FANTASY

American cartoonist Jordan Crane’s all-ages graphic novella first published in 2005 makes its paperback debut complete with five previously unseen pages. It’s actually a follow-up to the self-published and now out-of-print The Shortcut, picking up where that book left off and rejoining a wildly imaginative kid named Simon and his whinging cat Jack as they arrive late at school and are chased up on to the roof by crabby teacher Missus Poe.

In order to avoid a bludgeoning with a phonebook, kid and cat scamper up a rickety old staircase, and find themselves in a vaporous world of kindly cumulous clouds and malevolent storms. Boasting beautiful candy coloured artwork, it’s an alternately cute and creepy flight of fantasy that’s reminiscent of the great Maurice Sendak’s children’s books Where the Wild Things Are and In the Night Kitchen.