What do you think?
Rate this book
King Nimrod's Tower
Against a background of the building of the Tower of Babel, a boy tries to train a stray dog--and God watches over all.
- GenresPicture BooksHistory
32 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 1982
About the author
Leon Garfield
123 books50 followersLeon Garfield FRSL (14 July 1921 – 2 June 1996) was a British writer of fiction. He is best known for children's historical novels, though he also wrote for adults. He wrote more than thirty books and scripted Shakespeare: The Animated Tales for television.
Garfield attended Brighton Grammar School (1932-1938) and went on to study art at Regent Street Polytechnic, but his studies were interrupted first by lack of funds for fees, then by the outbreak of World War II. He married Lena Leah Davies in April, 1941, at Golders Green Synagogue but they separated after only a few months. For his service in the war he joined the Royal Army Medical Corps. While posted in Belgium he met Vivien Alcock, then an ambulance driver, who would go on to become his second wife (in 1948) and a well-known children's author. She would also greatly influence Garfield's writing, giving him suggestions for his writing, including the original idea for Smith. After the war Garfield worked as a biochemical laboratory technician at the Whittington Hospital in Islington, writing in his spare time until the 1960s, when he was successful enough to write full-time. In 1964, the couple adopted a baby girl, called Jane after Jane Austen, a favourite writer of both parents.
Garfield wrote his first book, the pirate novel Jack Holborn, for adult readers but a Constable & Co. editor saw its potential as a children's novel and persuaded him to adapt it for a younger audience. In that form it was published by Constable in 1964. His second book, Devil-in-the-Fog (1966), won the first annual Guardian Prize and was serialised for television, as were several later works (below). Devil was the first of several historical adventure novels, typically set late in the eighteenth century and featuring a character of humble origins (in this case a boy from a family of traveling actors) pushed into the midst of a threatening intrigue. Another was Smith (1967), with the eponymous hero a young pickpocket accepted into a wealthy household; it won the Phoenix Award in 1987. Yet another was Black Jack (1968), in which a young apprentice is forced by accident and his conscience to accompany a murderous criminal.
In 1970, Garfield's work started to move in new directions with The God Beneath the Sea, a re-telling of numerous Greek myths in one narrative, written by Garfield and Edward Blishen and illustrated by Charles Keeping. It won the annual Carnegie Medal for British children's books. Garfield, Blishen, and Keeping collaborated again on a sequel, The Golden Shadow (1973). The Drummer Boy (1970) was another adventure story, but concerned more with a central moral problem, and apparently aimed at somewhat older readers, a trend continued in The Prisoners of September (1975) republished in 1989 by Lions Tracks, under the title Revolution!, The Pleasure Garden (1976) and The Confidence Man (1978). The Strange Affair of Adelaide Harris (1972) was a black comedy in which two boys decide to test the plausibility of Romulus and Remus using one of the boys' baby sister. Most notable at the time was a series of linked long short stories about apprentices, published separately between 1976 and 1978, and then as a collection, The Apprentices. The more adult themed books of the mid-1970s met with a mixed reception and Garfield returned to the model of his earlier books with John Diamond, which won a Whitbread Award in 1980, and The December Rose (1986). In 1980 he also wrote an ending for The Mystery of Edwin Drood, unfinished at the 1870 death of Dickens, an author who had been a major influence on Garfield's own style.
He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1985. On 2 June 1996 he died of cancer at the Whittington Hospital, where he had once worked.
Garfield attended Brighton Grammar School (1932-1938) and went on to study art at Regent Street Polytechnic, but his studies were interrupted first by lack of funds for fees, then by the outbreak of World War II. He married Lena Leah Davies in April, 1941, at Golders Green Synagogue but they separated after only a few months. For his service in the war he joined the Royal Army Medical Corps. While posted in Belgium he met Vivien Alcock, then an ambulance driver, who would go on to become his second wife (in 1948) and a well-known children's author. She would also greatly influence Garfield's writing, giving him suggestions for his writing, including the original idea for Smith. After the war Garfield worked as a biochemical laboratory technician at the Whittington Hospital in Islington, writing in his spare time until the 1960s, when he was successful enough to write full-time. In 1964, the couple adopted a baby girl, called Jane after Jane Austen, a favourite writer of both parents.
Garfield wrote his first book, the pirate novel Jack Holborn, for adult readers but a Constable & Co. editor saw its potential as a children's novel and persuaded him to adapt it for a younger audience. In that form it was published by Constable in 1964. His second book, Devil-in-the-Fog (1966), won the first annual Guardian Prize and was serialised for television, as were several later works (below). Devil was the first of several historical adventure novels, typically set late in the eighteenth century and featuring a character of humble origins (in this case a boy from a family of traveling actors) pushed into the midst of a threatening intrigue. Another was Smith (1967), with the eponymous hero a young pickpocket accepted into a wealthy household; it won the Phoenix Award in 1987. Yet another was Black Jack (1968), in which a young apprentice is forced by accident and his conscience to accompany a murderous criminal.
In 1970, Garfield's work started to move in new directions with The God Beneath the Sea, a re-telling of numerous Greek myths in one narrative, written by Garfield and Edward Blishen and illustrated by Charles Keeping. It won the annual Carnegie Medal for British children's books. Garfield, Blishen, and Keeping collaborated again on a sequel, The Golden Shadow (1973). The Drummer Boy (1970) was another adventure story, but concerned more with a central moral problem, and apparently aimed at somewhat older readers, a trend continued in The Prisoners of September (1975) republished in 1989 by Lions Tracks, under the title Revolution!, The Pleasure Garden (1976) and The Confidence Man (1978). The Strange Affair of Adelaide Harris (1972) was a black comedy in which two boys decide to test the plausibility of Romulus and Remus using one of the boys' baby sister. Most notable at the time was a series of linked long short stories about apprentices, published separately between 1976 and 1978, and then as a collection, The Apprentices. The more adult themed books of the mid-1970s met with a mixed reception and Garfield returned to the model of his earlier books with John Diamond, which won a Whitbread Award in 1980, and The December Rose (1986). In 1980 he also wrote an ending for The Mystery of Edwin Drood, unfinished at the 1870 death of Dickens, an author who had been a major influence on Garfield's own style.
He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1985. On 2 June 1996 he died of cancer at the Whittington Hospital, where he had once worked.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
May 7, 2020
‘King Nimrod’s Tower’ deals with the Tower of Babel, but from quite an oblique angle. A young boy has found a recalcitrant puppy and is trying to train it while the tower of Babel is being built in the background. The dog not listening to instructions are being compared to the workers carrying out theirs in perfect harmony. Throughout it all, Nimrod is making plans to climb his tower to heaven and show God how things should be.
Despite the panicking angels, God is not paying the tower much attention, being far more preoccupied with the boy and his dog. When it’s suggested he knock the tower down, he refuses because he doesn’t want it to crush the kid and puppy. Finally he curses the workers with different languages and confusion but blesses the boy and dog with the ability to communicate as “My Kingdom of Heaven is better reached by a bridge than a tower”.
I found it interesting how Garfield adds the dog story to reinterpret the Tower of Babel myth, giving God a tone of warmth for the boy rather than spiteful jealousy against the builders. There’s also something distinctly Christian about how God describes his kingdom of heaven.
Despite the panicking angels, God is not paying the tower much attention, being far more preoccupied with the boy and his dog. When it’s suggested he knock the tower down, he refuses because he doesn’t want it to crush the kid and puppy. Finally he curses the workers with different languages and confusion but blesses the boy and dog with the ability to communicate as “My Kingdom of Heaven is better reached by a bridge than a tower”.
I found it interesting how Garfield adds the dog story to reinterpret the Tower of Babel myth, giving God a tone of warmth for the boy rather than spiteful jealousy against the builders. There’s also something distinctly Christian about how God describes his kingdom of heaven.
March 22, 2016
03/10: The boys loved this one and asked to hear this one over and over. It is the cutest interpretation of the story of the Tower of Babel. It makes the story more accessible for us.
Inside Cover:
This is a very personal interpretation of the story of the building of the Tower of Babel, which comes to us from the Book of Genesis in the Bible. The exceptionally beautiful and powerful illustrations happily complement the warm and sympathetic storytelling to make this a book to be treasured by readers of all ages -- and to be read again and again.
Inside Cover:
This is a very personal interpretation of the story of the building of the Tower of Babel, which comes to us from the Book of Genesis in the Bible. The exceptionally beautiful and powerful illustrations happily complement the warm and sympathetic storytelling to make this a book to be treasured by readers of all ages -- and to be read again and again.
January 11, 2014
Very mello pictures and a great story. The story is more about making friends than about the Tower of Babel.
September 6, 2012
An interesting take on the Tower of Babel story.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews