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Off Notes

The Diddle That Dummed By Ken Gray Illustrated by Fred Blunt Hodder & Stoughton, 2020 Sometimes, when I write these reviews (if you can call them reviews), I get stuck. I find a way in or a place to start that doesn’t quite work, but I can’t think of another way to do it, so I end up repeating myself in the hope that it’ll somehow sound better. With this one it started like this: there’s…

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Horse Desire

Sugarlump and the Unicorn By Julia Donaldson Illustrated by Lydia Monks Macmillan Children’s Books, 2013 In his book The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera wrote that ‘we can never know what to want, because, living only one life, we can neither compare it with our previous lives nor perfect it in our lives to come.’ In lieu of not knowing, we make it up. We tell ourselves stories,…

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Time Enemy

Five Minutes’ Peace By Jill Murphy Walker Books, 1986 Time is different when you’re a parent. You don’t have it the way you used to. How you spend it is not really your choice anymore. If you’re not looking after the kids, you’re doing housework. If you’re not doing housework, you’re working. If you’re not working, you’re doing life admin.  Instead of having time, you snatch time. A quick…

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Inanimate Agency

Rose’s Red Boots By Maura Finn Illustrated by Karen Erasmus New Frontier Publishing, 2018 Looking at the earth from space, some wit quipped years ago, aliens might be forgiven for thinking cars ruled the world. They clog the landscape, not us. They make us use them, not the other way round. We are merely their slaves doing their bidding, moving them from place to place instead of simply…

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Polarised Learning

Simpkin  By Quentin Blake Jonathan Cape, 1993 We live in polarised and polarising times. Or so many would have us believe. Donald Trump is a beacon of light and part of the forces of darkness. The world is divided into liberal democracies and authoritarian regimes, people who like Taylor Swift and those that don’t. My father-in-law hates cheese. I love it. There is no common ground. Despite…

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Rereading Babies

Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes  Written and illustrated by Mem Fox and Helen Oxenbury  Walker Books, 2008 I once told a friend I reread books. He looked at me like I was mad. He was a football fan and would rewatch goals but rereading books seemed absurd to him. Maybe it was the effort. All that right and left movement of the eye. Maybe he thought second, third or fourth readings were…

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Frog Comfort

Pip and Posy: The Scary Monster By Axel Scheffler Nosy Crow, 2011 Pip and Posy are friends. One rainy day Posy is bored so she decides to make some cakes. She uses butter and flour and eggs and sugar, mixes them together and puts them in the oven. While she is waiting for them to cook, a monster appears at the door. It’s big and blue and makes her cry. But when it enters her house and roars,…

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Balancing Competition

Ten Apples Up On Top! By Dr. Seuss (writing as Theo LeSieg) Illustrated by Roy McKie Beginner Books/Random House, 1961 Life, so many would have us believe, is a competition. We compete for resources, prizes, jobs, attention. We don’t want to keep up with the Jones’, we want to outdo them. There are winners and losers and nothing in between. As Vince Lombardi said, “If winning isn’t…

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Pretend Arseholes

Time to Sleep, Alfie Bear By Catherine Walters Little Tiger Press, 2003  Whisper it, but sometimes at bedtime kids are arseholes. They have their ‘mad half hour’. They scream and run and jump and refuse to put their pyjamas on. There are reasons for it: they’re tired and/or hungry, they struggle with transitions. They resist baths and want to assert their independence. But there were reasons…

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Secret Lies

My Granny is a Pirate By Val McDermid Illustrated by Arthur Robins Orchard Books, 2012 Some families, like Tolstoy famously said, are happy, some are not. But all families have secrets. My cousin found out her dad was not her dad when she applied for her first passport. Before I went to live in Japan my grandad announced I didn’t need to as his dad had been there during the Great War.…

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Rhyming Connections

Mr Scruff By Simon James Walker Books, 2019 Some things go together, some things don’t. Fish go with chips, but not with ice cream. Whisky goes with soda, but not with cornflakes. Shoes go with socks but not hats. You can try putting a member of the alt-right in a room with a lefty, but they’re not likely to talk, never mind get on. They’d rather be in a room with people like themselves…

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Arbitrary Agendas

Never Touch a Monster! By Rosie Greening Illustrated by Stuart Lynch Make Believe Ideas, 2016 Much of life is arbitrary. Your nationality is a fluke. At birth your wealth or poverty is not earned. Whether you drive on the right or left is an accident of geography. There’s no actual link between the sounds you make with your mouth and the shapes of their representatives on the page. It’s all…

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Funky Fear

Darkness Slipped In By Ella Burfoot Kingfisher, 2008 When I was young I was afraid of the dark. At bedtime I’d insist my bedroom door was left open. I liked the parallelogram of corridor light that was shed on the floor. It was reassuring. Now, I cannot sleep with any light at all. I put the shutters down and am kept awake by the glow of my wife’s phone while she reads next to me.  Darkness…

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Sandy Flaps

My First Touch and Find: Beach Illustrated by Tiago Americo Campbell Books, 2019 I got this book from a friend. For some reason she had two copies. Most likely she had it, then someone else got it for her for her daughter’s birthday. When she gave it to me she was less than complimentary. It’s all right, she said, but there’s not much to it. My youngest loved it. We did it to the point of…

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Frisbee Selflessness

Hairy Maclary’s Hat Tricks By Lynley Dodd Puffin Books, 2007 I’ve never had a dog. The closest I got was my Nana and Grandad’s Staffordshire Bull Terrier. It was black and super friendly. Most school holidays we used to play with it. In the mornings my Grandad would feed it toast and let it lick clean the yoghurt pots he’d finished with. In the end, it died not long after him, but not because…

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Gassy Disgust

The Gas We Pass: The Story of Farts By Shinta Cho Translated by Amanda Mayer Stinchecum Kane/Miller, 1994 In his essay ‘Of Experience’, Montaigne wrote that ‘Both kings and philosophers go to stool, and ladies too’, and that ‘when seated upon the most elevated throne in the world, we are but seated upon our breech’. In other words, no matter who we are, we all sit and we all shit.  The idea…

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Branded Vegetables

Kevin the Carrot: The Need for Swede By Stephanie Moss Illustrated by Hannah Wood Igloo Books, 2020 Brands are best. Or so I thought as a child. Every week when my mum went shopping I hoped she’d bring home a box of Kellogg’s Corn Flakes or Rice Krispies – they were obviously better, my rich friends had them – but she came home with the supermarket version instead. When I got older this idea…

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