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King Ocean's Flute
Illustrated by Peter Malone
Paulo the shepherd boy drives his family mad
with his humming, so his grandfather gives him an old flute
to distract him. But oh dear! His playing is really terrible
and all his sheep run away. Luckily, Paulo is helped out by
all the animals, birds and insects in the meadows he loves,
and soon he is so confident that he challenges King Ocean
himself to a contest. King Ocean is furious and summons Paulo
down into his watery kingdom. If Paulo fails to play the king’s
own flute, he will have to scrub the salt off the seabed for
seven whole years. Can he do it, or will the mermaids have
a new scale polisher?
Wonderful, glowing pictures by Peter
Malone make my words really come to life—and see if
you can find the name board of the Titanic!
Why I loved writing this book:
A long time ago, I wrote a story called The
Lady of Earth and the King of the Sea. It was really
long, and I didn’t know what to do with it. Then
my editor said that Peter needed a picture book. I looked
in my ideas box, and saw that my old story was really
a picture book text in hiding. I cut and rewrote and
turned it all around, and ended up with King
Ocean’s
Flute. It goes to show that you should never throw
idea stuff away—you just might find another use for
it.
It was a perfect story for Peter to illustrate,
because his artwork is full of jewel-like colours, rather
like the illuminated manuscripts of medieval times. I wanted
the pictures to have a rather renaissance, Italian feel to
them, and Peter has done a fantastic job of bringing what
I had visualised to life. There’s so much to discover
on each page, and I love all the witty little touches like
the pot of Scaloglit for polishing the mermaids.
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