Attic Door Loves Picture Books: A First Installment

The mid-year holidays have inspired in me not only an appreciation of the fine work of Oliver Jeffers, but of picture books in general...
Here are just a few of my personal picture book keepsakes...

Little Beauty by Anthony Browne

Walker Books are renowned for their beautiful and timeless children's classics, and Little Beauty by Anthony Browne is no exception. Playing on the familiar favourite of Beauty and the Beast, it tells the story of a "very special gorilla who had been taught to use a sign language." But in spite of having everything a primate could ask for (or so a zoo-keeper would assume),  the gorilla grows increasingly sad and one day signs to his keepers that what he wants most in the world is a friend. And so they give him "a little friend called Beauty, with instructions not to eat her. "But the gorilla loved Beauty," we are told, as the big gorilla holds the tiny, grey kitten in the palm of his hand.  He cares for his kitten and dear friend, and the pair are happy, doing "everything together." But one night, after watching King Kong, the gorilla becomes "more and more upset... and then very ANGRY," breaking the television. Rushing in to see what all the fuss is about, the keepers find a broken television and threaten to take Beauty away... Until the kitten begins to sign, "It was ME! I broke the television!" and shows off a rather respectable set of biceps. At this, everyone bursts into laughter, and, of course, the book ends as all good endings do with "Beauty and the gorilla liv[ing] happily ever after." 

A touching tale paired with a frankly gob-smacking attention to detail in Browne's artwork, this picture book is a treasure and must-have for any family bookshelf. 

The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish by Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean

A huge fan of Neil Gaiman and his professional partnership with illustrator, Dave McKean, this picture book is sheer genius and a bowl of mirth for the entire family. Inspired by Gaiman's young son who, when pestered by his father's request to get ready for bed (or "one of those things that parents say"), responded by saying that he wished he had a goldfish instead of a dad.  In similar fashion, the book follows the swapping trail that ensues when a boy does just this, swapping his dad for a goldfish. Tattled on by a bothersome sister whose neck he is fond of "putting mud down," the boy's mother sends him to retrieve his father. Things get complicated, however, when his friend Nathan has already swapped the dad for an electric guitar, "a big white one." A gorilla mask, and a bunny named Galveston later, the boy and his sister arrive at Patti's house to find the father in a rabbit hutch still reading his newspaper and "eating a carrot." Admitting that the dad made a very poor pet rabbit, Patti is only too delighted to have Galveston returned. Walking back home with dad in tow, the sister turns to the boy and says, "You like her ... I can tell." To which her brother replies, "If you do, I'll tell everyone at school that you're secretly fat."
Remembering the days when my mother raged at the swaps of my own youth (a family-heirloom broach for an ice-cream container of silkworms, for instance), Gaiman's understanding of the world of children is spot-on, while McKean's signature use of photo images, ink and scraps compliments this in the perfect match.

(Sign on at Lovereading4kids to see an extract.)

Olivia Saves the Circus by Ian Falconer 

I challenge anyone not to be charmed by Olivia-the-piglet in black-and-white who is very partial to the colour red. And Olivia Saves the Circus is one of her finest moments. Today is show-and-tell day, and Olivia "always blossoms in front of an audience." Her show-and-tell a story about going to the circus, Olivia begins by informing her audience that "all the circus people were off sick with ear infections." While lesser-piglets might have been disappointed, Olivia "luckily [knows] how to do everything."  Covering her body in marker pen pictures, she transforms into "Olivia the Tattooed Lady," and with a single wardrobe change, "Olivia the Lion Tamer." And before the day at the circus is done, Olivia has walked a tight rope, ridden a unicycle, donned a clown nose, balanced on stilts, juggled, flown through the air on a trapeze, been "Queen of the Trampoline," and in a final blazing stroke of brilliance embraced the role of "Madame Olivia and her Trained Dogs" (for dogs who "weren't very trained" in her opinion), thus saving the circus. "Then one time my dad took me sailing The End." Her teacher, grown suspicious, asks if all of this is true. "Quite true," she tells him. "All true?" "Quite all true?" Well, to "the best of her recollection," the teacher rolling his piggy eyes and turning them heavenwards. Later that evening, her mother tells her to go to bed and "no jumping." "Okay, Mummy," the piglet promises. But as all children (piglet or not) are wont to do, her mom finds her moments later jumping on the bed. "Now, Olivia, I said, 'No jumping'. Who do you think you are - Olivia, Queen of the Trampoline?" 

The whimsical style of Ian Falconer, artfully rendered in black, white and red, has the timeless appeal of Babar and Pooh and a bear delivered to Paddington Station, and Olivia's tall tales will worm their way into yours and your children's hearts with the ease of a circus-performer, of this much I'm sure.

Not a Box by Antoinette Portis

In the same vein as Olivia and her marvellously tall tales, Portis' Not a Box likewise captures the proclivity of the child's mind for imaginative stretches. When the story's bunny is asked, "Why are you sitting a box?" the response is naturally, "It's not a box" (while the picture of a rabbit in a box drawn plainly in black pen is embellished by a race-car in red). When asked, "What are you doing on top of that box?" the red pen boasts a mountain top while the flag waves triumphantly, "Rabbit Peak." And so the questions ensue, with the bunny's increasing frustration in having to reiterate that it is not a box! The final question posed is, "Well, what is it then?" Thinking long and hard, the bunny eventually declares, "It's my Not-a-Box!" and launches off in a space rocket (not a box!).
Reminiscent, both visually and in theme, to Antoine de Saint Exupery's The Little Prince, this is a picture book that will open doors for grown-ups and free boxes from a boring fate the world over.

