Puppet - Hardcover

Almond, David

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1536239178 ISBN 13: 9781536239171

Verlag: Candlewick, 2024

Inhaltsangabe

Writing in the tradition of Pinocchio, Hans Christian Anderson Award winner David Almond brings his ineffable touch to a warm and wistful story that shows anything is possible with imagination and trust.

“You’re a mystery, aren’t you, Puppet? But isn’t everything a mystery? Not just you, but every single thing that exists.”

What should a puppet master do when he’s old and alone and all his puppets are gone? Silvester decides to make one last puppet. But this one is different. When the old man speaks to him, Puppet speaks back. And then he starts to walk . . . While Silvester shows Puppet the town, the playground, and other wonders the world holds, Puppet in turn helps Silvester to make a new friend and share his puppet-making skills with the next generation. With themes of compassion and creativity, threaded with David Almond’s inimitable humor, this wonder-filled story of creation and the circle of life, illustrated with wordless black-and-white spreads by award-winning artist Lizzy Stewart, is destined to become a modern-day classic.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

David Almond is the highly acclaimed author of many award-winning novels for children, such as The Boy Who Swam with Piranhas, illustrated by Oliver Jeffers; The Tale of Angelino Brown, illustrated by Alex R. Smith; Skellig; Clay; Kit’s Wilderness; War Is Over, illustrated by David Litchfield; The Color of the Sun; and Brand New Boy, illustrated by Marta Altés. His numerous awards include the Carnegie Medal and the Hans Christian Andersen Award, the highest international prize for children’s authors. David Almond lives in England.

Lizzy Stewart has written and illustrated picture books for children, including There’s a Tiger in the Garden, which won the Waterstones Children’s Book Prize and World Illustration Award. She has also written and illustrated books for adults, including the graphic novel Alison. Lizzy Stewart lives and works in London.

