{"id":4737,"date":"2016-03-31T15:45:58","date_gmt":"2016-03-31T04:45:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/?p=4737"},"modified":"2020-12-23T22:03:37","modified_gmt":"2020-12-23T11:03:37","slug":"iris-and-the-tiger-by-leanne-hall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/2016\/03\/iris-and-the-tiger-by-leanne-hall\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Iris and the Tiger\u2019 by Leanne Hall"},"content":{"rendered":"

Disclaimer<\/a> because this is an Australian book: I don\u2019t know the author and have no connection to the publisher.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"'IrisI absolutely loved Leanne Hall’s<\/a> Iris and the Tiger<\/em><\/a>, a charming, funny story about Iris, a twelve-year-old Australian girl who is sent to stay with her eccentric Great-Aunt Ursula in Spain. Iris\u2019s parents want Iris to ensure Ursula leaves her sprawling country estate to them, but Iris falls under the spell of Bosque de Nubes<\/em>, a surrealist Wonderland with its own special type of magic and plenty of mysteries. Were her late great-uncle\u2019s famous paintings of tennis-playing sunflowers, five-legged dogs and giant costumed insects based on his surroundings, or is life imitating art? Why is a pair of leather boots shaped like human feet following Iris around? How can her ancient aunt look so youthful? Who is trying to destroy Bosque de Nubes<\/em>? And most importantly, what happened to the original Iris, painted by her husband in an enigmatic portrait that now seems to be missing a tiger?<\/p>\n

Iris is a wonderful heroine \u2013 thoughtful, compassionate and braver than she believes. She\u2019s helped in her quest by her new friend Jordi, the gardener\u2019s son, who relishes the danger (\u201c\u2018I think this could be a very dangerous mission.\u2019 He looked extremely happy as he said it.\u201d). I enjoyed watching Iris grow in confidence and understanding, and although the novel contains some familiar messages (‘Be True to Yourself’, ‘Part of Growing Up is Realising Your Parents are Flawed’, and so on), it\u2019s all done with a light touch and plenty of humour. Iris also happens to be Chinese-Australian, which is never treated as an Issue, although there was a spot-on \u2018You look so exotic, where are your family from?\u2019 conversation, which made me laugh and groan in recognition. I also liked the imaginative setting and all the fantastical creatures (Se\u00f1or Garcia and the Exquisite Corpse were particular favourites). Young readers will enjoy the magic and the adventures, although there are plenty of layers for more advanced readers to dig into (for example, involving surrealist art, the history of Spain, and women being valued as models and muses but not as artists in their own right). The Australian paperback has a gorgeous cover and some charming black-and-white illustrations (and I would love to see this republished as a glossy hardcover with colour illustrations of all the surrealist paintings). It\u2019s been a while since I\u2019ve read such an endearing children\u2019s book. Highly recommended!<\/p>\n

EDITED TO ADD: You can see some of the book’s illustrations at Sandra Eterovic’s blog<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Disclaimer because this is an Australian book: I don\u2019t know the author and have no connection to the publisher. I absolutely loved Leanne Hall’s Iris and the Tiger, a charming, funny story about Iris, a twelve-year-old Australian girl who is sent to stay with her eccentric Great-Aunt Ursula in Spain. Iris\u2019s parents want Iris to … Continue reading \u2018Iris and the Tiger\u2019 by Leanne Hall<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,293,18],"tags":[41],"class_list":["post-4737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-childrens-books","category-my-favourite-books","tag-leanne-hall"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4737"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4737\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6179,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4737\/revisions\/6179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}