Tuesday, 23 April 2013

Fiction - Age 8 up

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UK Writers and Irish Illustrator
Mal Peet and Elspeth Graham, illustrated by P J Lynch
Mysterious Traveller
Walker Books 2013         $32.99hb           48 pages
ISBN 978 1 4063 3707 5
Book Two of a planned trilogy
Themes: Blindness/ Camels/ Deserts/ Princesses

This satisfying story tells of a desert guide who finds an abandoned baby in the sands of the desert, takes her home and cares for her. Then, as she grows and as he begins to lose his sight, the roles are reversed. Which desert? Where are they? What year is it? None of this matters for this is a powerful story, immaculately written, that takes the reader into a world of the imagination and is peopled with characters about whom we come to care. The illustrations by P J Lynch, who has twice won the Kate Greenaway Medal from the British Library Association, are in subtle desert-like colours of browns and muted blues and reds. How I would love to have a class to share this with as I read it aloud.    


Year 4 up/ Age 8 up (but it could be read to much younger children).

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