I know this blog has been rather Montmaray-heavy lately, and I will get back to my usual (non-Montmaravian) book ramblings soon, but I just had to share this with you. Ellie Maish, a very talented teenage artist, has created an amazing picture book based on A Brief History of Montmaray as a school project. Ellie has kindly allowed me to post some of the pictures from her book, The Cats of Montmaray, here. And yes, the Montmaravians are all portrayed as cats. Here are a few of the characters:
Don’t you love spiky John-Cat and worshipful Rebecca-Cat? And how Simon-Cat and Veronica-Cat are pointedly looking in opposite directions?
Here’s a scene in the Great Hall featuring the Fabergé egg:
All the castle scenes are beautifully realised in collage form, but I particularly liked the ornate Gold Room. Whatever you do, don’t flop on the bed:
There’s plenty of action and adventure, too. On this page, Sophie-Cat is horrified by the sight of the dead . . . well, he’s not actually a dead Nazi in this book. He’s an evil hawk, with two-inch-long talons and a sharp beak that could easily carry off a defenceless cat. He still ends up dead under a rug, though:
Isn’t it great? Thanks, Ellie.
In other Montmaravian news, a French university student who translated A Brief History of Montmaray as part of her studies has sent me the translation, and I am very impressed. Mind you, I can’t actually read French, but the text looks so much more elegant in French than it does in English. I am having lots of fun reading about “Carlos, notre chien d’eau portugais” and “les pigeons voyageurs” and, of course, “les chats du château”.