Little Legends 2 – The Great Troll Rescue

Tom Percival's The Great Troll Rescue is a funny fairy-tale adventure for 5 year olds in which Red has to rescue everyone all by herself.

What happens

It's book two of Little Legends. Tale Town is where the fairy-tale children live, and where stories grow on a tree. Red, Rapunzel, Jack and his hen Betsy are best friends with Anansi. Most of Anansi's family have been cursed to look like trolls, and his mum is on her way to him by boat.

Then the boat sinks. A magic message in a bottle rolls up the beach. Anansi's mum has swum to an island, and she wants him to meet her there.

Red trusts everyone, and that's the problem. She chats happily to a friendly huntsman on his lunch break and tells him all about the troll they're meeting. Before Anansi can even hug his mum, she's caught in a net and carted off to a wicked witch's castle.

Then a dragon grabs the others too. So Red is on her own, apart from Ella, who's always sweeping up in the witch's castle, and Ella's Fairy Godbrother, Cole.

Cole is the best thing in it. He's small, glowing blue and very silly. His spells never come out quite right (he means to turn two guards into statues and gives one a beard that won't stop growing). He also magics up a giant bum for Red to land on, which your reader will probably think is the funniest thing EVER.

The fairy-tale jokes are great for grown-ups reading aloud too. A certain little man at a broken bridge insists they guess his name. The huntsman always wanted to be a woodcutter. Betsy can only say "What?", but everyone knows what she means.

Worth knowing before you hand it over

There's a dragon, a road made of bones and a witch building a magical army. Red falls down a cliff and through a roof. It's all played for laughs, but a very young listener might want a hand to hold for the witch.

There's plenty about friendship as well. Red feels awful that trusting the huntsman got Anansi's mum caught, and it's lovely to see her friends tell her it isn't her fault.

What to read next

If they want more of Tale Town, The Magic Looking Glass has a water troll snatching a cutting from the Story Tree, with Jack, Red, Anansi and the twins Hansel and Gretel all on the case.