(Click here to read an interview with the author on her book, Not a Box, and the role of imagination.)

Once there was a boy, and a bear, a penguin, and a heart in a bottle- A Blog in Two Parts on the Incredible Book-Making Oliver Jeffers

Part 2

I am inherently a fan of things by nature... 

Once I discover a favourite illustrator/author/musician/you-name-it, it doesn't take me long to accumulate their work, at times a little over zealously too... And after The Incredible Book Eating Boy, I was an over-night and understandably zealous Oliver Jeffers fan. It seemed little coincidence then when the fourth and, at the time, newest title by Jeffers presented itself to me in the children' section of Fogarty's Bookshop less than a week later. It was The Great Paper Caper, "a thrilling tale of suspense, crime, alibis, paper planes, a forest and a bear who wanted to win at all costs!" the blurb bragged. I called it kismet.

     

Beginning as a story about a forest that is mysteriously losing its trees in the dead of night, it ultimately becomes a story about changing worlds, old traditions, and a bear who wants to uphold the family name in the 112th Biennial Paper Airplane Competition next Saturday at 2p.m. In Jeffers' typically heart-warming but unique fashion, it takes a beaver, deer, duck, pig, anxious-looking owl and one curly-haired boy to help the bear achieve his dream while ensuring that the trees are unharmed in the process. Gathering up all of the bear's old, discarded paper planes, they send him soaring over the finish line in one great big recycled one instead. Cut to the book's end, or "fin," and our paper airplane champion is watering a freshly-sprung sapling.

Whether it is a little boy who loves stars so much that he wants his very own to "play hide-and-go-seek" or "take long walks" with, or the little boy who one day finds "a penguin at his door," or the boy who runs "out of petrol" and gets "stuck on the moon," Jeffers' stories always begin within that magical framework of the child's mind, where anything is possible and nothing extraordinary too out of the ordinary. However, it is where he takes them that really demonstrates a true appreciation of the nuanced child. 

When asked as to the moral of The Great Paper Caper, the author replies, "Don't chop down trees to make paper planes and then get caught doing it... Or if you see a bear, report it." And yet, there is a great deal more to the story, of friendship, and the inheritance of damaging traditions, of community, and of the importance of fun and dreams. But as the author knows, these are not things that need to be spelt out to the child in a heavily moralistic, finger-pointing tone. Rather, they are issues of subtlety that the intuitive child is more than capable of figuring out in each of his picture book's own mystery. And readers, old and young alike, will be rewarded by this process of investigation in his endings.

   

In How to Catch a Star, our little boy eventually resigns from his fervent pursuit of the star, and waits on the beach shore, hoping that the star reflected in the ocean's surface might wash-up. It does, and as the adult will guess (and perhaps child too), in the form of a starfish, nevertheless the boy's very own star.

(It reminded this slightly older girl of her younger days, of a similar love of starfish and mermaid's purses and pumpkin shells that might turn into carriages drawn by a band of seahorse, of hours spent combing the sandy beaches for these immeasurable rarities.)

      

Meanwhile, in Lost and Found, our protagonist learns that the penguin at his front-door did not look sad because it was lost. After he has made it all the way to the South Pole and back again, the boy realises that the penguin was sad because he was "lonely." Without a moment's hesitancy, our enterprising protagonist undertakes yet another journey, a return-journey to find his friend...

And "so the boy and his friend [go] home together, talking of wonderful things all the way."  

      

And in The Way Back Home, the boy stranded on the moon is not as alone as he at first thinks, but is in fact joined by an equally stranded Martian whose spaceship has a broken engine. Forming an unlikely pair, each conspires to help the other get back home. So doing, they discover the similarities in their otherwise striking differences.And although they are forced to part and each go their own way, on the final page readers are greeted by a knock at the door and the postman, delivering an intergalactic walkie-talkie to the boy back home.

It stands to reason then that a man like Jeffers has kept something of his own little boy (describing himself as he does, as a man who "makes art as well as books and has climbed more than one large tree in his time"). Kids of many ages (and more adults than you'd think) are known to *lomp about sometimes, yelling for whoever cares to hear, 'You just don't get it!' Well, Jeffers gets it, of that there is no doubt.

How to Catch a Star, Lost and Found, and The Way Back Home currently 
available in this little gem of a boxset, Once There Was A Boy ...

But as touched as I have been by all of Jeffers books, and by the predominant child-like stylization of his characters, in their charming watercolour palettes, none have quite hit the spot like his most recent addition, The Heart and the Bottle.

"Once there was a girl whose life was filled 

with all the wonder of the world around her. 

Then one day something occurred that caused the girl 

to take her heart and put it in a safe place. 

However, after that it seemed that more things were 

empty than before. Would she know how to get her heart back?"

So having read the blurb, the reader turns to the first page and is again told that "[o]nce there was a girl, much like any other, whose head was filled with all the curiosities of the world" and "thoughts of the stars"... But always with the comforting presence of her grandfather (or father, or uncle) to reassure her, from reading aloud to her on the subjects of botany, the whale and the universe in one scene, to pointing out constellations in a midnight sky in another, and flying a red kite on the sea shore while the little girl combs the beach for new discoveries.

 And our little girl takes "delight in finding new things..." Until, that is, "the day she [finds] an empty chair." 

"Feeling unsure," the girl resolves that the "best thing to do" would be to "put her heart in a safe place," "[j]ust for the time being." And putting her heart neatly away in a bottle and hanging it round her neck, everything seems momentarily "fix[ed] ... at first." 

"Although in truth, nothing was the same." 

