Stories of orphans and orphanages are recurring features in children's fiction, many of them trading on traditional stereotypes. In the case of Dave Rudden's impressive debut novel Knights of the Borrowed Dark (Penguin, £6.99), however, most conventions are tossed aside in a narrative which, in both content and style, breaks new ground, certainly in the context of Irish children's fantasy fiction.
We start in Crosscaper Orphanage, a remote rain- and wind-battered building in the west of Ireland, described by Mr Flynn, the geography teacher, as “the house at the end of the world”. Our interest is drawn immediately to a boy called Denizen who has just reached his 13th birthday.
For Denizen, the drama starts with the arrival of two distinctly sinister visitors, bringing the news that they are to take the boy to London, to meet an aunt – of whom, until that moment, he had never heard. The boy’s hope is that the meeting will throw some light on the mysteries of his parentage.
The journey to London and to the extraordinary house there is the prelude to a well-constructed cinematic plot populated by a diverting range of strange beings, human and otherwise, who bring the boy’s present and past together. Denizen, who has a pleasingly sceptical attitude to the story unfolding before him and his own part in it, is a likeable (some of the time) questioning “hero”, although in his case it is a word to be used and treated with some degree of care.
Rudden has mastered the art of making us question our assumptions about fantasy and its workings.
While in essence the novel’s events play numerous variations on the “good versus evil” oppositions of most fantasy, it is greatly to Rudden’s credit that his invented world retains its own reality. Some of his creations, such as Aunt Vivian – some woman this – will stay in the memory a long time.
Few children's writers have left behind such a substantial body of work as Theodor Seuss Geisel, more widely known to his numerous readers as Dr Seuss. Between the publication of his first book And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street in 1937 and his death in 1991, he has entertained his worldwide fans with more than 40 titles.
Now comes the welcome news that two earlier titles have just appeared for the first time in book form, based on material found in 2013 among his papers.
All the immediately recognisable Seuss trademarks are here in evidence and it can be said without fear of contradiction that his many fans will be delighted with these additions to his work.
First published in various magazines in the 1950s, Horton and the Kwuggerbug and More Lost Stories (HarperCollins, £12.99) comprises four short stories, featuring a zany range of creatures, animal and otherwise, and underpinned by a sense of humour that is equally hilarious and infectious. The adventures of Horton (an elephant) and Kwuggerbug (a bug) in the title story as they chase the elusive "beezlenut tree where some some beezlenuts grew" are beautifully paced, aided by Seuss's masterly use of rhyme and rhythm.
If any single line sums up the favourite Seuss theme, it occurs in the short story How Officer Pat Saved the Whole Town, the tale of one catastrophic event after another: "The trouble with trouble is . . . trouble will spread". One of Seuss's most endearing characteristics is his ability to create scenes of uncontrolled mayhem as they impinge on apparently ordinary lives – but always, eventually, to restore some degree of order.
The premise of What Pet Should I Get? (HarperCollins, £1.99) could hardly be more simple. A brother and sister are going to buy a pet: but which are they going to choose? Seuss plays gently with the pleasures and the pains of youthful indecisions.
The result is a book which, in a most engaging manner, confronts the reader with one of the most human of dilemmas, the necessity to make choices – and all without heavy-handed moralising. “Oh, boy!” It is something to make a mind up,” the boy reminds us at one point – on a double-page spread bearing the banner headline “MAKE UP YOUR MIND”.
As a teasing postscript, the book ends with no indication of which pet the children eventually choose. “The dog . . . or the rabbit? . . . The fish? . . .? Or the cat” Seuss gives us the privilege of coming to our own conclusions.
The humour and jaunty rhymes apart, one of the most striking elements of these volumes is the colourful array of Seuss’s illustrations, which have been freshly coloured for these editions. The lively, mischievous spirit of the prose is carried through to the artwork. A few significant details of character and setting give an immediate sense of time and place, without the overall effect being in any sense dated. Seuss children are children for all times.
The titles shortlisted for this year’s Children’s Books Ireland awards have been announced: congratulations to all who have been nominated.
The nine titles are: Imaginary Fred by Eoin Colfer and Oliver Jeffers; The Day the Crayons Came Home by Oliver Jeffers; Swift's Gulliver's Travels illustrated by Lauren O'Neill; Irelandopedia by John and Fatti Burke; Asking for It by Louise O'Neill; One by Sarah Crossan; The Wordsmith by Patricia Forde; The Boy at the Top of the Mountain by John Boyne and Ná Gabh an Scoil by Máire Zepf and Tarsila Krüse. A future column will consider each title in detail.
Robert Dunbar is a commentator on children’s books
