|
|
 |
Shock Tactics, Robin and Chris Lawrie (2000)
Evans Brothers Ltd 0 237 52108 3 paperback £4.99
A fun, early reading, with cartoon-style illustrations series
of childrens' books featuring a gang of young mountain bikers -
aimed at those of eight and above
 
|
It is surprising that there is not more children's fiction based on
cycling. Perhaps there is lots of it that I have missed, but the bicycle
is such a universal provider of independence and adventure that its place
in stories for young people should surely be more prominent? The sailing
boats of Arthur Ransome's magical creations, after all, have only ever
been available to the lucky few. To this day, bicycles remain a special
Christmas present in even the poorest neighbourhoods.
Robin and Chris Lawrie's Chain Gang series feature a gang led by 'Slam'
Duncan and his mountain-biking mates. They are a modern bunch - ethnically
mixed and there's a girl in the gang. In Shock Tactics, a rival gang try
to steal the bike race by flashing lights in competitors' faces - but
our heroes hit back, and of course with the day, with some computer wizardry
of their own.
Their scrapes and adventures were sufficient to persuade the ten year
old on whom I tried them out, for his to read three of the series on the
trot. And the plots are sufficiently close to plausible for their consumption
to be followed by a request to 'help build a mountain bike track like
the one in the books'.
The format is of an illustrated narrative, although they are laid out
to look more like comic books, and some of the dialogue is in speech bubbles.
The cover, above, gives a pretty good idea of the illustration inside.
Each tale was digested in under ten minutes - so don't imagine that these
are the antidote to long-journey boredom.
Perhaps in an age when all too many Christmas bicycles languish in garages,
they might be a useful stimulant. They are several laps short of being
cycling's Swallows and Amazons, however.
PS Sep 09
|
Bookmark this on Delicious
Follow the site!
Join our list we will let you known when new reviews
are added to the site. We will never share your email address with
third parties.
tim@timdawsn.demon.co.uk
You can also follow us on Facebook
|
Visit our sister site
for dispassionate, expert advice on general cycling
issues
|
How this site is organised
As reviews are added, they are featured on the
front page. All titles are listed in the master index and cross-referenced
in the other indicies.
The subject line contains the title, author and
date of each book's publication. As a general rule, we list the
date of the actual edition that we read, unless there is an obvious
reason to use the original date (say where we read a reprint).
The first line of the main text contains the name
of the publisher, the ISBN
number, where it exists, an indication of the book's
size and the number of printed pages that it contains. Finally,
where it is clear, I list the published price of the work in the
currency that is most prominently displayed.
We summarise the book in a single sentence or two
in the next line. The rest of the review is then intended as a self-contained
piece.
|
|
