Chris Riddell Hans Christian Andersen Awards 2016 UK Illustrator Nomination ELL D D RI O O : J T O H P 1 Chris Riddell Biography Chris Riddell A Critical Appreciation Chris Riddell was born in South Africa. His father Richard Platt. This book and the earlier Castle Diary Chris Riddell is highly regarded in the UK and well as young readers’ chapter books, he addresses was an Anglican clergyman and his parents were involved him in detailed historical research, which internationally as a visual commentator and an audience that is often neglected: readers active in the anti-apartheid movement. His family he deployed in typically boisterous, characterful narrator; an artist and illustrator in command of who are still young enough to enjoy illustrations returned to Britain when Chris was a year old and and humorous style. Perhaps his most demanding a range of forms and genres varying from political supporting a narrative, but also old enough to he spent his childhood moving from parish to illustration project to date followed in 2004 with satire and cartoon to picture books, graphic novels engage with more sophisticated subject matter. parish. His interest in drawing began then and was his illustrations to Martin Jenkins’ adaptation of and cross-over forms. His broad understanding of Chris Riddell’s biggest virtue, however, is not that encouraged at secondary school. He remembers, Gulliver’s Travels, a classic whose combination visual communication, coupled with his classical he satisfies the expectations of theoretical analysis, “I had a wonderfully idiosyncratic art teacher, Jack of satire and fantasy played to his strengths as drawing ability and extended frame of reference, but that he can do so whilst communicating with Johnson, a painter who’d also been a newspaper an illustrator and earned him the second Kate has earned him the respect of broad and diverse and convincingly addressing his audience. In cartoonist.” Chris studied illustration at Brighton Greenaway. audiences. Goth Girl & the Ghost of a Mouse, for example, Polytechnic, taught by two well-known illustrators His visual language borrows from the legacies his characters are idiosyncratic and eccentric, Although much of Chris’s work is necessarily in of children’s books, John Vernon Lord and Raymond of celebrated British draughts-persons and appealing to young readers in post-modernist colour, his passion is black and white line drawing. Briggs. “That was a wonderful time, there was story-tellers like Arthur Rackham and William society. And his references to 18th century design Dismayed at the lack of illustration in novels for printmaking – etching, lithography and lots of Heath Robinson and from the precision of and to Mervyn Peake, among other visual clues, older children when he began his career, he has drawing – there was a real sense of the primacy of classical engravings. This can be expressed in a aid in creating an exciting and entertaining setting done more perhaps than anyone else to revive drawing – everything was allied to the importance contemporary gothic mood, capitalizing on the dark for his story. The fact that he has been awarded that tradition, largely through his collaboration of basic draughtsmanship.” When Chris graduated and macabre undertones of some of the narratives the Nestlé Smarties award (judged by children) with the author Paul Stewart. Following a chance from Brighton in 1984, Raymond Briggs introduced he works with, or in the more playful and witty several times, confirms his popularity amongst meeting in 1995, they have collaborated on a him to a publisher and Chris’s first children’s book caricature that accompanies his more humorous young readers over an extended age range. The number of fantasy series, most notably The Edge was published in 1985. texts. His illustrations are peppered with visual Edge Chronicles (and to a certain extent also The Chronicles. This perfectly realised and multi-faceted puns, subtext, wit and clever references to early Pirate Diary) with its versatile visual language From the first, Chris wrote and illustrated his own imaginative world began with a map drawn by Chris visual design and narrative traditions. straddling the genres of steam punk, science fiction books and illustrated the work of other authors. and is peopled by characters and places that often and fantasy, further demonstrate his understanding He says, “‘I became