Welcome to my stop on the blog tour for The Narzat and the Shifting Shadow. As part of the blog tour, author Luke Marchant has written a series of guest posts for us all! Today is all about the Jumble Jungle Wood!
Welcome to the Jumble Jungle Wood!
It’s a riot of colour and noise and adventure—and hopefully a playground for children’s imaginations to truly run wild. This is a place where bizarre plants dominate the landscape, with upside-down oaks wriggling their roots in the air, whilst leaves fall from sobbing saplings like teardrops. One of my favourite things about the trees is that you can always tell their age from their behaviour—baby bushes cuddle up together, whilst teenage-trees shove branches in their pockets and grumble about being embarrassed.
Readers of the Narzat enjoyed meeting the many unusual creatures who lived in the jumble-wood—from retractable giraffes (who wind their necks in when it gets cold) to PenGrins (seemingly happy birds, that waddle around with huge smiles plastered along their faces). In the sequel, it was great fun to introduce even more bizarre and unique animals. With a chorus of noise from day-owls and boom-bugs starting our book, we soon meet creatures both friendly and foul. Whether it’s dandy-lions struggling to stop their manes blowing away, or land-piranha menacing poor bewilderbeest, there’s plenty for everyone to enjoy! The slow tortoise teacher of jungle school (the Giant Taught-Us) was a particular favourite of mine, although my son was a fan of the devious sly-hyena (or slyenas), Skull and Crossbones.
I first came up with the Jumble Jungle Wood when I was writing the Narzat for my very first class. As a teacher, I knew how much children enjoyed diving into new and exciting fantasy worlds—and I wanted to make this one as unique as possible! At that time, I only wrote a handful of chapters and it wasn’t until lockdown that I revisited the jungle-wood again… When writing the story for my family in the midst of COVID, there was something quite magical about being able to take them to a completely different world whilst our own world appeared to get a bit smaller.
As you can imagine, the Jumble Jungle Wood is a place I couldn’t keep away from for long. I’m so excited to be exploring it again—and I can’t wait for readers to join me on this adventure.
Welcome to the Jumble Jungle Wood! It’s great to have you here!
My Shelves Are Full 