Nadia Shireen is an British award-winning author and illustrator, and this is her first novel for primary readers. In the humorous tradition of the ‘Tom Gates’ and ‘13-Storey Treehouse’ series, the text is accompanied by lots of black-and-white drawings, letters and interjections.
Nancy and Ted are two young foxes living in the Big City whose parents have vanished. As the big sister, Nancy takes good care of Ted and provides lots of food from the skip bins out the back of the Speedy Chicken. That is until Princess Buttons, the evil cat, takes over and Ted accidentally bites off her tail.
Ted and Nancy make a run for it and find themselves in Grimwood, a truly weird and wacky place inhabited by truly weird and wacky creatures, such as the mayor Titus (a stag), Pamela the eagle who has a nasty habit of biting heads off, Willow the rabbit and Ingrid the theatrical duck, not to mention the local sport of Treebonk. For the first time ever, Ted makes friends and gets involved in the amateur drama society – until Princess Buttons tracks them down on a GPS device and tries to kill them.
This is a silly book with lots of slapstick humour which may tickle the fancy of young readers. There is no depth to it, but the characters are endearing and the relationship between Ted and Nancy is quite touching.
Reviewed by Lynne Babbage
Age Guide 7+
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Nadia Shireen enjoyed making homemade magazines and comics as a child. She studied law at university and then worked in magazine journalism; it was during this time that she started to draw again. After a lifetime of doodling in the sidelines, Nadia decided to pay some attention to drawing and in 2007 was accepted onto an MA course in children’s book illustration at Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge.
Her debut book, Good Little Wolf, received a mention in the Bologna Ragazzi Opera Prima Award and won the UKLA Book Award. Nadia has been shortlisted for the Roald Dahl Funny Prize and the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize. She lives in London.
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