Muncle Trogg

Janet Foxley (author)

Chicken House Press, Scholastic, Australia: July 2011; 206pp

ISBN: 9781906427030

Genres: adventure, humour

Issues: differences, family

Mt Grumble is the home of the giants, who have hidden from Smallings (humans) ever since their tiny foes developed the 'magic sticks' that enabled them to kill their gargantuan neighbours. Muncle is a very small giant. Human-sized, in fact.

This makes life extraordinarily difficult because once he leaves school he can't get a job doing anything useful because he lacks the strength of most in his community. Being small also means that bullying is part of his daily experience. It takes some quite remarkable events to help Muncle's family and neighbours to realise that inside that small body is a very unusual – and even useful – brain.

Can Muncle save his people from discovery by the Smallings? Can he save one particular Smalling from his people? Trying to tread the delicate line between the need for change and traditional cultural expectations, Muncle finds that being different has one advantage: people assume you're going to do something monumentally stupid anyway, so you can take risks that more conventional individuals cannot.

Muncle Trogg won the 2010 Times/Chicken House Children's Fiction Competition. It is an extremely entertaining piece of light narrative. Foxley's greatest achievement in this delightful story, other than the character of Muncle himself, is the fact that that for giants, abnormality is normal. Fungus porridge for breakfast, acorn breadrolls, burnt meat and clothes made of string – these are all part of a giant's daily life. Muncle is no different – he likes charred squirrel as much as anyone and has 'beautiful skin – grey and dotted with hairy warts' (p8). In much the same way that Eva Ibbotson does in Which Witch, Foxley carries the reader into the strange reality of Muncle's world and the adventures he experiences as a result of being somewhat different. A classic tale of the Other who finds his place, Muncle Trogg is a charming adventure story with a touch of fantasy.

Great fun.