Cover design and illustration by JetPurdie
Internal illustrations by Ewa Beniak-Haremska
Published by Everything With Words
Grebs & Co: The Secret Lives of Gremlins is a wonderfully charming, heart-warming and magical story that utterly captivated me.
Nine-year-old Alice Fairchild has moved to the quaint village of Little Wobbleton with her father. Observant and curious, it doesn’t take Alice long to notice that this is a rather peculiar, and magical, place: winking lamp posts, shop doorknobs that turn before being touched and rattling postboxes.
When Alice posts a letter to her mum, who she misses deeply, she wonders if there could be something inside Postbox 27. Imagine her surprise, and delight, when she posts a letter, and some chocolate digestive biscuits, to the occupants only to have a little creature open the door and invite her in. So it is that Alice discovers a hidden, magical world where gremlins work to sort and deliver mail under their Chief Letter Commander, Grebson. It is not long before Alice earns their friendship and trust and is made a Friend of the Gremlins (FoG), helping them with their letter deliveries and providing them with biscuits.
But when Alice discovers that her new friends are in danger, she is determined to save them. Can she bring a community together to share the importance of connection and the magic of letter-writing? Can she stop the progress of technology in order to save the old-fashioned postboxes?
I absolutely loved this whimsical, warm-hearted adventure which celebrates the importance of friendship, community and connection. I really enjoyed the emphasis on the magic of letters – the feeling and meaning carried by them, and the impact on the recipient which resonates with such heartfelt tenderness and poignancy. I adored the portal fantasy elements and the surreal magical realism which evoked fond memories of reading Alice in Wonderland.
I have no doubt that young readers will adore discovering more about the secret world of the biscuit-loving gremlins hidden inside the postboxes – and I hope that it will inspire them to want to post a letter to a loved one in an old-fashioned, red postbox with the hope that, maybe, just maybe, they will discover some magic for themselves.
Alice is an incredibly likeable young girl who writes letters to her mum, who is absent from her life, in the hope that she will get a reply. She is kind-hearted, inquisitive and determined to make a difference, attributes which help her build friendship and connection, not only with the gremlins, but with the village community.
The illustrations throughout are absolutely stunning and capture the wonder, warmth and whimsy of this delightful story perfectly.
A perfect tale to enjoy curled up on the sofa with a few favourite biscuits – guaranteed to delight young readers of 8+.
Thank you to Mikka at Everything with Words for inviting me to take part in the Blog Tour and for providing me with a copy of Grebs & Co. My review is my honest opinion of this book.
