Review: The Island of Animaux, by Milo McGivern

Blurb 

Imagine an island that shouldn’t exist. A very strange place that has never been discovered by humans and that is populated only by speaking animals, very few of whom know about the bigger world beyond. An island that somehow changes its position on the planet each day, to prevent it from being found. Welcome to the Island of Animaux!

And welcome to five different but connected tales of Aubrey the Turkey and his pals. Stories of all shapes and sizes, with large slices of fun and even bigger portions of naughtiness. See Aubrey get his comeuppance at the fair, have a disaster when he tries to open a zoo, visit a vampire and stumble across Clifford Platypus, try to win a singing competition and then fall madly in love, at least until Walli Hog arrives. See Georgina the Goat despair at Aubrey’s behaviour. Watch as Wesley the Weasel makes the turkey an offer he shouldn’t refuse. See Clifford have fun in making Aubrey do terrible things. And join in with Aubrey and Clifford as they are mesmerised by Walli’s tale of her lucky escape.

Please enjoy the stories. And don’t be afraid to laugh, particularly at Aubrey’s expense. But please, please, please – remember to keep the latest position of the island top secret!

Author Bio

Milo McGivern is the writing name for Steve Humphries. Steve has spent many years working in finance. He has travelled extensively although is most happy when he is at home in Berkshire. Steve enjoys casual story writing and the Aubrey the Turkey tales were first imagined over 30 years ago. ‘The Island of Animaux’ is the first book in the ‘Tales from Animaux’ series.  It was followed by ‘Monsieur Le Chef’ and ‘A Surprise Party’.

My Review

Thanks to Love Books Tours for organising this tour and to the author for sending me a copy of this book.

Aubrey the Turkey is a daft old turkey with an ego bigger than the island of Animaux. He treats his friends badly, is rude, and lies. He has a series of adventures, usually getting into trouble because of his own bad behaviour. And he never learns from the consequences. It’s highly amusing.

I enjoyed the stories. They all follow from each other and the last one left us with a cliffhanger. The characters were simple and their names quite descriptive. The secret of how the animals all got to the island is partly revealed in the last two stories and it’s intriguing.

I did have a good laugh at some of the things that happened and I thought the illustrations were excellent.

Unfortunately, the author uses ‘fat’ as a short-hand for ‘lazy’,’bad mannered’, ‘ignorant’ or for a character having a generally unpleasant personality, eating all the time and living in mess. Children are smart enough to make the connection between character traits and physical appearance. Do we really want children making these connections and reinforcing fatphobia? It’s last writing and insulting. It really knocked the shine off these stories for me.

3 stars, would have been 4 without the fat hate.