The Twin Giants
The Twin Giants
Dick King-Smith
Ages 4-8
Hardcover,80 pages
9.6 x 6.1 x 0.5 inches
Candlewick Press
ISBN: 978-0763635299
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This fun book for newly independent readers has a lot of my favorite things in it: a village, a mountain, giants and a rambling story reminiscent of those told by an exceptionally witty uncle or aunt, to those who were lucky enough to have one.
If you weren’t so fortunate as to hear outlandish tales from a storytelling relative, this book might remind you, as it does me, of other rambling favorites such as Lucky Mrs. Ticklefeather, recently reissued. This is not an entirely fair comparison, though, since nothing the Lucky Mrs. does in her eponymous story makes any sense at all, and in The Twin Giants there is plenty of sense, a double romance and a doubly happy ending. It just takes a while to 
realize you’re on the right track.
There’s a bit of lesson-learning and character-building in The Twin Giants, but at all not the irritating kind that makes you suspect your Sunday School teacher is lurking beneath the narrative.
It may sound as if I’m not a fan of rambling stories, but nothing could be further from the truth. I love slight digressions, especially if they make me feel more thoroughly embedded in the story’s landscape, such as happens in the best of William Steig’s picture books (see The Amazing Bone, Sylvester’s Magic Pebble and Shrek — yes, that Shrek, but if you haven’t read the original witty telling, you and your children haven’t had the full Shrek experience).
Author Dick King-Smith is the creative mind behind over 160 books for children including Babe: The Gallant Pig (yes, of movie fame, originally titled The Sheep-Pig), The School Mouse, A Mouse Called Wolf and Pigs Might Fly.
The illustrations by Mini Grey bring joy, movement and exceedingly rosy cheeks into this enjoyable telling of a modern-day fairy tale. And who doesn’t love rosy cheeks?
