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A Tale of Fontania #4
The Knot Impossible: A Tale of Fontania
In the conclusion to the award-winning Tales of Fontania quartet, Rufkin meets Nissy in a murky salvage yard, and a small boy who can only say "Help!," and starts with them on a magical adventure.
328 pages, Hardcover
First published February 1, 2016
About the author
Barbara Else
32 books25 followersBarbara Else is a playwright and fiction writer, and has also worked as a literary agent, editor and fiction consultant. Else won the Victoria University Writer’s Fellowship in 1999, and was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to literature in 2005.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 14, 2018
For those who have read the previous books in the award winning Fontania series, you are in for another magical ride. Even if you haven’t, this is a stand-alone fantasy adventure that will have children engrossed right from the beginning.
Rufkin, a seemingly ordinary young boy, was sent to stay with friends of his parents, Mister and Mistress Maccluck, to learn to try harder by working in their salvage yard. His parents and siblings are successful actors and are off on a Family Summer Tour without him because he gets stage fright.
His adventures really begin when he meets Nissy, a neighbour, and they rescue Vosco, a royal four-year-old boy, and a puppet. Along the way they encounter many challenges, both on land and at sea – facing cave lizards, smugglers, an alligator, the knot of ships, and the threat that it will be the end of days.
Else manages to incorporate the meanings of words, for example manifest and pandemonium into the story with ease, and adds many fun words such as rumptipaze, growlable, and puckerooed, tone-ironic. The descriptive writing and the short action packed chapters, bound in Sam Broad’s colourful covers with map of Fantasia to refer to, make you want to read on quickly to find out what will happen next. Will Ruskin overcome fear to save the kingdom?
This is a book all young readers of adventure and fantasy will enjoy.
Reviewed by Judy Sail (Bookrapt)
Rufkin, a seemingly ordinary young boy, was sent to stay with friends of his parents, Mister and Mistress Maccluck, to learn to try harder by working in their salvage yard. His parents and siblings are successful actors and are off on a Family Summer Tour without him because he gets stage fright.
His adventures really begin when he meets Nissy, a neighbour, and they rescue Vosco, a royal four-year-old boy, and a puppet. Along the way they encounter many challenges, both on land and at sea – facing cave lizards, smugglers, an alligator, the knot of ships, and the threat that it will be the end of days.
Else manages to incorporate the meanings of words, for example manifest and pandemonium into the story with ease, and adds many fun words such as rumptipaze, growlable, and puckerooed, tone-ironic. The descriptive writing and the short action packed chapters, bound in Sam Broad’s colourful covers with map of Fantasia to refer to, make you want to read on quickly to find out what will happen next. Will Ruskin overcome fear to save the kingdom?
This is a book all young readers of adventure and fantasy will enjoy.
Reviewed by Judy Sail (Bookrapt)
October 5, 2019
Fourth and final book about this kingdom.
This one can be read as a stand alone volume.
This one can be read as a stand alone volume.
January 9, 2016
A stand-alone but also part of the Tales of Fontania which have wonderful characters, magic and mystery and a little mayhem too. Great for middle grade readers who love a good adventure.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews