Children’s books
Ideas for Christmas from EMILY BEARN
The recent death of the 77-year-old Northern Irish author Sam Mcbratney has robbed children’s fiction of one of its best-loved voices. A former teacher, Mcbratney wrote more than 50 books, but will always be remembered for Guess How Much I Love You (Walker, 32pp, £6.99), the story of Little Nutbrown Hare and Big Nutbrown Hare, and their efforts to measure their immeasurable love for each other. (‘I love you right up to the moon – and back.’ / ‘I love you as high as I can hop.’) This is a story no child should be without – and there is now a board book version, aimed at readers as young as two.
Even if Christmas lunch is cancelled by Covid, there will be plenty of festive picture books to feast on. 12 Days of Christmas (Frances Lincoln, 32pp, £10.99) is the Bristol artist Lara Hawthorne’s beautifully illustrated version of The Twelve Days of Christmas; and follows her equally enchanting Silent Night (Frances Lincoln, 32pp, £10.99). A Dancer’s Dream (Simon & Schuster, 64pp, £14.99) by Katherine Woodfine tells the story of a young ballet student in 19th-century St Petersburg, who is chosen to play the lead in The Nutcracker. With sumptuous illustrations by Lizzy Stewart, this is a Christmas book that will endure long into the New Year. Snow Ghost (Bloomsbury, 32pp, £12.99) by the Cambridge poet Tony Mitton, with illustrations by Diana Mayo, uses a lyrical rhyming text to tell the story of a ghost flying through the snow-filled skies, searching for a place to call home. In The After Christmas Tree (Scallywag Press, 32pp, £12.99), Bethan Welby imagines the heart-rending plight of a small fir tree, stripped of its decorations and discarded on a freezing pavement in January. And Snow Woman (Andersen, 32pp, £6.99), by the ever popular octogenarian David Mckee, tells the story of two children with differing views as to the gender of their ‘snowperson’. With its teasing play on gender stereotype, this thoroughly modern tale was in fact first published in hardback more than 30 years ago.
The theme of gender continues to dominate all areas of children’s publishing, seen not least in the relish for rewriting fairytales. Among the recent rush of titles intended to tear up the rules are Fearless Fairy Tales by James Kay and Blue Peter’s Konnie Huq (Piccadilly Press, 176pp, £14.99), whose heroines include Sleeping Brainy, who wants to be Chancellor of the Exchequer; and Gender Swapped Fairy Tales by Karrie Fransman & Jonathan Plackett (Faber, 208pp, £20), which includes stories such as ‘Handsome and The Beast’ and ‘Jacqueline and the Beanstalk’. For those of a more nostalgic mindset, A Natural History of Fairies by Emily Hawkins (Frances Lincoln, 64pp, £20) reveals the secret world of fairies through the notebooks of a 1920s botanist, writing for her young niece. The result is a triumph of anatomical detail, in which we learn everything from how reed fairies achieve their camouflage, to which species of water fairy has webbed feet.
The Ghost of Gosswater (Chicken House, 320pp, £6.99) is another glutinous gothic thriller by the prolific Lucy Strange. This time, her heroine is 12-year-old Lady Agatha Asquith, who is cast out of her ancestral home by her wicked Cousin Clarence, and finds herself embarking on an eerie quest to unlock the secrets of her past. Fantasy lovers will find plenty of scenic thrills in The Castle of Tangled Magic (Usborne, 416pp, £7.99) by Sophie Anderson, the much acclaimed author of The Girl Who Speaks Bear. Her latest novel tells the story of a young girl who stumbles into adventure in a magical kingdom ruled by a scheming wizard. And don’t miss The Wolf Road (Everything with Words, 352pp, £8.99), a stunning debut novel by the Norfolk poet Richard Lambert. Aimed at slightly older readers, the plot evolves around a 15-year-old boy who survives a car accident that kills his parents, and is haunted by the wolf that caused the crash. Less lyrical, but equally engrossing, is Love Frankie (Doubleday, 432pp, £12.99), the 111th book by the golden oldie Jacqueline Wilson, which tells the story of a love affair between two schoolgirls. Wilson, who lives with a woman, explains that she has not previously focused a plot around a gay character because she tells stories about children with problems, and does not see ‘any problem whatsoever with being gay’.
Finally, it would not be Christmas without a gift edition of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. ‘What is the use of a book,’ thought Alice, ‘without pictures or conversation?’ – but these days the pictures are likely to be very different from those of Lewis Carroll’s original illustrator John Tenniel. In Macmillan’s sumptuous new edition (320pp, £25), Wonderland is re-imagined by the illustrator Chris Riddell, who depicts the heroine as a short-haired brunette, similar to Carroll’s real-life inspiration, Alice Liddell.