Trixie Fights for Furry Rights by Ros Asquith
Trixie Tempest's pet dog Harpo has run off into the bushes with Lorenzo, the pedigree from next door. The result of this little sojourn is a litter of five puppies - Little Marigold, Cheeky Eric, Big Fattypuff, Tiny Gertrude and Gonzo. To Trixie's horror, her mum says they can't keep them and puts them up for sale. The very same day posh Lady Goodchild, of the Goodchild clothing chain, turns up and says she'll take all five puppies as soon as they're weaned. Trixie is horrified. Convinced that Lady Goodchild wants Harpo's babies for fur collars on coats, she recruits her friends to an animal rights campaign designed to save them. Things really start to go downhill from there...
Trixie Fights for Furry Rights by Ros Asquith | |
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Category: Confident Readers | |
Reviewer: Jill Murphy | |
Summary: A pleasant if undemanding glimpse into the further adventures of ten year old Trixie Tempest, a well-meaning but self-centred and mischievous little girl who gets into scrapes on a regular basis. There's little to no challenge, but it is amusing. | |
Buy? No | Borrow? Yes |
Pages: 208 | Date: September 2007 |
Publisher: Harper Collins Children's Books | |
ISBN: 978-0007223596 | |
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Ros Asquith has such fun with her characters. They are allowed to get into scrapes most children would love to get into, but whose own scrapes rarely reach such heights of slapstick. In some - for parents rather nerve-wracking! - ways, their disasters are almost aspirational. Trixie in particular acts out banana skin gag after banana skin gag as she careers through life misinterpreting just about everything in the most spectacular fashion. Underneath it all though, Trixie is a disarming and well-meaning child. She's enthusiastic and excitable and sees everything in black and white. In Trixie's world everything is Very Extremely and at first sight, usually disgustrous also. It's only after various misadventures that Trixie realises that whatever it is her knickers are in their latest twist about isn't disgustrous at all. We then have a Happy Ending.
These are impossibly light books. Trixie does usually see sense in the end, so there is a good bedrock of common sense in the denouement, but if you're looking for anything more than a pleasant piece of froth for your child, then you've come to the wrong shelf in the shop. Trixie's adventures are jolly good fun to read about - especially for tween girls who prefer a bit of action to endless sparkly pink things - but they're not going to ignite any critical faculties or sophisticated reading skills. However, they're not trying to do that. They're just trying to be entertaining bubblegum fiction, and if you're a newly confident reader, you'll enjoy them thoroughly.
My thanks to the nice people at Harper Collins for sending the book.
If they like Trixie, they might also like angel-in-training Mel Beeby, in Going for Gold by Annie Dalton.
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