Noemi Vola and Rose Churcher Clarke (translator), The Endfixer, Berbay Publishing, May 2024, 48 pp., RRP $26.99 (hbk), ISBN 9781922610744
The Endfixer is another fun picture book that plays with the conventions of narrative, similarly to funny titles such as It’s a book and Do not open this book.
This book poses an amusing and original idea that the author, Noemi, would like to be an “Endfixer” which, she continues to explain, is the role of “fixing” inadequate story endings. Endings that are too complicated, too sad, too hard to believe or, wanting in some other way, ruin an otherwise entertaining story. The book ends with a thought provoking, tongue in cheek twist to its original premise about story endings.
This is a fun and unusual approach to explaining concepts of creative writing in ways that young children can understand.
The playful cartoon style images are exceptional for their originality and interesting design elements. Each page’s illustrations are an unexpected and amusing experience that matches the book’s witty premise. From an image of two worms kissing in the middle of a “just married” apple coach (representing a too “mushy” ending), to a queue of bored looking animals (for a “too long” ending), to a volcano spewing lava (to illustrate “too catastrophic” endings), each quirky image humorously illustrates the book’s abstract ideas.
The Endfixer was originally published in Portuguese by Italian author and illustrator, Noemi Vola, who is highly acclaimed in Europe and has won a number of prestigious international book awards.
This new English translation brings a very clever, fun book for Australian children. With some quite abstract and complex ideas, I recommend it for an older picture book age group, from 4-7 years old.
Reviewed by Barbara Swartz
