Do you know what a Gump is? (The Secret of Platform 13 - Eva Ibbotson)

Member Name: Sue Hoskinson

Product:	The Secret of Platform 13 - Eva Ibbotson
Date:	10/01/02 (1018 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Wonderful characters

Disadvantages: None

Do you know what a ‘gump’ is? No, well let me tell you. A gump is a magical portal that will instantly take you to another world.

This is considered a children’s story but it’s absolutely charming and if you’ve read Harry Potter and enjoyed it then you’ll love this as well!

I buy books for my son through his school, they send home booklets from a company called “Scholastic Books” and the books are sold with significant discounts which is a boon if, like me, your child is an avid reader.
Now before you all scream at me that this isn’t available in England don’t worry, I checked around to see whether you can buy “The Secret of Platform 13” and you can – I found it at amazon.co.uk for 3.99.

The author of Platform is a lady named Eva Ibbotson who has written several books for both children and adults. Her most famous book is probably “Which Witch” and it was a runner-up for the Carnegie Medal, which is considered one of England’s most prestigious children’s book prizes. According to the book Eva Ibbotson lives in the north of England somewhere but it doesn’t say exactly where.
A lady named Sue Porter who has illustrated more than fifty children’s books illustrated the book; she lives in Rutland with her husband and three children.

The story begins by telling you about the gump. Nowadays people don’t realize it even exists although it’s located under platform 13 of King’s Cross railway station. It’s an old part of the station that isn’t used anymore; they can’t knock it down because strange things happen whenever they try so the people just ignore it. Its only inhabitants are the ghosts who used to work there.
The gump is only accessible every 9 years and it stays open for 9 days.

The magical land that the gump leads to is simply called ‘the Island’
;, it was connected to the land once but as everyone knows pieces often break off and become isolated. A king and queen rule the Island but they’re not like usual royalty, they live normally and dress the same as everyone else.
The Island is full of wonderful creatures that can only be found in fairytales. There are giants and hags, mermaids and wizards, and no end of other mythical beings. The land is protected from being discovered by outsiders by a wonderful thing called a Mistmaker who produces white mist whenever he hears music!

The king and queen have a baby boy who is the apple of their eye. He has three nannies’ that are triplets and are also human – they came to the Island when they were children and have lived there ever since. Anyway, the triplets convince the queen to let them take the prince to the gump for a visit but things don’t go quite to plan. The girls smell fish and chips and become quite homesick so they come through to buy some. While in London the prince is kidnapped by a horrible woman called Larina Trottle.
Larina Trottle is extremely rich and has everything she wants except for a baby, so when the opportunity presents itself she kidnaps the prince intending to pass him off as her own.
Needless to say the triplets are completely devastated when they discover what’s happened. They are unable to find the prince before the gump closes so they have to go back empty handed and tell the king and queen what’s happened.

The king and queen decide that as soon as the gump opens again a rescue party should go and find their beloved son. A ghost told them where he was living and what his new name was so they had a good idea where to start!
The party they put together is not what the people of the island expect at all, they choose and old wizard called Cornelius, a fey called Gurkintrude and a one eyed giant called Hans.
One person that desperately wanted to go was a you
ng hag called Odge Gribble but initially she wasn’t allowed because she was considered too young. After all, she was the same age as the young prince but when she showed the queen her special gift for him she was allowed to go!

When they do find Trottle Towers, as the home is called, they encounter a young boy called Ben. He is lovely and just what the prince should be but, alas, not the one they’ve come looking for. Raymond Trottle is the boy they’ve been sent to find and he’s not at all what’s expected, he’s very fat and very, very spoiled – totally awful!

The rest of the story is how they try to convince Raymond to come back with them and the antics they get up to.

I don’t usually read this kind of story but after my son pestered me to read it I thought I’d give it a try – I’m glad I did!
The characters are a delight and the story is written with plenty of humor so that it would appeal to just about everyone.
I found myself really disliking Raymond Trottle and hoping that he wasn’t the lost prince but I’m not going to tell you the ending because that would spoil it, wouldn’t it. I will say that the ending was a little surprising and it made me go back and make sure I hadn’t missed a bit!

It’s not a very long story, just 231 pages which took me about 3 hours to read. My son read it in about the same length of time and he’s 11 years old!

To sum up, I would definitely recommend this story to everyone who enjoys fantasy. Even younger children would love to have this read to them because the characters come across so well and there is a lovely moral to the story – don’t be cruel to anyone or anything that is different, they still have feelings!

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