an illustrator because I love begin with his sketches and accompanying notes. Chris steers away from the often sanitized and of his audience and of the trends and notions of words. As a child I loved words and I loved the In recent years he has also provided illustrations for sentimental contemporary retellings of Grimm contemporary youth culture. idea of making drawings to accompany them.” award winning books by Neil Gaiman; and written and other fairy tales. His characters are nuanced His facility for storytelling and illustration quickly and illustrated two award winning series of books and layered, not depending on the portrayal of Yet, Chris Riddell’s illustrations transcend the established him as one of the most prolific, for younger children featuring girl protagonists, ‘beauty’ to convince his audience of their virtues. ephemeral nature of trends and styles. His reliable and imaginative of children’s book Ottoline and Goth Girl respectively. The Sleeper and the Spindle is a good example. In Gulliver’s Travels demonstrates an ability to creators, producing work of consistently high this fairy tale he cleverly balances the grotesque capture one of the best-known tales with respect quality, whether complete picture books, cover Chris’s parallel career as a political cartoonist with the romantic – subverting the conventional and understanding of its origins and satirical illustration or illustrations in novels for older started soon after his children’s book illustration. pictorial codes and his readers’ expectations by nature. At the same time, he adds his own subtext children. The first critical recognition of his work In 1988 he began illustrating articles for The merging two fairy tales and resolving the narrative and colourful depiction to Martin Jenkin’s retelling came in 1995, when his illustrations for Kathryn Economist and, after working for various in the women’s shared kiss. His off-key portrayal – thereby capturing the imagination and attention Cave’s picture book Something Else (1994) were newspapers, in 1995 he became the political affirms the post-modernist features of the text. of a contemporary readership of all ages. commended by the judges of the CILIP Kate cartoonist for The Observer, a position he continues His playful and, at times, irreverent narrative style Riddell extends his oeuvre beyond the Greenaway Award. The book was subsequently to hold. He says, “There is a clear link between my is probably best shown by the Ottoline books entertainment of young readers by using his talents awarded the first international UNESCO Prize for work for newspapers and my work on children’s that he both writes and illustrates. By sharing to address important and sometimes contentious Children’s and Young People’s Literature in the books. I don’t pick up one artistic hat and drop the some information only through written text and issues. For Something Else, Riddell and the author, Service of Tolerance in 1997. Further accolades other. One style feeds the other and they inform other information only through the illustration, Kathryn Cave, were awarded the first UNESCO followed. In 2001 Chris won the first of two Kate each other. It’s not unusual. It stems from a long he emphasizes (and challenges) the nature of the Prize for Children’s and Young People’s Literature Greenaway Awards with Pirate Diary, written by tradition of artists doing a wide variety of work.” picture book. By creating a cross-over form that in the Service of Tolerance in 1997. The endearing borrows from picture books and graphic novels as characters he created for Cave’s text communicate 2 3 themes of ‘otherness’ and of tolerance to a young indication of the broad frame of reference and Chris Riddell Interview : It’s about the texture of lines on the page audience without ever becoming didactic or theoretical interests that underpin the charming pedantic. His characters are evidently fantastic yet illustrations and narrative. they are also believable with soul and human and Whether in Hugo Pepper’s black and white line animal attributes, sharing the fears and joys of Extract from an interview with by Susanna utility belt and bowler hat from A Clockwork Orange.” drawings, in vignettes or block illustrations, or creatures of flesh and blood. Rustin in The Guardian 19 December 2014 through Gulliver’s confident full-colour spreads, So does he share Brand’s anti-establishment