This one’s a little bit nostalgic for me. The Magic Pudding turned 100 this year! For those of you who are not familiar, The Magic Pudding, both written and illustrated by Norman Lindsay, is probably neck and neck with May Gibbs’ Tales of Snugglepot and Cuddlepie as the most famous example of classic Australian children’s literature. I think you would be unlikely to find a primary school library that doesn’t carry a copy. The story starts with Bunyip Bluegum, a young koala who’s off to […]
Down the Yellow-Brick Road
“Folklore, legends, myths and fairy tales have followed childhood through the ages, for every healthy youngster has a wholesome and instinctive love for stores fantastic, marvelous and manifestly unreal. The winged fairies of Grimm and Andersen have brought more happiness to childish hearts than all other human creations.” – L. Frank Baum
Wolves at the Door
There are actually 12 books in the Wolves Chronicles, but when I was a kid I only read six of them, and these were the six that I recently reread and am reviewing: The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, Black Hearts in Battersea, Nightbirds on Nantucket, The Stolen Lake, The Cuckoo Tree, and Dido and Pa. The series takes place in alternate timeline in 1800s England (in this timeline, James II was never deposed in the Glorious Revolution, and so throughout the books his descendants sit […]
A Palate Cleanser
I read Charlotte’s Web a few weeks ago, just for fun. I wasn’t going to review it, but this week I felt like writing a review of something. . . just nice. Charlotte’s Web is just about the nicest book in the world. If you’ve never read it, it’s the story of a pig, Wilbur, the runt of the litter. He’s saved by the farmer’s daughter, Fern, and eventually goes to live on the farm of her uncle, Homer Zuckerman. There, he meets the spider […]