Snuff

by Quentin Blake

A young page who daydreams of becoming a knight proves his worth to his master by scaring the four horrible Boot Thieves

Genres: Picture Books, Childrens, Adventure

32 pages, Hardcover

First published November 1, 1973

About the author

Sir Quentin Saxby Blake is an English cartoonist, caricaturist, illustrator and children's writer. He has illustrated over 300 books, including 18 written by Roald Dahl, which are among his most popular works. For his lasting contribution as a children's illustrator he won the biennial international Hans Christian Andersen Award in 2002, the highest recognition available to creators of children's books. From 1999 to 2001, he was the inaugural British Children's Laureate. He is a patron of the Association of Illustrators.

Reviews

[Stef Rozitis · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's a cute story. As you would expect with something written in the 70, the characters are male apart from the housekeeper (the male characters are completely impoverished but still have a cheerful, unassuming woman to do the shit work for them). Knights are problematic, but within little children's fantasy stories (as with pirates) this is often glossed over and I don't want to be "fun police" and say it should not be done.

The pictures are lively and cute and the page saves the day in a way that can enrich the numeracy of another book I often use, One is a Snail, Ten is a crab...so I can see a place for this book among others in my work with children.

[DiscoSpacePanther · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another long forgotten storybook from my childhood re-read to my new baby daughter. As I turned each page, the memories from decades ago of Quentin Blake's delightful illustrations came flooding back.

A fun, short read - suitable for bedtimes, or to take on a journey. A good moral, too: ingenuity is a skill like any other.

[Kat · Rating 4 out of 5]

My favourite bit of this was the horse called Flapdragon.

[Morag · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit wordy for me, never mind the smalls but love the plot especially the fantastic way they scare off the boot thieves.

[Kirsty Cabot · Rating 4 out of 5]

First read to Ivy 4/1/16

[Adrian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Snuff was Sir Thomas Magpie's page. A page is a boy who goes to live with a knight as his servant and also to learn how to be a knight himself when he grows up. Snuff very much wanted to be a knight but, unfortunately, although he tried his best, he didn't always get things right.

More Quentin Blake silliness and this time we meet a young boy who dreams of one day becoming a knight. Unfortunately every time he tries to learn a new skill, something goes awry. When his mentor needs new boots, Snuff has a chance to shine.

A lot of fun and beautifully illustrated, as always. 3 1/2 stars.

[Melissa Buck · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story of a little boy named Snuff, who is a page to the great knight Sir Thomas Magpie. It tells the adventure on how Snuff wants to become a knight himself one day, despite his many troubles with simple tasks Sir Thomas asks of him. On one of there many adventures, they come across a bootmaker who is having some trouble with thieves stealing his fabulous boots, to which Snuff comes up with a great idea to solve this problem. Snuff saves the day and the bootmakers problem and is believed to one day become a great knight himself.

[Danielle Gibbs · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not sure about this one. I liked the bit with boots but it seemed like a lot of words for not much to happen. I just about kept my 4 year old's interest. I'm not sure if I'd choose it for reading again, but my son might, we'll see.

[Louise Goddard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just a cute little read-aloud for my class yesterday chosen by one of the boys! They rather enjoyed it and were excited by the colourful pictures.

[Dhwani · Rating 5 out of 5]

Enjoyable

[Leonie Atherton · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book tells the story of a clumsy, irresponsible young boy, called Snuff, who works serving the needs of a knight, who in turn, will teach the boy how to become a knight himself. Unfortunately, everything the boy is asked to do he seems to get wrong no matter how hard he tries. The knight and the boy pass a boot-makers shop and discover there's a group of thieves on the loose and they're on their way back to the boot-makers shop with a cart in tow, ready to steal every pair of boots in there. Worried that the thieves outnumber the Knight, the boot-maker and Snuff, the group are at a loss as to what to do next. After a long think, Snuff has the idea of putting boots on their hands and feet and walking past the windows to trick the thieves into thinking there are more of them. Their plans goes without a hitch and Snuff is rewarded with a new pair of boots and a horse to help him learn how to be a knight. This is a fun story and is backed up by some excellent, detailed (but not overwhelming) illustrations. The content covers a lot of moral stand points, including, how hard work pays off, how by using your intelligence you can stop a thief no matter how small you are, and if you do the right thing, it is worth it in the end. The use of description in this story is one of its most positive aspects and again the illustrations back up the description used. This would be a good story to read if you were teaching adjectives. This story also has an obvious structure, with a clear beginning middle and end and would be a good example of how to structure a story. This would be a fun book to read out to a class, there are multiple speakers in the story meaning the reader could use a good range of different voices to make it even more interesting. Although the text on each page is quite long, the illustrations are detailed enough to hold the readers attention until it is finished. There is nothing too challenging to read in this story and would suit age group 8-11 for both class and independent reading.

[Alec Longstreth · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this one for the adventurous story, the inventive plot twists and the ever-brilliant illustrations.

[Harriette Cooke · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book to a year 1 class and they really enjoyed it. They have been doing work on Kings and Queens so it was nice to have a story about a Knight to go with the topic. None of the children had read the story before so it was nice for them to have the surprise of not know (and not having anyone else spoil the ending). The main thing I liked about the book was that it helps to teach the children that it is okay to sometimes make mistakes and to not be good at everything, but it is important to try your best and to keep going! It also taught the children that people are not always good at everything but there will always be things that you can do and sometimes you can surprise yourselves.
The pictures were really nice as well and the children loved looking at them and picking out different things. I would recommend this book to other children of this age. #ks1 #year1 #knights