Pillycock's Shop

by Margaret Mahy, Carol Barker

In a mysterious shop a youngster trades his sister for a tin monkey, but when he changes his mind and goes back for her, he is told he must find her despite her disguise before sunset.

Genres: Picture Books

26 pages

First published January 1, 1969

About the author

Margaret Mahy was a well-known New Zealand author of children's and young adult books. While the plots of many of her books have strong supernatural elements, her writing concentrates on the themes of human relationships and growing up.

Her books The Haunting and The Changeover: A Supernatural Romance both received the Carnegie Medal of the British Library Association. There have 100 children's books, 40 novels, and 20 collections of her stories published. Among her children's books, A Lion in the Meadow and The Seven Chinese Brothers and The Man Whose Mother was a Pirate are considered national classics. Her novels have been translated into German, French, Spanish, Dutch, Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, Finnish, Italian, Japanese, Catalan and Afrikaans. In addition, some stories have been translated into Russian, Chinese and Icelandic.

For her contributions to children's literature she was made a member of the Order of New Zealand. The Margaret Mahy Medal Award was established by the New Zealand Children's Book Foundation in 1991 to provide recognition of excellence in children's literature, publishing and literacy in New Zealand. In 2006 she was awarded the Hans Christian Andersen Award (known as the Little Nobel Prize) in recognition of a "lasting contribution to children's literature".

Margaret Mahy died on 23 July 2012.

On 29 April 2013, New Zealand’s top honour for children’s books was renamed the New Zealand Post Margaret Mahy Book of the Year award.

For more information, please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret...

Reviews

[Thomasin Propson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read aloud over two nights. I fear the story itself is somewhat xenophobic in its depiction of the shopkeeper (he wasn’t just suspicious and magical and evil, he was clearly a foreigner) but if accepting it as a children’s story where the unknown is dangerous and home is where you are safe then it makes sense. Would have liked a bit more story about the shop and its keeper (which appear only every 500 years). The illustrations help make the book 4 stars, but also lean toward creepy; my youngest was disturbed to tears and has asked me to put the book away so she never sees it (one particular picture of a menacing monkey) ever again.

[Michael Fitzgerald · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderful illustrations with beautiful colors and intricate details (some black-and-white). The story is unsettling and deserves a longer treatment.

[Lili · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was pretty good

[Amber the Human · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wanting to get rid of your younger sibling. A common theme, but I didn't realize how common until I started reading children's books recently. Even adult books about children (like The Book of Lost Things, which I just read for book club). Having never had a younger sibling, the concept is not one I've experienced, but apparently it's fairly universal.