Angelo: Celebrate Quentin Blake’s 90th Birthday

by Quentin Blake

A marvelous story about helping each other out, from beloved llustrator Quentin Blake.

Angelo and his family travel round the country playing music, singing songs and performing marvelous balancing Angelo can even dance on a rope! So when he meets Angelina, who is sad and lonely and trapped in her mean uncle's house, Angelo knows just how to help ...

"Blake is beyond brilliant . . . I've never met a child who doesn't love Quentin Blake" - Daily Telegraph

 

Genres: Picture Books, Childrens, Friendship

32 pages, Paperback

First published September 6, 1990

About the author

Sir Quentin Saxby Blake is an English cartoonist, caricaturist, illustrator and children's writer. He has illustrated over 300 books, including 18 written by Roald Dahl, which are among his most popular works. For his lasting contribution as a children's illustrator he won the biennial international Hans Christian Andersen Award in 2002, the highest recognition available to creators of children's books. From 1999 to 2001, he was the inaugural British Children's Laureate. He is a patron of the Association of Illustrators.

Reviews

[Tonty Gibson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Angelo travelled about Italy with his parents and three brothers. They have all their belongings in their cart and ‘whenever they came to a village, they stopped their cart in the square and started to put up a stage.’ The whole family dress up in their costumes to entertain the villagers with their music, balancing tricks and rope dancing act performed by Angelo. Angelo and his family love to entertain and put smiles on people’s faces. But one day, Angelo noticed a girl named Angelina watching him from her window with tears rolling down from her eyes. He asked her why she was crying and she told him all about herself. Angelo was not happy that she was enslaved by her uncle and decided to plan a narrow escape with the help of his two brothers and at night they helped her escape from her horrible uncle. Angelina became part of Angelo’s family, she travelled about the country with them and also learnt to dance on the rope with Angelo.

This is a good story that is about people, family, places and time and it can be used for curriculum support and as a stimulus to teach geography in KS1. Children can analyse pictures, compare pictures with their local environment, and compare type of transportation they already know with horse and cart, know different places for entertainment / home entertainment.

[Amit Tiwary · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you read it with a 6 years old and you see the book as he/she is looking at, you will be joyed so much.
Awesome illustration, can amaze anyone. A lucid story for the right kind of age group kid.

If you are reading this with a child or you are listening to as a kid reads this one, request them to focus on the details in the illustrations. Quentin Blake's illustrations fill all the colors and make the words beautiful.

I am fortunate that we have read and seen QB's work. Arhat adores his work.

[Adrian · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a story about a boy who lived a long time ago in Italy. His name was Angelo.

You guessed it, where there was one, there was two. A double Quentin Blake charity shop find day.

This one is for a more mature childhood audience and is in part historic fiction about a family of travelling acrobats, and part fairy tale, with a much maligned servant girl wanting to escape from a cruel Uncle.

Once again the artwork is stunning, but this time it has a good tale to match. 4 1/2 stars.

[Happy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this book! Aside from its wonderful illustrations, Angelo teaches us a life lesson of how to empower oneself to get out from a toxic life. Moreover, Angelo and his family may not have the riches in the world but they've got tons of love, warmth, contentment and happiness around them. I am going to reread this again and again!

[Andy Verschoyle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Same old QB but he draws it so well.

[Ginger Beer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gorgeous story

[Rachel Hinds · Rating 5 out of 5]

He’s a genius.

Fantastic, characterful illustrations and simple but effective story with life and joy.

[Sophie Crane · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love these stories by Quentin Blake and this is my favourite. I love that the pictures are bright. I like that they do tricks and saved the little girl out of the window.

[Akilah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another Quentin Blake book - Angelo. I do find his books fun to read.
Angelo seemed very happy go lucky and enjoyed travelling and performing with his family. Blake mentions that Angelo was a good performer and he could do extraordinary things which made his performances stand out from the rest. As previously mentioned, Angelo and his family were very happy and enjoyed travelling to different villages in Italy. Although he was happy and a great performer, he came across a very sad and lonely girl who was not treated very nicely by her uncle. As a result, Angelo and his brothers tried everything in their power to help this lonely young girl to escape from her sad life at home.
What I enjoyed most about this book is that although Angelo and his family were happy travellers and performed for many in different parts of Italy, they were keen to help out a sad and lonely girl who was less fortunate than them. Blake depicts that no matter how happy and successful you are, you can still help thoe who aren't as lucky as you are.

[Sheelagh · Rating 5 out of 5]

I would read and re-read this book as a young girl. In retrospect, I wonder if it assisted in building the strength of character I needed to get out of an abusive relationship. I love the illustrations that embody the sense of freedom that the heroine finds.

[Dhwani · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a sweet book! So lovely

[Serge Smagarinsky · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sweet story following a Rapunzel style plot.

Note: this was originally published in 1970, not 1990