First Names: Emmeline Pankhurst and First Names: Elon Musk


By Haydn Kaye & Michael Cotton-Russell (David Fickling Books)
By Tracey Turner & Mike Smith (David Fickling Books)
ISBN: 978-1-910989-61-6 (Emmeline) 978-1-910989-62-3 (Elon)

Since its premiere in 2012, The Phoenix has offered humour, adventure, quizzes, puzzles and educational material in a traditional-seeming weekly comics anthology for girls and boys. The vibrant parade of cartoon fun, fact and fantasy has won praise from the Great and the Good, child literacy experts and the only people who really count – a dedicated and growing legion of totally engaged kids and parents who read it avidly…

The potent periodical is rapidly approaching its 300th issue and shows no signs of slowing down. In fact, parent company David Fickling Books is expanding its output through a range of graphic novels and a new imprint of cartoon and strip illustrated biographies highlighting historical and contemporary groundbreakers and earthshakers.

The First Names imprint gets readers on intimate terms with a number of worthy achievers rightly deemed role models and launches in August with the two books under scrutiny today. Further enticing stalwarts promised in future include Harry Houdini, Abraham Lincoln and Amelia Earhart…

Devised along the lines of the mega-successful, eternally-engaging Horrible Histories books, these prose paperbacks come with a superabundance of monochrome cartoon illustrations to keep the pace of learning fast and fact-packed.

Written by Haydn Kaye, Emmeline Pankhurst traces the life of the great Suffrage campaigner, deftly navigating a rather grim tale of oppression and imparting a great deal of necessary detail in a most delicate but effective manner through such enlightening chapters as ‘Emmeline Falls Out with her Father’, ‘Emmeline Kicks Up a Fuss’ and ‘Emmeline Forgives and Forgets’… Aiding and abetting, illustrator Michael Cotton Russell provides witty contextualising drawings on almost every page, with absorbing sidebars such as ‘Emmeline Explains Politics’ and ‘A Miserable Life for Match Girls’.

Working in tandem and conspicuous light-hearted good taste, the creators here have delivered a topical and timeless introduction to a woman who changed the world and deserves to be on First Name basis with every kid who’s claimed “It’s not Fair!”

Still very much in the news and attempting to change the world, the eccentric life and career of Elon Musk is traced by scribe Tracey Turner and cartoonist Mike Smith from his earliest explosive beginnings through a string of highly bankable innovations to his current elevated status as premier exponent of green technologies and interplanetary colonisation.

Beginning in ‘Pretoria, South Africa 1981’ the astounding progress is charted through ‘Elon’s Easter Eggs and Blasting Stars’ through ‘Elon Makes Millions’ and ‘Elon on Mars’ to ‘What Elon Did Next’.

It’s one heck of a ride and is engagingly limned by Mike Smith who provides contextual illustrations, charts recipes and family trees, illuminates maps and codifies micro-lectures such as ‘Elon Explains Solar Energy and Fossil Fuels’, ‘Elon Explains Silicon Valley’ and ‘Elon Explains Space Rockets’.

You may not like him or believe him, but this guy is at the forefront of today’s Thinkers and Do-ers, so you should at least have some idea of what he’s done and what he wants…

Invoking the heady baby boomer days of factual entertainment comics such as Look and Learn and Tell Me Why, these extremely enticing books promise – and resoundingly deliver – a measured and informative window on a most complex and potentially daunting maze of past-and-present Stuff To Know and do it with great charm and efficiency.

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First Names: Emmeline Pankhurst Text © Haydn Kaye 2018 and illustrations © Michael Cotton-Russell 2018. All rights reserved.
First Names: Elon Musk Text © Tracey Turner 2018 and illustrations © Mike Smith 2018. All rights reserved.

First Names: Emmeline Pankhurst and First Names: Elon Musk will be published on August 2nd and are available for pre-order now.