This week, our reviewers Catherine Leung, Ekram Abdelgawad and Johanna McCalmont share their favourite new releases.

The Great Grrrrr
Written by Marie-Sabine Roger
Illustrated by Marjolaine Leray
Translated by Angus Yuen-Killick
Translated from French (France)
Published by Red Comet Press (September 2023)

Reviewed by Catherine Leung

This is the hilarious story of a monster working for an express delivery service, under pressure to deliver a parcel to a cottage in the countryside. With no time to waste, when there is no answer to his ringing and knocking on the door, the monster grows increasingly frustrated. Finally unable to contain his feelings, he destroys the cottage, which, it turns out, belonged to a little old lady. In contrast she is so kind and patient with him, without a hint of anger. The monster consequently feels quite embarrassed by his outburst and finds a way to make it up to her.

The Great Grrrrr is an original approach to a contemporary theme which has found its way into a multitude of recent children’s picture books – raising awareness of difficult emotions and how to control them. What is so wonderful about this particular picture book is that it does this with plenty of humour and an original story and characters. Essentially, young children will take this story at face value and love it for its humour. They also will not be able to resist Marjolaine Leray’s illustrations which are very relatable – the grey pencil sketching resembling a child’s drawing of a monster. There is something for everyone in this tale, and adult readers will relate to the stress and speed of today’s world, where everyone wants everything done straight away, portrayed through a stressed-out delivery monster. Again, the illustrations will appeal equally to the adult reader – while they may resemble a child’s drawings, they are also so very expressive and there is an artistic sophistication about them, with the contrasting angry grey pencil sketching alongside a calming neon pink.

This story can lead to great discussions between adult and child reader about anger management, and cleverly, as it doesn’t include any child characters, this provides a little bit of distance for children to open up and discuss an emotion they can all relate to. Adults may also like to reflect quietly on the benefits of slowing down a little!

Translator Angus Yuen-Killick is loyal to the spirit of the story in the original French, and he finds creative solutions to maintain the short and snappy style with minimal text.

Wild Poppies
Written by Haya Saleh
Translated by Marcia Lynx Qualey
Translated from Arabic (Jordan)
Published by Levine Querido, USA (2023)

Reviewed by Ekram Abdelgawad

“When I woke up, sadness hung over the world, and soldiers like living ghosts crowded every part of the city.” Omar, the older brother, describes his world after his father was shot by a shrapnel and became martyr. “What we’d been through was indescribable. Nobody who hadn’t lived through something like it could really feel our sadness, pain, and the fury we felt toward the whole unfair world.” Sufyan, the younger brother, describes what he and boys his age feel. Both Omar and Sufyan saw their father as their supporter and role model- losing him is the beginning of their tragedy.

The incidents of this heart-wrenching story take place in one of the villages of Syria at the time of war. Omar lives with his younger brother Sufyan, his sick mother and his six-year-old sister Thoraya. They all live in one room in a house owned by his mother’s aunt where other families of their relatives live, each family in a room. Omar is the tender soft-hearted older son while Sufyan is the challenger, tough and proud one. Omar does his best to protect his family while Sufyan does his best, in his own way, to earn money to support the family. The disagreement between the two brothers widens over time. Some parts of the book are narrated by Omar while others are narrated by Sufyan – a skillful way of presenting the incidents from different perspectives. This is echoed on the front cover where the two brothers take different paths- will they meet somewhere down the road?!

In search for a means to support his family, Sufyan meets with the powers of darkness that seek to take advantage of boys like Sufyan who are relentless, needy and inexperienced. “They kidnapped me, lied to me, and tricked me”, Sufyan says to himself on discovering their true colors. In their quarters, he sees things that were beyond his wildest imagination. Will Omar know what’s happening and seek to rescue him? Will Sufyan and his family get together in the end? That’s what we find out through unpredictable and fast-moving events.

It is a book that will grab your attention. If you’re like me, you will put it down only after you turn the last page, as the bookish Omar does with The Hunchback of Notre- Dame. I recommend Wild Poppies to those who are wrestling adversity with hearts full of hope whether young adults or adults. 

