By John Chambers (author)
"Charming, funny adventure stories set in Ireland, a long time ago"
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Manchán is the kind of boy who loves mucking about with his best friend, regularly gets into scrapes, and is horrified at the career path his mum has chosen for him - no way can he become a monk. Yes, a monk, because while Manchán shares all the characteristics of a modern boy, he lives centuries ago when there were wolves and druids in the forests, and Vikings on the seas.
His world is presented as something of a dream for today's children, days can be spent picking blackberries or messing about in coracles, and a pig can be your pet. In a series of self-contained adventures, we get to know Manchán, his family, Muck his pig, and best friend Pagan-of-the-Six-Toes very well, and spending time with them is a real treat; John Chambers even wins readers round to the view that 'monking', as Manchán describes it, might not be that bad after all. Charming, quirky, and lots of fun.
We are in Ireland and it's an awfully long time ago. Centuries and centuries. The country is supposed to have gone Christian, but there's still magic in the air, salmon in the rivers, berries in the bushes, druids in the forest, a Worm in the lake, fairy music in the distance.
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Manchan's mother wants to make a monk of Manchan. Manchan most emphatically does not want to be made a monk of. He'd rather sing songs with his father, or go fishing with his friend, Pagan-of the-Six-Toes, or go charging through the forest with his pet pig, Muck, or go bare-back riding over the bog on the chieftain's mad ram, Balor.
Anything fun or adventurous or magical, and absolutely nothing to do with turnips, penance, prayers, monks and chanting. Poor Manchan! The more he mucks about having fun, the more his mother is determined to tame him.
John Chambers is a cartoonist and screenwriter who has developed concepts and written scripts for many animated series over the past ten years, including Jasper the Penguin, The School for Little Vampires, Oscar the Balloonist, The Little Knight Trenk and Molly the Little Monster.
He also writes and draws the long-running comic strip The Adventures of Festy O'Semtex for Phoenix magazine, and has contributed many cartoons to other publications. John lives in Berlin, Germany.
I was born and raised in Ireland. I had a nice childhood. Every summer we used to go to the West. Now I have a family of my own and live in Berlin. But I still go back to the West of Ireland every year in the summer. My summer holidays were three months long. My children only get six weeks. We didn’t have mobiles or Nintendo or ipods back then. Once my Grandmother went to America and brought me back a handheld computer game with a black and white screen. I left it in the back window of our car and the sun fried it. I was upset for a week.
My first teacher was called Mrs O’Flaherty and she said I was a very nice child but a bit of a peata, which means soft. When my mother brought me to school in the pram I used to insist that she pushed me all the way to the door of the classroom. She told me to get out of the pram or all the other children would laugh at me. But I said I didn’t care. And I didn’t. I don’t think that was soft. I think that was hard. That was primary school. When I went to secondary school I used to draw the teachers and make comics about them. Some of the teachers liked this and asked me to do other things for the school, like rugby posters, but some didn’t like it as much and didn’t much like me either. One of those second kind of teachers can be now be seen in the Granny Samurai book. I enjoyed school. When I left school I went to university but only briefly. One day the dean of the faculty told me that I would have to leave if I didn’t start showing up for lectures and tutorials. The next day I went to a tutorial and when I walked into the room the professor said, can I help you? I said no, and left. That was a good decision. The next one was even better. I went to New York and stayed for years. That was fun. Now I live in Berlin with my partner and our three children. Our children are aged 9, 7 and 5. I write a lot for TV animated series and last year I taught animation at the Academy for Children’s Media in Erfurt. One day one of my group didn’t have his homework done and I got very annoyed with him. I thought my teachers would have had a good laugh at that.
As a writer/illustrator
When I write I like to sit in the kitchen. Or in a hut on our allotment. When I am writing shorter things I like to sit in cafés and work there. When I draw I have a big room at the front of the apartment overlooking the street outside. Every twenty minutes the train rushes past and I like the sound. When I draw I like to stand but when I write I prefer to sit. I have written lots of things for children’s TV and two plays for adults, and three films. I also like making things. I have a friend who is puppeteer and every two years he comes up with a new idea for a play and I make the puppets for him. .
Things you didn't know about John Chambers
The Swifts: A Gallery of Rogues
Me and the Robbersons: Bandit Karaoke
Adam Wins the Internet
My Parents Cancelled My Birthday
We are in Ireland and it's an awfully long time ago. Centuries and centuries.
The LoveReading4Kids Editorial Team have read and reviewed Mucking About and determined it is suitable for children aged 9-10 years old
Mucking About features in the following genres: Adventure Stories, Children's and Young Adult Fiction, Children’s, Teenage and Educational, Stories about Family and Friends, Funny, Recommended Children's eBooks, Recommendations, Featured Books for 9+ readers
Paperback. £7.19, down from the £7.99 cover price. Not Available.
Mucking About was written by John Chambers and published by Little Island
Mucking About has 180 pages
£7.19, reduced from £7.99. Not Available.
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