Review by Vincent Asaro
From page one, Simon West Bulford’s The Beasts of Upton Puddle reminded me of classic middle grade and young adult books from the sixties and seventies, such as From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler and Susan Cooper’s The Dark Is Rising sequence. The kind of books where the mundane world every middle-schooler knows all too well is suddenly enchanted by magic or adventure. There’s a freewheeling openness and simplicity to this book that breaks the lock-step of most contemporary juvenile fantasy. It feels like a book from another time, a time before demographic analysis and viral, multi-media promotion. It feels like the kind of book you might discover in the school library one rainy Tuesday afternoon in November, and fall in love with for the rest of your life. That kind of book.
The premise is simple and appealing; it seems so “obvious” you wonder why no one else has thought of it before. An ordinary kid (Joe Copper) discovers that one of the people on his newspaper delivery route is actually a veterinarian, but not for ordinary animals: for magical creatures, “beasts” stepped straight out of fantasy and mythology. That alone would serve for a book but Upton Puddle doesn’t stay situated for long. Joe must embark on an epic quest that elevates what might have been a cozy, Doctor Doolittle type story into an epic fantasy.
The other thing Upton Puddle reminded me of was all those elaborate fantasy movies from the nineteen eighties, like Labyrinth, Legend and The Neverending Story. Upton Puddle is packed to bursting with creatures, it’s like a lost Jim Henson movie that might have appeared between Labyrinth and The Witches. The book is peppered with excellent pen and ink illustrations (by James Tampa) but the descriptions are more than sufficient to fuel the reader’s imagination. My favorite was Flarp, a giant flying eyeball, and also Danariel, a character straight out of Madeleine L’Engle; I’m sure each reader will have their own, the book abounds with strange, wonderful creatures and you really come to care for them and their part in the story.
The Beasts of Upton Puddle is Simon West Bulford’s second novel (The Soul Consortium was his first). The writing is uncluttered, solid and clear throughout. The storytelling owes more to British fantasy, like Terry Pratchett’s Discworld or Doctor Who, than to its Tolkien-influenced, American counterpart. If you’re weary of complicated magic systems and headache inducing, world building minutiae, Upton Puddle will come as a relief and a real pleasure.