views? In Angus Rides the Goods Train, by Alan Durant, Chris Riddell manages to delight and provoke his http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/ “The notion that you should disengage is wrong,” he Chris Riddell again deals with serious subject young readership. His work is essentially hybrid. He dec/19/chris-riddell-illustrator-neil-gaiman-jk- says. “You should challenge and protest; but to be fair matter, telling a story about hunger, charity and is a ‘cross-over’ illustrator: moving between picture rowling-russell-brand-books-interview to Russell, he does. I think the message of the books sharing in an easily understood and entertaining books, illustrated children’s novels and even graphic is at the core of what he has been doing on and off: manner that communicates with children without Chris Riddell opens a sketchbook and flicks to a novels; between genres ranging from adventure questioning power. That’s not a bad message.” becoming burdened by heavy moralism or trivial drawing he wants to show me, in which a rather to science fiction and social awareness; between caricature. ordinary-looking middle-aged man is wrapped in the Fantastic creatures and monsters of all sorts are a classical rendering and contemporary post-modern long arms of a skinnier, taller, hairier one. The first staple of Riddell’s work, along with the crazy contrap- The Emperor of Absurdia demonstrates Chris visual communication; between age groups and figure is a self-portrait; the second is of Russell Brand. tions that are another classic element of the children’s Riddell’s undisputed ability to tell a story that can between different social strata. Within not only the “This is what he does to me now, because he knows fantasy tradition (Riddell jokes that “anyone can look grasp the imagination of younger children with an Anglophone, but also the international picture book I’m very inhibited: he gives me this big man hugs and through my sketchbooks as long as they don’t have a endearing fantasy. The illustrations are colourful fraternity, Chris Riddell is to be celebrated as a great bearded kisses. It’s very embarrassing,” says Riddell, background in psychiatric medicine”). John Tenniel’s and imaginative and the narrative is told through story-teller and a man for all seasons. the award-winning writer and illustrator of more than illustrations for Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland are a combination of picture book and graphic novel Piet Grobler 100 children’s books, and for nearly 20 years The an all-time favourite. So is William Heath Robinson, a narrative techniques. On a secondary layer, the International Centre for the Picture Book in Society Observer’s political cartoonist. copy of whose The Adventures of Uncle Lubin Riddell informed reader may also make associations with showed to Brand. Tony Hart was another inspiration, the works of Dr Seuss and Maurice Sendak: an University of Worcester, UK Riddell met Brand for the first time earlier this year, along with Arnold Lobel and Quentin Blake. in a private members’ club in London – “slightly glitzy, not my preferred milieu”, he tells me in the sitting Riddell draws in pencil, inks over the lines with a room of the house in Brighton he shares with his brush, and adds colour, often blue and yellow, last: “I’m not a painter by any stretch of the imagination; wife, illustrator Jo Burroughes. But first impressions I’m a dyed-in-the-wool traditional illustrator, and I were good, and last month Brand and Riddell officially begin with black and white. If I need colour, I add it became an item – as author and illustrator of Brand’s over the top. There’s a calligraphic element to it … first children’s book, a colourful retelling of The Pied it’s about the texture of lines on the page.” Like many Piper of Hamelin. Last month they took to the stage fantasy images, Riddell’s are very detailed, and he is at the Albert Hall: Brand read his story – the thrust a prolific and humorous user of words: labels, literary of which is that Hamelin is a vile town, whose people quotations, puns, funny names, footnotes, headings in deserve to have their children stolen – and wandered neat, spidery writing on scrolls adorned with curli- around charming the audience; Riddell made sketches cues. He loves stationery, writes everything by hand that were projected on to the wall. in beautiful hardback