Saturday, January 3, 2009

Children's Books - Classic Children's Fantasy

This is the last post on children's fantasy and I'll be covering here some old classics.

Firstly John Masefield's Midnight Folk. John Masefield was Poet Laureate from 1930 to his death in 1967.

Eric Linklater's Wind On The Moon is another old style fantasy which was briefly reviewed in the Curiousity section of Fantasy & Science Fiction Magazine in 2003.

masefield_midnight linklator_wind

Two odd children's books - The Hunting of Wilberforce Pike by Molly Lefebure about a cat thief who snatches cats off the streets to be made into fur coats and draws upon himself the ire of the Power Station gang - a mysterious cat underworld who seek revenge. Bottersnikes & Gumbles by S A Wakefield is an Australian children's book with a great cover.

wilberforce_pike wakefield_bottersnikes


The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster is quite famous and needs no introduction. A very unusual fantasy indeed. The illustrations in this Armada Lion edition are by Jules Feiffer.

juster_tollbooth
Two favorite books from my childhood were A Traveller In Time by Alison Uttley and The Little Bookroom by Eleanor Farjeon. The first is a ghost story and the second is a collection of short stories.

uttley_traveller farjeon_bookroom

The Adventures of Uncle Lubin was written and illustrated by W Heath Robinson. I need say no more.

robinson_lubin
I've left the best to last - Ronald Searle's extremely funny How To Be Topp.

searle_topp

searle_topp_gerunds
The Private Life of the Gerund
Click for larger view

Coming next - Science Fiction!

No comments: