Customer Reviews

The Borribles Go for Broke

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The Borribles is a truly subversive piece of children's literature. The trilogy takes all the epic fantasy elements of Tolkien: adventure, clansmanship, codes of honour, and inverts them against a backdrop of urban decay and social entropy. Borribles are children who run away from home, scavenge for food and would live forever were it not for the adult world's constant attempts at dragging them jealously back into the madness of workaday mortality. De Larrabeiti is obsessed with the geography of a London that he depicts as a city of near total squalor. The Thames is black and cholera ridden, warehouses crumble, schools lay in ruins and mindless commuters shuffle blindly to work each morning whilst the wily Borribles steal fruit from markets, carry catapults for protection and attempt to live outside of the rat-race. As the story progresses, so does Larrabeiti's vision, shifting from the relatively whimsical sparring of rival subhuman groups -Borribles versus the strange, rat-like Rumbles- to a more serious depiction of a highly moral youth culture where money is an evil temptation, corroding the Borribles' scruffy, communal utopia, forcing them out of hiding and into battle with the adult world; a world teaming with sadistic policemen, hysterical civilians and degenerate alcoholic child-snatchers. A world where the only friendly adults are tramps, wasters and circus freaks. Not hard to see then, why the books never made it onto school reading lists. Yet the characterisation is mature and moving, the plotline ingenious and thrilling. But perhaps most impressive of all is the whole Borrible mythology: a coherent world complete with proverbs, songs, rules, lore and ethical codes, thriving beneath the grimy, menacing mess of modern London. Arguably one of the greatest works of children's fiction and almost certainly the darkest and most morally ambiguous, The Borribles is a fantasy saga ripe for comic-strip and film adaptation, yet it appears to have slipped into near obscurity. Join the cult and treat yourself to a copy, whatever your age.

Borribles are runaway children who don't want to grow up. They get their names from adventures. But the greatest adventure is The Great Rumble Hunt.After a note that gets passed to Charlotte about a horse that saved their life during the Great Rumble Hunt, Charlotte gets together with the rest of the Hunt members and tries to save the horse. When things go terribly wrong and they end up in Wendle territory, warrior borribles that would love to kill them, their only hope is to trust a borrible that was a Wendle. Will the borribles ever make it out alive??

This book was a very good book. It was really tense for me and there was always action so it kept me reading. There was a big plot that was unraveling and I tried to guess it but it was very hard because of dips and turns. The author wrote very well and it captured my imagination. I wish to see pictures of the borribles because it is hard to imagine them.

Reviewed by a student reviewer for Flamingnet Book Reviews

www.flamingnet.com

Preteen, teen, and young adult book reviews and recommendations

I read this book close to 20 years ago and it stands as one of my all time favorites! Some of the characters reveal some of the same personality traits as some of the friends that I shared the book with.

The Borribles is one of the best stories I have ever read, but The Borribles Go For Broke matches the standard. Discovering that Sam the horse is still alive, the adventurers seek him and are lured into danger, both by the SBG (Special Borrible Group) police and one of the most cunning of their own tribe, Spiff. The borribles fling themselves into, and extricate themselves from, many a mess, but end up in the worst of all possible worlds - Wendle territory, deep beneath the streets - Wandsworth (where the best borribles come from). Here are scenes to make a reader weep and shudder with awe. If you have not been at the bottom of the Wandle river in a shifting tunnel of mud, or watched Spiff fight with a spade honed razor sharp, then you have missed some of the best Borrible action that currently exists. If you can get hold of this book, do so- this book is worth every moment you will spend glued to its pages.

My Grade 6 teacher read us this book and I still remember travelling along with the borribles, that was 20 years ago. If a book can stay in your memory for that long it's gotta be good

These books are some of the few books i've enjoyed reading more than once :o). The author has an incredible sense of charater, that gives his books a life of thier own. Everytime I read these books I feel like i've been there and lived the adventure with them. I agree with the rest. What ever happened to the Author?