If you're not in on the 'Rumbles' joke, it's a long and gleefully gory battle between Our Heroes and some vague antagonists who.well, haven't really been established as any nastier than the Borribles themselves. If as a child you loathed and feared the Wombles, this is the blood-spattered revenge fantasy you've been looking for. It's all very well to want to write your reaction to staid, safe, edifying upper-middle-class children's literature, but it has to stand as a plot on its own. Where it falls down - and perhaps I wouldn't have noticed this as a child - is the execution. I'm torn, because I loved the premise, I loved the ideas. And great use of geography - this is 'urban' fantasy Peter Pan-style, as drawn from the kids hanging around Tottenham High Street, as soaked in London geography, as it is a punky, proletariat reworking of Edith Nesbit or Narnia. Loved 'em, would've wanted to be one, would've been a little frightened of being one.
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