With her heart encased in glass, the little girl - slowly growing up as the story progresses - begins to forget about the stars, and ceases "taking notice of the sea." "[N]o longer filled with the curiosities of the world," the only thing she does notice is how "heavy" and "awkward" the bottle has become around her neck. "But," she comforts herself," "at least her heart [is] safe." 

However, the reader knows otherwise, when the scene depicted here is one of the girl grown now into a young woman, eating alone, washing her solitary dish alone, while the heart in a bottle continues to hang heavily.

But there is hope for our now young woman yet, when walking down the length of the beach one day, she comes upon a little girl building sandcastles and talking of elephants in the sea. In fact, it "might never have occurred to the girl what to do had she not met someone smaller and still curious about world," and she remembers "a time when [she] would have known how to answer" the awe-struck questions of this little girl. Sadly, "not now." 

"Not without a heart."

"And it was right at that moment she decided to get it back out of the bottle. 

But didn't know how. She couldn't remember." 

A pair of pliers, a hammer and a tool-bench equipped with saw, drill, mullet and axe, and still "nothing seemed to work." The bottle simply won't be broken.

Bouncing off, and rolling "right down to the sea" instead, it occurs to that "someone smaller and still curious about the world that she might know a way." And with a single, effortless motion, the "someone smaller" has reached into the bottle and retrieved the now young woman's heart. 

(Here again the reader is rewarded by Jeffers' delicious details, in that the girl's initial sandcastle of little more than a few upturned buckets, has become a two-tiered castle with both bridge and turret, a small yellow bucket and blue spade sitting modestly in the sand behind it.)

Having had her heart returned to her, it is now time for the young woman to face her loss.

Standing with her hands on her hips, she reproachfully regards the empty chair, and literally-manifested seat of her hurt, the chair that first made her put her heart in a bottle. And how does our protagonist meet the challenge of the empty chair?

Well, she fills it, of course. Turning over the page, the reader learns that while the bottle may be empty, the chair is no longer so... And in it, the girl sits happily reading from one book while a tower of books builds next to her, filling her head once again with all the curiosities of the world around her, with sandcastles and sea-elephants.

The entire book speaking as it were, in metaphor, what Jeffers has captured in this heart in a bottle hung around a neck, is so succinct in capturing that simultaneous feeling of the weightiness and emptiness of loss. Beautifully aimed at an audience not yet discouraged by the notion of a thing being far-fetched, the metaphorical becomes brilliantly literal and the literal, pictorial renderings totally unforgettable.

Perhaps close to my own heart because I was similarly taken to a library brimming with the all the curiosities of the world, after which a grandfather would sit me snugly, while reading The Mrs Pepperpots Omnibus aloud. I have not yet suffered any such loss as the little-girl-grown-older in our story... 

But I imagine that if I were to, The Heart and the Bottle by Oliver Jeffers might just be the literal way of reaching into a glass case and finding the heart.

(*a kind of lumpy, stomping motion)

Avid readers of Oliver Jeffers can eagerly anticipate 
the nail-biter of a sequel to Jeffers' Lost and Found, 

in the up-and-coming Up and Down.

 

Once there was a boy, and a bear, a penguin, and a heart in a bottle - A Blog in Two Parts on the Incredible Book-Making Oliver Jeffers

Part 1

Once there was a girl who, trawling as she liked to do ofttimes for little treasures in her favourite bookshop, found in a pair of hands a very special treasure indeed: Oliver Jeffers Presents The Incredible Book Eating Boy...  A declaration of circus proportions in bold, star-marked letters...

"Henry loved books.
But not like you and I love books,no."

No?

Piquing curiosity, a turn of the page...

"Henry loved to EAT books.
It all began quite by mistake one afternoon when he wasn't paying attention.
He wasn't sure at first, and tried eating a single word, just to test.
Next he tried a whole sentence and then the whole page.
Yes, Henry definitely liked them.
By Wednesday, he had eaten a WHOLE book.
And by the end of the month he could eat a whole book in one go."

So begins the fascinating story of Henry, who loved all books, or more specifically eating all books. And as far as book-eaters go, Henry is entirely non-discriminatory in his book tastes...From "storybooks," to "dictionaries," "joke books," and "even maths books," he eats them all - although, admittedly, the "red ones [are] his favourite."
Furthermore, Henry is thrilled to discover he is becoming smarter in the process.

It is after eating "a book about goldfish," that Henry is able to know what to feed his aquatic playmate, Ginger. Shortly after which he finds himself doing his "father's crossword in the newspaper." 

A gem of a book from the onset, The Incredible Book Eating Boy is accompanied by illustrations equally quirky and charming enough to share in Jeffers' original tale. In fact, I suspect most readers will find it to imagine one without the other.  It's this quality, I feel, that makes the memorable picture book: words and story and illustrations merging in such a way as to constantly surprise and delight the reader.  And Jeffers, both as artist and storyteller, is nothing short of surprising and delightful.

Henry's new-found adeptness at crosswords goes cheek by jowl with a picture of the dad (a balding man with square glasses, staring perplexedly at the paper open before him), as the young boy at his side triumphantly calls out "MONUMENTAL". Later, the book-eating boy reaches great heights as he surpasses even his own teacher, a bemused though attentive blonde - kitted out like the dad in square glasses, the really smart kind.  Turned to face the blackboard, the teacher is perched at her desk while Henry demonstrates by sketching out the formula for a rocket to make its journey to the moon in white chalk. Meanwhile, as if to explain away the phenomenon, a diagram-style drawing demonstrates Henry eating a large orange book entitled Rodney's Great Adventure and Other Chicken Stories, as "A: Book goes in; B: Information goes to brain [Brain getting BIGGER]; C: Belly gets FULL." An artfully-wrought 'win win'.  

