Toby Alone by Timothée de Fombelle begins: ‘Toby was just one and a half millimetres tall, not exactly big for a boy of his age. Only his toes were sticking out of the hole in the bark where he was hiding.’ So we enter a world of a big tree and its Liliputian – actually smaller – inhabitants. It’s a world much like ours except for size, as if you were to transplant a French colony from the 1940s to a giant oak. It has its own politics (all too recognisable), its social pecking-order, its own sense of them and us, the chief division being between Tree People and Grass People. You wouldn’t catch the Borrowers eating grubs and cricket’s legs, but here it’s perfectly natural.
The book won umpteen awards when it was published in France in 2006. This latest edition and its sequel, Toby and the Secrets of the Tree (Walker, £8.99 each), are translated by Sarah Ardizzone in clear, natural prose. François Place’s illustrations are terrifically engaging – including the insects, often bigger than people. It’s a captivating story of persecution and flight, of friendship and betrayal, of resilience under threat and love. Best to start with the first book. I wolfed them both down.
Anthony McGowan is a marvellous storyteller. Birdlands (Rock the Boat, £7.99) is a tale of three birds – a rook with a ruined beak, a once-kingly crow with a broken wing and a pigeon who can barely walk on her stump of a leg – who join forces to make for an unknown destination, the Dump, where their troubles will be at an end. Each is rejected by its kind and finds comradeship with the other outcasts, quite different in nature, disposition and eating habits. It’s anthropomorphic, obviously, but the story respects the nature of the creatures and their predators. And it begins and ends with a boy who loves birds.
A real story of a human being who loves animals is Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton, the extraordinarily moving account of the author’s rescue of an apparently abandoned leveret and the relationship of trust that develops between them and changes at least one of them. It’s tender and gripping. This children’s edition (Canongate, £14.99), illustrated by Denise Nestor with drawings of an adorable baby hare, is a simplified version of the original with a fascinating fact file about hares at the end.
Sara Pennypacker’s The Lions’ Run (Hodder, £14.99) is about Lucas, an orphan boy in occupied France, whom the bullies taunt with the nickname ‘Petit éclair’ for being soft. But he learns resilience and courage when his grocery delivery run takes him to the home where French girls give birth to Nazi babies (a real eugenics programme). More unexpectedly, he encounters an English girl who is intent on making sure that her prize mare is protected from appropriation by the Nazis. Lucas takes responsibility for kittens, a racehorse and a baby and finds danger, friendship, family and purpose. A terrific read.
The publisher Barrington Stokes specialises in dyslexia-friendly books, so there’s uncluttered text, clear type, cream paper, simple sentences and brevity, but not at the expense of good stories. Ben’s Gargoyle by Keith Gray (Barrington Stokes, £7.99) is a compelling account of an unhappy, bullied boy with an abusive father who sees a gargoyle making his way purposefully towards him over the neighbouring rooftops. Is he real? His effects are. Dangerous Influence by Sally Nicholls (Barrington Stokes, £7.99) asks what’s it like to grow up with an influencer and vlogger as a mother whose theme is motherhood and whose material is her two daughters. A nightmare, as you’d expect. But here, cheeringly, the tables are turned.
Mikey Please’s The Café at the End of the Woods (2024) had rapturous reviews for its story of a café catering for oddball creatures (complete with the author’s anarchic illustrations). In Please’s latest book, The Rambler’s Curse (Harper-Collins £14.99), the human chef, Rene, and her one and only waiter, Glumfoot, a teenage moss goblin, encounter not just the usual tricky customers (a dragon called Boretta for starters) but those most problematic creatures, other human beings. The trouble begins with a rambler, who turns out to be a food reviewer in disguise, and ends with Rene’s own difficult past coming to light. Never a dull moment in those woods.
Among the brilliant nature books out there, Nature’s Dance by Nuria Solsona (Prestel, £14.99) stands out not just for its striking appearance – long and narrow – and its fold-out pages for each section, but for the fascinating subject matter: how birds, fish and insects move through land, sea and air. From the choreography of bees to the murmurations of starlings and the great sea spirals of sardines, the book describes what is happening and suggests why. Lots of gritty substance here, along with beautiful design.
The Secret World of Birds’ Nests by Lucy Menzies and Namasni Niumin (Thames & Hudson, £14.99) is, as it says, about birds’ infinitely various homes across the world, from kingfishers’ smelly burrows to the tree crevices hollowed out by hornbills. It concludes with instructions (for birds) on how to build a simple cup nest.
Having a puerile sense of humour, I loved Adventuremice: Mini Mice Mayhem, by the marvellous Philip Reeve with illustrations by Sarah McIntyre (David Fickling, £6.99). It concerns the takeover of the Adventuremice sea rescue base by a class of excited mouselets whose idea of a good time is to unleash mayhem. It’s hilariously subversive.
For tiny tots, Jon Klassen’s The House With Nobody In It (Walker, £8.99) is a house-shaped board book with a simple text which little ’uns will want to correct as it’s read out … for there is someone at home. Genius.
And for absolutely everyone the good news is that Edward Ardizzone’s perfect adventure story, Little Tim and the Brave Sea Captain (NYRB, £16.99), has been reissued with all the marvellous illustrations. Hooray!
Comments