Medium – Book
About the Book – Dhikilo Bentley is a young girl adopted from Somaliland and living in the English seaside town of Cawber. One morning, she wakes up to find that the letter ‘D’ has disappeared from the conversation of her parents. On heading to school, she finds that ‘D’ has disappeared from everywhere else – signs, conversations and school dinners. Soon, things starting with ‘D’ also start to disappear – donkeys, dogs and dentists, among others. Dhikilo is just starting to get used to this new life, where it seems she is the only one who remembers the letter ‘D’, when she goes to the home of her old Professor and his faithful labrador, Nelly Robinson. She soon gets caught up in an adventure which takes her to a whole new world with new creatures a plenty, on a quest to find the missing letter.
My thoughts – There are many things I thoroughly enjoyed about this book. The first was the joyousness of the design of this book. The book is utterly beautiful. Another from the Book Box Club (which is becoming the highlight of my month!), this book is a folio edition – hardback, a beautiful red and gold colour, with illustrations and sort of illuminated letters at the beginning of each chapter. The character of Dhikilo is delightful – it is so refreshing to have a main character in a book who is not Caucasian with a rather middle class background, and instead have a main character who is African and an immigrant. She is curious, clever and intuitive, with great courage and a fascinating inner voice.
The book takes a variety of references from other works, but I most enjoyed the references to the works of Dickens (through the names of the characters and other references in text) and the Narnia stories (travel to a magical world through a hidden door, where it is always winter). The author also makes the story sound surprisingly modern – including the inclusion of our villain, the Gamp. The Gamp is a fearful, bloodless dictator, who rules through fear, has a weird wig, and advisers who whisper in his ear. Remind you of anyone?
Jen's Book Blog 