Mmmm... Too good to be true, or downright unlikely, the reader begins to suspect...

Most readers have come to learn, in books as in life, there can be no actions without consequence and surely, in this, book-eating is no different.
And while Henry becomes so "incredible" at book-eating as to swallow books not only "whole" but "three or four at a time," suspicions are confirmed when things suddenly start to go "very, very wrong."

Chased screaming through his dreams by the terrifying A-Z of Monsters, its gaping jaws wide open, a daytime Henry finds he is unable to munch a copy of Best Quiche 1972 - nor any other book for that matter! - without being turned "greenest" and forced to perform "an Irish word for ejecting the contents of your stomach", that is, "boke."  But the worst is yet to come as all the knowledge Henry has accumulated is bungled up inside. Unable to digest his books properly any longer, streams of nonsensical words spew from Henry's mouth making it "quite embarrassing for him to speak" and maths equations result dismally in "2+6 = elephants."

Advised against it by his father, physician, fines-tallying librarian and the A-Z Book of Monsters alike, Henry resigns from the business of book-eating, dismally disappointed. However, it does not take our young protagonist long to pick a slightly nibbled text up off  the bedroom floor and do the unthinkable... 
"[A]fter a while, and almost by accident," our Henry begins "to read," finding much to his astonishment that he love[s] to read" and "that he might still become the smartest person on Earth" after all...
And seldom without a sly sense of humour, Jeffers ensures that the backcover of the book is missing a chunk in one corner, a tip-off to readers that occasionally, just once in a while, Henry falls back on old habits; Ginger meanwhile sagely advises on the same coverpage the "DISCLAIMER: DO NOT EAT THIS BOOK AT HOME."

Beginning with Anthony Browne's Little Beauty a few weeks prior, I think it was Oliver Jeffers' story of a book-eating boy that really confirmed my love of (and return to) picture books. 

And I will proudly tell anyone this, as I sit here ever-so-unassuming at my laptop: twenty-six and, to the best of my knowledge, only slightly niggled by the desire to have any children of my own  (or at the very least in this millennium, and yes, for those uncertain, that would make me near-on immortal). Honestly, this picture book is the sort of tribute to books and the art of storytelling that takes one defiant step for little readers and one boisterous leap right over Ageism.

Throughout the picture book, Jeffers cleverly juxtaposes typewriter font with hand-script, while in his employment of collage in illustration, graph paper, worn-out dictionary pages (marked "intemperance" at the top), and that familiar blue-lined A4 foolscap serve as 'backdrops' to Henry's (mis)adventures and ultimate success. 
This way, the very young are impressed by the intriguing texture, while the slightly older will more fully relate to the medium using, as it does, tokens from their everyday school-day experiences. And as for me, the old, old who wears her trousers rolled, well, the elderly are easily swayed by nostalgia and memory, but mostly, by the innocence.

Hubbub, bill-paying and daily meannesses have a tendency to turn a young and unsuspecting woman such as myself into a Hag, regrettable but altogether true. I do not want to be a Hag, but I have found myself behaving in a Haggish manner from time to time... 
Again, regrettable but true. 
And as much as I was all-too-glad earlier to declare my undying gratitude to the picture book, I am as much ashamed to admit that my love of books has been known to become all tied up in the serious business grammar and syntax. This, I will have you know, is a tell-tale sign of an early onset of Haggishness, but not a hopeless symptom if caught early enough. For this, The Incredible Book Eating Boy is the spoonful of sugar and the medicine for the cure. 

Never overbearingly didactic in his story's 'message'/moral, Jeffers' home-base is a good story, told well, with the wit, humour, and healthy dose of a childlike suspension-of-disbelief and creative ingenuity. And don't be fooled by the simplicity of Jeffers' less-is-more approach... This, together with other Jeffers' titles soon to feature on this blog, couldn't be further from it. 
They speak from a perspective of the world that may initially appear simple to the untrained adult eye, but is, on closer inspection, well-stocked with the relentless marvels of the little explorer's torchlight, felt with the amazement of the child who cannot pinpoint these feelings as we grown-ups, and cares naught but to give the unnamed emotion wings and watch it take flight.

So, although I could tell you, that The Incredible Book Eating Boy by Oliver Jeffers is ideal for audiences aged 3-5, I won't bother. Instead, I will tell you I can safely hope that, old as I may get, I do not see any Hagging in my future, so long as there are storytellers like Jeffers in my vast and infinitely surprising and delightful universe. 

(*Any encounter with a bookish, soapy/grassy-smelling, and properly-mannered child - i.e. one that can say 'Please' and 'Thank You' and refrain from sticking both fingers up his/her nostrils - qualifies as a niggle.)

The Delicious Miss Dahl and her Voluptuous Delights

This kitchen is a gentle relaxed one, where a punishing, guilt-inducing attitude towards food will not be tolerated. In this kitchen, we appreciate the restorative powers of chocolate. The kitchen would have a fireplace, and possibly a few dogs from Battersea Dogs' Home curled up next to it. There might be a small upright piano by the window, with an orchid that doesn't wither as soon as I look at it. On long summer days, the doors to this kitchen are thrown open, while a few lazy, non-stinging bees mosey by. Children stir. When it rains, there is room in this kitchen for reading and a spoon finding its way into the cake mix. Serious cups of tea are drunk here; idle gossip occurs, balance and humour prevail. It's the kitchen of my grandparents', but with some Bowie thrown in. It is lingering breakfasts , it is friends with babies on their knees, it is goodbye on a Sunday with the promise of more. This kitchen is where life occurs; jumbled, messy and delicious.

