Mucking About

We are in Ireland and it’s an awfully long time ago. Centuries and centuries. The country is supposed to have gone Christian, but there’s still magic in the air, salmon in the rivers, berries in the bushes, druids in the forest, a Worm in the lake, fairy music in the distance. Manchan’s mother wants to make a monk of Manchan. Manchan most emphatically does not want to be made a monk of. He’d rather sing songs with his father, or go fishing with his friend, Pagan-of the-Six-Toes, or go charging through the forest with his pet pig, Muck, or go bare-back riding over the bog on the chieftain’s mad ram, Balor. Anything fun or adventurous or magical, and absolutely nothing to do with turnips, penance, prayers, monks and chanting. Poor Manchan! The more he mucks about having fun, the more his mother is determined to tame him.

About the Author

John Chambers was born and raised in Ireland and is now based in Berlin. He is the creator of long-running comic strip The Adventures of Festy O’Semtex in Phoenix Magazine and has developed concepts and written scripts for TV series, long and short films and many children’s animation series, including Ted Sieger’s Molly the Little Monster. Three times winner of the Best Animated Screenplay Award at the International Animated Film Festival, he was also Writer in Residence at the National Theatre, England in 2006. He has brought masterful storytelling and wry humour to a range of children’s titles including; Granny Samurai, the Monkey King and I, Granny Samurai and the Brain of Ultimate Doomitude, and The Seven Deadly Finns (Walker Books).