Reviews

Fattypuffs and Thinifers by پری کیانوش, André Maurois

armaget's review

4.0

I remember distinctly this being one of the first books I'd set myself to read back when I was a little kid. The cover looked so great that I kept it safe until I learned how to read.

That being said I've forgotten quite a bit about what it was even about, and on rereading it I know why. There is a surprising amount of war and politics that at times was actually kind of hard to understand. I don't know how as a little kid I was able to read through it.

However, it's still a great book. The illustrations are very nice as well, though the story was an odd one for kids... Overall, a nice, funny little book about skinny people and fat people destroying each other's countries.

mat_tobin's review

4.0

'Patapoufs et Filifers' (let's face it, the original French sounds much better), was written by Maurois in 1930 and translated by Norman Denny in 1941. It tells the tale of two siblings who get along famously, for all the fighting and bickering, and find themselves one day, drawn into a tunnel under the ground which leads them to a world in the centre of the Earth in which people are separated by their weight. The Fattypuffs are generally gentle, kind and lesiurely people whilst the Thinifers are highly active, often highly strung but completely punctual. Both brothers, one fat and one thin, find themselves drawn into a conflict between the two parties. Although the story is resolved in a humorous way (with Fritz Wegner's highly entertaining illustrations supporting this tone), there is a deeper, moral conversation taking place here which would be interesting to explore with children.