It is lovely.
- Miss Dahl's Voluptuous Delights

And as far as introductions go, this one to Miss Dahl's Voluptuous Delights by the model-come-foodie (not to mention granddaughter of treasured author, Roald Dahl), Sophie Dahl, couldn't be more apt, an introduction to "this kitchen" that is entirely, yes, lovely.

The Delightful and Lovely Dahl

I remember my first encounter with the British use of the word 'lovely' in the year spent there after high school; it is as familiar and at home on the English tongue as the word 'lekker' is in the South African vernacular. And few words encapsulate the particular brand of English charm quite so succinctly. And it is this particular brand of charm that Miss Dahl's Voluptuous Delights simply oozes on every page like sticky yumminess straight out of a Lyon's Golden Syrup tin.

"Simplicity Personified and Norway in a Bowl": Miss Dahl's Beetroot Soup

With a cover of Miss Sophie Dahl sitting pretty, in a pair of garden-green Wellies and a woolly overcoat, on the steps of an enchanting Gypsy caravan, the proof here is in the pudding. Charming, delightful and lovely, this book is a return to the child-like, intrinsic and instinctive joys of eating, cooking and sharing. The author herself admits the difficulty in "translating" these recipes, as having "learnt the rudiments of [cooking] from [her] mum," an "instinctive cook" who "rarely cooks from recipes." However, this proves as a plus more than a minus in my opinion, with the result of Real Food, in the same vein as Nigella Lawson's  How To Eat.

 It was How To Eat that first introduced me to that Italian classic, Spaghetti Carbonara, a dish I have returned to time after time, a balm to soothe away a chaotic day, or as lazy weekender meal for two. Similarly, the "voluptuous delights" to be found on these pages, promise future 'Old Favourites' for a food-lover's arsenal. With a less-is-more attitude to the kitchen, these recipes remind us that sometimes simplest is, indeed, best.


Throughout, and as  a general rule, the recipes in this book will not have you mentally counting future pennies, or imagining an entire Sunday spent raiding the butcher's, the baker's and the Woolworth's Obscure Food Items aisle. Instead, Dahl's food is effortless, reminding the reader of why they first loved cooking (and of course, eating!) to begin with...

As Dahl's domestic-goddess peer, Nigella, has sagely pointed out, "restaurant food and home food are not the same thing," home food being more about a "sense of assurance in the kitchen, about the simple desire to make yourself something to eat," and "to please yourself to please others."
So, sure, this kind of food is not going to earn Miss Dahl a Michelin Star. But it is the kind of food she likes to come home to, the kind of food she likes to cook for her loved ones, and it is this that makes the book and its recipes such a treat.

Furthermore, the seasonal approach to the book, (aided along the way by the author's anecdotal memories), is testament to the fact that no is dish not evocative, whether it be of a place, a time, a person, or, purely, a certain rapture. (See here, Dahl's Winter lunch of "Pasta puttanesca," where she muses, "Whore's pasta - was ever a name so good? It's perfect for it: edgy, spicy and just the right side of wrong, conjuring up Neapolitan streets and dangerous women in tight dresses.")

Freshly Picked: Sea Bass with Black Olive Salsa and Baby Courgettes/Zucchini 

("a good dinner date" best served "in the garden, surrounded by twinkling candles")

In the opening Autumn breakfasts, Dahl's "Musician's breakfast (home-made bread with Parma ham)" is a breakfast intended for her "beloved [who] is a musician" (and, namely, famed hubby and jazz sensation, Jamie Cullum). "This, a strong cup of tea and Mile Davis on the stereo makes him a happy fellow in the morning," she tells the reader, inviting an open intimacy.
Again, as readers we are reminded that this is a kitchen not just for food, but full with the experience of it... With all the bells-and-whistles, and the sensory/memory ingredients that make kitchens the place for a happy mix.
(And I have to add that I would similarly seldom object to a little Miles Davis in my kitchen.)

It is this second thing that endears Miss Dahl's Voluptuous Delights to me...that it is feels so very close to home, full of a natural, conversational candour.  

In the Autumn breakfast of "Omelette with caramelized red onion and Red Leicester," Dahl shamelessly admits that she "[cries] like a baby" when chopping onions, or rather, that is, until she discovered a "brilliant device from Williams and Sonoma online."
And although I am quite partial to a good ol' cathartic sob over the chopping block, I have to appreciate the cheeky honesty with which the cook likewise confesses of her "Prawn/shrimp, avocado, grapefruit, watercress and pecan salad," that it is "perfect for a lunch where the impression of effort is required, but where the actual time spent is minimal."

This is a woman a reader can relate to, a woman who "loathe[s] going to the gym" and complains "like Eeyore" to her trainer during the entire process, but loves its effect. This is a woman who was incredulous to the "unforgiving body capital" of Los Angeles, and thanked her lucky stars that, not being an actress, she was exempted from the "size 2 jeans" and "steamed eggwhites" that proliferated in stores and eateries respectively. This is a woman who openly asks of her readers on the last pages, that they feel free to send her a postcard, but adds, "Just please don't ask me, 'How do I get a six-pack?' Because I will respond as I do now, by saying, 'My darling, I have absolutely no clue, nor the inclination to find out."
Her Winter breakfast of "Hangover Eggs" is for "when nothing but a fry-up will do" (resplendent with a "Coke, bad television and a lie down")... And her Autumn lunch of "Sea bass in tarragon and wild mushroom" meets its match in the neighbourhood cat, with its nasty habit of "peeing on every herb" in her garden "while giving [her] a distinctly bolshy look through the window."
A teasing, self-effacing charm and humour proves infectious, and it was this 'Everywoman' quality to Sophie Dahl, her food, and her stories, that first appealed t me as a woman invited to her table. A table where I would gladly divulge in woes and whys and glees alike, preferably over an after-dinner glass of ruby red.

