Page 45 Review by Stephen
"I can't stand lies!"
He's ever so cross, is young Iodine.
But then the mailman's a Clown Fish, forever fibbing about the next day's delivery, and Iode's been waiting oh so long for a letter from his Mother! So very, very long.
You'll be wanting to look at those opening pages again, by the end. He's very self-sufficient, is young Iode. He even drives a car.
Oh Lord, the light! The pages here are oh so light, clean, colourful and spacious that you will lose yourself in them. It's charming too, genuinely charming: the city Iode drives to for news from the central post office is more of a childhood dream holiday resort complete with lighthouse, cable cars, and a subaquatic marine life museum plus a curious, glass-bowl-headed policefish on the bi-pedal beat. It's really quite quaint, the constable quite dim, and not the only fish with prosthetics, thanks to Iodine's Dad. You might meet him later. Okay, I've read this - you will.
I liked the Pelican's perpetually positive "Yeah!" But to be fair, it probably doesn't know any other words. And to be even fairer it probably doesn't even know that one: it's just a contact call or subconscious squawk.
And evvvvveryone's going to love all the Ghibli high notes, especially the planes and aerial views of the island/ peninsula. Just look at the way that the water's pulled up from his soles as Iode leaps splasing across the cover!
LOST LETTERS is delightful and funny throughout. Genuinely funny. But there's also a fragility and a heart that hurts. Iode loyally assumes that his mother's letters are lost - it's the only explanation he'll even entertain. She cannot possibly have abandonned him. The thought won't even enter his head.
PS She didn't, but this book comes with a much, much bigger kick than you might imagine, so in spite of its Tintin-esqe trappings it's probably not for your young ones.
The big revelation, ten or so pages from the final page is delivered visually, brilliantly, in two full page splashes and was so very moving I choked.
But thar's not the kick.
