Review: Frida Kahlo and the Skull Children

Catching up on some Doctor Who reading and releases, and there's four new titles which came from BBC Children's Books in recent months, all under the Puffin imprint.

First off, there's two titles in a new fiction range which is unexplained in the books themselves. The range is called Icons and seem to pair a real life person with an incarnation of the Doctor in a new adventure. The first in the series is Frida Kahlo and the Skull Children by Sophie McKenzie, an award winning author of young adult fiction, which is a creepy title indeed. I have to admit that I had never heard of Frida Kahlo and so had to Google her. She was a Mexican painter who lived from 1907 to 1954: Quoting from the Wiki: 'Kahlo's work as an artist remained relatively unknown until the late 1970s, when her work was rediscovered by art historians and political activists. By the early 1990s, not only had she become a recognized figure in art history, but she was also regarded as an icon for Chicanos, the feminism movement, and the LGBTQ+ community.'

Apparently she has met the Doctor before (or later) in an 8th Doctor comic story in Doctor Who Magazine in 2011 called 'The Way of all Flesh' (#306, 308-310, written by Scott Gray)

Perhaps a little obscure for a subject, especially as there is no explanation in the book itself as to who she was or why she was famous. Not even a little biography or anything. There's also nothing to explain what the Icons range is all about. It's all a little odd.

Anyway, we're introduced to Frida as an 18 or 19 year old girl, after a bus crash which broke all her bones meaning that she's now in pain all the time.  I assume the biographical details of her life are correct (the Wiki seems to corroborate them). 

Frida meets the Thirteenth Doctor and they have an adventure together involving sentient lines of computer code or something. I found it all a little confusing to be honest, and the Skull Children of the title come into play when youngster lines of code inhabit the bodies of Frida's schoolfriends. It's all resolved by the end and the Doctor leaves Frida to decide to start painting again. 

All in all it's not a bad little story, if a little obscure. But to my mind if you're launching a range based on famous real life people, then why not explain that somewhere in the book, and introduce the person you're basing this story on as well. At least the reader then has a clue!

The second book in the series is Charles Darwin and the Silurian Survival by L D Lapinski, another writer of young adult fiction. At least here I've heard of Charles Darwin, but otherwise the same arguments apply. Again the Sixth Doctor already met Charles Darwin with the Silurians in a Big Finish Audio ('Bloodtide', 2001 by Jonathan Morris) and in one of the BBC Novels the Third Doctor also claimed to have met him (Island of Death, 2005 by Barry Letts).

Also recently published is a new and updated edition of Fifteen Doctors 15 Stories. This time it adds a new Fifteenth Doctor story from Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé to the mix. I suspect before long the book will be too long to reprint if the BBC keep introducing new Doctors in the series! As it is this volume has 678 pages.

Finally, there is yet another reprinted and updated volume of The Official Guide which was originally published in 2013 as The Essential Guide to Fifty Years of Doctor Who, and then in 2018 as The Handbook, and then in 2020 as The Thirteenth Doctor's Guide. 

This edition adds 12 pages of material on the Fifteenth Doctor, and provides a visual overview summary of all the Doctors, selected adventures, their companions, some of their foes, and how they regenerated. There's a bit more on everything from the Twelfth Doctor onwards and it's not a bad overview, but not complete and very simplistic.