reading
I wrote a few months ago about some of the groundbreaking children's book apps that are taking the whole reading experience in wonderful new directions. A brief visit to the app store over the weekend provided some great new examples for Christmas. There are countless cheapo retellings of A Christmas Carol and The Night Before … Continue reading
Christmas parties normally bring me out with a bad case of the bah-humbugs, but there’s one host whose gatherings I’d love to be invited to. Posy Simmonds, writer and illustrator of Tamara Drewe and The Chocolate Wedding, is a total genius when it comes to capturing the joy and frivolity of a fantastic bash in … Continue reading
Pat Hutchins is an under-appreciated children’s book genius, author of titles including the House the Sailed Away and Rosie’s Walk. That classic featured a hapless fox landing in all sorts of trouble as he chases an oblivious chicken around a farm. There’s another fox in The Silver Christmas Tree, but this one’s far more friendly. … Continue reading
G is for Gloucester. Beatrix Potter’s tale of a poor tailor who is saved from penury by a bunch of nimble fingered pests gave me a real Christmas flashback. I hadn’t heard the story since it was read to me at Primary School, but re-reading it today I was struck by just how mythic the … Continue reading
Amidst all the Hobbit hype there’s really only one Tolkien product you really need to check out today – Letters from Father Christmas. Every year between 1920 and 1942 he would send his children an envelope containing an elaborately illustrated, and scratchily hand written letter pupporting to be from the great man. I wrote a … Continue reading
What a peculiar book this is. Most writers are content to stick to a few basic facts when turning in their Christmas themed manuscripts. 1. Father Christmas lives at the North Pole 2. The presents are made by elves 3. Magic reindeer pull them about in a big flying sleigh These are the highly believable … Continue reading
Edward Gorey has previous when it comes to the anti-Christmas tale. He re-imagined A Christmas Carol as The Haunted Tea-Cosy: A Dispirited and Distasteful Diversion for Christmas, and who can forget his dark masterpiece The Gashleycrumb Tinies, which chronicled the fates of 26 unfortunate alphabetical young people (‘D is for Desmond thrown out of a … Continue reading
'Finally Father Christmas was able to go to bed. He put on his pyjamas and was just climbing into bed when he saw something that made him gasp. At the end of his bed lay his sack. Father Christmas could see the shape of one present still inside it. Father Christmas pulled the present out … Continue reading
I must confess I’ve never read The Night before Christmas. I hear snatches of it every year from the children’s bedroom, but it’s one Christmas story I’ve never really been drawn to. Which is odd as the original poem, a Visit From Saint Nicholas by Clement Clarke Moore, contains many of the origins of jolly … Continue reading
‘The snow lay thin and apologetic over the world. That wide grey sweep was the lawn, with the straggling trees of the orchard still dark beyond; the white squares were the roofs of the garage, the old barn, the rabbit hutches, the chicken coops… All the broad sky was grey, full of more snow that … Continue reading
Christmas just wouldn’t be Christmas without a bit of that old Raymond Briggs magic – Snowmen, Snowdogs, Father Christmas on the bog, that sort of thing. Well you won’t find any of them in The Christmas Book. This marvellous collection from 1968 was put together by James Reeves, with numerous black and white Briggs illustrations. … Continue reading
I won't write too much about this startling picture book, after all its author Marcus Sedgwick doesn't. This is a brief, simple poem about a boy wishing for a cold winter like we used to have (this was published in 2003 when snow was a thing of the past). When winter does arrive, it does … Continue reading
A favourite sub-genre of Christmas tales for children is the festive robbery story. The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, Home Alone and that episode of the Simpsons where Bart burns down the tree and blames it on burglars. I guess it plays into the underlying unease of a festival that allows a strange bearded old man … Continue reading
Four young pigs each decide to surprise their father, Mr Mellops with a Christmas tree. On their return they’re dismayed to find that he’s already put one up, and so are left with four spare trees, which they try to offload on some deserving causes like the hospital, the orphanage and the local prison. Continue reading
‘And on the sledge sat a person whom everyone knew the moment they set eyes on him. He was a huge man in a bright red robe (bright as holly-berries) with a hood that had fur inside it and a great white beard that fell like a foamy waterfall over his chest… Some of the … Continue reading
On the third day of December here's Emma Chichester Clark's Merry Christmas Blue Kangaroo, the story of the loveable marsupial who has everything, but just wants to give something back to his beloved Lily. As every child knows it's the run up to the big day that is the best bit of Christmas. Doing the … Continue reading
