posted on 17 Jun 2024

Puppet by David Almond

There’s something essentially magical about puppets. In a metaphorical and performance sense they can come to life in the hands of their owners and, as an audience, we’re happy to enter into the illusion. So, it’s not really surprising when a story slips over the line between fantasy and reality and imbues a puppet with that mysterious thing – the spark of life that turns them from an inanimate collection of carved wooden pieces into a real living person. You need look no further than the most famous ‘living’ puppet of all – Pinocchio. But now that master storyteller, David Almond, has given us another one – Kenneth - to add to the list in his most recent publication, Puppet.

Sylvester is an aging puppet-master who has decided its time to retire and is packing up the collections of his life in puppetry to go to a local museum. With his beloved wife now dead, he has just his memories and the knowledge that children and adults who saw their show still fondly remember the experience.

He wanders into his special puppet-making room at the top of the house and instinctively starts to carve another puppet. But this time something unexplainable and magic has happened because, slowly but surely, this particular puppet starts to show signs of life.

For Sylvester, this new puppet gives his life purpose again – it will be his new child and he’ll take it into the outside world and teach this puppet, who he names Kenneth, how human children live their lives.

Dressed in boys clothes but with a limited vocabulary, Kenneth greets most things with the name of his favourite food – jam. Parents and other children think the boy looks and behaves slightly oddly but Kenneth and Sylvester bluff their way through until they meet a young girl who sees through the disguise. Fleur and her mother are enchanted by the boy-puppet and also by the gentle Sylvester – who takes them into his confidence.

What will they make of Kenneth? Will Fleur become one of the next generation of puppet-makers? How long will the magic last?

I’m going to leave you to find out for yourselves because if I say much more you’ll have no surprises. David Almond has written an emotionally powerful book about the nature of imagination, new life, old age, loneliness and making new friends - and it’s been given illustrations by Lizzy Stewart, who provides black and white illustrations throughout, many of them full-page.

Available now from Walker Books, you’ll be able to get a copy from your local independent bookshop – who will be able to order a copy for you if they don’t have it on the shelf.

 

Terry Potter

Junbe 2024