Friday, 7 March 2014

The Astonishing Case of the Stolen Stories by Anca Sandu (Children's, Picture book, 10E/10E)



 January 2014, Jonathan Cape, 32 pages, Paperback, Review copy

Themes: types of detectives, fairy tale creatures, missing books, royalty, judging people by their reputation, finding clues, surprises

Content: lots of humour

Meet Cat, Fox and Bear: detectives extraordinaire!

The Prince’s bedtime stories have been STOLEN! And so has every last book in the kingdom.
Could the Big Bad Wolf be the thief? Or is the Wicked Witch the culprit?

Nayuleska's thoughts
What I loved about this book was the distinct characters within it. Each detective has a passion and relates almost everything to what they are best at. They discover that people - who are fairy tale creatures - have hidden depths which people don't always know about. That baffled the detectives because all their ideas about the culprit were scuppered. Thankfully clues appear out of nowhere, leading the detectives to who actually did it. That wasn't the end of the story, as the detectives quickly had a new mission which they fulfilled with top marks. I squealed with delight at the culprit because it is adorable! It was just as enchanting as the rest of the high detailed illustrations.

 I like how everyone had a weather vane which was appropriate for their story, I wanted to eat the roof of the witch's house, I laughed at the wolf's ornaments of 3 pigs doing the see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil poses, as well as everyone's comments on the page which are hilarious. I love how the main parts of nursury rhymes and fairy tales feature in the detectives hunt, how in the main street I spot the back of a dragon in a window, a beanstalk on a roof, and Rapunzel dangling her hair from a tower, the hair not quite long enough to reach the ground. I love how the messenger is a sweet little gingerbread man. I love the scope this story has for many more mysteries that the detectives might need to solve, as well as the camaraderie of the detectives and everyone else they meet. Rest assured that stories get returned - the ending couldn't be different otherwise I wouldn't be reading it!

Suggested read
Another adventure is to be had in Where's Tim Ted? It's Time For Bed! by Ian Whybrow and Russell Ayto (Children's, Picture book, 10/10E)

No comments: