By John Chambers (author)
Paperback In Stock £6.99 £6.29
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January 2013 Debut of the Month
There are loads of great laughs in this wild story of a granny with a difference. Samuel Johnson who ‘scribes’ this story has the misfortune to turn up at a new school and find himself sitting next to Boris Hizzocks – a boy born to violence and continuing to live by it. But he has the good luck to know the remarkable Granny Samurai. Armed with a walking stick with very unusual extra powers, Granny Samurai keeps Samuel safe!
This is a quirky, off-beat comedy about a boy scribe, a kick-ass granny and a primate with a vendetta...Eccentric young wordsmith Samuel Johnson finds himself home alone while his diplomat uncle is off diverting a crisis in Azerbajan. As Samuel sits penning his memoirs and wondering how to divert the crisis in his own life - namely the big, hairy brute that is Boris Hissocks - he spots the little old lady next door acting very strangely.
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Is she actually chopping wood with her bare hands? Then the Monkey King comes knocking, and suddenly Samuel's whole world is turned on its head...
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. .
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The LoveReading4Kids Editorial Team have read and reviewed Granny Samurai, the Monkey King and I and determined it is suitable for children aged 7-10 years old
Granny Samurai, the Monkey King and I features in the following genres: Debuts of the Month, Recommendations, Featured Books for 7+ readers, Funny, Children's and Young Adult Fiction, Children’s, Teenage and Educational, Featured Books for 9+ readers
Paperback. £6.29, down from the £6.99 cover price. In Stock.
Granny Samurai, the Monkey King and I was written by John Chambers and published by Walker Books Ltd
Granny Samurai, the Monkey King and I has 285 pages
£6.29, reduced from £6.99. In Stock.
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