Martyn Ford is the author of The Imagination Box. One of his top ten fantastical pets in children's literature, as shared at the Guardian:Richard Parker, from Life of Pi by Yann MartelRead about the other entries on the list.
Maybe Booker-winning Life of Pi isn’t a “children’s book”. But I like it and see no reason why a child couldn’t read it so it is, de facto, a children’s book. Take that, categories. After the ship containing all the animals from his family’s zoo sinks, our hero Pi ends up in a serious pickle. He’s stuck at sea on a cramped life boat with, among other creatures, a massive Bengal tiger called Richard Parker. While far from an ideal scenario, Pi and Parker somehow make it work and eventually get to dry land. Or maybe none of that happens. Maybe the tiger is, in fact, pure fantasy...
Life of Pi is on Off the Shelf's list of eight great books told by child narrators, Janis MacKay's top ten list of books set on the ocean, Kathryn Williams's list of six notable novels set in just one place, Scott Greenstone's list of seven top allegorical novels, Sara Gruen's six favorite books list, the Barnes & Noble Review's list of five top books on castaways, and John Mullan's list of ten of the best zoos in literature.
--Marshal Zeringue
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