The Magic Place
Kept a prisoner by her brutal aunt and uncle, a young orphan named Clementine dreams of escaping the Great Black City to seek out a magic place that she only knows of from her dreams.
The first thing to say about The Magic Place is that it is an absolutely gorgeous looking book. From the front cover to the author’s own illustrations, Chris Wormell has fashioned an absolute visual delight, with each and every page a thing of beauty.
Beyond the magnificent imagery, it is aunt and uncle Grimble who prove to be the two standout characters of the book. Pitched to a perfect balance of cruel and clumsy, frightening and foolish, humorous and horrid, the two characters are written in such a way as to never make light of how nasty they are to Clementine, but at the same time Wormell is careful to keep them at a pleasingly pantomime level of villainy so that the book never strains under the weight of their nastiness.
The Magic Place is fun, fast-paced and very enjoyable, with stunning illustrations, compelling characters and a clever cat named Gilbert. You couldn’t ask for much more than that.
