She was an interesting main character, who found herself working in a toy shop. Across the city, when children wake to see the ferns of white stretched across their windows, or walk to school to hear ice cracking underfoot, the whispers begin: the Emporium is open. The Toymaker was a totally unexpected find at my library; I hadn't yet made it my goal of 2011 to read 36 books, but I wanted to find something to busy myself with until a book actually on my to-read list came in. Tragic and beautiful. Magical, lyrical, poetic and had me completely engaged with it. There’s also a magical realism aspect to this book. Unlike most toy-makers,he does not make happy toys to bring joy to the hearts of children. He is fond of children and makes friends with her and gives her an old doll. The plot is DARK! The Emporium takes her in, and Cathy discovers that the Emporium is the only toy shop that is truly magical.Not all magical realism is the same, and this is a great example of the genre.Not all magical realism is the same, and this is a great example of the genre.I was starting to read this book thinking it would be a heartwarming feelgood story full of magic. I remember reading this as a kid and had forgotten it, and was exciting to read again with hardly any memory of it! Every so often a book comes along that blows one away. Would you want to "come of age" in this world? Its main problem is that it struggles to find a target audience. On paper, it sounds like it would be my favorite book ever. For years Papa Jack has created his famous and magical toys. It just strikes me as being a little bit too dark, a little bit too bleak, for the intended age group of 10-12. It might be a bit too gory for under 10's, but certainly young teens will enjoy it. by Gary Blythe. What wasn't to like? A place where children's dreams can come true, where the impossible becomes possible - that place is Papa Jack's Toy Emporium. The packaging of the book, the writing style, the main characters' ages, etc. It is a kind of "coming of age" allegory, with a very dark premise. A lovely story about a woman and her life at a toyshop where two brothers and their father create magical toys. It is full of vile, evil and heartless characters whose only mission in life is cruelty to others.This book is definitely not for children!! Quidt seems to write very bluntly, he does not water things down and so the creepyness and fear created from Toymaker is enhanced. by David Fickling Books The rest of his family was long dead and, having no where else to go, Matthias lived a miserable life of helping the circus performers with their costumes and props, abused and neglected by both his grandfather and the rest of the company. There was nothing about this book that was predictable in any sort of way.For all its beautiful illustrations, charming hardback size and general appearance, this book left me feeling uncomfortable. It’s no surprise then that the brooding, gothic atmosphere that haunts the pages from the very beginning of Jeremy De Quidt’s debut novel The Toymaker is an ominous foreshadowing of the doom that will follow any attempt to give life to the inanimate object, even when the object in question is something as initially benign as a child’s toy.This book repeats itself a few times whereby (spoilers) Mathias will find himself captured by multiple people and then chased. At the same time, it has events and places often associated with storybooks. Its main problem is that it struggles to find a target audience. One of the book's characters is a sinister toymaker who animates dead objects with hearts borrowed from birds and other living things. This book is completely ridiculous! That's not necessarily a bad thing, though.I was starting to read this book thinking it would be a heartwarming feelgood story full of magic. Across the city, when children wake to see the ferns of white stretched across their windows, or walk to school to hear ice cracking underfoot, the whispers begin: the Emporium is open. This was such a dark and grim piece of fiction. Another book that doesn’t give itself away with the blurb. The Toymaker. The writing is eerie, the characters are morally ambiguous, and the finale is unusual, but what is most perplexing is the demographic of this title – The Toymaker by Jeremy de Quidt is a children’s book. In the heart of Mayfair, there is a place of hope. Welcome back. In fact I am pretty sure that many of us imagined that they did actually come to life. I would say noir except for the fairy tThis novel is filled with surprises and almost never a ray of light. 038561358X In most places it did leave me feeling very, very disturbed. In the end these leave it even more grim, though it is never trying to be ironic. The protagonist is a child and so you cross your fingers that he stays safe, the book follows his journey to seek out one single truth and yes, many people are in his way. It is definitely not perfect, however. Jeremy de Quidt writes compellingly, you will be riveted to this un-put-downable book and it will definitely have you holding your breath in places! February 8th 2018 It has a mystery with a McGuffin to solve. Even though it was dark and disturbing, I enjoyed reading the book; the writing as well as the accompanying illustrations served well to describe the bleak and dark atmosphere in the book.Thanks to Jordan West for the recommendation. The Toymaker is a very dark piece of fiction. The result is this dark, chilling tale of a secret and a race to discover what that secret is.As a kid who was into books with a dark, almost gothic feel to them when I picked this up at the age of thirteen I really loved it. I'm sure that as small children we all wished that our toys would come to life. It would've been cooler too if toys other than Marguerite the lie detector was included as well.This book opens with a completely different tangent to the protagonist that it follows.