The Queen's Nose

Author: Dick King-Smith

Illustrator: Jill Bennett

Publisher: Puffin Books, 1983

This is the most enjoyable chapter book I've read to my 5 and 7 year olds at bedtime so far. I read this to myself aged about ten, and recall moments of the BBC serialisation, but reading The Queen's Nose back to my children confirmed to me that this book has a real charm. It's well-paced, with chapters roughly ten pages long and some gripping cliff -hangers. Most notable is when protagonist, Harmony Parker, is cycling at speed toward a junction and doesn't see the sign. Gripping! My children kept asking all day, what might happen next. We looked forward to reading every chapter, a great accolade with children so young. 

The story starts by introducing school girl Harmony, whom we quickly learn is creative, thoughtful, and at odds with her family. Harmony imagines all the people around her as having animals personas, so her sister Melody, for example, is a self obsessed showy 

Siamese cat, she sees her mother as a fussy pecking Pouter Pigeon and her father as a busy performing Sea Lion. This proved a great plot device, with the children both trying to fathom which animals their teachers might be. Dick King-Smith packs his work full of rich description, particularly with regard to personalities, so inadvertently much improving my children's' vocabulary and desire to observe the world, and people around them. 

In the story, Harmony feels lonely, and yearns for a pet. She spends a lot of time alone, thinking, talking to her stuffed toys and the chickens in their coop in her garden. One day, bringing great excitement, her Uncle Ginger comes to stay ( she views him as a vivacious Grizzly Bear). Having built a mutual relationship, Ginger then has to return home, and on living Harmony, wraps her up a parting gift, a 50p piece that grants wishes once rubbed. So far, a sort of Alladin story, without the lantern. 

The build up to receiving the magic coin is suspense filled, with Harmony having to complete a treasure hunt, and then work out how to use the coin, followed by more complex  problem solving, that really carries the reader, such as how and when should Harmony spend her wishes. Harmony has seven wishes in total; although her wishes are continuously fulfilled, she learns many important lessons through making her decisions. She learns not to be rash, to prioritise those she loves, to be grateful for what she has, to see the good in people ( rather than all their negative qualities) and most importantly, she learns to keep dreaming, and believe and trust in others; fantastically humanistic messages in this hostile ideological age. 

When reading this book my children were really able to empathethise with how main character, Harmony, felt, as her dreams and wishes were well pitched and resembled  'real' children fairly universally. Harmony requests a pet rabbit, a bike, a watch and time off school. The adage 'be careful what you wish for' hungs in the air each time, as the wishes backfire to different extents due to Harmony's misguided management of the situation.

Harmony tries hard though, and diverts disaster by thinking of others, leading to a happy ending and the interesting question as to whether these events would have transpired anyway. With new confidence now, Harmony decides to give the coin away, tossing up on Wimbledon Common for the next person to find. My sons, Alf and Bert, loved this ending, wanting to immediately go searching for the coin. The only problem I found with the book, related to this, was that the coin described has been out of general circulation for some years, so unless we go hunting around in antique fairs, I don't expect we'll stumble on the 'real' coin any time soon. Though this might be a good thing. 
An inspiring, exciting read, ideal for reading to siblings as there were many talking points about the sibling relationship in the book discussed. I think we'll return to reading this again fondly in a few years, it was a big success. 

As with The Demon Headmaster The Demon Headmaster by Gillian Cross
 and The Worst Witch by Jill Murphy this leaves me to call the BBC to #BringBackTheQueensNose! https://youtu.be/5Chicdij_dU

Harry and the Snow King

Author: Ian Whybrow
Illustrator: Adrian Reynolds
Publisher: Puffin, 1997

We saw a few Snow Kings dotted around our neighbourhood today; those scruffy mini snowmen children make on walls or benches when there is just about enough snow. So this book 'Harry and The Snow King' resonated nicely. My children were all so desperately hoping to wake up to footfalls of snow, but just like in the story, we only had that typical British, teasing, sprinkling of snow, the type that soon melts. 

'Harry and the Snow King' is a story about Harry of 'Harry and a bucketful of dinosaurs' fame. This is a sweeter version of that original book, with intense Harry sculpting a tiny snowman, leaving him on a wall, and when he returns, the Snow King is missing. Of course the adult audience realise the Snow King has melted but Harry and the child audience want to search for the mini snowman- where could he be? In this story, magic does happen; kind farmer Mr Oakley suggests the Snow King has gone off to order more snow and in the morning, Harry wakes to find a huge snowfall and ten snowmen in his yard. ( I'm not sure they'll be such magic happening in our garden tonight sadly). 

This is a nice book about dreaming and having hope. I quite like the very cantankerous relationship between Harry and his big sister, but have heard other parents / readers say they don't like this about the series in general, as it sets a 'bad example', modelling negative sibling relationships. Personally I think portraying a more hostile sibling relationship is both honest, refreshing and real for young readers. Harry also lives with his single parent mum, and active, feisty Nan, again, another welcomed escape from the otherwise over represented nuclear family in children's literature. 

I particularly like that this book leaves on an air of mystery, as the person who builds the big snow men, in order to delight Harry, is never revealed. I like to think it might be the argumentative older sister, Sam, who says herself that bigger snow men are better, but can't quite bring herself to be outwardly nice to little brother Harry. I also like to think a message in this book is 'it's sad that things don't always last forever, but things change and life moves on all the time'. Once more this is a brave, interesting and honest concept to bring to young children. Author Ian Whybrow doesn't hesitate to touch on these hard hitting messages to children. I hope to come back to review his book 'Harry and the Robots' later this year, but in 
short, it's a book that doesn't shy from addressing the fragility of aging grandparents, fragility  being a theme in this title too.
In terms of Harry and the Snow King, this is a good book for promoting discussion and offering hope. 

Here's some craft activities we enjoyed to support our reading of this title: https://goo.gl/images/V2m37Y