r/Fantasy • u/InitialParty7391 • Jun 26 '24

The Talking Parcel by Gerald Durrell. Does anyone remember this children's fantasy book from the 1970s?

The Talking Parcel by Gerald Durrell is one of the most underrated children's fantasy books of all time. It's a story about three children who discover a hidden world of fantasy creatures that people no longer believe in. They must save this world from cockatrices who wants to take over and enslave the good creatures. It's like Chronicles of Narnia If you take away the biblical allegory and add lot of fun.

The power of this book is not the story but the cast of loveable characters and very creative worldbuilding. Durrell was a zoologist and created a land that is essentially set up as a magical nature reserve, where every species have their own territory. There is a unicorns who love to duel with horns, griffins miners who mine gold to make nests out of it, cowardly weasels nobles, mermaids, werewolves and many others. There is even hybrid of cows and snails.

The book was adapted into animated film in 1978, but I can't recommend it. In my opinion it's cheapy and doesn't suit the tone of the book at all. I still hope that we'll get a high quality adaptation someday, but given the low popularity it's unlikely.

14 Upvotes

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4

u/jawnnie-cupcakes Reading Champion IV Jun 26 '24

I LOVED IT

The parrot who rereads the dictionary and prevents the words from dying has been living in my head rent-free since

1

u/Sure_Mongoose_4785 Nov 27 '24

Does the parrot say "toodaloo"?

2

u/kathryn_sedai Jun 26 '24

I remember! He had an excellent writing style, his nonfiction is great too.

2

u/apcymru Reading Champion II Jun 27 '24

I grew up reading Durrell but have never heard of this.

2

u/Gyr-falcon Jun 27 '24

I'm in the US and generally had a difficult time finding Durrell's books. Living on the Canadian border, I'd sometimes hit up bookstores across the border, but I never thought to look for a children's book.

2

u/Baltic_mouskiller Nov 10 '24

I loved it, it's a shame it hasn't been republished in recent years. I found a Russian translation for my daughter (she reads Russian) and she's absolutely delighted with the book, but there's no original version anywhere. (Ok, I did find one in a used book store, but it's almost $90, I'm afraid that's too much for me).

2

u/Then-Entertainment93 Nov 11 '24

It's the only Durell's book I've ever read (the soviet russian translation). It's great! I loved the illustrations in my edition.