Fictional Travel Guides – London in children’s literature
It’s very interesting how important a place could be in a story. I have also observed that writers either use their own immediate environment as a background for their story or go back to the homeland and traditions of their ancestors (the latter can be observed in contemporary American children’s authors). I have gathered some of those where London provides the background for the events. Benjamin Read – Laura Trinder: The Midnight Hour Trilogy (Chicken House Ltd. 2019, 2020) My personal favorite, so you’ll be able to read a lot about it on my blog in the future sure. Linked to the next book with one of the buildings mentioned in it, of which I shouldn’t tell you now. Will Mabbitt: The Unlikely Adventures of Mabel Jones (Puffin Books in Penguin Random House 2015) With this title, I was sure it would be a children’s story to be read once,…
Slavic folk tales reloaded
Sophie Anderson: The House with Chicken Legs Sophie Anderson: The Girl Who Speaks Bear Sophie Anderson: The Castle of Tangled Magic Usborne Publishing Ltd. Last year, so many foreign booktubers talked about The House with Chicken Legs that I was curious and thought I’d read it. I couldn’t put it down. I really liked the story of Marinka, who doesn’t want to follow in her grandmother’s footsteps and be a Yaga. His grandmother is the legendary Baba Yaga, who lives in a house that walks on chicken legs with a fence made of human bones, and her task is to escort the dead to the afterlife. This setting is strong enough for a start, but the story will only get even better. Exciting and touching book. Of the writer’s three books, this is my favorite to this day, but the other two are also incredibly good. This is not a…
Starfell – The adventures of Willow Moss
Dominique Valente: Starfell – Willow Moss and the Lost Day Dominique Valente: Starfell – Willow Moss and the Forgotten Tale Dominique Valente: Starfell – Willow Moss and the Vanished Kingdom HarperCollins Publishers I’ve said about several books already that they are my favorite, but I can only say the same about this one as well. The story is a perfect fairy tale: with dragons, wonders, wizards and witches. The author herself admits she suffers from a Benjamin Button type disease, meaning she grows younger the older she gets. She was working as a journalist until her early thirties, but now she spends more of her time dreaming of magic. Her middle grade book series is for those who felt that they just didn’t fit in. The main protagonist of the story is Willow, who is the least powerful sorcerer of her family. Her ability is finding lost things: socks, keys, or even dentures… Useful ability, but we must admit, not particularly exciting. But one day, though, Starfell’s most powerful witch visited Willow to ask for her help in finding something, a lost day, Tuesday. The book reminded me of Tolkien’s tales (Farmer Giles of Ham, The Smith…
The white fox
Chen Jiatong: White Fox (Chicken House Ltd. 2019) Chen Jiatong is currently one of the most popular Chinese authors. The idea came to him by looking out the window one night as a child, seeing a figure who looked like a man, but his face resembled that of an arctic fox. It would have scared me to death, but he then invented the figure of the god of arctic foxes, from which this story later evolved. We can follow the adventures of Dilah, whose only desire is to become human. Along the way, he also encounters other animals who are helping or just want to prevent him from achieving his goal. It was overly exciting to read a work by a Chinese author as I have not yet encountered a Chinese middle grade novel. In China, the series has six volume. The story was translated to English by Jennifer Feeley.…
London 1899-2120
David Walliams: The Ice Monster (HarperCollins Publishers 2018) Davis Walliams: The Beast of Buckingham Palace (HarperCollins Publishers 2019) David Walliams is one of the most famous authors of contemporary children’s books nowadays, and I’ve already read Gangsta Granny in Hungarian. It was a very nice story, though a little sad. It is characteristic to the author that although his theme is general, the story itself is “very English”. London appears almost as a live character. In these two books, we can look at the past and future of the city. The Ice Monster is set in 1899 and we can follow the hair-raising adventures of Elisa, the homeless orphan. Although the story is fictional, many of the things described about the mammoths as well as Victorian London have a basis that we can read about at the end of the book. In the other book (The Beast of Buckingham Palace),…
Books that make you wants to read more books
Anna James: Pages & Co. – Tilly and the Bookwanderers (HarperCollins Publishers 2018) Nick Hornby: Ten Years in the Tub (Believer Books McSweeneys 2014) I only finished Anna James’ (writer-journalist) book a day ago. What I liked best was not the story, but its atmosphere. It was a book I didn’t want to read quickly to last as long as possible. And from the bookstore and the descriptions of the books, I became even more interested in reading: the sequel and other books as well. Three volumes of the series have already been published in English. This book reminded me of Nick Hornby’s Teen Years in the Tub, which consists of articles published in Believer magazine. The first part (The Complete Polysyllabic Spree) was published in Hungarian, and the entire collection containing all articles was published in English in 2014. I read The Complete Polysyllabic Spree back in 2019 in…