And like the woman, Dahl's aforementioned seasonal approach encourages an ease and at-homeness.

The Summer supper of "Linguine with tomatoes, lemon, chilli and crab" may be "stolen, stolen, stolen," gracing as it does "menus all over the place." But I have to agree with her in that nothing "epitomize[s] summer in every bite" quite like this dish, making me long for languid Saturday afternoons spent outdoors in the shade with fine friends and a bottle of Raats Original Chenin Blanc. Similarly, the thought  of brisk Autumn-morning air is deliciously complimented by a breakfast of "Indian sweet potato pancakes" (speaking to my mutual infatuation with Indian food and breakfasts).

And feeling the Winter chill finally begin to seep in, with this, the first day in many my fair little city of Port Elizabeth has experienced a hearty rain, I look forward to a Dahlian breakfast of "Pear and ginger muffins," followed by her "Warm winter vegetable salad" of "rich colours and earthy tastes bring[ing] to the table a vibrant reminder of what lies beneath us."

"When the ground is covered by frost, and the days are half eaten by darkness":

A Warm Vegetable Salad

Moreover, the book speaks to own gratitude of good food and loved ones.

The celebration of friends and family is a festivity best practiced (and most articulately, I feel) in the act of cooking and eating together.

Because of this, you will meet throughout this book such memorable (and again intimate and likely!) characters as the grandmother, Gee Gee, who first taught Dahl how to cook Good Food, Plain and Simple, a woman of "organic" tastes "before it was fashionable"; her "mum," Tess - "called Teddy since she was little" - who besides being able to "cook (or rescue) any dish" also has the ability to rescue animalas with "the same alacrity and currently has five dogs, five cats and two canaries, named after her ex-husbands"; the "dad," Julian Holloway, "lovingly known as Hollers" who, besides being able to make a mean Thai chicken curry, is also "quite partial" to Diane Lane; and let's not forget her literary and equally cheeky grandfather, Roald, as the author tells of the "midnight feast" she had in his gypsy caravan with her best friend at thirteen, the two "hysterically laughing" (as tends to happen at sleep-overs) into the early hours of the morning. 

The children's author passing away that very November,  his granddaughter remembers that morning's breakfast with great fondness as he took one look at her "squashed, cranky face" and, roaring with laughter, served up the quintessential English staple beloved of man and bear alike: toast and marmalade.

"I discovered the joy inherent in cooking for people I loved.

It is one of the purest pleasures around, and like reading and bicycle riding,

it is one of those things that once you know how to do, you don't forget."

Without a doubt, Dahl is the sort of cook who practises the heart she preaches.

Though she occasionally indulges her brother, Luke, in a "Crusted rack of Lamb," the author puts the "awe-inspiring wealth of choice" she discovered while researching the book, to very good use. A self-confessed "semi-vegetarian after twenty years" (the "hangover," she suspects, of a "hippy childhood"), she eats only fish herself. And while "happy to cook organic free-range chicken, beef or lamb" as long as she knows its source, Dahl "draw[s] the line" at veal and foie gras and what she feels is unnecessary "abject cruelty."

Whether or not these are opinions the reader supports, I feel, is besides the question. For one, I applaud her emphasis on a "wealth of choice" that is often forgotten in the busy day-to-day fray of life. Secondly, her book is again entirely relevant for those of us who may eat meat ourselves, but have some wonderful people in our lives who have chosen otherwise. Here, I welcome the accommodating approach of recipes like the Autumn lunch of "Chicken and halloumi kebabs with chanterelles," where the meat can be easily substituted with vegetables - "the first thing that springs to mind would be an aubergine/eggplant." Her recipes are equally accommodating in range, as for those who eat fish, "Squid with chargrilled peppers and coriander/cilantro dressing" gets the lips smacking, while for the vegetarians she offers up a breakfast of "Scrambled tofu with cumin and shiitake mushrooms/pesto and spinach," and the satisfying supper of "Brown rice risotto with pumpkin, mascarpone, sage and almonds," to name a few.

Ultimately, Miss Dahl's Voluptuouss Delights is a pleasure of a book for seasoned foodies as well as newcomers (providing useful hints that many might take for granted, such as that fresh mussels, slightly open, should close upon a gentle tapping of the shell or be promptly discarded). And its eclectic blend of old-age wisdoms with new-age twists imagines a refreshing avenue for cooking, one that is wholesome and heart-felt and can only mean Good Food in the most unadulterated sense. Like most people who love food, I concur that there is "something deeply joyless in a life consisting of restriction." Truly, there is nothing "sexy" about "self-inflicted misery."

Instead I look forward to those incomparable moments, of "ice-cold beer from the bottle ... as boats sail in," of a "cake slowly baked" while "Nina Simone [sings] huskily on the stereo", of "goat's cheese and frittata" and "epic" margaritas, and the things that are "rare and precious in all that is higgledy-piggeldy and crooked," and embrace that "to everything there is a season."

The author riding a bicycle...

