Monster Blood Tatoo Foundling 10 +
by D. M. Cornish Dinosaur Chase!
£5.59 (free p&p)

THERE BE MONSTERS IS A phrase that young children fear, but older ones rush towards. For years my children would go to sleep with suits of plastic armour hung around their beds, suffering from teratophobia; my son would write stern messages on postcards of Uccello’s St George “just in case one flies by”.

Yet, paradoxically, they loved books about dinosaurs. Safely dead for millennia, dinosaurs would never coming whiffling through a tulgey wood or lunge at them out of the dark. Dinosaur Roar, complete with a fabulous pop-out T. rex, is a classic of the genre for toddlers, as is Dinosaur Stomp, a rumbustious poem in rhyming couplets about prehistoric partying that children of 5+ adore. Now Dinosaur Chase is worth adding to these.

Benedict Blathwayt is perfect for children aged 2 to 6. He has pinpoint recollection of the way that children can focus on details with microscopic attentiveness, and to show how these fit into a vast, almost overwhelming landscape. Such a sensibility is appealing to future trainspotters (and it’s no coincidence that some of his most successful books are about a Little Red Train), but may not seem ideal for muscular dinosaur tales. Dinosaur Chase is, however, a giant leap forward in a distinguished output, as an adventure in which the protagonist pulls something special out of himself as well as just plugging away.

Fin is a young dinosaur, mocked for having spindly little legs, knobbly ankles and fluffy arms. A wary, anxious looking creature, he is unable to show off when his friends boast: “Bet you can’t do this!” Then a gang of big, knobbly dinosaurs give chase. Little Fin can run, but they can run too; jump, but they can jump too; climb, but they can climb too. Less a monster than a weird lizard, he’s got a surprise up his runty arms, however.

One by one (as in all the best chase stories) his monstrous pursuers fall behind until there is just big, bad T. rex to escape. Fin is chased to the edge of the cliff, and there, miraculously, he finds something he can do and the rest can’t. He spreads his fluffy arms — and flies. Birds are believed to be descendants of dinosaurs, and this simple, delightful tale mixes palaeontography with fairytale fun about outwitting bullies. Bravo, Blathwayt!

D. M. Cornish’s debut, Monster Blood Tattoo, begins with maps to its Half-Continent and an abandoned boy called Rossamund in desperate need of a job. Illustrated by the author, it is a fantasy closer to Peake’s Gormenghast than the appalling Eragon, and suffers from an excess of somewhat stale inventiveness. An orphanage is a foundlingery, sailors are vinegaroons, a cup is a biggin and so on; there is an “Explicarium” at the end, with Appendices and yet more maps. Maddeningly, Cornish can really write, and his story gets off to an engaging start when not tripping over these idiotic extras.

Poor Rossamund, bullied for having a girl’s name, is taken on as a trainee lamplighter, one of the mysterious elite who fight monsters. Drenched in potions to make him odourless and equipped with lovingly-described gear, he will be travelling the fringes of civilisation, keeping lamps lit and bogles away. It’s not unlike Joseph Delaney’s wonderful Weirdstone Chronicles about the Spook and his Apprentice at present enthusing boys of 9+, but with, regrettably, fewer fights and a monster called a glamgorn whom our hero befriends. I’m afraid any normal boy will want to punch Rossamund’s nose, by the end. by Benedict Blathwayt

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