Uncle Hardcover - 2007

Media reviews

"Few books are laugh-out-loud funny; fewer still are the children's books that have you stifling titters on the train. Uncle , first published in 1964 and now reissued in a suitably handsome hardback, is one of these vanishingly rare specimens...Uncle is a brilliantly sustained exercise in nonsense, played with the straightest of faces. A further treat is provided by Quentin Blake's illustrations; these also adorn Uncle Cleans Up , the sequel, which the NYRB is also reprinting." --Financial Times

"I've never met a child who didn't love Quentin Blake." --Melanie McDonagh, Daily Telegraph

"A reprint of the British children's classic Uncle by J.P. Martin, a writer who makes Roald Dahl look restrained, would make a great gift for literary eccentrics of any age." --The Los Angeles Times, Favorite Children's Books of 2007

"Marvelously screwy" --The San Francisco Chronicle

"Those who fall for it may find that many lasting shared jokes spring from J.P. Martin's eccentric story...A classic of British nonsense, the book was originally published in 1964 at the behest of the author's grown children, who wanted the stories they heard in their youth passed down to the next generation. And a most elegant nonsense it is, utterly silly and deeply sophisticated at the same time...In the tradition of the best English children's literature..." —Newsday

“The Times Literary Supplement called the books ‘spellbinding’, the Observer predicted that they could become ‘a classic in the great English nonsense tradition’, while the Times Educational Supplement likened the books to Alice in Wonderland, a comparison that has been made many times since…Uncle’s disappearance continues to mystify his devotees. The books contain many of the elements of the best English children’s literature. There is the blurring of the line between the human and the animal kingdom, made familiar by Beatrix Potter and A.A. Milne. There is the quirky humor of ‘Toad in the Hall’ or ‘Alice’. And the books are illustrated by the wonderful drawings of Quentin Blake.” —The Economist

“These extremely funny books were never a mass-market proposition, but nearly 40 years on retain a cult following. Blake still gets irate letters from parents demanding to know why they aren’t in print, because they want to read them to their children.” —The Independent (Sunday) (London)

“When I wondered which book I wished I’d written, Uncle by J. P. Martin prang to mind…perhaps because it was the first book I read which made me feel (at nine) grown-up, as if I was in on the joke as well as caught up in the fantasy…[The stories] have a wonderfully improvisational, careless quality, matched by riotous illustrations by Quentin Blake…Uncle is an utterly indulgent book, which veers recklessly between the childish and the sophisticated” —The Guardian (London)

“The books are very funny, installing a large cast of unlikely characters…in a world of mildly squiffy logic…And the illustrations are among Quentin Blake’s best work, scrawls and splotches that finally and unarguably distill character. But most important, this is political satire of a high order — Animal Farm for pre-teens, but wittier and more relevant to our own world.” —The Independent (London)

“There can be few people under 50, and nobody under 40, who don’t feel that [Quentin Blake’s] merry or melancholy figures were part of their childhood. He has been described as a ‘national institution,’ and he as the trappings: an OBE…the first Children’s Laureate…as well as winning Hans Christian Andersen Award from the International Board on Books for Young People [and] appointed Chevalier de L’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in France.” —The Sunday Independent (London)

"Uncle's neglect may be partly due to the fact that in the supposedly egalitarian age in which we live he is an unfashionable figure - a millionaire elephant in a purple dressing gown exercising one man rule over "Homeward", a vast moated castle rather like a combination of Manhattan and Battersea Fun Fair. The Wind in the Willows, Robinson Crusoe, and many other classics would, I suspect, find it hard to find favour with modern publishers in search of inoffensive matter with the right kind of message. Such people could easily mistake the violent horseplay in Uncle for cruelty and be uneasy about political undertones. —The Sunday Times


"J.P. Martin's books are very funny or satirical depending on one's own depth in reading. Uncle is a magnificent take-off of the benevolent despot. It is all a matter of tradition. You ask any class "Who's heard of Alice in Wonderland" and up goes a forest of hands. Uncle is on the same level and should be more widely read and enjoyed." —The Junior Bookshelf

"This is fantasy in the grand style; in the tradition of Lear and Graham.
Younger readers will take it at face value and enjoy it thoroughly. Older readers will be able to see into the depths of these adventures. This is true, however of most juvenile fiction; who appreciates Alice when it is first read to them?" —The Times Educational Supplement