The Peg-Legged Shadow That Goes Bump in the Night

I'll be the first to admit that I get as much pleasure out of a little harmless shadow-boxing as anyone. Metaphorically speaking. The villains we loved the most (or at least remember the most vividly!), were the ones who struck fear into our tiny little hearts and imaginations, like a cold and vicious lance.
Take Disney, for instance.
Jafar has nothing on that first offering of an evil stepmother in Snow White. Nor could Mufasa's treacherous brother, Scar, ever truly conjure up a bad case of the heebie-jeebies like that wicked fairy, Maleficent. These older villains weren't misunderstood underlings in an unfair monarch, or the black sheep of proud bloodlines, acting out on their insecurities. They were Cruel. Evil. Dark. End of character.

This got me thinking as to the role of a good - and by 'good', I mean of course, uncompromisingly dastardly! - villain in the stories we share.
Neil Gaiman once remarked that he found it interesting how the dobbelganger parents of his story's heroine, Coraline, were perceived of as terrifying by older audiences, while to their younger counterparts, they were no more than part of the adventure. Or rather, they were no more than part-and-parcel of the trying circumstances to be overcome and defeated before the novel's end.
Invigorating, certainly...
Even undoubtedly unnerving...
But never, no, never,  altogether insurmountable.

And when it comes to the literary crevices and dark, cobble-stoned paths that unnerve and invigorate me, perhaps none achieve this so much as the Gothic world...
Victorian London streets crawling with Hyde-esque figures, country houses harbouring mad women in their bell towers, Poe's midnight ravens, and angelic men with portraits growing evermore grotesque...
These are the things that make me, as reader, shiver with thrills of anticipation.


So when Mariah Mundi and the Ghost Diamonds began with a man walking "nervously in and out of the long, dark shadows," I knew that one of my lesser-guilty pleasures was about to be fulfilled. And our dark stranger continues, from an alleyway and into "an old street of narrow cottages," "wet feet" leaving a "trail of footprints across stone steps" while "with his cane he marked out each step." He pauses at a "misted window," where two children are "huddled beside the fire."
"Shall these be the ones?" the man asks of this dark and brooding evening, in a "voice of gravel."
"Too small..." comes the reply. "Not even enough meat to fill a mouse."

Indeed, I murmur to myself (in a voice not unlike that of Chris Priestley's famous Uncle Montague...or at least how I've always heard him in my head), how delightful.

Cut to our protagonist, Mariah Mundi, who is as much reminiscent of a 'Holmes', as he is the 'new Harry Potter' (so hailed by critics). A young boy, orphaned by his parents' untimely and rather mysterious deaths, Mariah comes to stay at the Prince Regent, a hotel  built into a seaside cliff-face. Here he is placed under the care of Captain Jack Charity, and taken in as a magician's apprentice, with the added assistance of friend (and potential romantic interest), the headstrong Sacha. However, it does not take Mariah long to become the youngest member of the Bureau of Antiquities , an organization founded to protect the world's most ancient and precious wonders, wonders that could be devastating in the wrong hands.

The appeal of the Prince Regent is not lost on me. Old, and oft-times superstitious, sea-side villages make for some of the best Gothic tales... Steely-grey waters and craggy hills, with crustaceous cottages buried into their resistant foundations, birthing people as crab-like as their homes, and as distrusting as the land.

In Priestely's Tales From the Black Ship, readers hold their breath as brother and sister, Ethan and Cathy, are left alone in their father's Old Inn as a wild storm rages around them, all until an ominous stranger comes seeking refuge... A similar backdrop is painted in the details here,as Mariah looks on the Regent from a distance, "trac[ing] the pattern of the lamps upon the far bridge that straddl[e] the ravine" that carry his eyes to the four towers "reach[ing] up and touch[ing] the dark clouds swept in from sea." However, the Regent's air of opulence adds yet another enthralling (and at times, eerily other-worldly) layer to G.P. Taylor's narrative, as "even at that great distance," Mariah is able to hear "the chords and swirls of the orchestra that played each night for those who cared to dance."
But the opulence is disturbed when prominent guests begin to internally combust, one after the other, in a manner too uncanny to be disconnected. The stage is thus set for drama, intrigue, and danger, as the young but relentless figure of Mariah takes it upon himself to solve this, the mystery of the Ghost Diamonds, thwarted all the way by the threatening powers that seek to possess them.

As the winter nights begin to ensconce those of us living on the Southern shores, child or not, I warmly recommend as a tonic for the vital soul that you cocoon yourself in blankets, or toast your feet at the fire (real or imagined), with this fine 'Whodunnit' in hand. You'll be hard-pressed to avoid the sound of sea-borne wind whipping at your ears, as Taylor's narrator pulls you towards the Prince Regent Hotel and all the secrets that its encroaching waters hold, hoping that for Mariah, his dauntingly dark circumstances may not prove insurmountable.

Interrogating the ‘Natural Food Chain’ in Jonathan Safran Foer’s Eating Animals

Some friends and I have often lamented the bizarre state of question that is 'Why are you reading?' Not 'what', not 'who', but 'why'. The frustation that such a question presents to me must not be unlike that which my dearest friend, Nicole, must go through on a weekly basis, when justifying her response to 'But why are you a vegetarian?'

It's not that I have a problem with a line of questioning. By all means, I invite people to be curious and ask away. But when that line of questioning takes the form of an affront, that's when I get a little worried. Being able to enjoy a book, choosing not to eat dead animals... These things are not altogether unreasonable choices to be making, let alone defending.
But I can relate to the meat-eating individuals who would want to antagonise the vegetarian, would want to call him, or her, a 'tree-hugger', a 'bunny-lover'. Let's face it, it's just easier to ridicule others than to deal with an ethical house of sticks.

