Synopsis: Castles is a puzzle book in the vein of Where’s Wally? or Anna Neilson’s intricate maze books. Colin Thompson’s ornate and often surreal pictures of castles are crammed with detail and populated with kings, queens, princes and princesses to discover. Not only are the characters hidden, they also take different forms: some are not human and some are not even living creatures. Each wears a crown, and there are well over 100 to find in all.

Review: The pictures are reminiscent of the Wayne Anderson’s detailed depictions of fantastic creations (The Tin Forest, Ratsmagic). As well as the crowned royalty, there is a silhouette of a kangaroo-like character in most (maybe all) pictures, but no mention is made of it anywhere. Other unmentioned items to look out for are the Atlantis café and the illustrator’s logo – they may well be more! We are not told exactly how many crowns to look for. Some children might find this frustrating – it means you can never be sure you’ve ‘finished’ with the book. But that’s half the point. Similarly, there are things that might or might not be crowns. The pictures are very much open to interpretation. The text is fantastical, bizarre, and amusing but doesn’t form a continuous narrative. The castle built on cold mashed potato is a warning against playing with your food, but ‘Castle Cosmos’ claims to have been built by the scientists who made Earth – and who ‘made a spare, in case the original got broken’.

Castles is a quirky book, with plenty of jokes for grown-ups and older children, but even younger children will delight in finding the crowned figures and enjoy the silliness of some of the pictures. There are visual references to Dali and other artists that adults and older children will enjoy. It would be a great book for children to explore together and encourages detailed examination and analysis of images. It could be used as the starting point for the children to try a similar project of their – making up their own castle, or drawing their own pictures with hidden surprises, or even making up stories around the pictures.

2007-01-10