The Humundo Sorterium

Written by Daniel Thompson Illustrated by Connor Edwards ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ Published by     Carefully Crafted Media (12 May 2019) Genre Children's Book, Poetry, Humour Pages 96 ASIN B07RPMZ8N6 ISBN-10 1999829522 ISBN-13 978-1999829520 For readers aged 6 - 11 years

My thanks to Anne of Random Things Tours for the invitation to join the blog tour for The Humundo Sorterium, and to author Daniel Thompson for a free copy of his book to review.

I read this book for this year's #20BooksOfSummer challenge in a bid to reduce my ever increasing To Be Read pile.

The blurb:

Buddy’s wonderer is sent spinning the day his Grand-pa tells him about the Humundo Sorterium. He’d always thought babies were made by storks and now Grand-pa is saying they're made in this… machine.Well of course the only way to be certain is to go on an adventure and find out for himself. He waits for Grand-pa to fall asleep, packs some jam sandwiches and heads for the watering hole to find a stork to confirm his Grand-pa's story.

Along the way he meets Handsome Henry a stork who tells the tale of how babies used to be individual, created by nature and delivered by storks; however now they are made in batches by a baby making machine in a factory. The Humundo Sorterium is less concerned with individuality and more concerned with the efficiency and productivity of the factory.

Henry and Buddy journey to the factory, working together to overcome some obstacles along the way. Raven gatekeeper Madame Megan and her army of clockwork crows try to stop them in their tracks, but with some quick thinking and teamwork they make it to the factory.

Together they try to overthrow Baroness Von Adlevine and destroy The Humundo Sorterium once and for all. But of course, things are not as straight forward as they had hoped.

Children's Book    Poetry    Humour

My thoughts:

I was attracted to this book by the delightful cover and appealing blurb. I loved the idea of a youngster with an enquiring mind going on a mini adventure. I was even more delighted to find that the whole story is told in verse, and that the book is filled with colourful illustrations supporting the humorous poetry. The story centres on a little boy called Buddy, who has set off to find the Humundo Sorterium, a place where babies are made, which his grand-pa has told him about. His grand-pa said that babies are made in a machine at the Humundo Sorterium, and Buddy wants to discover for himself whether this is really true. On his way there, he meets a stork called Handsome Henry who confirms that babies are indeed made in a machine at the Humundo Sorterium. Handsome Henry agrees to fly Buddy there to see for himself.

Along the way they meet Madame Megan and her clockwork crows who guard the route to the Humundo Sorterium. The crows will not let them pass. However, Madame Megan tells Buddy that there is a way to destroy the crows, and allow him and Handsome Henry to pass unobstructed.

Having succeeded in reaching the Humundo Sorterium, they find the machine. It is making identical babies from identical parts. Buddy presses all the buttons on the machine in the hope of producing unique individuals, rather then the uniform ones it is currently churning out. This brings Baroness Von Adlevine to confront the pair, and threaten Buddy with dismemberment.

How he escapes and wins the day is cleverly told in this fabulously entertaining rhyming story for young readers.

The verse flows well, and the inclusion of some whimsical fictitious words adds to the comedy value and quirkiness of the rhyme.

To my delight, there is even a puzzle to solve within the rhyme. Our intrepid explorer, Buddy, must find the answer to the puzzle, posed by Madame Megan, to be allowed to continue on his journey. He has three chances to get it right or be arrested and taken before the wicked Baroness Von Adlevine to decide his fate.

There is a moral to this story, and that is, that it matters not what or who we are, our abilities, talents or characteristics, we each bring something unique and special to the world in which we live. We are all wonderful and amazing individuals!

I found The Humundo Sorterium delightfully funny and entertaining. Children will, I'm sure, be captivated by this rhyming story, as well as the amusing sketches which help to bring this story to life.

Purchase from:

Amazon UK      Amazon US     Amazon CA     Amazon AU

Author Bio – Daniel Thompson
The Humundo Sorterium will be the second book brought to you by author Daniel Thompson and illustrator Connor Edwards. Following on from the success of The Christmas Tale of Elaine Gale this is another 5000(ish) word story written entirely in rhyme about a young boy's adventure to the 'Humundo Sorterium' Baby Making Factory.

Other stories I've read by Daniel Thompson

Social Media Links –
X	@AuthorDThompson

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