The Story of Oddieword, by Grant Slatter

Oddieworld comes across as the work of an illustrator with so many skills that he wants to use them all. Unfortunately, too many different styles in such a short book clash, leaving a confused muddle. For example, the first three double page spreads of the story are stunning. The colours are bright, clear and flat, complimented by a good choice of typeface, nicely laid to out to reflect the thought put into these pages - making me think that Grant Slatter is a graphic designer first, illustrator second. These first few pages set the style for the book, but from hereon, the style changes, bringing in gradients, shadows and highlights. I can understand why there is a texture on the socks themselves, but it doesn’t really work, neither do the blurred reflections in the water, the airbrushed trees or the reflective bubbles. This is a shame because the first few pages are superb.

The map at the end of the book returns to the original style, and is just as good as those first few pages.

The story is a real let down. It’s awful: a weak explanation of the world rather than an actual story. My older son really stumbled on the made-up magic words.

Looking at the bigger picture, I loved the assortment of characters on the back cover - though these, like on the front cover, have 3D shadows, where the characters on the poster and on the website are 2D. The website is very well put together and the actual socks that you can buy are superb; as soon as I saw them I wanted some! It makes me wonder if the socks are there to support the books, or the other way around, in which case, the author should redesign the books because the socks are fabulous.

Overall, this feels like the work of a single designer. The idea behind it all, the website and the socks are all great, but the book, The Story of Oddieword falls way short of the mark and isn’t one I would buy or recommend. It could be improved with a single, consistent style of illustration but what it really needs is a good writer and a decent story.

Colin M

I work as a teaching assistant and am a big fan of The Oddies series. I came across this review after searching for additional Oddies resources and was a bit surprised at the tone. If you do a Google search of 'Grant Slatter' or 'Oddies' you'll understand why.

I can understand the reviewer to some degree as although this book can be read in isolation, the Oddies is a reading series so you need to read at least one or two of the other books to find the real value. All the other books follow a common format (different to this book) which helps us teachers to teach children the basics of a problem/dilemma based plot. The children invent their own character and can imitate the structure of the stories in the books.

I don’t know who does the illustrations but it seems the reviewer somehow missed the fact that the story is based part in the real world and part in the Oddieworld. The former has flat color graphics and the latter has an enhanced version with the shading, texture, etc. This happens in every Oddies book and it also helps me illustrate the start, middle and end of the story. I hope the publishers won’t change the style of the graphics as the children love them!

I'd recommend this book together with others in The Oddies series to anyone with children aged around 5-7yrs old.