Pugs of the Frozen North

Product Information

an engaging story for children (and, in my case at least, adults) who have the ability to read alone but aren't yet ready to give up the pleasure of heavily illustrated books.' Z J Cookson, The BookBag In Pugs of the Frozen North, the pugs say ‘Yip!’ and ‘Arooo!’ You could create speech bubbles for the children’s creatures with the sounds their various creatures make while they’re racing. Infused with excitement and humour, both splendidly represented in words and the icy two-tone illustrations, serious messages about helping others and facing the death of family members pervade the narrative. The endpapers are especially fun, as the final spread names all 66 pugs! Philip Reeve was born and raised in Brighton, where he worked in a bookshop for a number of years while also co-writing, producing and directing a number of no-budget theatre projects. For an extra challenge, children could create harnesses for their creatures and draw on coloured paper a picture of themselves riding their sled. For younger children, you could cut around the second shape, glue a headshot photo of the child into the parka hood, and have the child decorate the sled, parka, mittens and boots. A bit of decorative ribbon might make a nice belt. Patterned origami paper might make eye-catching sled blankets.

My seven-year-old and I have read and really enjoyed all three of Philip Reeve and Sarah McIntyre's collaborations. This was my favorite by far, which is really saying something; my seven-year-old says he loves this as much as he loved Oliver and the Seawigs (the first of them), which is also really saying something, because, as he explained, "I love Oliver a LOT." Very, very funny, wildly imaginative, incredibly clever, and there was one point in the climax that was so moving, it was actually hard to read out loud (to my seven-year-old, who ADORED this book and demanded that it all be read to him in less than a day!) because I was actually crying a little bit as I read. Just lovely! Yet another wonderful addition to the Reeves and McIntyre duo and expelling the myth that 'there are no good books for younger children'. When Shen finds himself abandoned upon a frozen sea along with 66 pugs, he is unsure of his fate. Fortunately, he encounters Sika and her family. She agrees to look after the dogs so long as they can be part of a sledging competition in which the winner is granted their heart's desire. an engaging story for children (and, in my case at least, adults) who have the ability to read alone but aren't yet ready to give up the pleasure of heavily illustrated books." - Z J Cookson, The BookBagPart 2: The children could use these answers to inspire a story, showing a character who gets his or her heart's desire, how getting this might make things go wrong, and then showing what they'd do (or not do) to make it right again. The story could be in comics form or in writing with illustrations. They could be serious or silly-surreal stories, depending on how they want to approach the subject.

New friends Sika and Shen try to beat the odds and win the Great Northern Race--in a sled pulled by a team of sixty-six pugs--in hopes of meeting the Snowfather and having him grant their wish The whole book is a race and I can't wait to read the whole book to find out what happens in the end." - Rachel Zinkin, age 8, for lovereading4kids.co.uk

Reviews

Antaisin vielä puolikkaan tähden tuohon päälle, ihan hauska tarina, joskin melko kliseiset hahmot: on ylimielistä aatelista, luonnonvoimia selittäviä alkuasukkaita ja orpopoika kaupanpäälle. Plussaa itsevarmasta, jääkarhujen vetämästä parrakkaasta Helgasta. I really especially loved Helga Hammerfest, who has polar bears pull her sled and who is big and strong and owns the shit out of her fabulous beard. I can't even with this lady. She knows what she's into (polar bears, winter) and she just does her. <3 The advantage of making comics is that the visuals will pull along the writing and make the overall book a more appealing object. There's also more of a chance that children would want to read each other's work if it's in comic form, and the kids would have to work on making their comics read clearly to each other. I'm not sure whether you'll remember me - I was sat next to you at the Book Awards dinner in Nottingham and we talked about how Pugs of the Frozen North sounded like an exciting novel to use for the Polar Bear topic that I have to plan for the first two weeks of term with my Polar Bears class. Well, I've read it, I just know that the children will LOVE it and I have also decided that if we're going to get as much enjoyment out of it as it has to offer, it's going to need more than two weeks! I'm going into school tomorrow to turn my classroom into the North Pole and the novel is going to be at the heart of our topic for the whole first half of this term, which I think I'm going to call ‘The Race to the Top of the World’ … I just wondered whether there is any chance that you and/or Philip might be able to spare a few minutes to come up with some sort of writing challenge based on Pugs of the Frozen North?