THE ADVENTURES OF AUSTIN THE CORNISH MINER: THE RESCUE OF THE DWEEBLE STONE by KAREN M HOYLE.BACK COVER BLURB: Austin knew the stories of magical creatures as well as anyone. 'Knockers' were grubby trolls that stand about two feet high, they wear old miners boots and tatty waistcoats and live on the pasty crusts that miners leave behind. The 'Pixies' were very different, small and could fit in a mans hand, always busy, thinking themselves better than anyone and enjoyed playing pranks on anyone around.
'No', thought Austin there can't be magical creatures, it was all just tittle tattle...
But Austin was about to become a hero and change his mind on many things...
FIRST SENTENCE {1: Stories Of Magical Creatures}: Austin awoke early and the suns first rays were just dancing through the gap in the curtains in his bedroom.
MEMORABLE MOMENT {Page 37}: The sun was bright and the flowers seemed to be humming happy tunes to themselves.
SOURCE: A GoodReads win.
MY THOUGHTS: An enjoyable and imaginative read alas slightly marred by the need of a good proof reader and/or editor as I'm afraid there were quite a lot of spelling errors.
Mixing the magical world of Knockers and Pixies with the factual - I loved the mention of 'half eaten pasties with blackberries at one end and meat and potato at the other' which is of course how Cornish miners traditionally ate their pasties.
A fun little story (the first of what I believe is five adventures) with characters with wonderful names such as (my favourite) Maggie Farrenworth Fopp, 'owner of the finest Pixie Bed and Breakfast' no less and bold ink illustrations that I really liked. At sixty five pages I would have liked a longer book but its ideal for young readers.
10 comments:
I loved the cover of the book, its so cute,sixty five-page book is really good for kids. Enjoyed your review :)
Tracy, this sounds like a fun book for both children and adults!
Thanks for sharing! Not sure this one would be for me, and I'm sorry to hear about the spelling errors!
This sounds like a really cute book. Meat & potatoes on one end and fruit on the other? I've never heard of combining dessert right into the meat pie!
This does sound delightful, hopefully it will be edited.
it sounds nice, I love a touch of magic in a book!
There is something about stories that involve little folk that I just like.
It is surprising that this would be published with the errors that you mention.
My Durham friend also tells of her father taking 'whole meal' pasties down on the coal pit shifts with him. Savoury one end, sweet the other, with the pastry 'handle' to hold it because of those dirty hands! For me, the pastry handle is one of the best bits of a proper pasty and certainly not to be wasted :)
A Cornish friend always insisted that pixies were actually called piskies, a name which has always stuck with me and which I still tend to use.
None of which makes the book much of a better buy with all those typos and errors, especially if it is aimed at children!
Thanks for sharing.
Yvonne
I am glad you enjoyed this one, Tracy! It sounds like it would be a fun read.
Too bad about the editing - because otherwise it sounds adorable.
Karen @For What It's Worth
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