FIRST TIME EVER GUEST POST - BOOK REVIEW

I've been minorly operated on. It wasn't a big deal but I was frightened. I made sure all bills had been paid, that all direct debits were in order, all messages deleted and password-protected accounts closed.

Finally, I took the badger-protection (bits of mesh and old plastic bread baskets) away from the bulbs on the allotment (shallots, two kinds of onions, a variety of daffodils). If I never came back - well, I couldn't leave them in the dark.

I planned posts. This, of course, was daft. If it turns out you're not able to pick up where you left off there will have been no point in having made a list of the things you won't be able to do. But it's what I did. And I wandered around wondering whether to choose a new tree to 'follow', randomly taking pictures of ashes then forgetting which was which. (I've decided to stick with the alder after all and have a pile of photos ready for an update.) I took pictures of the allotment late in the evening when there was hardly any light because that was the only time I had available and photographs of onions and shallots and the earth where daffodil bulbs lie buried are better gloomy than not-at-all. And I prepared a new list of interesting articles to tell you about. And I invited a friend to review a book.

I've never done this before - let anyone except me put anything on my blog. But I've never before read the list of things which can go majorly wrong during a minor operation either. I think the surgeon thought she might be out of a job if everyone were to read leaflets as carefully as I did and to take heed of warnings as seriously as me.

Never mind. Here I am; and with a pile of posts that would have kept Loose and Leafy going in my absence for quite a while . . . or rather would have if I'd set them to publish themselves. (Now, that would have been creepy - Loose and Leafy chugging along, onions reaching into the sun - and me with my lights gone out.)

But the list of posts . . . here's the first - the guest review!

The Book - Toletis by Rafa Ruiz, illustrated by Elena Hormiga, translated by Ben Dawlatly, published by Neem Tree Press, (£15:99) sent me by Cameron Publicity and Marketing Limited and reviewed by Amy Perkis.

I asked my friend Amy to review it because Toletis reminded me of Diana Wynne Jones' books and while she is an enormously popular author I don't specially like fantasy . . . but Amy does . . . So I handed it over to an enthusiast - who says Toletis is nothing like the stories written by Diana Wynne Jones . . . but that is beside the point. The similarity was my theory, even if it turns out to be false.

No more introduction. Here's the guest review of Toletis! (Gosh, this feels odd, handing over to somebody else. Deep breath!)

* * *

Toletis is recommended ‘for ages Seven to One Hundred and Seven’. For seven year olds to get the most out of it I think it might be better read and discussed with an adult. I’m twenty-two and had fun reading it on my own, so you might too. (Any one hundred and seven year olds – let me know what you think!)

Let’s get this out of the way – do not be discouraged by the fact that Toletis begins with a long description of how the title character got his name. It’s something to do with him being a ‘toll collector’ of interesting objects (I suspect the wordplay may have worked better in the original Spanish), but it doesn’t really matter because your kids will think the book is called Toilets anyway. Once you get past that, Toletis is sweet, moving, and less didactic than it might seem from Chapter One – in which the title character and his friends try to save the disappearing trees of their small town.

Toletis is made up of twelve little adventures, with each chapter (three chapters per season) telling us a different story about little Toletis, his dog Amenophis and two friends: Tutan and Claudia. These adventures range from the small (collecting hazelnuts or cooking Sunday lunch) to the wildly magical. In one of my favourite chapters the children halt the building of a big main road by learning to speak to the local thrushes, who swarm in their thousands to cover the road with soil and seeds. The magical aspects of the book relate to the wonderful powers of nature: the children bring mist down from the hills to rejuvenate the tired town, and use their old clothes to cover the cold plants in winter. It’s very fantastical but real as well - speaking to the power of small plants to break through concrete and persevere even in the most unlikely of settings. Watching the ugly main road being built, Toletis keeps an eye on the small plants growing by its side:

‘…hoping that one day in the future, nature [will] impose its law, rhythm and aesthetic on the hard grey asphalt’

Toletis, Tutan and Claudia are tiny eco-warriors, fighting back against the disappearance of trees and the building of ugly concrete roads. Their little home town is a battleground between two worlds. The first is that of the mountains and hills where the children roam with characters such as Celemin the shepherd. This is set against the fast-paced world of adults who seem increasingly obsessed with technology. You’ll definitely be cheering for Toletis, Tutan and Claudia in their mission to save the trees and cheer up the town, although the environmental focus can make parts of the book feel a little too didactic. At times Toletis and his friends come across a bit too fairy-tale themselves: perfectly in touch with the seasons and the world of nature. The first chapter especially feels a little twee, especially as the children refer to baby trees as ‘teeny weenies’ (even the narrator thinks this is a bit ‘sentimental’.)

What saves Toletis from becoming a kind of moral tale are the parts of the book which touch (very gently) on the more frightening aspects of childhood: the sense of anxiety as autumn nights get darker and first experiences of snow which leave Toletis worrying that all the colour will be wiped out of the world forever. Toletis’ relationship with his dead grandfather, Ra, and his remembrance of him throughout the book is also handled movingly.

Ultimately Toletis is most successful in portraying the small things that make childhood and the natural world both scary and wonderful. Ruiz’s focus on these small wonders make for some really delightful passages describing food and furniture! This focus on the small is reflected in the philosophy of Toletis himself, who:

'didn’t understand why so many grown-ups had an obsession with seeing further and further and further, and with relating the beauty of a mountain to how far you can see from the top of it. He wasn’t interested in distant landscapes. The interesting ones were close by, but many people didn’t appreciate what’s close to them, feeling a need to gaze into the distant and faraway future all the time.'

This was one of my favourite passages, and there’s plenty more here to reflect on or chat about with younger readers. Many parts of Toletis will be fun to read aloud with children; the chapter on the Wobbegong Language describes a made-up language inspired by Toletis’ Aunt Josefina. Cue lots of silly words for children to read out – for example:

The biggest, meanest collywobbler poked his blobbytum

But the rabble all kebabbled when the babirusa blubbed!

Also to be savoured are Elena Horminga’s illustrations: colourful, characterful and a little bit abstract, they reminded me a lot of (Finnish fabric designer) Marimekko’s prints. Horminga’s pictures are more humorous than you first expect, and l enjoyed flicking back to my favourite illustrations just as I liked returning to favourite moments in the text. That’s one of the nice things about Toletis: it’s not a page turner, which means you can happily meander through it without any rush, returning to the bits that made you smile.

ONE NIGGLE: This is tacked onto the end because I wasn’t really sure where to fit it into the main body of the review, but it seems worth noting that one reservation with this book (especially if you’re going to be reading it to younger girls) is the way that Toletis’ friend Claudia is presented as a kind of love interest. I’m not anti-romance (!!) but I was a bit sad on the occasions when Claudia is portrayed as an object rather than a co-adventurer. Seen through Toletis’ eyes, Claudia is ‘dazzling’, a ‘perfectionist’ and is constantly characterized by the wonderfulness of her hair! I suppose what I am ‘anti’ is ‘perfect’ or romanticized women in fiction, especially when we don’t get to hear their perspective on things.  

(Even though I’d like my hair to ‘smell of green beans’ like Claudia’s!)

Illustrations on this page are from the book - pps 106, 142, 49
About 'Tree Following'.

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