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Summary
Summary
The imagination of three children takes on unexpected life in a creation tale from the dream team of David Almond and Dave McKean.
The gods have created a world that is safe and calm and rather wonderful. They have built mountains, forests, and seas and filled the world with animals, people, and unnamed beasts. Now their days are fat with long naps in the clouds, mutual admiration, and tea and cake. But their world has gaps in it filled with emptiness, gaps that intrigue Harry, Sue, and little Ben until they begin to see what might fill them. One by one the children conjure, from twigs and leaves and stones, a mousy thing, a chirpy thing, and a twisty legless thing. But as the children's ideas grow bolder, the power of their visions proves greater and more dangerous than they, or the gods, could ever have imagined. Is it possible to unmake what's been made?
Author Notes
David Almond was born on May 15, 1951 in the United Kingdom. He writes novels for children and young adults including The Savage, Slog's Dad, My Name Is Mina, The Boy Who Swam with Piranhas, and The Tightrope Walkers. He has received numerous awards including the Carnegie Medal for Skellig, two Whitbread Awards, the Michael L. Printz Award for young-adult books for Kit's Wilderness, the Smarties Prize and the Boston Globe Horn Book Award for The Fire-Eaters, the 2015 Guardian Children's Fiction Prize for A Song for Ella Grey, and the Hans Christian Andersen Award.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (6)
School Library Journal Review
Gr 2-6-In this original creation myth, set "long ago and far away, in a world rather like this one," the gods have left some things unfinished. Having created mountains, camels, people, and other phenomena, they are now prone to enjoying naps and teatime in the clouds more than work. Yet, there are "places that were filled with emptiness." Almond's potent text and McKean's otherworldly caricatures create a magic that is all-absorbing. Text and image are more tightly connected in this hybrid format than in previous collaborations. Often they are contained together in panels of varying sizes and shapes. Sometimes the words are overlaid on pictures or a sentence or paragraph is framed by the full-page composition. The design propels readers through the story of Harry, Sue, and Little Ben, who, when bored with the world they know, start imagining and then fashioning new creatures. Each animal, made from materials at hand and called to life by the children's commands, gets progressively larger and more threatening until Harry's wolf gobbles up the two older children. Realizing that the gods are no help, Ben addresses the danger by unmaking the beast and rescuing the youth within. The ending leaves an opening for trouble to rise again. Almond's mythic and folkloric elements, wrapped in his own fertile imagination, combine with McKean's expressionistic illustrations to produce a whole that reveals the beauty and terror encountered in the created world and in the human spirit.-Wendy Lukehart, District of Columbia Public Library (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Almond and McKean, the collaborators behind The Savage and Slog's Dad, take on themes worthy of Greek tragedy: human ambition, the emergence of evil, and the power of the individual to resist it. Harry, Sue, and Little Ben live in a world whose lazy gods have made creatures like whales and camels but have given up their work, leaving blank spaces, "places filled with emptiness." The children discover that they can create animals themselves, using sticks, leaves, and clay; Little Ben makes a mouse; Sue, a bird; and Harry, a snake. But Harry and Sue aren't satisfied. They create a terrifying wolf that turns on them and eats them, and Little Ben must summon the courage to save them. McKean draws swirly, sinewy portraits of the children, the gods, and the animals, skillfully capturing Little Ben's anguished face as he appeals to the indolent gods for help. First cousin to Philip Pullman's imaginings, this contemporary fable about man's power to create and to destroy may be controversial in settings where questioning biblical creation stories is taboo, but where questioning is encouraged, it will challenge and provoke. Ages 7-up. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Horn Book Review
All creation and its quandaries are encompassed in this succinct fable. The gods -- hefty caricatures in grisaille, drowsing and carousing on clouds -- have abandoned their work with "still much making to be done." Below, Little Ben is first to notice: "Why are there so many gaps and spaces?" Soon he, Sue, and Harry are dreaming up creatures, positing their traits and piecing together such stuff as wool and grass till they materialize. Ben's mouse and Sue's bird are "clever," remarks a god; then Harry, a lanky teen, stares into sky, earth, and his own dark self to contrive a more problematic snake. "Enough," worries Ben, but Harry and Sue are on a roll: using sticks and stones they make a terrifying wolf, which gobbles them up. And though Ben manages to undo their evil creation, "now their wolf was inside them, like a dream." McKean expertly matches frames and spreads to the impulsive events and his angular figures to Almond's children, with their perilous mix of innocence, naivete, and power. The book's skewed world, with its odd creatures and significant blanks, is not quite ours; but the unanticipated consequences of its thoughtless creativity are ours indeed. From the stunning cover art hinted at by the faux-die-cut jacket to a last glimpse of the louche and negligent gods and the wolf lurking in the darkness deep underground, a fascinating, provocative collaboration. joanna rudge long (c) Copyright 2013. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Guardian Review
