Buckle your seatbelt for the first-ever follow up to Ian Fleming's only children's story.
When the Tooting family finds an old engine and fits it to their camper van, they have no idea what kind of adventure lies ahead. The engine used to belong to an extraordinary car . . . and it wants its bodywork back! But as the Tootings hurtle across the world rebuilding the original Chitty, a sinister baddie is on their trail — one who will stop at nothing to get the magnificent car for himself.
Fueled by wry humor , this much-anticipated sequel to the children’s classic by Ian Fleming, creator of James Bond — fe aturing a contemporary family and a camper van with a mind of its own — is driven by best-selling, award-winning author Frank Cottrell Boyce and revved up by Joe Berger’s black-and-white illustrations.
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17 of 19 people found the following review helpful.
Chitty Sequel Designed to Race with Kids and Adults Who Love Them
By David Crumm
As a journalist, I'm fascinated with 20th century history and I was hooked on this officially commissioned sequel to Ian Fleming's classic children's story the moment I discovered all the careful attention to details about Count Louis Zborowski. If you have your well-thumbed original Chitty Chitty Bang Bang from half a century ago still on the shelf, pull it down and you will find a credit to Zborowski in that book, too. But that one reference in the original was precious little credit for a very real, if tragic, figure who wound up giving the world so much fun and fanciful dreaming (with Fleming's help). Zborowski was born in 1895 as one of the heirs to the Astor fortune and, before he hit a tree and ended his life at age 29, he had international success on the racing circuit by building racecars around airplane engines. He liked to call his creations Chitty Bang Bang (with just one Chitty in the name; Fleming added the poetic symmetry). On this side of the Atlantic, Zborowski competed in the 1923 Indianapolis 500. As a little boy, Fleming once saw the dashing Zborowski race at Brooklands, which itself is packed with racing and aeronautical history. That's why Fleming centered the tales he originally told to his own son around his own indelible childhood image.The point is: Ian Fleming, throughout his life, had lots of fun connecting all sorts of dots in his fiction. He was a famous journalist himself, chiefly as what we would call the foreign editor of The Sunday Times in London. He liked to connect the dots for adult readers, once assembling an array of Britain's top writers to produce an entire book about the famous Seven Deadly Sins, called simply The Seven Deadly Sins. As Fleming scholar Dr. Benjamin Pratt points out in Ian Fleming's Seven Deadlier Sins and 007's Moral Compass, Fleming went on to argue that the Post-WWII world actually was threatened by seven even deadlier sins. As Pratt lays out in his book, Fleming explored these new sins in the original James Bond novels.What's the point of all of this? Parents and grandparents buy children's books because they hope that kids will enjoy them. But the truth is: Kids tend to love best the books that are an interaction with those who love them. We remember best the children's books we enjoyed with Mom, Dad or grandparents, right? And, in this case, if you are skeptical of this way-late-in-the-game sequel to Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, I can tell you there is fun for all ages in this book. All those readers who have enjoyed the fictional connecting of mysterious dots in The DaVinci Code, or theatergoers who enjoyed the National Treasure thrillers with Nicolas Cage, pay attention. No, this isn't a tale lost in endless historical trivia. But there is much for even adults to enjoy in this book--lots of references to Zborowski, the Sphinx and world travel.We know we're in for a ride when, in the opening pages, young Lucy declares that she's now old enough to spend most of her time locked away in her bedroom, a claim heard by all too many parents, these days. Instead, Dad says, "Go and get that map of the world from your bedroom wall." And, soon, with the aid of a magical successor to the original Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, the family is up and away!
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful.
Captures the Magic of the Original
By Nicola Mansfield
Reason for Reading: I love Fleming's original Chitty Chitty Bang Bang book and have read it several times. as a kid and as read-alouds to my own kids. It's always been a favourite. I've never been much of a fan of the movie, though, probably because of the drastic changes to plot. I don't usually read these kind of sequels to classic books but this was commissioned by the Fleming estate and Fleming did only write the one book, so I decided to try this and see if it recaptured the magic of the original.It certainly did! I was particularly amused throughout the book.Mr. Boyce has done a very good job of maintaining the voice and atmosphere of the original while making the story completely his own. This story takes place in modern times and involves the putting back together of the original Chitty car, which all starts with the Tootings family finding the engine and installing it in their Camping Van. At this point, Chitty is able to take over the van and drives (or flies) the van all over the world (namely 'Paris, Cairo and below the ocean.) The book is also very British, with spellings, word usage, slangs and humour. A delightful little story which has a bit of a slow beginning but gets better and better until the wonderful ending, which leaves us expecting a sequel.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful.Magic for both Young and Old Readers
By simpson sherryway
Choose this book to read aloud at bedtime. Sharing a book that both of us were enjoying was my favorite part of parenting. My kids knew that the time spent together inside the story wasn't a parental obligation; it was a joy. I'm an empty nester now and wish I had someone to share this with. The humor is great for all ages. I laughed out loud. Very rarely does a book create the kind of humor that makes me laugh out loud but this book did. Are there other kid's books with running gags? Maybe a little in the Natterjack's patter in Eager's The Time Garden. I guess Golding in the Princess Bride with the Morgenstern comments (to the extent you can consider The Princess Bride: S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure a children's book). Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang does it. (Please comment if you know other examples.)But believe me, Mr. Boyce deserves credit for doing something out of the ordinary here. The running gags that sparkle throughout this book make it stand out in a spectacular way. Also special is the relationship between parents and children in this adventure. Sometimes I think some secret writers guild requires an oath from members to only write about broken families. Make him and orphan, or have a single parent, divorced, separated or widowed, every once in a while a step parent. I am sick of terminally ill parents being saved by magic. I liked that Fleming in the original Chitty Chitty Bang Bang made a shared adventure for an intact family and was impressed that Boyce did so too.
