The Battles of Ben Kingdom - The Claws of Evil Cover

We love our Steampunk heroes cheeky, agile and fascinating here at ReadItDaddy so we're happy to announce the imminent arrival of a particularly interesting hero - in the shape of Ben Kingdom.

"The Battles of Ben Kingdom: The Claws of Evil" by Andrew Beasley is a novel for the 10+ age group, dipping into a genre that has exploded over the last decade and has fast become the go-to for folk (like me) who love their technology coal-fired.

Victorian London in Beasley's novel is a place rife with cool characters. Sherlock Holmes, The Artful Dodger and Ben himself - who ends up in the middle of an age-old battle between good and evil as he takes possession of a mysterious coin.

Aided by a force for good known only as "The Watchers", Ben Kingdom must defeat the dark evil of The Feathered Men to ensure the world doesn't fall into chaos.

Reading the premise, it definitely sounds like our cup of earl grey so we'll be following the progress of young Mr Kingdom with interest.

Keep an eye out for a review coming as soon as we can lay our claws of evil on a copy.

After enjoying the recent "Alice Weekend" here in Oxford, I have been on the lookout for a 'toddler' version of Lewis Carroll's classic children's book for quite some time. We finally spotted one and though it features some absolutely beautiful illustrations by Mauro Evangelista, the abridged text is far too choppy and disjointed to really give a flavour of the original book. 

Carroll's nonsensical tale gets butchered, to put it plainly - to the point where even a forgiving child's imagination struggles to fill in the gaps. It's not an enviable task to take a well loved (and lengthy) work and make it appeal to a younger audience. I guess I'll just have to wait until I can show Charlotte the 'proper' version instead. A pity. 


Daddy's favourite bit: Evangelista's artwork is sublime but can't save the book from being a bit of a mess otherwise

Rating: 1 out of 5