sketchbooks, and can spend Some reviewers thought Riddell’s drawings were the hours inking in – “I love it, it’s like meditation” – while best thing about the book, and were scathing about listening to Radio 3. But he can work fast when he the text, but Riddell says Brand inspired him. “It was needs to: “I’m a cartoonist through and through. My almost impossible not to have him in mind when default mode is: there is a deadline, it needs to go in drawing the piper,” he says, “and yet I didn’t want to the paper, let’s get it done. With books it’s useful to be too obvious about it. He eased me away from a tra- have that higher gear to switch to.” The hectic sched- ditional approach into something less expected: ‘Let’s ule for The Pied Piper persuaded him to try a pastel not have a little German town with gabled houses, pencil; occasionally he uses an art pen for very fine let’s not have a pied piper with a feathered hat and lines, “though I don’t like using them, because they’ve long sleeves.’ He was very specific about how he saw got a mechanical-looking line; the lovely thing about a the piper, and described the costume down to the paintbrush is its fluidity, it gives a lyrical quality”. 4 5 Our thanks to Ruth Prickett for permission to reprint her article which first appeared in Illustration Magazine Autumn 2004 and can be accessed online at http://www.illustration-mag.com/ uploads/riddel%20final.pdf Riddell wrote his first children’s story, Mr Underbed, Gaiman’s bestseller The Graveyard Book. In October because a grandee of children’s publishing, Klaus 2014, the two brought out The Sleeper and The Flugge of Andersen Press, asked him to. Last year he Spindle. A modern fairy-tale that blends elements won the Costa children’s book award for Goth Girl and from Sleeping Beauty and Snow White, it is drawn by the Ghost of a Mouse, a gothic parody created with Riddell in black and white with flashes of gold, and daughter Katie in mind, which he chooses when asked contains one of his most striking images to date, a to name his favourite of his own books. But in general, double-page spread in which an enchanted sleeper is he admits with appealing frankness: “the writing pro- woken by a kiss not from a prince but from a queen. cess isn’t something I’m in love with. I’m an illustrator Early in his career Riddell illustrated editions of Peter who writes.” Pan and Treasure Island. Next year he will tackle The More than 20 years ago, he met the writer Paul Emperor’s New Clothes, the second of Russell Brand’s Stewart when picking up his son from nursery. Trickster Tales, in which readers will presumably be in- Together, they developed the hugely popular Edge vited to feel an unfamiliar degree of sympathy with the Chronicles fantasy series, and today Stewart lives four dishonest tailors. After that, perhaps, Rumpelstiltskin. doors down. The idea for their flat-earth world was “I love the notion that you have a canon, you have Riddell’s, and began with a map, dismissed as unwork- fairy-tales that have been done hundreds of times and able by a publisher. But he and Stewart began to have you are given permission to do your version,” he says. “huge fun”, meeting to discuss it in a local pub. By the “It’s an accretion. You build on the past.” time they had finished the first instalment of what These days he doesn’t have to pitch ideas; instead, would become a 14-part series (with books 13 and publishers take him out to lunch and ask what he’s 14 still to come), Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s been thinking about. His position, he says, is “huge- Stone was a bestseller, and publishers had changed ly privileged”, including his weekly deadline for The their tune. “JK Rowling is the patron saint,” he says. “I Observer: “it’s the paper my father read”. call it the happy time. JK, for understandable reasons, thought she needed some time off, and there was this The night before our interview, he was on a train back wonderful interregnum when the rest of us saw our to Brighton after a day touring bookshops when his book sales just take off. It was brilliant. I won’t have a phone rang. It was Gaiman, calling to read aloud a word said against her. There’s a generation of us who story he was working on. Riddell had one of those came in on that breaking wave.” moments of not quite believing his luck. “He asked if I was interested in the story, and I said, ‘Am I?!’” But