The Ickabog by J.K Rowling

Hachette Children's Books, 2020. ISBN: 9781510202252.
Highly recommended. The Ickabog is a special book. Without a doubt, the master storyteller knows just how to captivate young (and not so young) readers. This book was instantly well received by classes in our school library. They enjoyed the wonderful word play, the evocative imagery, the description and of course the plot. Rowling has fun with nomenclature, for example: Daisie Dovetail, Bert Beamish, Lord Goodfellow and Lord Spittleworth.
The Ickabog is set in the wonderful land of Cornucopia which is full of bounty and happiness. However, from the start, there is just a hint that something bad is pending. The King is not very smart, his advisers are worrying and to the north lie the Marshlands and the Ickabog . . .
It is refreshing to find a rollicking, good, old fashioned fairy tale adventure amongst our current diet of children's books which often deal with difficult topics. However, this story is not all lightness and froth. It does become dark, in the manner of olden day fairy tales. The golden kingdom of Cornucopia is almost destroyed by an evil regime that begins with sycophantic flattery and proceeds to a level where lies, pretensions, cover-ups, spies, informers, nasty, chilly, horrible things happen. The weak king struggles between vanity, cowardice and honesty. Somehow Rowling manages to know when to stop the nastiness, just in time, just enough to be scarily, horribly suspenseful. She strikes a fine balance and that is a supreme art. The young heroes and the good people show fortitude against all odds and the Ickabog turns out to be a delight.
The reader recognizes the comforts of a well-known formula - a serialised bed time story. There are 64 short chapters and there are echoes of well-known fairy tales including The Emperor's New Clothes, Beauty and the Beast and Snow White.
Full colour illustrations from 34 winners of the Ickabog Illustration Competition from the UK, Australia, Ireland, India and New Zealand add something very special to this book. For young readers to see the work of children their own age interpreting text through art and then having it published in a book written by J.K.Rowling is inspiring.
Wendy Jeffrey