![]() ![]() ![]() Adults will see the depth of the message. Children will adore the gradual introduction of colour into the illustrated landscapes, and the perfectly easy descriptions of the feelings colour gives the people on the island. ![]() Reading the book was like feeling a warmth spread across one’s body. Ian Beck brilliantly captures the rhythm of a fairy tale or legend, as well as an underlying depth beneath the simple story. But the King fears change, and takes action to prevent it, although change proves inevitable. Some people are bewitched by this – the Princess and others feel “tickled” by it. Before long the stranger aboard has disembarked and is colouring the world with every touch of his hand. Then one day a small boat washes up on the island – and there’s something different about it. The princess feels that something is missing, and the tone of the text is muted, sad and withdrawn. It rains all the time, and the month is always November. The black and white illustrations convey this too. As the reader may expect from the name, everything on the island is grey. It’s exactly the tale you would imagine a grandparent telling a grandchild.Ī princess lives with her father, the King, on the Island of Ashes. He tells a modern day fairy tale with his own illustrations punctuating the text, and has dedicated it to his grandson. A Little Gem by name (from Barrington Stoke’s Early Reader series) and a little gem by nature, Ian Beck writes a story that makes you want to sink back into a comfortable chair and be sailed away into the magic. ![]()
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