But by the time Riddell won his first big prize, a Kate he still has the freelancer’s fear of work drying up, and Greenaway medal for Pirate Diary in 2001, he was had to take the manuscript of Goth Girl into a local anxious: “I was getting that feeling – ‘What’s wrong school to reassure himself it wouldn’t flop. “I call my with me? I showed such promise’ – so that was a huge style the high facetious,” he says. “Facetious is OK, but relief. You only need to win it once and then you’re all I don’t want to look a fool.” right … you’re validated.” Successes have multiplied: another Kate Greenaway medal for illustrating a new There is time for a self-deprecating parting shot on version of Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels; prizes the doorstep – “I look forward to your Lynn Barber- for Fergus Crane (another collaboration with Stewart) esque dismantling of this pompous man” – then he and Ottoline and the Yellow Cat (a crime caper writ- heads back inside to finish a cartoon, with a caption ten by Riddell, involving a gang of poker-playing dogs), from George Orwell (“Alas! Wigan pier had been de- as well as Goth Girl. In 2010 he was again shortlisted molished …”), in which a tail-coated chancellor George for the Greenaway medal for his illustrations in Neil Osborne blows up the welfare state. 6 7 8 9 Chris Riddell Awards 2015 G oth Girl and the Fete Worse than Death 2005 Corby Flood Blue Peter Book Awards Best Story shortlist Nestlé Smarties Prize (winner to be announced). Specsavers Age 6-8 category bronze runner-up National Book Award 2014 shortlist 2004 Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver 2014 Goth Girl and the Ghost of a Mouse CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal winner CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal shortlist (winner to be announced) 2004 Fergus Crane Nestlé Smarties Prize 2013 Goth Girl and the Ghost of a Mouse Age 6-8 category winner Costa Book Awards children’s category winner 2004 Fergus Crane Nestlé Smarties Prize 2010 The Graveyard Book ‘Children’s Special Award’ CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal shortlist 2003 Pirate Diary 2009 The Graveyard Book Blue Peter Book Award Booktrust Teenage Prize winner Best Book with Facts category winner 2008 Ottoline and the Yellow Cat 2002 Pirate Diary CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal shortlist Nestlé Smarties Prize Red House Children’s Book Award winner Age 6-8 category silver runner-up 2008 Wendel’s Workshop 2001 Pirate Diary Booktrust Early Years Awards shortlist CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal winner 2007 Ottoline and the Yellow Cat 1999 Castle Diary Nestlé Smarties Prize CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal Age 6-8 category winner highly commended 2007 The Emperor of Absurdia 1997 Something Else CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal shortlist UNESCO Prize for Children and Young People’s Literature in the Service of 2006 The Emperor of Absurdia Tolerance winner Nestlé Smarties Prize 1997 Swan’s Stories Age 0-5 category silver runner-up Kurt Maschler Award shortlist 2006 Hugo Pepper 1994 Something Else Nestlé Smarties Prize Age 6-8 silver category runner-up Kate CILIP Greenaway Medal commended 10 11 Books for consideration by the Jury : First five Books for consideration by the Jury : Another five The Sleeper & the Spindle (written by Neil Gaiman) Bloomsbury 2014 Hugo Pepper (with Paul Stewart) Yearling 2006 Goth Girl & the Ghost of a Mouse Macmillan 2013 The Emperor of Absurdia Macmillan 2006 The Edge Chronicles 10, The Immortals: The Book of Nate Pirate Diary (written by Richard Platt) Walker Books 2001 (with Paul Stewart) Corgi 2009 Angus Rides the Goods Train (written by Alan Durant) Corgi 1996 Ottoline and the Yellow Cat Macmillan 2007 Something Else (written by Kathryn Cave) Hodder 1994 Gulliver’s Travels (written by Jonathan Swift and adapted by Martin Jenkins) Walker Books 2004 12 13 Awards Shortlisted for the CILIP Kate Greenaway Award 2015 Costa Book Awards children’s category winner 2013 The Sleeper and The cover of Goth Girl glows with purple and silver, the Lavishly jacketed with a blinged-out silver skull pattern the Spindle endpapers are splattered with skulls, and Ada Goth has and shades of deep purple and black, Goth Girl appeals a touch of Siouxsie Sioux. But her story is actually more to the