Several Region 2 DVDs have been released in the United Kingdom by BBC Worldwide since October 2007: It didn't take her millennia, and these tales are entirely her own creation, although the stories are so amazing it seems impossible they hatched from one imagination. Each chapter introduces a character, who then tells a story introducing a character, who then tells a story introducing a character, who then tells a story introducing a character, who then tells a story introducing a character...and so on. Each chapter is short. I wouldn't assume that this book is for everybody, but if you like everything fantastical, if you are a fan of dark fantasy, this book is a must-read for you. BBC - Press Office - CBeebies Autumn 2008 schedule". BBC. Archived from the original on 24 January 2019 . Retrieved 24 January 2019. So, what’s something that you like to do when you need to clear your head and focus on creating a book? I have to imagine you like to get outside.

I thought this was a very clever and unique book. At least, I’ve never read anything like it. It tells a lot of stories, I couldn’t say how many, but definitely more than a dozen. However, this is not an anthology. It’s layer upon layer upon layer of related stories nested inside each other.

There are many more of these gorgeous passages to enjoy. My only complaint about the writing itself is that there are dozens of characters in The Orphan's Tales and they ALL talk like that. So, it's not very realistic, but I suppose realism wasn't exactly what Ms Valente, as a poet, was going for. This is much the kind of book I would expect to be written by someone who changed her name to 'Catherynne', with that spelling—it's all fantastical creatures and quests and magic. It is a much more intelligent book than I expected, with stories nested within stories, and gender tropes are inverted (there are no damsels in distress here) to my great satisfaction. The maiden is the monster is the pirate; women can grow up to be fierce warriors. Teletubbies creators are at it again". 18 April 2007. Archived from the original on 28 December 2021 . Retrieved 28 December 2021. The sound of it was deafening—it was like a scream of wind tearing through a child’s paper house, crumpling the walls and rafters as it blows. Because sometimes, if you’re out in nature, if you are being loud and busy, you’re not going to catch what nature is trying to show you. And so having this quiet cat sort of gracefully move through the night, obviously a picture book, the only sounds you’re going to hear are the sounds in your head or the sounds of the grown-up reading it to you. And I think because she is a quiet narrator, we get to actually take in and have the sensory experience of what your artwork is showing us and what your words are telling us. I love that you said that.

This book is two series of interwoven, short, personal tales told from the tattoos. Tales that ultimately braid together. Like Chaucer's Canterbury Tales there is a series of people's pilgrimages told in first person. The stories are intermittent and interspersed but linear despite their interrupted telling. Although the stories are being related in first person by various people they are really told that way by one girl to one boy. He is escaping to bright visions of the larger world adults live in. She is seeking acceptance in any world. Triplets occurred once in a generation, when the Snake-Star aligned with the Harpoon-Star, and the light of the Pierced Serpent fell on the yellow grass. -- this is a complete mumbo jumbo and I loved it! The specials centre on a brand new character called the Zonk, who sends the characters off to the magical world of the ZonkeyZoney so they can relax in peace. The series is fully animated in 3D CGI animation, unlike the original series which was a mix of CGI, 2D animation and live-action. I have never read a book like In the Night Garden before, and I expect that I will not read another book like it until I read its sequel. I have seen it described as an arabesque in book form, and I think that is exactly the right way to describe it. Its stories twist and twine, interrupt and intersect, and you never know when you will encounter a familiar character depicted in a fresh new light or a scrap of story that had been mentioned previously enhanced and complicated, breathed to new life. I had no idea how each section would come together but both of them did so beautifully and amazingly in ways that I would never have imagined.Brown, Jonathan; Robinson, Josie (18 April 2007). "In the Night Garden: Bedtime for Teletubbies". The Independent. Archived from the original on 12 December 2008 . Retrieved 11 January 2010. The real strength of the novel for me is in the beautiful language. Valente is a stylist, a perfectionist who believes a tale can and should be beautiful. I haven't read any fantasy quite like Catherynne M. Valente's The Orphan's Tales duology. This is the story of a young orphan girl who is shunned because of the dark smudges that appeared on her eyelids when she was a baby. She lives alone in a sultan's garden because people think she's a demon and nobody will claim her. However, one of the young sons of the sultan, a curious fellow, finds her in the garden and asks her about her dark eyes. She explains that there are wonderful stories written on her eyelids and that a spirit has told her she must read and tell the stories; Then the spirit will return and judge her. The prince loves stories, he begs her to tell him one, and so she begins. I am. Do you know who Rachel Vail is? She’s an author. She does a lot of YA books, but also some picture books, and she lives four floors up from me, just coincidentally. So, she’s my walking partner, and she has a pet tortoise, and I have a pet rabbit. So, for the last ten years, we’ve been joking that we should do a book about tort and hare. And so, we’re working on an early reader series about friendship and about tort and hair. She’s a very accomplished, wonderful writer with a lot of humor and emotional intelligence, and nuance.

I don’t believe I’ve ever heard you put so many words together in the same place, girl. If you’re not careful, they’ll get together and have babies, and then we’ll never shut you up.” Jones, Catherine (26 March 2010). "In The Night Garden coming to Sefton Park this summer". liverpoolecho.co.uk. Archived from the original on 23 February 2022 . Retrieved 26 March 2010.I’m not a hoarder, but I’m a bit of a collector of things, an archivist. Um, so, yeah, I don’t know if that answers—and then I just use scissors and an exacto knife and white glue, like we all have in our house, perhaps. And it’s very rudimentary in that way. If I was disappointed by one thing, it was that I didn’t know this was a duology going in, and I expected more resolution of the frame story than was provided. I think it could have been done, too, and it would have been a fine standalone novel.