30 SUNDAY, DECEMBER 13, 2020IT’S BEEN 13 YEARSsince J. K. Rowling pub-
lished her final “Harry Potter” book, end-
ing a series that transformed a generation
of children into readers and reminded a
generation of parents how exciting it was
to be a child. I read the books aloud to my
kids, but I also raced through them alone in
great greedy gulps late into the night, des-
perate to find out what happened next.
How thrilling, then, to learn that Rowling
has used her pandemic time to produce a
new, non-Potter children’s book. (She has
been busy along the way with other projects,
of course, and recently waded into a messy
public argument about transgender rights.)
At first, “The Ickabog” seems like a con-
ventional fairy tale, charming but slight. It
is set in Cornucopia, a pleasant kingdom
ruled by the vain but harmless King Fred
the Fearless. (He dubbed himself Fearless
“because it sounded nice with ‘Fred,’ but
also because he’d once managed to catch
and kill a wasp all by himself, if you didn’t
count five footmen and the boot boy.”)
Rowling loves words and delights in
aptronyms for places and people. She has
named Cornucopia’s regions after their cu-
linary specialties: Chouxville for pastry,
Kurdsburg for cheese, Baronstown for
meat, Jeroboam for wine. To the north are
the scrubby, rather unpleasant Marsh-
lands, home to sickly sheep and a fearsome
creature known as the Ickabog. No one
seems to have seen it — its appearance and
monstrous powers vary depending on the
whims of the storyteller — but it is the bo-
geyman that keeps children in line and
haunts their dreams at night.
The kingdom’s peaceful equilibrium is
shattered when Fred’s chief seamstress
dies of overwork, an unfortunate event
with snowballing consequences that “his-
tory books of Cornucopia would later
record as the beginning of all the troubles.”And troubles they are. Power falls into the
hands of two diabolical courtiers, Lord
Spittleworth (the lean, cunning one) and
Lord Flapoon (the bibulous, sycophantic
one), who spread discord by perpetuating
the lie that the Ickabog is real and that the
only way to protect the populace is by im-
posing martial law. In no time at all, Cornu-
copia becomes a place of violence and fear
in which dissenters are imprisoned, chil-
dren are separated from their families and
citizens are forced to participate in a mass
delusion to prop up a corrupt regime.
If anything sounds familiar, it is co-
incidence, Rowling explains in her fore-
word; she began the book years ago as a
bedtime story for her children. It wasn’t
until the pandemic hit that she pulled the
half-written manuscript from the attic and
started to work on it again, trying out new
material on her now-teenagers and releas-
ing it (free, initially) in serialized form on
her website. The chapters are short; the
story lends itself to being read aloud; and
the experience is greatly enhanced by win-
some illustrations contributed by children
aged 7-12 who won a contest this summer.
Rowling has kept her excellent sense of
humor and prodigious imagination, butshe has become a clearer and more disci-
plined writer over the years, less inclined
to lard her narrative with extraneous ex-
position. The story is scary at times, but
she leavens it with a light touch and a sense
of moral rectitude that lead us to suspect
(correctly, as it turns out) that all will come
right in the end.
What elevates “The Ickabog” beyond a
famous writer’s fanciful tale is the won-
drous plot twist that comes toward the end,
and the sheer delight that follows. I read
this book at home in November, with the
cold drawing in and ambulance sirens in
the distance, a harbinger of a hard winter
to come. It made me weep with joy. 0By SARAH LYALL
SARAH LYALLis a writer at large for The Times.
Children’s Books/Fantasy Novels
Fear in a Land of Plenty
THE ICKABOG
By J.K. Rowling
With illustrations by the winners of The Ickabog
Illustration Competition
304 pp. Scholastic. $26.99.
(Ages 8 to 18)
Tales of a monster no one has seen wreak havoc.
IN HIS AFTERWORDto “Rise of the Halfling
King,” David Bowles writes about the hier-
oglyphic script developed centuries ago by
Maya kingdoms, noting that “the closest
modern equivalent” he can think of for this
“highly visual” way of recording stories is
the graphic novel. It’s a premise that finds
much merit in this first book in a new se-
ries, for which the Mexican-American au-
thor and translator (with various illustra-
tors) is adapting 10 selections from his
award-winning “Feathered Serpent, Dark
Heart of Sky: Myths of Mexico.”
Set “a thousand years ago” in Mexico’s
Yucatán Peninsula, “Rise of the Halfling
King” begins with Almah, an apprentice
witch (of the healing variety), meeting the
aluxes, “mystic elfin beings who wield
great magic to protect nature.” They give
her two items: the magical stone she is
seeking to complete her training and, un-
expectedly, a drum that “in the right
hands” will announce the rightful king of
Uxmal, the biggest city in the lowlands.
Almah keeps the drum a secret as a cruel
king, Kinich Kak Ek, rises to power in Ux-
mal. With him comes a villainous sorcerer,
Zaatan Ik, who utters a prophecy: When a
“kingmaker” drum sounds, a rival not born
of a woman will appear and must be given
the opportunity to take the throne by win-
ning three challenges. Uneasy with the
prophecy, Kinich Kak Ek rules brutally and
expands his kingdom by force, conquering
Kabah, where Almah lives, and other
nearby cities. The king’s priests outlawwitches, so Almah is shunned. Then one
day she finds an unusual egg. She takes it
home and puts it near her hearth. Soon a
child hatches from it: a boy who is part hu-
man, part alux. Our “halfling king” has ar-
rived. Meanwhile, in order to conquer the
lowlands’ last defiant city, Kinich Kak Ek
orders Zaatan Ik to use his darkest magic.
By calling up the serpent of the under-
world, the sorcerer unwittingly sets the
prophecy in motion.
“Rise of the Halfling King” is a straight-
forward folk tale, with the usual good andevil archetypes and the expected ending.
As with most predictable folk tales, what
makes it so satisfying is its telling.
It’s a timeless story told in a timely way:
Mayan codex meets superhero comic
book. Bowles peppers the dialogue with
contemporary phrases and attitudes that
echo today’s teenagers.
The illustrator, Charlene Bowles (Da-
vid’s daughter), draws the characters with
a similar blend of ancient and modern. The
strong, bold lines recall the ancient draw-
ings, but they are mixed with the visual
language of speech balloons and the radi-
ating emotion lines of comics.
By using the graphic novel format, Da-
vid Bowles is attempting to give young au-
diences a taste of how Indigenous cultures
in Mesoamerica experienced reading. As
he puts it, “Blending written words and im-
ages, comics and other sorts of graphica al-
low our brains to process stories more like
our ancestors did.”
At the same time, “Rise of the Halfling
King” is a fresh story for a new generation
of readers. 0By GRACE LIN
GRACE LINis the author and illustrator of many
books, including a fantasy trilogy based on
Chinese folklore.
Hieroglyphic Superheroes
RISE OF THE HALFLING KING
Tales of the Feathered Serpent, Vol. 1
Written by David Bowles
Illustrated by Charlene Bowles
64 pp. Cinco Puntos Press. $12.95.
(Ages 8 to 13)
A graphic novel series shows kids how ancient Indigenous cultures experienced reading.