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This Bowl of Earth Jan Mark, O/P


This is inexplicably out of print. It’s a deceptively simple picture book in which the narrator takes you through a year in which she tries to grow various different seeds and cuttings in a bowl of earth parked near her drain. It captures both the wonder and the disappointment of growing things from seed, and is the perfect way to introduce a child to this essential life skill and deep pleasure. A really substantial, enriching book.


The Spanish Letters Mollie Hunter, Kelpies, 978-0863154126, £3.99 pbk


I always loved historical thrillers, and so did my children. We gobbled up Rosemary Sutcliff and Leon Garfield for the way they plunge the reader into that foreign country – the past. I asked them to chose one book from this category for the list and they went for this – Mollie Hunter’s brilliantly plotted spy story set in sixteenth century Edinburgh against the background of a


second potential Armada. The characters are terrific – endearing, complex and valiant. The book is so detailed that reading it becomes an immersive experience.


The Story of The Treasure Seekers


E.Nesbit, Dover Editions, 978-0486815237, £4.99


I would be betraying myself if I didn’t have an Edith Nesbit on the list. I think in the end she is our greatest children’s novelist. She is funnier than almost anyone but she can shatter your heart with a single phrase – for instance ‘Oh! My Daddy, my Daddy!’. The Treasure Seekers is both one of her funniest and her most emotional books. It


tells the story of the Bastable children’s attempts to restore their lost fortunes by for instance, attempting to kidnap a cabinet minister and getting involved in some kind of alcoholic pyramid selling scheme (when the vicar tells them that alcohol is a source of great woe in the land they reply ‘but not if you put sugar in it’). It’s also a great piece of technical virtuosity in that she has this very smart and funny riff about who is really the narrator. Time has made her language difficult to follow. This doesn’t matter at all if a grown-up is reading it out loud.


The Adventures of Tintin Hergé, Egmont, various, £7.99 pbk


Do I need to explain this? Amazing storytelling.


Terrific world-straddling


adventures.A brilliantly dysfunctional alcoholic sidekick in Captain Haddock. Some of the most beautiful colour-work in the history of illustration. Comics and graphic novels like Tintin and Asterix are an essential part of learning to love reading. We are starved of great comics here, the honourable exception being The Phoenix.


The Phoenix Comic www.thephoenixcomic.co.uk The first thing I had published was in Beano’s sister paper The Sparky and I still love a good comic. The Phoenix is a great comic. I love its lavish layouts and inventive strips. Particular favourites of mine are Bunny versus Monkey and Evil Emperor Penguin.


But


Corpse Talk – in which great figures of the past are summoned from the grave to talk about their lives, like an especially maggoty moment from Bill and Ted has a special place in my heart.


The Ring of Bright Water Gavin Maxwell, Penguin, 978-0140290493, £14.99pbk


I think this was the first book I read that might have been an adult book. I had travelled in Narnia, Middle Earth and Moominland but this book drew enchantment out of the real rock pools, beaches and islands. A magic land that you could drive to. We live in a great age of nature writing and I could have chosen something by Robert Macfarlane for this category but I wanted to say thank you


to Gavin Maxwell for being the first to show me what would become my own ambition – to strike the fire of magic from the ordinary flint.


Frank Cottrell-Boyce is an award-winning author and screenwriter. His books include Millions, winner of the CILIP Carnegie Medal as well as Cosmic, Framed, The Astounding Broccoli Boy and Sputnik’s Guide to Life on Earth all published by Macmillan Children’s Books. His latest book for children, The Runaway Robot, is available now in paperback.


Books for Keeps No.242 May 2020 5


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