David Lambourne, Henry Lambourne, Isabel Lambourne
New Toys
language
(Ferndale Press April 8, 2011)
It is a few years in the future. A couple of vicious android warriors, originally bought as Christmas presents, have moved in with Mr and Mrs Wilmot and their children Petra and Robin, and are now threatening to make them prisoners in their own semi-detached house. The family’s last hope lies with an unarmed rabble of ordinary toys led by a scruffy teddy-bear called Hodge. Courage, ingenuity and ordinary decency are pitted against plain brutality powered by state-of-the-art technology and an alarming dash of magic. Which side will win?
It all starts two days before Christmas, with Mrs Wilmot and her cranky mother battling their way through the crowds in Toymania, the biggest toyshop in Britain. For Robin's main present Mrs Wilmot has decided to buy one of a new range of android warriors called ‘The Warlords of Pandemonium’, advertised as ‘the toy of the decade’. The chosen Warlord is Saffron Fangbyte, the cheapest model in the range. Petra’s main present is a talking ‘Sweetheart’ doll with an American accent.
In another part of the toyshop Granny Blenkinsop is looking for an antidote to all this ‘gimmickry and trash’ -- an old-fashioned teddy bear a child can turn to in times of trouble. After some searching (for very few toyshops stock articles of this description any more) a bear with a damaged ear is discovered in a dark corner of the stock-room. His name is Hodge.
Meanwhile behind the scenes the resident wizard who advises Nemesis Toys, the manufacturer of The Warlords of Pandemonium, is warning of horrendous consequences if the warrior toy is not immediately recalled. Not surprisingly Mr Stryde, the shop’s owner, refuses to play ball: the Warlords are his best-selling line, and if they are removed from sale he stands to lose virtually the whole of the year’s profits.
On Christmas Day, just as the wizard predicted, the Pandemonium begins....
At first Saffron Fangbyte, aided by the scheming Deborah Sweetheart, finds it easy to bully the other toys into doing his bidding. Eventually the brave and resourceful Hodge manages to deactivate Saffron, only to see him replaced by a series of ever more dangerous Warlords, bent on revenging their comrade and taking over not just the toy-room but the entire household.
This is a hilariously funny book for children aged eight to twelve who do not automatically believe everything they are told. Like Roald Dahl’s CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY it describes a world in which children are sometimes wiser than the grown-ups who are supposed to look after them.
A NOTE ON THE HISTORY OF THIS BOOK
When David Lambourne’s children’s novel THE MUSCLEMEN first appeared in 1991, it was highly praised for the “muscle and spark” of its writing. Later that year it was selected for inclusion in the Independent's 'Christmas Books for Children' supplement. Early reviewers were impressed by its acidly satirical attack on modern consumerism, and in particular the way the toy industry has come to be hi-jacked by movie and TV spin-offs, as well as high-tech gadgetry and violent computer games.
THE MUSCLEMEN belongs with a long line of children’s books about talking toys reaching back to Victorian times, including the work of writers like E. Nesbit, Mrs Molesworth, F. Anstey, L. Frank Baum, Enid Blyton, Rumer Godden and Russell Hoban. Its themes and cast of characters are curiously similar to those of Pixar’s first TOY STORY film, which appeared four years later. Now extensively updated and rewritten, this wise and funny children’s book is available on Kindle under the title NEW TOYS.
NEW TOYS is the first part of a projected trilogy about the products of Nemesis Toys called THE FATESTONES. The second volume in the trilogy will be published on Kindle later this year under the title TRADITIONAL TOYS
It all starts two days before Christmas, with Mrs Wilmot and her cranky mother battling their way through the crowds in Toymania, the biggest toyshop in Britain. For Robin's main present Mrs Wilmot has decided to buy one of a new range of android warriors called ‘The Warlords of Pandemonium’, advertised as ‘the toy of the decade’. The chosen Warlord is Saffron Fangbyte, the cheapest model in the range. Petra’s main present is a talking ‘Sweetheart’ doll with an American accent.
In another part of the toyshop Granny Blenkinsop is looking for an antidote to all this ‘gimmickry and trash’ -- an old-fashioned teddy bear a child can turn to in times of trouble. After some searching (for very few toyshops stock articles of this description any more) a bear with a damaged ear is discovered in a dark corner of the stock-room. His name is Hodge.
Meanwhile behind the scenes the resident wizard who advises Nemesis Toys, the manufacturer of The Warlords of Pandemonium, is warning of horrendous consequences if the warrior toy is not immediately recalled. Not surprisingly Mr Stryde, the shop’s owner, refuses to play ball: the Warlords are his best-selling line, and if they are removed from sale he stands to lose virtually the whole of the year’s profits.
On Christmas Day, just as the wizard predicted, the Pandemonium begins....
At first Saffron Fangbyte, aided by the scheming Deborah Sweetheart, finds it easy to bully the other toys into doing his bidding. Eventually the brave and resourceful Hodge manages to deactivate Saffron, only to see him replaced by a series of ever more dangerous Warlords, bent on revenging their comrade and taking over not just the toy-room but the entire household.
This is a hilariously funny book for children aged eight to twelve who do not automatically believe everything they are told. Like Roald Dahl’s CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY it describes a world in which children are sometimes wiser than the grown-ups who are supposed to look after them.
A NOTE ON THE HISTORY OF THIS BOOK
When David Lambourne’s children’s novel THE MUSCLEMEN first appeared in 1991, it was highly praised for the “muscle and spark” of its writing. Later that year it was selected for inclusion in the Independent's 'Christmas Books for Children' supplement. Early reviewers were impressed by its acidly satirical attack on modern consumerism, and in particular the way the toy industry has come to be hi-jacked by movie and TV spin-offs, as well as high-tech gadgetry and violent computer games.
THE MUSCLEMEN belongs with a long line of children’s books about talking toys reaching back to Victorian times, including the work of writers like E. Nesbit, Mrs Molesworth, F. Anstey, L. Frank Baum, Enid Blyton, Rumer Godden and Russell Hoban. Its themes and cast of characters are curiously similar to those of Pixar’s first TOY STORY film, which appeared four years later. Now extensively updated and rewritten, this wise and funny children’s book is available on Kindle under the title NEW TOYS.
NEW TOYS is the first part of a projected trilogy about the products of Nemesis Toys called THE FATESTONES. The second volume in the trilogy will be published on Kindle later this year under the title TRADITIONAL TOYS
- Pages
- 126