A FEW REVIEWS

Determined readers and willing listeners will be the first to gain from The Poppykettle Papers. What a saga! What episodes! The volcano! The maelstrom! The monster! The spells and prophesies! No reader will wish to leave them in mid-saga even at the seeming end.    (Naomi Lewis, Daily Telegraph)

Framed as a series of memoirs, this will enthral readers who enjoy tales of tiny folk whose courage is as outsized as their world.    (Kirkus Reviews, US)

This enchanting fantasy tale about the last of the Hairy Peruvians is bound to become a classic. It is told in an engaging literary style, rich in vocabulary reminiscent of oral storytelling. Dramatic illustrations are sprinkled throughout the pages.   (Kids @ the Library, Burlington Canada)

I love everything about this terrific book. It has an exciting adventure-filled plot, stout-hearted little heroes and scary adversaries. It has a quest filled with peril and great hope. There are barely possible tasks to be fulfilled, and there is sorrow, and mystery, and some happiness too. Children will love this, and so will any adult with a gypsy soul and a child's heart.    (Reviewer from Appleton, WI, USA)

Brimming with excitement, danger, tragedy, triumph, vivid characters, and more than a sprinkling of humour, this is a book that children will read again and again.    (Amazon.com)

A marvellous picture book for older readers!    (ACHUKA)

Extract from

The Poppykettle Papers

The Terrible Cunmerrie

We climbed on, higher and higher. As the light began to fade Don Avante ordered us to make camp for the night. We lit a small fire within a circle of stones and prepared a meal from the poppyseeds we’d brought with us, and some fruit and vegetables gathered along the way. We’d hardly finished eating when the old men’s eyes began to droop. ‘We must keep watch through the night,’ Don Avante said wearily. ‘We’ll take it in turns, five short watches before dawn so that we may all get a decent rest. I’ll take first watch.’

     ‘No you won’t,’ Arnica said. ‘You need to build your strength for tomorrow, Grandfather. So do Astute and Andante. I’ll take the first half of the night, Aloof can do the rest.’

     ‘Oh thanks,’ I said.

     While the rest of us settled down by the fire, Arnica clambered up onto a large boulder above us, from where she said she could see all there was to see. Night came quickly then, and soon I was the only one awake by the fire, trying to decide which was worse, the endless noise of the volcano or the fitful snores of old men. But even I must have fallen asleep eventually because it seemed hardly any time at all before Arnica was shaking me and telling me to be quiet and not wake the others. She took my place by the last of the fire while I, shivering in my cloak, climbed wretchedly up to the boulder. The stars were still bright, but there were fewer of them now and the sky was lightening low in the east, which meant that Arnica had either kept watch for longer than she needed to or had dozed off at her post. I wasn’t yet fully awake myself, and as there was nothing to do or look at drowsiness again overtook me.

    I was woken by the worst sound I’ve ever heard, a nightmarish shriek that ripped the silence to shreds, scattered it upon the wind. I stumbled to my feet in dizzy alarm as a pair of vast black wings blocked out the last stars and the volcano’s fiery glow. I would have jumped down to join the others but the creature was too quick, and suddenly I stood between its dreadful talons staring up into the twin pools of blood that were its eyes. Still it screeched, so piercingly, so horribly, that I could do nothing but shriek back as the cruel beak reared open to take me.

     But then something unexpected happened. Perhaps my own racket startled it, for the brute paused before striking and in that pause an unexpected movement caught its murderous eye. Distracted, the Cunmerrie blinked, then snatched up a green lizard scurrying just a little too slowly into a crevice near my feet. If I hadn’t left my wits down by the fire I would have seized that moment to roll off the boulder and tuck myself out of sight; but as the Cunmerrie propelled itself from the rock I jumped after it without thought, decision or ambition, and clung to it. My feet left the ground and the monster gave a squawk of pain as the part I gripped came away in my hands. It might have turned on me, but it did not. It had what it had come for, its terrified, squirming breakfast, and off it flew with it towards its home inside the volcano. As I fell back onto the rock, scales from the beast’s reptilian skin rained down on me.

     ‘Aloof?’ A voice from below. ‘You all right?’

     ‘I... yes. I think so.’

     ‘What’s that you’ve got there?’

     I looked at the thing in my hands - and laughed. Then I leapt to my feet holding my trophy high above my head. Pausing only to yell some abuse after the retreating Cunmerrie, I bounded down from the rock to show off my prize. There, praise came thick and fast from all but Arnica who, examining the enormous purple feather in the growing light, wondered how a thing of such beauty and softness could come from such a devilish being. Don Avante, Astute, Andante and I had other things on our minds. The first part of El Niño’s task was accomplished! We had what we'd come for! The feather! We had the feather!

     ‘But what do we do with it?’ Andante said as we calmed down.

     ‘I think,’ said Don Avante, ‘that the best thing we can do is get it back to the Poppykettle and wonder about that later.’

     There were no arguments. We gathered ourselves together and started down - with some haste.