Review by Karl Verhoven

Urchin has a long history of absconding from foster parents and causing trouble around the town. With no-one else willing to take him in he’s settled with the eccentric elderly Marvin and Pearl Hart near the marsh in a home that’s flooding with the rain when he arrives.

Anna-Laura Sullivan certainly knows her way around an unsettling introduction, yet the Harts are a kindly couple dedicated to the preservation of the marsh at the city’s edge, to the extent of calling themselves The Marsh Fellows, whereas nearby businesses just consider it a convenient place to dump their rubbish. Urchin’s not a bad kid at heart and for the first time someone’s showing an interest in him, so he warms to the Harts. He enjoys a clean-up trip and is beginning to enjoy a stimulating new life when the local lighthouse malfunctions.

While there is jiggery-pokery afoot, The Marsh Fellows isn’t as disturbing as the atmospheric opening pages might suggest. In fact it’s grand adventure, mixing mystery and exploration and a superbly constructed slightly off-centre cast guaranteed to appeal to a young audience. Sullivan’s art guarantees that, creating friendly people by avoiding straight lines as much as possible, and she alternates between bright comforting or decorative environments and darkness, sometimes near total. It’s really creative art, yet also at heart simply drawn.

In attempting to repair the lighthouse the Marsh Fellows make an existential discovery about their society and those watching over it, and once that’s revealed there’s an action rush all the way to the end. Sullivan choreographs chases and threats imaginatively and because this is a hopeful story about a better world all ends well. “Everyone is always cheerful, especially me” is the type of ending you want for a story that finds magic in the mundane.