The Knight of Little Import

by Hannah Batsel, Hannah Batsel (Illustrator)

Overview

Hear ye! Hear ye!

Aspiring knight Charlie is ready to do battle! The only problem? The beasts and brutes are all in bustling Biggerborough, and she’s stuck in the wee hamlet of Little Import. Until one day . . . Charlie overhears the local baker lamenting that something has been eating all the pastries. Could it be a Triple-Tier Hungerbeak?!

Much to Charlie’s surprise, solving problems caused by small monsters leads to big changes. So begins an epic quest to capture monsters throughout town and find a safe place for them to live . . . in the world’s very first monster sanctuary!

Author and illustrator Hannah Batsel brilliantly chronicles Charlie’s conquests in a story that celebrates courage, ingenuity, and community.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781728450995
Publisher:	Lerner Publishing Group
Publication date:	09/05/2023
Pages:	40
Product dimensions:	9.50(w) x 11.25(h) x 0.31(d)
Age Range:	7 - 8 Years

About the Author

Hannah Batsel is a book artist and illustrator who fell in love with bookmaking while pursuing a Fine Arts degree at the University of Georgia. She began printing her own illustrated art books on a Vandercook printing press from the 1950s and hand-binding them in small limited editions. Hannah has published two picture books for children: A is for Another Rabbit, inspired by the two rabbits she adopted from her local animal shelter, and The Knight of Little Import, about solving small problems to make a big difference.

Hannah Batsel is a book artist and illustrator who fell in love with bookmaking while pursuing a Fine Arts degree at the University of Georgia. She began printing her own illustrated art books on a Vandercook printing press from the 1950s and hand-binding them in small limited editions. Hannah has published two picture books for children: A is for Another Rabbit, inspired by the two rabbits she adopted from her local animal shelter, and The Knight of Little Import, about solving small problems to make a big difference.

Editorial Reviews

08/21/2023

Batsel’s medieval-inspired tale follows knight Charlie as she vanquishes the hidden-in-plain-sight monsters of her small town, called Little Import. Though “knights were supposed to slay monsters,” young Charlie—portrayed in full armor—has only ever read about them. Compared to nearby Biggerborough, “Little Import just wasn’t worth a monster’s time.” When Charlie overhears the neighborhood baker lamenting the havoc wreaked by a “gluttonous fiend,” it catalyzes an aha moment, and she bags the town’s first brute—layer cake–lookalike “Triple-Tier Hungerbeak.” Before long, the whole village, populated by residents of varying skin tones, comes knocking for help with creatures including a wheelbarrow-esque “Frenzied Mudbull” and a bridge-like “Arch-Backed Spandragon.” Readers are provided with descriptions of each monster, disguised as everyday objects, before a page turn identifies the various fiends (a grandfather clock, for example, turns out to be a “furious thundergong”). The result is a playfully interactive story that suggests the grass isn’t always greener somewhere else. Ages 5–9. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

"Batsel's artwork is a mesmerizing display of extraordinary mixed-media collage using a variety of handmade and purchased paper alongside paints, ink, watercolors, embroidery floss, artificial turf, and painted sawdust. Every page, down to the endpapers, is textured, rich, layered, and lovely. Batsel's second book as author-illustrator is quite the achievement."— starred, Booklist

From the Publisher

2023-06-08
A young knight finds worthy work with help from sympathetic neighbors—and a fertile imagination.

So quiet is the tiny town of Little Import that all wannabe knight Charlie knows about monsters is what she’s read in her Big Book of Beastly Brutes. But that turns out to be enough to recognize the “Triple-Tier Hungerbeak,” disguised as a cake in the nibbled-over bakery; the “Frenzied Mudbull,” which only looks like a wheelbarrow in a harried neighbor’s plundered garden; the ticking “Furious Thundergong,” whose hourly chime is keeping the potion shop’s exhausted owner awake; and several more boojums. In collages made from embroidery floss, cut paper, sawdust painted green, and like materials, the author depicts common items transforming in stages into fearsome beasts before being “captured” by a small, anonymous figure in full armor and marched off…not to be slain, but settled in a monster sanctuary that becomes a popular attraction and gives Little Import bragging rights over neighboring Biggerborough. Along with racially diverse human figures, Batsel also tucks a marauding mouse in the bakery, a rabbit in the garden, and other rewards for sharp-eyed observers to pick out of her detail-rich scenes. Charlie keeps her closed helmet on even when otherwise dressed in a onesie and so remains racially indeterminate. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

Tongue-in-cheek and not at all of little import. (Picture book. 6-8)

Kirkus Reviews