contemporary Goth look, whilst romping with Chris Riddell’s comments on his Northanger Abbey than Bauhaus: it is a wonderfully witty abandon through the stock figures of Gothic Romance illustrations for The Sleeper and parody of a gothic novel, packed with silly puns, even and horror writing from the 18th and 19th centuries. the Spindle in Books for Keeps sillier literary references and, of course, Riddell’s draw- Readers in search of terse, neat plotting will be disap- 209 November 2014 ings. The actual plot is skimpy, but that doesn’t matter; pointed: Ada Goth’s mission to save her friends and the point of this lovely book is its oddball characters, witty reconnect with her father has as many bizarre twists http://booksforkeeps.co.uk/is- details and literary references, which range from Tristram and turns as the ‘metaphorical bicycle race’ and ‘indoor sue/209/childrens-books/articles/ Shandy to Fight Club. There is a poetry-eating faun, a hunt’ that are the social highlights of the year at her windows-into-illustration/win- collection of curious governesses and regular footnotes home, Ghastly-Gorm Hall. The fun of the story lies in its dows-into-illustration-chris-riddel written by a foot separated from its owner at the battle of exuberant madness, and its irreverent pokes at canoni- See also: http://www.theguard- Baden-Baden-Württemberg-Baden. And as an extra titbit, cal literary figures (for example Mary Shellfish, Tristram the back cover holds the mouse’s memoirs, a rodent ver- Shandygentleman, the Byronically thrusting and melan- ian.com/childrens-books-site/ sion of Gulliver’s Travels. But it is Riddell’s artwork that choly Lord Goth). Riddell’s black-and-white illustrations gallery/2014/nov/09/chris-riddell- really makes this book such a pleasure to hold and read. are dense with detail and visual play, with news clippings the-sleeper-and-the-spindle-gal- The text is peppered with all kinds of lovely illustrations, and footnotes (delivered by a severed foot with a quill lery-neil-gaiman from sketches of the characters to a magnificent dou- between its toes) interspersed through the story. A ble-page spread of an elegant vampire duelling sabre-rat- full-colour miniature book, attached to the inside back tling pirates. There are loving nods to 18th-century pam- cover, adds another dimension: the titular ghost mouse’s phlets and magazines, the wallpaper and statuary that ‘Memoirs of a Mouse by Ishmael Whiskers’, a tongue-in- you’ll find tucked away in odd corners of stately homes, cheek recap of Gulliver’s Travels. Unashamedly messy, and, of course, Peake and Heath Robinson. Goth Girl may quite mad and very witty, Goth Girl is highly recommend- be marketed at tween girls, but will undoubtedly find a ed for readers with a taste for anarchy and word play. very happy readership among adults; I can’t imagine a Nora Maguire in Inis: The Children’s Books Ireland better book to dispel the January blues. Magazine published online December 2014 Extract from a review by Josh Lacey in The Guardian http://www.inismagazine.ie/reviews/book/ 4 January 2014 goth-girl-and-the-ghost-of-a-mouse http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jan/04/ goth-girl-ghost-mouse-riddell-review 14 15 Awards Nestlé Children’s Book Prize Gold Award 2007 and the Red House Children’s Book Award for Younger Readers 2008 Shortlisted for the CILIP Kate Greenaway Medal and nominated for the CILIP Carnegie Medal 2008 The Edge Chronicles 10, The Readers who are new to the series may take a while Ottoline and the Yellow Cat to become fully immersed in the story; there are Immortals: The Book of Nate many names and locations to become familiar with. Don’t let the page count fool you. This “novel” is This beautifully produced hardcover tells of a little Stewart and Riddell cap their Edge Chronicles with However, in short order, the sparkling narrative probably more pictures than text. It’s not, however, girl living in a fancy apartment while her parents a large-scale grand tour and cast reunion. Several and beautiful illustrations charm and beguile the a graphic novel in the sense of a sequential telling; (Professor Brown and Professor Brown) travel generations after the events in Freeglader (2004), reader. This is not your usual fantasy fare, this book nor does it follow the model Brian Selznick used abroad making purchases for their many collec- young orphan Nate Quarter is