Almond/McKean is a double act that's hard to beat. The third of their graphic novel collaborations, Mouse Bird Snake Wolf is the most beautiful, but perhaps also the most unsettling. (Hats off to Walker, it's also fabulously produced.) Previous books Slog's Dad and The Savage, both about the death of a father, are private and raw. Geordie tales, they are not just personal but local too. The writing, in classic David Almond style, is powerfully emotional; the pictures, as always with Dave McKean, brilliantly arresting. They begin with pain and end with consolation. In some ways the new book reverses that. It's not personal, but universal; not enclosed but spacious. It begins with beauty and wonder and ends with unease. It's a folktale or creation myth. The gods have left the world unfinished: "safe and calm and rather wonderful", but full of gaps and holes. Many animals simply haven't been invented yet. Tired and bored, the immortals lounge on their clouds drinking tea and eating cake. It's a wonderful starting point because it's human nature to make things, and soon three children - Harry, Sue and Little Ben - have taken on the creation business left off by the vapid deities. Little Ben conjures up the mouse. Sue invents the bird. Harry produces the snake. And after that - just a little intoxicated by their success - they want to create something else. "What we need now," says Sue, "is a thing called a wolf." In Slog's Dad, pictures and words are largely kept apart; in The Savage, passages of pure text remain amid illustrated spreads. Here it's words and pictures together. The story unfolds continuously. The tone is matter of fact, light-hearted even, especially when describing the gods ("and so they lay on their clouds, and floated through the sky, and took tea, and slept and snored"). In a wonderful touch, the pictures of them are in grey wash, in contrast to the vibrant colours of the world they have half-created. Like an oral tale, the story progresses rhythmically through repetition and variation. It swells as it goes, gathering pace. At the heart of it is the cycle of creation initiated by the children, each new invention reprising and developing the one before: first the mouse, then the bird, then the snake - and finally the wolf. The wolf - of course - is the game changer. With wolves there are consequences. And the gods just sit and watch what happens. As well as moving the story along the words and pictures demand to be lingered over. There is a captivating simplicity about the unshowy lsnguage. By contrast the pictures are dramatic, striking, gorgeously lyrical. Little Ben, who starts it all off with his mouse, is mouse-like himself, with his thatch of blond hair and expressive nose. There's a birdiness to Sue, with her outstretched gestures, and a snakiness to Harry in the wiggly outlines of his clothes. With such subtle connections the words and pictures balance each other. The story balances beautifully - until that wolf. A constant theme running through Almond's extraordinary work is the power of the imagination, a wonderful thing but risky and dangerous. Here the children, not the gods, are the real makers, but can they live with what they make? Can they unmake it, or are wolves a part of our own nature? To order Mouse Bird Snake Wolf for pounds 7.99 with free UK p&p call Guardian book service on 0330 333 6846 or go to guardian.co.uk/bookshop - Simon Mason It's a folktale or creation myth. The gods have left the world unfinished: "safe and calm and rather wonderful", but full of gaps and holes. Many animals simply haven't been invented yet. Tired and bored, the immortals lounge on their clouds drinking tea and eating cake. It's a wonderful starting point because it's human nature to make things, and soon three children - Harry, Sue and Little Ben - have taken on the creation business left off by the vapid deities. Little Ben conjures up the mouse. Sue invents the bird. Harry produces the snake. And after that - just a little intoxicated by their success - they want to create something else. "What we need now," says Sue, "is a thing called a wolf." - Simon Mason.
Kirkus Review
An award-winning British team conjures a haunting graphic novella that shows what happens when the complacent gods stop creating things and children pick up the slack. The gods--slothful as Roman emperors--loll about half-naked in the clouds eating cake and looking down upon their creations, which range from mighty mountains to delicate wisteria. But they abandoned their world-building long ago, leaving empty gaps and spaces as huge as deserts or "no bigger than a fingernail." Harry, Sue and Little Ben are children who inhabit the gods' incomplete world. One day, Ben, finding this too-empty landscape peculiar, yells up at the gods, "It needs more things in it!" The children proceed to imagine--and then construct with twigs, clay and grasses--a few things themselves. The titular mouse, bird, snake and wolf spring to life! Spoiler: Creating the wolf backfires hideously. Skellig (2009) author Almond's tale is as otherworldly as ever, his themes of imagination and creativity nuanced. In inventive comic-bookstyle panels and theatrical full-bleed spreads, McKean adds a fierce, frightening texture to the narrative. The edgy, toga-wearing gods above and children down below are sculptural, as if they were molded out of clay--a fitting image for a creation story. Wild and alive, this visually extravagant fable of the marvel, power and active nature of the creative process howls at the moon. (art not seen in full color) (Graphic novella. 9-12)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Almond-McKean is one of the most fertile partnerships out there, with The Savage (2008) and Slog's Dad (2011) as ample evidence. Their latest is an original fable of creation and imagination loaded with both playfulness and darkness. It's set in a world a bit like ours, but also not: There were gaps and holes in it . . . places where there seemed to be nothing at all. The gods who'd created it all had grown complacent, so one day, three children are inspired to fill a few of those holes. The youngest imagines a kind of mousy thing, and presto! A mouse. The sister follows suit with a kind of birdy thing, and the elder brother hisses a snake into existence. But there's an even bigger, fiercer hole that needs to be filled, and together they bring a wolf to mind as the afternoon takes a ferocious turn. The contorted beauty of McKean's figures and Almond's intense, twisty narrative will keep readers right on the edge of comfort before the clouds clear. Along the way, they'll be dazzled by the lush lyricism of the tale and the wild emotional swings from page to page as well as McKean's creative use of mixed materials and compositional space. You could say that this is Almond and McKean's most beautiful effort yet, but just know that beautiful has its own dark and wondrous meaning in their hands.--Chipman, Ian Copyright 2010 Booklist
