Kamakan: The Vampire Slug by Huw Roberts

Kamakan: The Vampire Slug by Huw Roberts and Shaun B King
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Category: Confident Readers
Reviewer: John Lloyd
Summary: From a dark hole comes the horror of the vampire slug. Luckily he has too much on his plate when trying to eat two clever children in this fun rhyming story.
Buy? Maybe	Borrow? Yes
Pages: 76	Date: December 2006
Publisher: Discovered Authors
ISBN: 978-1905108350
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It seems the world of children's books has long lacked a vampire slug. Thankfully, this volume makes up for it with the terrible Kamakan - THE vampire slug.

The worst of the worst, living at the bottom of a huge cavernous hole in darkest Peru (the only place to name-check, of course, in literature for the young), he rises one day with an appetite for human flesh. Of course he does - anything else would be just silly.

Thankfully, the male hero of the book, Jonni, is just as we would all wish our sons to be. Witty, smart and inquisitive, and in a caring relationship with his younger sister Nellie, he scans the night skies with his telescope one evening, only to see Kamakan on his way to capture them, and stash them away before eating.

You can guess the rest - or at least, try, for you will not match the inventive storyline that follows.

This being a verse novel, the pace is superb, and the lines come thick and fast. I just have a minor quibble with the way they do come. Most of the time the rhyming scheme is AABB, sometimes it becomes ABAB, and sometimes internal rhymes are used. The metre can change from page to page, and paragraph to paragraph. While it's a long time since I have read a book intended for 5- to 9-year olds, I seem to recall the classics finding a metre, rhythm and style and sticking to it.

However I cannot really grumble about any of the writing, however the poetry bends and breaks its merry way across the plot. On the whole the style, wit and invention are perfect, and the surprises are sustained until the end. But in a book as pictorial as this, the writing is only half the story.

The budget has been stretched to allow for almost every page to have some form of illustration - full colour, two-colour or just black and white. While a lot of the images might be non sequiturs - and what quite are those dancing twiggy things anyway? - they certainly brighten the book up. Some of the major illustrations are a bit basic and too cartoonish, but that's not the biggest sin.

A lot of the graphics have been rearranged, repositioned, and even reedited - for some of the monsters, their body just disappears mid-limb. Some appear incomplete due to the page edge, and some (in the copy I have at least) melt off the bottom of the page only to surface to end on the top of the sheet.

The people who spent so much time on the artwork really have been given a disservice in my eyes. But that is not the most heinous sin the publishers have done. Again, it might be unique to my edition, but page 18 comes before page 17, which scuppers totally the first major action scene.

Despite much hard work, this book really should not have been signed off in such a form as this. It makes it hard, unfortunately, for me to recommend it.

However to stick to the writing, I am sure the book is lively enough to entertain all. The poetry is very clever, whatever one feels of the changes in style, and none of it forced into the story or vice versa. There must be a great experience here to be dandled on someone's knee while he sorts the page order out, reads aloud the wacky wit of the verse, laughs along at the juvenile gross-out comedy and points out the better illustrations. (It should be noted I am unable to partake of such an experience - either on a knee or providing my lap to anyone.) My star rating is for such an entertainment.

This book is very good fun, and the vocabulary is reasonable enough for those who have started on their own reading, either aloud or internally. For the parent to use it to entertain, there are not too many silly voices to have to invent, as the character count is quite low, so you don't have that excuse. I am sure Kamakan will be turned to several times by those who buy it, but it is some distance away from the hand-me-down classics that live generations - especially in this form.

And for those wishing to know more of the story, or how to bring it to your youngsters, there is even to be a live version. With some professional experience of children's theatre I am still very keen to know how they expect to portray all the action, and the beasties and their relevant goo, and wish them luck with this very brave decision.

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You can read more book reviews or buy Kamakan: The Vampire Slug by Huw Roberts 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 Kamakan: The Vampire Slug by Huw Roberts at Amazon.com.

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