forced to flee for comes at the genre from a refreshing new angle; so effectively in The Invention of Hugo Cabret tions. Her only companion is Mr Munroe: a creature his life from a murderous mine supervisor—which trolls, hobgoblins and cloddertrogs are the order (2007), where art replaced text to further the story. with hairy hands and feet, and long hair allowing becomes more or less a theme as, acquiring such of the day; no humans, elves or dwarves are to be The pictures here simply add texture to the words just two big eyes to show, former resident of a bog doughty companions as the mine owner’s intrepid found anywhere! The creatures that normally get they accompany—but what a delight they are. in Norway. There is a slight plot about cracking a daughter Eudoxia and Librarian Knight Zelphyius a bad press in fantasy books (bestial, unintelligent Award-winning British cartoonist Riddell (the Edge jewel-heist ring comprising a cat, a cockatoo and Dax along the way, he comes and goes from Great and often loathsome villains) become characters of Chronicles, with Paul Stewart) illustrates in pen and several lapdogs, but it is really the relationship Glade and several other cities or settlements that great virtue and substance; cultured, highly intelli- ink, enhanced by crosshatching and a smattering between Ottoline and her loyal and hirsute side- have grown up in the vast Deep Woods that border gent and moralistic with a keen sense of goodness of bright red, to concoct a cast of quirky characters kick/nanny/ co-detective that forms the book’s the overhanging Edge of the world. The long jour- and community. Characterisation is the one of this and amazingly detailed backdrops on which they core. Ottoline is eccentric and wise without being ney takes him through multiple battles, chases, res- book’s many strengths as Nate Quarter meets and interact. The story, a lightweight mystery at best, uncomfortably grown-up. Aspiring to be a collector cues and political upheavals to mystical encounters befriends the most weird and wonderful bunch begins by introducing calm, curious, detailed-ob- like her parents, she has begun with an Odd Shoe with figures from the past in the ever-dark Night of friends imaginable. The Professor is, like Nate, sessed young Ottoline, who, along with sidekick Collection. And indeed, throughout the entire book Woods and then on to a climax in the restored a fourthling and despite his career as an itiner- Mr. Monroe (think Gomez Addams’ hairy Cousin Itt) her shoes never match. The fine, black-and-white airborne city of Sanctaphrax. A huge cast teeming ant skytavern gambler, honourable. Weelum is a investigates the disappearance of several pam- ink line drawings are utterly beguiling. As a child with multiple races of uneasily coexistent goblins, steadfast and loyal banderbear, Squall Razertooth pered pooches, only to discover the dognapper I always adored pictures that were full of tiny trolls and more, plus Dementor-ish gloamglozers an old sky pirate while Slip, who becomes Nate’s isn’t exactly after canine company. In an details, so that you could hunt out more each and other deadly predators are all depicted in lov- best friend, is a grey goblin. Finally, there is Eudoxia oversize trench coat, Mr. Monroe makes a bizarre time you went back to the book. The pictures do ingly minute (and occasionally gruesome) detail in Prade, the mine owner’s daughter who could out- gumshoe, with fellow cast members, canines in- a charming, subtle job of telling you much more Riddell’s many pen-and-ink portraits and add plenty ride, outshoot, and outthink any one of them. cluded, just as wacky. about the characters. of color to this vigorous send-off. Extract from a review by Floresiensis in Fantasy Review by Stephanie Zvirin in Booklist Extract from a review by Anna Kamaralli in Inis: the Kirkus Reviews July 10 2010 Book Review May 15 2008 Irish Children’s Books Magazine No 22 Winter 2007 https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/ http://www.fantasybookreview.co.uk/Paul-Stewart- http://www.inismagazine.ie/reviews/book/ paul-stewart/immortals/ and-Chris-Riddell/The-Immortals.html ottoline-and-the-yellow-catGulliver 16 17 Awards Awards CILIP Kate Greenaway Award 2004 Nestlé Children’s Book Prize Silver Award 2006 Gulliver’s Travels Hugo Pepper Chris Riddell’s illustrations bring to life the people, Academy becomes a satire on the