'The Toymaker' by Jeremy de Quidt

I read 'The Toymaker' as part of my quest to keep up with interesting YA and 9-12 books now coming on the market, and was drawn to it because of the extraorinarily creepy picture on the front. Goddammit, I wanted to know the story behind that. 'The Toymaker' exists in a kind of in-between world in which it is nastier and darker than I'd feel comfortable recommending for a 9 year old but has a writing style (and appropriately aged characters) more fitting for 9-12 than for YA. This book is grim. Everybody exists in a morally grey area that I find both refreshing and depressing: the characters react like people, unrestricted by the kind of morality adults want to present to kids. Jeremy de Quidt has written a dark fairy tale reminiscent of Philip Pullman's wonderful 'Clockwork', especially as the settings and subject matter are so similar, and it is very dark indeed.


The storyline follows Mathias, a boy living with his conjurer grandfather in a travelling circus, but a sudden death, a dangerous secret and a mysterious man who will stop at nothing to get it throw him into the company of a girl called Katta, who has her own secrets, a 'Burner' boy called Stephen and Koenig, a calculating man whose motives are less than obvious. The writing style is pacey but picturesque, letting us really feel the frozen Germany-esque country in which the story takes place. There are engaging details, such as the culture of the 'Burners', gypsy-esque figures who burn wood to make charcoal in the forests and are shunned by society, and the carnival/celebration of a local legend in the main city.

I'd class this as bordering on horror, as Marguerite, the doll with a human heart and sharp needle teeth, is deservedly the subject of the front cover, and there is a fantastically creepy sequence near the beginning as Mathias is pursued by a small, quick assailant in the darkness. It's just a pity that as the story unfolds, there is more of a creeping sense of dread than genuine horror, as Marguerite appears only a couple of times (though to great effect on the second occasion) and the figure in the beginning is a bit of a one-trick pony, a deformed dwarf with supernatural strength, senses and a penchant for torture. That's not a spoiler - the revealed presence of this figure is supposed to be the scary part for 90% of the novel. It's sort of disappointingly mundane.


Like I said, this isn't a nice book. It's not a rip-roaring adventure where everyone's home for tea and crumpets by the end. People die. People are tortured. There's a calculated attempt at squirmifying mutilation by one of the child heroes of the book. No Mcguffins to save the world, no Deus Ex Machina to make everything right. And, honestly, I think it's better for it. I liked this book a great deal - it's like the evil version of a Secret Seven mystery, or the spiritual successor to something like 'The Wolves of Willoughby Chase'. De Quidt doesn't talk down to children, and the illustrations by Gary Blythe, while lovely and soft-edged, can be truly chilling.

On the other hand, I would honestly have liked this book to be a bit longer. There were some sections which were perfectly executed - it rarely dragged on, partly because of de Quidt's writing style - and some of the character development (especially Katta's) was top-notch, but the Toymaker of the title barely appeared, I'd have liked to know more about Koenig, and there was no satisfying resolution at the end. The latter point is not necessarily a bad thing, perhaps showing that things aren't always so neatly tied up as in most novels, and I applaud de Quidt for not feeling that he has to push his story into a given shape, but when I can't even remember fully what happened at the end (I have a pretty bad memory, and I only finished it two days ago), more resolution might be required.

Overall, it's a damn fine book, but somewhat forgettable due to a lack of explanation and resolution. I can look back and pick out instances that will probably stick with me forever, but the overall shape of the thing is fading fast. I personally wouldn't recommend this to a kid below fourteen or so unless they had a pretty strong stomach, but then I read worse things at a younger age, and I genuinely believe it made me grow up a lot (in a good way). Still, if you liked 'Clockwork' (and if you haven't read it, everyone should, since it's one of the only things I've ever read by Philip Pullman I genuinely loved), this is definitely a good pick-up, and speaks of a writer who isn't afraid to show children the horror in fantasy.