Mungo and the Picture Book Pirates

Product Information

Just as Shuggie Bain isn’t a story for everyone, neither is this one. It’s disturbing and triggering in so many ways. But because of the tender love between those two boys, Young Mungo felt a little more hopeful to me. That ending … I’d really like to meet them again, for instance, as side characters in Douglas’ next book (which I’d like to be a little less dark), just to know they’re happy and doing okay.

Mungobooks - AbeBooks - Poole Mungobooks - AbeBooks - Poole

I never read Shuggie Bain but saw it got lots of accolades. So, I was excited to listen to Stuart’s second book, Young Mungo. But I really struggled with it. It’s not a bad book. In fact, it’s incredibly well written. But it’s such a sad, deep, dark, ugly, depressing story, I had to force myself to keep with it at times. Mungo nodded, accepting the result with perfect equanimity. He shook hands with his team-mates, then took two glasses of wine and crossed the room to where Fairchild was talking with his friends. He pressed a drink into Fairchild’s hand. Young Mungo is a heartbreaking tale and tender love story of a sensitive teenager, brutalised by his origins and the society he lives in. Fifteen year old Mungo lives in poverty in a Glasgow housing scheme with his single mum and older sister Jodie. His father was killed on the streets in the ongoing violent and senseless warfare between protestant and catholic gangs. His mother was only a teenager herself when her first child, Mungo’s older brother Hamish was born, and unable to cope on her own with three youngsters took to the bottle to numb her pain. Never a good mother, she neglects Jodie and Mungo, leaving them alone for weeks at a time with no food in the house while she spends any money she has on alcohol and pursues her latest love interest. Despite all this Mungo loves her dearly, even though the more pragmatic Jodie tells him he should see her for what she is.Not at all,’ said Mungo. ‘I wagered ten guineas that I could get at least a hundred votes against the motion. Nobody else thought I would get more than fifty. And though the glory of victory is very fine, I would rather have the extra gold in my purse.’ The President announced the result. ‘Ayes to the right, two hundred and seven. Noes to the left, one hundred and eighteen.’ Yer mammy felt us all about that mess ye got yourself into with those dirty Fenian bastards. Catholics, man. Butter widnae melt. Mungo had been trying not to think about it”. Born in Glasgow, Scotland, after receiving his MA from the Royal College of Art in London, he has lived and worked in New York City. I do not know how this little review will turn out and I do not wish to censor myself. After finishing this book and crying terribly I grabbed my beloved and asked him to take me out for a long night drive and I listened to slow Arabic love songs and held his hand.

Young Mungo — Douglas Stuart

Written by first time writer Gill Aitchison, illustrated by Jill Newton and published by independent publisher Mantra Lingua, Mungo Makes New Friends is more than your average picture book. Supported by a range of additional resources, Mungo presents a new generation of storytelling, making it suitable for diverse audiences and reading abilities.

Mungo with Kamishibai Storytelling Theatre and Story Props

Dinnae worry,’ grinned Gallowgate. ‘We’ll get you away frae that scheme. We’ll have a proper boy’s weekend. Make a man out of you yet, eh?’” Mungo and Jamie fall for each other, despite what they know will be the reaction of their families (particularly Mungo’s brother and Jamie’s Dad) – reactions coloured by both sectarianism and anti-homosexuality. Critics, armchair and otherwise, have not only been decrying ‘Young Mungo’ as ‘Shuggie Bain’ in a different cagoule, but are already lamenting the poor departed muse of author Douglas Stuart, who seems perpetually fixated on Glasgow. Beyond these sat the broken promises of Sighthill. The high-rise towers were only twenty years old and were already in a state of disrepair. They were the tallest buildings Mungo had ever seen. The tops of them disappeared into the dense clouds, like a stairway to somewhere above the endless rain, or like a strut trying to keep the ceiling of dark cumulus from collapsing and suffocating the entire city." The prose is vivid and clear and superb. The dialogue zings with authenticity. The psychologies are startingly sound and the sociology unabashedly hyper-realistic. The connection to emotions is genuine and painful and the breath is shallow and hurried.

Young Mungo: 100 Must-Read Books of 2022 | TIME

If you have one ounce of humanity in you, I urge you to support the motion.’ Fairchild sat down to sustained applause. The President waited for the noise to die away. Yet despite the multifarious frustrations, and even at its most overexplicit and overwrought, Young Mungo is the work of a true novelist. Bizarre technique cannot crowd out the energy of Stuart’s characters or the organic force of his teeming world. At times he recalls Dostoevsky, in whose work the powerful exists alongside the galumphing. Mungo’s predicament is piercing, and as the story draws to a close, a spectral beauty prevails. The audience filed through two doors, one for ‘aye’ on the right, and one for ‘no’ on the left. The queue for the ‘ayes’ was noticeably longer, but a surprising number turned the other way. Mungo watched the count from his seat, the grin on his face never wavering. Fairchild took the glass reluctantly. By convention, the society’s debates were about rhetorical skill and argument: winning or losing was less important than behaving like gentlemen afterwards. But Fairchild could not hide his disdain for Mungo.Jodie felt the floor tilt underneath her. Like a gable end slated for demolition, the front facade of her fell away and the private contents of her life rolled out. She was being torn down, and every mismatched bed sheet in her mind was to be exposed for all to see."

Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart review – grit and longing in

Set in the autumnal Highlands of Scotland, Mungo is a horse who has seen better days. Now, old and lonely, he has nothing to look forward to. But, slowly, he is introduced to a series of new friends who share his meals. As the seasons change, and winter comes, Mungo is taken away to his winter stables and his loyal friends must work out how to stay with him. Find yourself in Jill Newton’s beautifully illustrated Scottish Highlands, and join Mungo and his friends on their adventure. This is going to be the very first ARC I am rating as a 1 star and I hate doing this. But giving it two stars will not represent my experience accurately. It was just a waste of my time and a terribly frustrating read. The only reason I didn’t DNF it was that it was an audiobook.This novel is both intensely intimate and wildly Shakespearean. A family drama, a love story and a coming of age play out in an intensely macho and homophobic Glasgow in the 1980s. The extraordinary, powerful second novel from the Booker Prize-winning author of Shuggie Bain, Young Mungo is both a vivid portrayal of working-class life in 80s Glasgow, and the deeply moving story of the dangerous first love of two young men. If you kill him, you will be hanged for murder.’ Fairchild prodded Manners with the toe of his shoe. ‘Is he worth that?’ He turned to the room. ‘My virtuous opponents would have you think that slavery is a unique evil, a moral abomination unparalleled in the annals of civilisation. I urge you to see otherwise. It is merely a name for what men practice wherever they are, whether in Virginia or Guinea or Manchester. The power of the strong and wealthy over the weak and poor.’ The main protagonist is the fifteen year old Mungo Hamilton, son of a largely absent alcoholic single-mother (herself still under 35) and largely bought up by his older sister Jodie (now 17) in a Glasgow housing scheme. While Jodie is both well liked and studious, the two year older Hamish (Ha-Ha), despite his short stature and “speccy” appearance is a widely feared gang leader, head of a Protestant group of Billy Boys who engage both in crime and in brutal fights against the neighbouring Catholic gang from the next settlement – the Royston Bhoys.