By Roberta Bajada

Illustrated by Robbie Cathro

May we suggest you google Picasso's Harlequin Head and have a good look at it? You will never be able to see the painting anywhere except on the internet and on postcards. The original was stolen from the Rotterdam museum and then burnt to ashes by the mother of the robber who did not fancy herself ending up in prison because of her son's mischief.

It's a story which makes all of us clasp our head in our hands and scream "Argh!" but author Roberta Bajada went one step further: she wrote a children's book. L-Arlekkin Isfar is the gripping follow up to her first children's novel Arloġġ u Tila, which was one of the finalists of the Merlin Publishers' Abbozz literary competition. Arloġġ u Tila proved to be an instant bestseller, and is now in fact in its second print run, and Bajada went on to win the National Book Council's Best Emerging Author in 2015. 

The sequel features Viktor Van der Mark again. He's the one who had been abducted and sucked into a renaissance painting, thanks to a mysterious-looking watch with strange powers. The watch was eventually thrown into the sea and everyone hoped that that would be the end of it ... but alas, it has now taken its mischief beyond the Maltese shores.

In fact, Van der Mark who has lived to tell the tale, now suspects that a heist of priceless artworks from the Rotterdam Museum, in Holland, is linked to that very same clock.

Undeterred, he seeks out the help of an old friend of his, Elsa, and Sven, a shy pupil of hers. But in the meantime, Picasso's Harlequin Head has magically come to life, and the boy who had modelled for the painting, Oscar Mendoza, is dangerously obsessed with running his own circus and in the process, taking over the world.

Like Arloġġ u Tila before it, this story explores art in an enthralling manner. Firstly, it is visually enriched by the engaging drawings of British illustrator Robbie Cathro, one of the main illustrators of the classical British children's magazine Aquila.

Secondly, children will be hooked to the adventure and by the end, without the slightest hint of a history lesson, they will have been introduced to the works of Salvador Dalì, Henri Matisse, Marc Chagall and Edgar Degas. Moreover, it will give the readers a great chance to meet Picasso up close and personal, in his cubist prime of the 1920s.

"Deep down the book is aimed at nurturing children's creativity," says Bajada, whose post-grad studies focused on the relationship between art movements and literature.

Although, it's a fiction tale, she was inspired by a real life robbery: "In October 2012, seven precious paintings were stolen from the Kunsthal exhibition centre in Rotterdam and among these paintings was the Yellow Harlequin by Pablo Picasso," she says. "The fact that Rotterdam is a port was another bonus as it provided the ideal setting for a dynamic adventure at sea."

'L-Arlekkin Isfar' is available from all bookshops or online, directly from merlinpublishers.com, with free postage and packaging.