Greatest Magical Stories by Michael Morpurgo (editor)

Greatest Magical Stories by Michael Morpurgo
Buy Greatest Magical Stories by Michael Morpurgo (editor) at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com
Category: Confident Readers
Reviewer: John Lloyd
Summary: A wonderful gift, in all senses of the word.
Buy? Yes	Borrow? Yes
Pages: 256	Date: October 2017
Publisher: OUP Oxford
External links: Author's website
ISBN: 9780192764034
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I might have started this review by saying something like 'only reading can give your world such wonder'. But that's wrong – meeting a selkie can, being sent to sleep for a century can, guessing the name of a dwarven spinner maestro can, and so can so much more in the world of children's narrative. This delightful book is jam-packed with quickly-told classic delights, from Norse-based fable to the purest source of pantomime. And everywhere you turn you find something full of wonder.

These are pretty much junior tellings of these tales, compiled by Michael Morpurgo, who closes here with his own version of 'Jack and the Beanstalk'. They're junior to the extent that you actually get a frisson of wrongness when a prince asks a girl for a kiss when she's unable to respond, having been asleep a hundred years, and although the selkie has to move on when she finds her seal skin and it's sad she leaves her children behind, their father did kind of kidnap her. That's not to say this is a completely bowdlerised collection of these tales – evil people are evil, Hamelin's children are still snatched and dodgy things are allowed to happen in this book; it's just with such a warm-hearted mien you notice when people do wrong.

That mien comes a lot from the artwork, and I won't list everyone's names, I'll just say something semi-coherent like Wow! and leave it at that. Ian Beck must get a mention, however, for throwing the 'Pied Piper' into silhouette, that kind of borrows from woodcut art, but also kind of doesn't. A 250pp book flies by, such is the number of images peppering and enlivening each and every page, but that's not a problem – in the company of such artwork, re-reading is not going to be a chore whatsoever.

And these quick, traditional tales, which seem to have been pulled from some prior editions of very short and sweet paperbacks, are well worth the re-read for the young. Pippa Goodhart offers us a pair of princesses, Adele Geras diverts us with her 'Pied Piper', Julia Jarman is tasked with bringing new life to Cinderella and Joanna Nadin the same for Rumpelstiltskin. In fact there are only a couple of people here whose name is new to me, and nobody lets the side down entirely – although the 'Tom Thumb' here is a little too curt and frothy.

This really is a treat – very visual, pleasantly thought out for the young, replete with polite little introductions and a name plate in the front for the recipient to stake their claim to it. In a household of multiple young readers this is a necessity – this is a book to share and spread around, and also to keep and cherish. There is a sister volume, regarding Animal Stories, which I can only assume is more of the same high quality material. Either way, this one itself is truly a thing of wonder.

I must thank the publishers for my review copy.

Magic Beans by Adele Geras, Anne Fine, Henrietta Branford, Jacqueline Wilson, Malorie Blackman, Philip Pullman, Tony Mitton, Alan Garner, Berlie Doherty, Gillian Cross, Kit Wright, Michael Morpurgo, Susan Gates and Linda Newbery is an older book with a similar spread of fable and tradition.

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You can read more book reviews or buy Greatest Magical Stories by Michael Morpurgo (editor) at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free.
You can read more book reviews or buy Greatest Magical Stories by Michael Morpurgo (editor) at Amazon.com.

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