Tor.com has reprinted China Mieville's inspired introduction to The Borribles, the classic, 1980s urban fantasy young adult trilogy by Michael de Larrabeiti, recently relaunched in the UK. As Mieville points out, The Borribles are fundamentally a fractured love-poem to London, and its love-hate relationship to children:
Aimée and Rose de Larabeitti remember the stories their father, Michael, told them—stories he would go on to publish as the anarchic, anti-authoritarian, and completely wonderful Borrible Trilogy of young adult books.
I've been posting here about The Borribles for more than a decade (proof!). Michael de Larrabeiti's young adult fantasy trilogy from the 1980s remains among my most favourite examples of both YA literature and literature about London. The books detail the lives of the Borribles, a race of elfin, pointy-eared changelings, whose number swells every time a naughty child simply walks away from home and begins a new life as an immortal, pointy-eared trickster. — Read the rest
I just spotted this new edition of Michael de Larrabeiti's stunning young adult novel The Borribles, packaged to attract a new generation of kids to this marvellous, unflinching story of unrepentant sly criminal immortal children romping through the invisible belowstairs world of London. — Read the rest
Michael de Larrabeiti's classic children's trilogy, "The Borribles," is back in print in an omnibus edition incorporating all three volumes of the story. "Borribles" is not only one of the finest children's adventure stories ever penned, it's also an epic love poem to London, in the same way that China Mieville's King Rat is — dark and glorying in the decadent, intestinal twistings and turnings of London's sooty, crowded, vibrant streets. — Read the rest
The Wombles are Britain's counterpart to the Smurfs, the Gnomes, the Trolls, and so on: in the 1960s and 1970s, every European country had its own cast of counterculture-influenced yet eminently franchisable creature cultures. The Wombles are hedgehog-like characters who live in burrows in parkland ("the Wombles of Wimbledon Common are we…") and clean up after thoughtless, littering humans. — Read the rest
[Harry Tynan posts on our forums as Moose Malloy. Earlier this week, he messaged me about his fun, self-published kid's book, written as a series of bedtime stories for his kid (a tradition I'm very fond of — it's the origin story of The Borribles!). — Read the rest
ChiZine publishing and author Daniel A. Rabuzzi are giving away free PDFs of Rabuzzi's YA fantasy novel The Choir Boats : "Described as 'vibrant' and rich with 'verve and wit,' it's a seagoing fantasy yarn that is like 'Gulliver's Travels crossed with The Golden Compass and a dollop of Pride and Prejudice.'" — Read the rest
After this year's World Science Fiction Convention, I was sitting around the bar with some writers and editors and we got to talking about subversive kids' literature. Everyone had their favorites, but then George RR Martin proceeded to describe a book so incredibly twisted, funny and wonderfully wicked that I could scarce believe he wasn't putting me on. — Read the rest
My editor, Patrick Nielsen Hayden, rang me yesterday to talk about a weird little phenomenon: people who were going to stores looking for my newest, Little Brother, were walking away unfulfilled because they were looking in the science fiction section, not the young adult section. — Read the rest
I've just finished reading Philip Pullman's Northern Lights, the first volume in a British kids' fantasy trilogy. I'm over the moon with delight. This is a brilliant novel: gripping, funny, dark, heartwarming and vivid. I haven't been so glad of a BritLit book since The Borribles Trilogy — up until now my absolute favorite kids' fantasy books, not least because of their unflinching grimness and refusal to be even slightly twee. — Read the rest
This holiday season, Bay Areans can contribute to the Gift of Reading book-drive and help turn kids onto great, life-changing literature. I'm going to do a run to my local when I get home and round up as much of the following as I can for donation — books I read and wish I'd read when I was a kid:
— Read the restThe Wombles of Wimbledon Common were a terrific British kids' show (though I later read and fell in love with Michael DeLarabetti's Borribles books, and realized how terribly saccharine the Wombles really were). Here's a link to the Wombles' songs, which are funny and British as all get out. — Read the rest
