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Tales From a Tall Forest

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Once upon a time being, forever and ever ago, there lived a forest tall of tales ...

When an innocent princess wanders into the forest, she finds herself trapped between a wolf with a ravenous appetite and a sweet little house with a secret. Meanwhile, a desperate fisherman enters into a very bad bargain with a power-hungry monkey. And meanerwhile still, a tiny tricksy tailor promises a promise that not even the most magic of beanstalks can help him escape.
In this rich and rambunctious tapestry of tales, satirist Shaun Micallef unravels the traditional fairy story and nimbly weaves your favourite characters into new and surprising adventures. Illustrated by award-winning artist Jonathan Bentley, this subversively silly trilogy will captivate parents and children alike – and indignant fairytale authors too.
More grim than Grimms', less soppy than Aesop.
  • Winner of the 2018 ABDA Awards: Best Designed Children's Fiction Book
  • Shortlisted for the 2018 ABIA Book of the Year for Older Children
  • Longlisted for the 2018 Indie Book Awards: Children's
  • A 2018 CBCA Notable Book of the Year: Picture Book of the Year
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      • Publisher's Weekly

        May 20, 2019
        In his children’s debut, Australian comedian Micallef mixes and matches classic fairy tale elements to create an interwoven trio of stories, which reconsider old favorites in new ways. “The Wolf and the Princess and the Trail of Crumbs,” for instance, blends “Snow White” with “Little Red Riding Hood” and “Hansel and Gretel,” while “The Fisherman and the Monkey and the Three Wishes,” casts a hapless fisherman in the role of wish-granter to an ambitious monkey. “The Magic Beans and the Peddler’s Wife” sees “Jack and the Beanstalk” merged with several tailor-related stories, such as “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” There’s a tongue-in-cheek tone to the narrative: “Born of hysteria, hallucinogenic toadstools, and outright lies, a folklore grew like Topsy about the forest and these stories were told and retold in endless variations,” the introduction claims. Young audiences will appreciate the stories’ clever playfulness, and adults will catch the occasional sly wink aimed at them. Bentley’s stylized, expressive black-and-white caricatures with red accents bring the characters and situations to life. This is bound to appeal to fairy tale fans of all ages. Ages 7–9.

      • Books+Publishing

        July 17, 2017
        Shaun Micallef’s first book for children takes a large dose of fairytale ingredients, flavours them with a dash of nursery rhyme and a pinch of Greek mythology, and bakes them into an odd but vaguely familiar cake, iced with fittingly dark and fantastical images from author-illustrator Jonathan Bentley. From ‘Once upon a time’ to an almost-traditional ending, Micallef amasses wicked royalty, enterprising peasants, goblins, dwarves, talking animals and more, tangling together countless well-known narratives with new and often funny outcomes. He abandons traditional fairytale moralising while retaining grisly elements and a sense of the storyteller addressing the reader. The result is an entertaining kingdom and surrounding forest peopled with amusing but not-terribly-nice individuals. While the stories are simple, language and vocabulary are often complex, and confident readers in middle to upper primary will enjoy the sneaky means of achieving hearts’ desires, as well as the fairly random downfall of ‘evil’ (and sometimes good) characters. As an adult reader though, I have mixed feelings about the light-hearted absence of direct consequences. The humour is suitably silly for the age group, yet rather restrained; it’s not Micallef’s adult absurdism. Bentley’s twisting, dancing, expressive and detailed black-and-white illustrations with red highlights capture the tone very well, blending the ridiculous with genuinely creepy undertones of the genre. Anica Boulanger-Mashberg is an editor, writer and bookseller at the Hobart Bookshop

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    • OverDrive Read
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    Languages

    • English

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