Mortimer’s Cross
by Joan Aiken (Harper & Row, 1983)
audiobook read by Judy Bennett (Bolinda, 2015) [as part of the 3-in-1 collection ‘Mortimer’s Cross’]
![Book covers: “Mortimer’s Cross” by Joan Aiken (Harper & Row, 1983); audiobook read by Judy Bennett (Bolinda, 2015) [as part of the 3-in-1 collection ‘Mortimer’s Cross’]](https://www.derelictspacesheep.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Aiken_Mortimers-Cross.jpg)
A lively middle-grade adventure, Dahl-like in tone but with a more adult vocabulary suggestive of Mortimer’s origins (being read aloud on Jackanory). Bennett’s enthusiastically British- and Welsh-accented audiobook narration does capture the spirit, but it’s a shame to forego Quentin Blake’s illustrations.
Quentin Blake’s Clown
dir. Luigi Berio; adapted by Luigi Berio & Massimo Fenati
narrated by Helena Bonham Carter (Channel 4, 2020)
Quentin Blake’s wordless picture book, transformed into a 21-minute Christmas film narrated by Helena Bonham Carter. The story is sad but sweet and the animation is delightfully executed, bringing the adventure to life while staying true to Blake’s drawing style and layout.
Agaton Sax and the Max Brothers
by Nils-Olof Franzén; ill. Quentin Blake (Andre Deutsch, 1970) [also published as “Agaton Sax and the Bank Robbers”]
![Book cover: “Agaton Sax and the Max Brothers” by Nils-Olof Franzén; ill. Quentin Blake (Andre Deutsch, 1970) [also published as “Agaton Sax and the Bank Robbers”]](https://www.derelictspacesheep.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Franzen_Agaton-Sax-Max-Brothers.jpg)
Assured and often droll (especially the conversations) but lacking the madcap joie de vivre of other Agaton Sax capers. The great detective’s secretive master-plan lacks the usual proactiveness—he and Lispington mostly trail after the crooks, indulging them until an unlikely denouement.
Lester at the Seaside
by Quentin Blake (Picture Lions, 1975)
Not as zany or cohesive a story as ‘Lester and the Unusual Pet’, but still a charming, freewheeling exploration of imagination. Blake mixes sharp ink lines with watery pastels to bring small blue dog/stegosaurus Lester and fat red cat/frog Otto to life.
Pens Ink & Places
by Quentin Blake (Tate, 2018)
A big, beautiful book, astutely laid out with plenty of white space to accentuate the visual content. This is first and foremost a compendium of Blake’s recent works, with background notes as to their commissioning or his experiences creating them. Eminently collectable.
The Incredible Kidnapping
by Willis Hall; ill. Quentin Blake (William Heinemann, 1975)
A middle-grade comedy of incompetence, given to much running about and characters conversing in blissfully ignorant, wilful suspension of disbelief. The story is based on Hall’s play Kidnapped at Christmas and is easy to imagine playing out in that context. Gently amusing.
One Hundred and One Black Cats
by Stephen Mooser; ill. Quentin Blake (Scholastic, 1975)
It’s hard to believe Mooser was paid for this early middle-grade reworking of the Sherlock Holmes story ‘The Adventure of the Six Napoleons’. It’s fun enough but overly simplified, blandly written and drained of mystery. Wholly unoriginal, save for Quentin Blake’s illustrations.
Cyril of the Apes
by Jonathan Gathorne-Hardy; ill. Quentin Blake (Jonathan Cape, 1987)
A middling middle-grade adventure in which the protagonist—a crotchety writer with no redeeming features—embroils himself in various perils and through happenstance alone escapes them. The illustrations and tone of writing suggest this is supposed to be funny, but it isn’t.
Agaton Sax and the Colossus of Rhodes
by Nils-Olof Franzén; ill. Quentin Blake (André Deutsch, 1972) [From the Swedish Agaton Sax och den bortkomne mr Lispington, 1966]
There’s plenty of fun to be had following Swedish super sleuth Agaton Sax in his masterly pursuit of the world’s most dastardly criminals. The focus on bureaucratic filibuster and a sequence of muddles and misunderstandings, however, renders the plot a little scattershot.
Rhyme Stew
by Roald Dahl; ill. Quentin Blake (Jonathan Cape, 1989)
Lame poetry that, otherwise treated, could have become classic illustrated short stories. Dahl’s rhymes are too simplistic for grown-ups, yet too adult for young readers (the cover explicitly says so, though everything else about the book’s presentation screams ‘children’). A perplexing offering.