Uncle - Hardcover

"A great comic masterpiece." (Richard Ingrams Oldie Editor Oldie)

Reprint of the year. A kind of 'Gormanghast' for children of eight and up, this is a very funny book. (Financial Times)

Like all great children's writing, people delight in finding multiple levels of meaning. Uncle's entertaining nonsense makes it perfect for children (and adults), while some readers claim it exposes society's hypocrisies and critiques capitalism. (Julia Eccleshare 1001 Children's Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up)

This brilliant flight of nonsense for children of eight and older has long been hard to obtain; this is a fittingly classy reprint. (Financial Times)

Unimaginably rich, invariably swathed in a magnificent purple dressing-gown, Uncle oversees a vast ramshackle castle full of friendly kooks while struggling to fend off the sneak attacks of the incorrigible Badfort Crowd. Each Uncle story introduces a new character from Uncle's madcap world, but for every delightful friend of Uncle, there is a foe who is no less deliriously wicked. Luckily the misbegotten schemes of the Badfort Crowd are no match for Uncle's superior wits.
Quentin Blake's quirky illustrations are the perfect complement to J.P. Martin's stories, each one of a perfect length for bedtime reading. Lovers of Roald Dahl and William Steig will rejoice in Uncle's wonderfully bizarre and happy world, where the good guys always come out on top, and once a year, everybody, good and bad, sits down together for an enormous Christmas feast.