The prince of the golden apple

A vision of a beautiful girl gazing up from the waters of the Laughing Lake fills Prince Zero with a sense of mission, but he has to wait for his meeting with the Gling, a small leafclad creature whose name suggests his nature – ‘I’m full of glee and I can sing’ – to learn about his task. It is to free the birds whom the Queen of Misery has captured and deprived of their colour and song. Opposed to Zero and the Gling are Pompussina, a huge black cat with rainbow-coloured whiskers and an inordinate vanity, and the Queen herself.

These fantastic characters pursue their adventures through an equally fantastic but vividly realized landscape, where shrubs may come to life and perform a dance or storm waves freeze into black grass. The author’s fondness for wordplay and unexpected turns of phrase reflect the exuberance and energy of this unusual fairy story, which is most imaginitively illustrated by Rosie Barlow