The Man From the Land of Fandango by Margaret Muhy (Children's, Picture Book, 6/10)

September 2012, Frances Lincoln

32 pages, Hardback

Review copy 

Themes: imagination, lots of animals, fantasy, weird things, cute illustrations, rhymes, 

Summary from Frances Lincoln 

The man from the land of Fandango is coming to pay you a call! He wears a hat with a tassel and a polka-dot tie - and he juggles and bounces and dances with bears, bison, baboons, kangaroos and even dinosaurs. He's wonderful and amazing - so watch out for him, and watch carefully - because he only appears every 500 years!

Nayuleska's thoughts 

For me this was a yo-yo book. By that I mean my thoughts on it varied enormously. The lyrical style of the story worked and will appeal to readers. The illustrations are a key part of the book. They depict the crazy goings on in a way that magnifies the imagination in the story. However, they are the reason this gets a 6/10 rating. I'm a very visual person, if I don't like something I tend really not to like it. I find some things freaky (in a bad way) and scary. Although some of the illustrations made me smile because they seemed cute, a lot with the animals were pretty frightening for me, being the kind that I can see in nightmares. This book wasn't for me, but I urge everyone to check it out because it is clever.

Added Sunday 3rd February: yesterday a 3 year old girl had this read to her and she enjoyed what she had read to her of it - her attention span was zipping about the place and she switched to another book part way through.

Margaret died in July 2012.

Suggested read 

For another magical journey try The Dinosaur's Packed Lunch by Jacqueline Wilson