aspirations of New Hugo Pepper is an orphan adopted by reindeer are connected. In a sense, the reader becomes a creatures and kingdoms of Swift’s searing imagination Labour complete with a wonderful caricature of former herders and raised as their own in the Frozen ‘Story Collector’ like the core character Wilfred in this retelling of Gulliver’s four voyages to Lilliput, Prime Minister Tony Blair being prodded and poked North. When he is 12, he discovers the wreck of a McPherson. I love the ‘common sense’ magic of Brobdingnag, Laputa and finally to the land of the by academics to remind him of the political promises he snow sleigh in the shed and his adoptive parents the book (of course mermaids can walk!) and you Houyhnhnms, where horses rule over humans. It’s a has made. tell him the terrible truth. As a baby, Hugo and his have this same sense of the characters. They have beautifully designed book. The illustrations are comic parents crashed in the snow sleigh and his par- a practicality about them which makes the magical Extract from the entry in Ian Dodds and Sue Roe, Image and often surreal. There are huge double page spreads and Imagination: 50 years of the Kate Greenaway ents were eaten by polar bears. Wanting to find elements seem more realistic. And the intricate of intense colour, supplemented by smaller black and Medal, CILIP Youth Libraries Group, 2007 out more, Hugo repairs the damaged snow sleigh, details of Chris Riddell’s pen and ink illustrations are white line drawings. They are executed with attention to sets the compass for ‘Home’ and heads off to find beautiful. You finish this book feeling that the story detail and complete control over scale and perspective. There’s much more to Gulliver’s Travels, of course, than out where he came from. Hugo lands with a thud has come full circle; you feel satisfied as a reader Chris Riddell gives each land Gulliver visits its own idiom. simply an adventure story. Swift’s novel was a scathing The tiny Lilliputians are pantomime fools dressed in spot- in Firefly Square and the discovery of his parents’ and what else do you want from a book? political and social satire, a biting critique of political ted knickerbockers, bows, ruffles and mismatched shoes past begins. Hugo Pepper is the latest in the ‘Far events in England and Ireland, as well as English values Ashe Conrad Jones in Inis: the Irish Children’s with oversized moustaches, pointed noses and ridiculous Flung Adventure’ series from the creative team of and human nature itself. In their attractive and acces- Books Magazine No 17 Autumn 2006 hairstyles. An egg motif, symbolic of the two warring fac- Chris Riddell and Paul Stewart and it is a wonderful sible adaptation, Martin Jenkins and illustrator Chris tions in Lilliputian Society, dominates the costumes and Riddell capture the energy and humor of the original addition. The reader is pulled into the story of Hugo http://www.inismagazine.ie/reviews/book/ architecture and adds to the peculiarity of the land and book. Riddell’s Gulliver seems always to be in motion. He Pepper as each chapter reveals to you a new story, hugo-pepper its people. The rather more admirable Brobdignagans are has a fluid, expressive face. And you can almost hear him enticing you to find out how all these characters depicted as oriental giants and this time there are subtle exclaiming as his adventures unfold. Although the book elements of blue and white chinoiserie flowing through is long, there is artwork on every page, making it a per- the illustrations. The effects of scale are nicely realised fect read-aloud (one chapter a night) with lots of luscious with the now tiny Gulliver struggling to drink from an illustrations for children to exclaim over. Readers will also eggcup the size of a bucket and half drowning in a huge enjoy the map detailing Gulliver’s voyages to Lilliput, bowl of cream. The artist’s skills as a political cartoonist Brobdingnag, Laputa and the land of the Houyhnhnms. are evident in the illustrations of Gulliver’s third voyage to the floating island of Laputa and his encounter with Extract from a review by Deborah Hopkinson in Book the Academy, where various mad professors are busy Page March 2005 extracting Sunshine from cucumbers and turning ice http://bookpage.com/reviews/4019-martin-jenkins-jon- into gunpowder. In Chris Riddell’s hands, though, the athan-swifts-gulliver#.VSp78_nF_Tp 18 19