User:Raisin56/The Toymaker (novel)

The Toymaker is a 2008 novel by Jeremy de Quidt and published by David Fickling Books. This debut novel was shortlisted for the Branford Boase Award in 2009 and the Waterstone's Children's Book Prize in 2010. The story follows a young orphan in a travelling show who comes to possess a small piece of paper that hides a dark secret people are willing to kill for. He tries to uncover the secret before he is caught by the sinister forces pursueing him.

Plot
The prologue introduces the toymaker, who wishes to make a toy that will never wind down. He eventually achieves this by placing a still-beating sparrow's heart into a toy. The rest of the story follows Mathias, a boy whose only living family is his grandfather, the conjuror Gustav who works in a travelling show. After Gustav dies from an unfortunate accident, Mathias finds a small roll of paper hidden in his coat. From then on, Mathias finds himself the target of the sinister Doctor Leiter and other greedy characters convinced that the paper conceals a secret that is worth a great deal. Although Mathias is helped by a few people while trying to discover the meaning behind the mysterious scrap of paper, it is equally clear that they are only out for their own gain.

Characters

 * Mathias - A young boy who works as an assistant to his conjuror grandfather, Gustav, and the other members of the travelling show he is with. He is frequently mistreated there but stays on because Gustav is his only living relative.
 * Katta - A serving girl described as roughly Mathias' age or older who works at an inn visited by Doctor Leiter. She suffers from fits after being hit on the head by a stray stone thrown by a Burner boy and has since cultivated a fierce hatred for their kind.
 * Doctor Leiter - The main antagonist, he is shown to be cruel and merciless. He is described as a man with a round, white face and is usually seen carrying a silver-topped cane.

Development and publication
Jeremy de Quidt wrote the story while involved in the literacy initiative at Wells Central Junior School, Somerset. He wrote the first chapter as "an example of how a story might begin, it wasn't intended to go anywhere else". Due to the children's enthusiasm, he wrote and read a new chapter of the story to them each week. The story was not planned out, de Quidt writing each chapter as he went along. According to de Quidt, by "a wonderful and very roundabout route DFB came to hear of it" and published his book. The locations in the book were inspired by de Quidt's remembered and imagined images of German and Baltic towns.

About the author
Jeremy was born in Walthamstow, London in September 1957. When he was a few weeks old his family moved to Essex. He currently lives in Somerset with his wife and three children.

Reception
John Lloyd praised the illustrations by Gary Blythe and the suspenseful pacing of the story, comparing the novel to the early work of Philip Pullman. Cindy Hannikman gave a positive review but wondered about the absence of the eponymous toymaker for a large part of the story, saying that she felt "slightly mislead by the lack of toys involved". Reviewers described it as "dark" and "disturbing" and commented on the violent scenes in the book, marketed towards children and young adults.