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1
Silvester woke from his dreams. He climbed the steep stairs to his attic. He hadn’t been up here for years. An owl hooted somewhere nearby. There was nighttime traffic, not too far away. The moon shone brightly through the window to the sky.
   There were posters on the walls from ancient times. Posters that told of performances by Silvester’s Magical Puppet Theatre all around the globe.
   Silvester was the puppet master who hadn’t put on a puppet show for years, who thought he’d been forgotten by the world. But in the past few weeks, everything had begun to change.
   He sat down at his workbench, brushed away some dust, and cleared the cobwebs. He switched on the little lamp there and sat for a while, his hands in its pool of light.
   He seemed to be thinking hard, or maybe he was still dreaming.
   On the workbench, bits of puppet lay in the dust. There was a box of half-made upper legs and lower legs, a box of half-made arms. Bits of wood that had turned into nothing yet. Dark wood, pale wood, heavy wood, light wood. Half-carved hands, a few misshapen feet. Lumpy torsos, skinny torsos. A few unfinished heads dangled on strings from the ceiling. There were old tubes of paint and pots of glue. Tweezers and needles and drills and bits of sandpaper and tiny saws. Curls of wire and lengths of string. A box full of clothes.
   Just bits and pieces. Fragments.
   Silvester sighed. How wonderful to be among these things again, to be in his attic again, to be at his bench again.
   It was like coming to life again.
   Spiders spun on strings in the moonlight and woodlice crawled over the bench. Down by the skirting board, a little mouse squeaked.
   “Hello, spiders,” said Silvester. “Hello, woodlice. Hello, little mouse.” He let a spider run across his hand, and he smiled at the tiny tickling it made.
   “Hello, owl,” he said to the owl that hooted outside once more.
   Somewhere a baby started to cry and then was calmed again.
   “Night-night,” Silvester whispered. “Sweet dreams, little one.”
   He stared into the moonlight, then set to work.
   He used thin wire and tweezers to put together a leg and then another leg. One was longer than the other; one had a very wobbly knee joint. One was dark wood; one was light. He added feet: one with a black boot, one with a brown. He found a pair of arms, one of them with powerful-looking muscles. One hand had the full four fingers, the other only three. He found a skinny torso and wired the arms and legs to it. He took one of the dangling heads from its string. It was pine wood, yellowy brown. He attached it to the body.
   His hands moved swiftly.
   “Be brave,” he whispered to himself. “Be as good as you ever were.”
   He laughed at the puppet taking shape in his hands.
   “What a funny-looking thing you are!” he said.
   He sandpapered its cheeks, then waxed them. He colored its eyes green. He glued a few strands of black wool to the head for hair. Much tidier!
   He stared into its eyes.
   “Hello, Puppet,” he said.
   Inside him, memories were moving. He had made his first puppets long, long ago, when he was just a little boy, living just a few streets away. He made them from clothes pegs and ribbons, from sticks and stones, from folded paper, from buttons and thread.
   He used to give them names and make them move, and he had conversations with them. He used to make up stories where the puppets flew to the moon or battled with dragons or travelled through time.
   He used to take them to his mam and say, “Look at the thing I made, Mam!” He made them talk to her.
  “Hello, madam,” they said if they were being polite.
 “Hello, you nitwit!” if they weren’t.
   Mam would join in. She’d pretend to be delighted or mortally offended. And she’d always say, “Silvester, what a clever lad you are!”
   He smiled to imagine himself as a boy again, to hear her voice again.
   “Was it really so long ago?” he whispered to himself.
   He took a green shirt and a pair of brown trousers from the box of clothes, and he dressed the puppet. He put a little brown cap on its head.
   He held the puppet up before him. It was as tall as a young child.
   He held the puppet’s arms out wide.
   “I wonder,” he said, “what strange kind of story you might be in?”
   He moved the puppet back and forth across the bench.
   He made it march; he made it leap; he made it fly.
   He made it roar as if it were angry or wild.
   He made it sing and giggle and laugh.
   “A very serious story,” he said in a very serious voice.
   “A very silly story,” he said in a very silly voice.
   “Maybe a tale where you fall in love,” he said, “or a tale filled with perilous adventures. Or maybe you’ll fly to Mars, or get eaten by tigers, or . . .”
   He laughed and laughed to himself.
   How wonderful it was to be making a puppet.
   He looked into the puppet’s eyes again. “Hello, Puppet,” he said.
   And the puppet said, “E-O.”
   Silvester stared.
   Puppet stared back at him with green eyes that were flat and empty.
   Ah, it was just a dream. It had to be.
   “Hello,” Silvester said again.
   No answer.
   “Silly Silvester,” he said to himself.
   He laid the puppet in the dust and gently touched its cheek. He yawned. It was very late. Time to sleep.
   “Night-night,” he whispered. “See you in the morning.”
   He switched off the light and went back down the steep stairs.
   Yes, he needed to sleep.
 
2
The past weeks had been rather busy, rather strange. It started with a letter from a museum. It seemed Silvester hadn’t been forgotten after all. They wanted to make an exhibition of his work. His puppets, his costumes, and his stages would be displayed for all the world to see. And of course Silvester said yes. He’d be so proud to have his work on display forevermore. So it was all arranged. And one morning when Silvester was in his kitchen having breakfast, there came a knock at the door.
   Two men were standing there.
   “Hello, Silvester,” said one. “My name is Francis, and this is Sol. I think you’re expecting us.”
   Silvester smiled and stepped aside and welcomed them in.
   Francis and Sol had a load of boxes and bags and packing cases and labels. They hauled them inside.
   “You’re hard to find!” said Sol. “I didn’t even know this lane existed.”
   Then he stood dead still and gasped in amazement.
   “Goodness gracious me!” said Francis.
   There it all was, spread around the living room, the remnants of Silvester’s Magical Puppet Theatre. There were dozens of puppets, some of them as big as a child, some no bigger than a toddler’s hand, some as small as a finger. They were lying on the sofa and sitting on the chairs. They hung...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Candlewick
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2024
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1536239178
• ISBN 13: 9781536239171
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Zeichner: Stewart Lizzy
• Anzahl der Seiten: 240
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Amazon EU Sarl; amazon.com/pbhelp; ; 38 Avenue John F. Kennedy; Luxembourg; L-1855; Luxemburg