Na Willa
Written by Reda Gaudiamo
Illustrated by Cecillia Hidayat
Translated by Kate Wakeling & Ikhda Ayuning Maharsi Degoul
Translated from Indonesian
Published by Emma Press (2023)

Reviewed by Johanna McCalmont

In this welcome sequel to The Adventures of Na Willa, Indonesian author Reda Gaudiamo takes us back to vibrant Surabaya. Fans of Little Nicholas and Akissi will enjoy exploring the world through little Na Willa’s eyes in the 49 short chapters that invite readers into Na Willa’s daily life. We see her at school, playing with her friends in the alley, getting into all sorts of scrapes when she’s bored, and trying to help others, often with comical results. There are highs and lows (literally) as she swings from the big windows in church, for example, even though she knows she’s not allowed and needs rescuing when her finger gets trapped, or when she tries to help her friend Gato to stop stuttering by constantly slamming her fist on the desk only to learn that it might not be the kindest way to help him. The book ends with a big move to Jakarta, and as Na Willa describes her mother Mak in these final chapters, it becomes clear that Na Willa isn’t the only one who has mixed emotions about leaving Surabaya.  

The adults around Na Willa recognize her big heart and good intentions, despite her often slightly misguided enthusiasm, her fears, and her desire to be like others around her. When Mak, her mum, discovers Na Willa struggling to write with her right hand, for example, and finds out that Na Willa just wants be like her friends at school, she comforts Na Willa saying, “Right hand. Left hand. There’s no difference. They are both our hands. And it might be different from other people but it’s alright.”  

Readers are immediately immersed in the multilingual, multicultural community that is part and parcel of Na Willa’s daily life in  Surabaya. We learn the Indonesian words for mum and dad, polite ways to address adults, and we are introduced to all sorts of delicious tasting foods! Na Willa’s dad speaks Dutch with Oom Sie from work; she has to try her hardest to speak English herself when Tante Lan visits from Singapore; and her teacher only talks to the class in Indonesian, but one boy, Joko, always replies in Javanese. Na Willa even tries to stretch her nose with a clothes peg so that it becomes more like her new Indian neighbour’s longer nose that she admires so much! Many of these characters and situations indirectly reference historical events that Na Willa is slowly trying to understand herself.

The black and white line drawing illustrations dotted throughout the chapters add an extra layer of emotion to the lively text. We see Na Willa with her Mak, Pak, Mbok the maid, her friends from school, her pet Tiny Little Chick and even a few magical characters leaping out of the books she reads. The original Indonesian dialogue in the speech ‘bubbles’ has been retained in the illustrations and translated below, giving readers the chance to recognize names, foods and ‘hear’ a different language. Wakeling and Degoul’s translation from Indonesian has found a careful balance between retaining the many of the forms of address used in the original whilst also bringing Na Willa’s thoughts and feelings to life in a natural way in English that gives readers the feeling that Na Willa is talking to them directly.

Readers looking for an entertaining middle-grade chapter book full of adventures that make the ordinary extraordinary are bound to love Na Willa!

Meet the Reviewers

Catherine Leung is a literary translator, children’s picture book author of award-winning Long-Long’s New Year, and editor, having worked at Oxford University Press for a number of years. After a dreamy childhood in rural Devon, with a degree in French and German, her passion for language took her on a journey spanning almost a decade to China via France. She is now settled with her family in South West London.

Ekram Abdelgawad holds a PhD in translation of children’s literature with first honours, English Department, Faculty of Arts, Sohag University, Egypt, 2018. She taught English as a foreign language to children in Egypt for 16 years. She was an English lecturer at King Khalid University, Saudi Arabia for five years. She taught translation at Faculty of Languages and Translation, Pharos University in Alexandria, Egypt (2020 – 2022). She is currently an independent researcher in translation of children’s literature and freelance translator of children’s literature (English/Arabic). Her fields of interest are translation of children’s literature, translation studies, translation theories, and Arabic language.

Johanna McCalmont is a literary translator based in Brussels where she translates from French, German, Dutch and Italian. Her translations have been published by Blue Dot Kids Press, Indiana University Press and Arctis (forthcoming).