If asked the question about how this Cary Fagan novel stacks up against Richler's Two-Twos, the answer would be very well indeed. This novel begins, reassuringly, in exactly the same satisfyingly ritualistic way its predecessors do: “Once there was a boy called Jacob Two-Two. He had two ears and two eyes and two arms and two feet and two shoes … etc.”
Seamlessly, the reader moves on to the crux of the matter here, which is Jacob's family's voyage from London, back to the city and land of his father's birth, Montreal, Canada. Tickets on the Queen Elizabeth II are not available, or so their father says, but the SS Spring-a-leak is sure to very nice, he assures them. And therein lies a tale.
Once on board, they meet the aptly named Captain Sparkletooth, the not-to-be-trusted first mate, Mr. Scrounger, and an interesting collection of fellow passengers. With scarcely time to unpack, Jacob and his new friend Cindy are taken down to the bowels of the ship and forced to do hard labour under the surprisingly benevolent eye of the ship's engineer, Mr. Morgenbesser. That it's going to be a difficult trip seems a sure thing, especially when pirates board the ship.
Without giving away too many details of life on the high seas, it can be revealed that by the time the Spring-a-Leak docks in Montreal, Jacob has had his seventh birthday and can now be called “Jacob two plus two plus two plus one brave boy.”
THUMB AND THE BAD GUYS
By Ken Roberts, illustrated by Leanne Franson, Groundwood, 120 pages, $12.95, ages 7 to 10
The third book in Ken Roberts' splendid Thumb series begins in a darkened school gym, just as a good-guys-versus-bad-guys film is ending. Watching it are 12-year-old Thumb, a.k.a. Leon, and his sage and sensible friend and sidekick, Susan. Why can't real life be more like movie life, Thumb wonders out loud. Wouldn't real life be more exciting with a few bad guys (or girls) thrown into the mix? “I mean,” Thumb says, trying to further his premise, “without bad guys, Harry Potter books would just be books about school.”
It's hard, though, to find any bad guys among the 143 souls living in New Auckland, the remote B.C. fishing village the pair calls home. There are no roads, so access and provisioning are by boat or plane, and the last time the police visited was a year ago, when a pair of vacationing policemen fishing offshore were looking for a place to stay.
Thumb and Susan decide to make their lives a little less uneventful by finding someone who might have a secret life as a bad guy. They fixate on the unwitting Kirk McKenna, whose habit of prolific and indiscriminate spitting would seem to make him the ideal candidate.
The sleuths follow Kirk up the mountain and discover that he has a secret hut, whereupon the plot thickens, details unfold, theories unravel, hilarity reigns and Ken Roberts scores another home run.
Leanne Franson's pen-and-ink drawings add to the fun, giving form and face to a motley crew of characters.
DEFINITELY NOT FOR LITTLE ONES: Some Very Grimm Fairy-Tale Comics
By Rotraut Susanne Berner, Groundwood, 48 pages, $19.95, ages 9 and up
These fairy tales – among them Tom Thumb, The Frog Prince, Rapunzel and Lucky Hans – do not always resolve with those oft-spoken words “and they lived happily ever after.” More often than not, Rotraut Susanne Berner's retellings offer a blunter, less starry-eyed ending, one in which the last words about the finally united pair, or reunited family members are “and they would still be alive today … if they hadn't died, that is.”
So, these are tales for the newly sophisticated, those with a stomach for a more cut-and-dried, less – shall we say – romantic tone to fairy tales that they may have known and loved, and an appetite for a new reading, both literally and figuratively.
These tales are told in comic form, which in itself offers a punchy, fast-paced and eye-appealing medium for expression. In Berner's rendering, the king's youngest and most beautiful daughter, the heroine of The Frog Prince, is no one's idea of a beauty, and her unkind behaviour toward the importuning frog is ... well, graphic.
