Hubert Horatio Bartle Bobton-Trent

A natural at almost everything (reading, swimming, table tennis, Japanese, Maths), Hubert Horatio Bartle Bobton-Trent has ‘frightfully, frightfully rich’ parents with houses in London, New York and Milan. Extremely sociable and generous, the Bobton-Trents are also rather feckless and fail to notice that they have run out of money. It is up to their more responsible and practical small son to come up with a solution – which he does, of course, brilliantly. Child’s witty, deadpan text is, as ever, incorporated into her illustrations as a vibrant element – suggesting, eg, by the waviness of a sentence the noise of chattering guests in the Bobton-Trent palatial drawing room or, contained in door and overmantel frames, underlining the elegant classicism of the Bobton-Trent panelled dining room. At the table tennis table the text follows the trajectory of the ball as Hubert takes on his best friend (also a child genius) Stanton Harcourt the Third. Such delicious visual jokes abound in this most inventive modern fairy tale – young readers will love it. RS