The golden flower by Eleanor Coombe
Lothian Children's Books, 2009.The
Faraway Series; book 10. ISBN 9780734410511.
(Primary) The glacier is melting and so are the hobyahs. Set on Faraway
Island, Ziel the Asrai River
Fairy Princess, works her magic and together with the hobyahs turns the
hated goblin
tunnels into 'giant ice blocks' (p46). Along with the Mistral
trees, Astara the Fairy Queen, Blaize,
the
Singing Fairy, Cedar, Puck and Wattleman, outwit Garton the New King of
the
Grim Goblins who have mined the Diamond River of its precious jewels
and in
doing so have polluted the river and restored Asrai's health.
The black and white illustrations emphasise
the good and bad characters and some of the names such as Puck, Eden
and
Wattleman are quite obvious. Text is well spaced and clear appealing to
early primary girls who enjoy reading books belonging to a series.
Sue Nosworthy