But, as I said, I can relate. Food-joy for me is a soft-boiled egg, golden-yolked, with buttery finger-soldiers thrown in for good measure... A slow-roasted chicken stuffed with garlic cloves and lemon wedges... Spaghetti Carbonara with the extra egg yolk and a dollop of Creme Fraiche... These are my comforting, 'home-coming meals'. And nothing quite embodies 'satisfaction' for me as a steak bordering on bleu, hold the sauce.
So believe me, animal-produce lover, I am not unaware of the cost that comes with feeling ashamed.

Nonetheless, the bright green cover of Jonathan Safran Foer's latest book, Eating Animals, has been staring at me for quite some time from the 'New Non-Fiction' shelves of Fogarty's Bookshop. First the unread, largely untouched, stack of them only nagged at me a little, tugging at the frayed edges of my conscience. But they have been there, unread and untouched, since Christmas.

At Christmas time, everyone wanted Captain in the Cauldron, and not Eating Animals, for presents for loved ones. Now that the time of year for book-clubs to stock up has once again arrived, everyone wants Lesley Pearse's Stolen, and not Eating Animals. There's even our secretly dubbed 'Misery Memoirs' section that gets a great deal more love from customers, from its tales of family-incest, to substance abuse, to misunderstood serial killers. But still no love for Eating Animals.

So on behalf of all the omnivores out there who want so desperately to defend their right to a Traditional English Breakfast on a Sunday morning, I took the plunge you all seemed a little hesitant to make.

It helped that I am a big fan of Safran Foer (of Everything Is Illuminated, and Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close fame). His humour is always intimately infectious, in the way of 'I have a crazy uncle just like that, too'. Also, he manages to navigate ethically difficult and painful terrains without ever making the reader feel alienated (as in Everything Is Illuminated where the protagonist - sharing the author's own name - visits Europe to track his grandfather's escape to America during WWII). And in this, Eating Animals is no different.

Safran Foer is not a lofty, self-righteous sort. He's the mate who popped in for a beer just a minute ago and watched some of the five day international with you. The only thing that sets him apart is that he took the time to scratch at the surface of something we all knew to be pretty damn rotten anyway.

A non-committal, part-time omnivore/lapsed vegetarian, it is only when Foer and his wife are expecting their first-born child, that he resolves to get to the bottom of this animal-eating business, mindful of all childhood's Why's to come, and wanting more than the answer: Just Because.

As the author remarks, "[e]ating animals has an invisible quality," and the subject's investigation slowly emerges in light of Foer's suggestion that "one way" to solve this is by "looking askance and making something invisible visible" again.

From a "Filipino recipe" on "Stewed Dog, Wedding Style," to the facts that appear at the bottom of every chapter's title page ("Less than 1% of the animals killed for meat in America come from family farms," where factory farms that 'optimise' production lines have become the rule of the day), to the visual aids as with the square block that contains the chapter title, "Hiding/Seeking" - just in case readers weren't able to picture what 67 square inches looks like ("In the typical cage for egg-laying hens, each bird has 67 square inches of space... Nearly all cage-free birds have approximately the same amount of space.") - and things start coming slowly into focus.

The omnivore's safe-holds for grocery shopping are similarly made all-too-visible as we learn that "free range" only stipulates that "chickens raised for meat must have 'access to the outdoors'" (while Foer then asks readers to "[i]magine a shed containing thirty thousand chickens, with a small door at one end that opens to a five-by-five dirt patch - and the door is closed all but occasionally").

But again, please do not let the statistics scare you from picking this book off the shelf. From tracing the origins of the word 'animal', to relating to Kafka's feelings on 'animal suffering', the book is nothing if not a refreshingly articulate take on a subject long governed by polarising rhetoric.

This said, there will be priceless moments where you'll be hard-pressed not to chuckle aloud as our author finds himself in chapter four investigating a factory farm by night (with a seasoned perpetrator by the name of C), wondering what the outcome will be when "some roused-from-REM-sleep-and-well-armed farmer" comes upon Foer's "I-know-the-difference-between-arugula-and-rugelach" self "scrutinizing the living conditions of his turkeys." Our author well imagines the farmer as he "cocks his double-barrle" while the former's "sphincter relaxes."
"And then what?" Foer asks, "I whip out California penal code 597e? Is that going to make his trigger finger more or less itchy?"

Ultimately, Foer admits early on in his exploration that, by no means, does he expect everyone to start agreeing on the subject of whether or not to 'eat animals'. However, he does call upon the need to "reframe" the topic so that it can become an open one. And I have to pat this brave man on the back for embracing the issue as personally and as honestly as he has. Without engaged writers like Foer, conscious consumerism could be as meaningless a term as the "farm fresh" label on a frozen packet of chicken wings.
His is the kind of book to be read again, and again, and again, and to have its passages underlined and its margins scribbled in on dog-eared pages.

Art, Beauty, and Magic Soaked into Every Single Page

I raised my proverbial glass and gave three cheers this past weekend for Mr.Barry Ronge's tribute to the irreplaceable joys of a "real book" in his Sunday Times Magazine column, "Book me in, I'm staying."While Ronge confesses to having turned into a "techno-junkie," the recent hype of the Kindle has evaded the man. And I have to fundamentally agree with him on this point. I, too, am afflicted by the wobbly-knees and light-headedness that accompanies entering those enchanted stores, with book-brimming shelves that reveal Ronge's treasured pages of "exquisite layouts on thick, silky paper." Indeed, Mr. Ronge, it is not unlike entering "a sultan's harem" (if such things still existed, as you so rightly pondered).

It is in the spirit of his homage to the visceral pleasures of the world of beautiful books that I would like to 'pay it forward', by reiterating these sentiments in this personal homage to the makers of beautiful children's books.

A much-adored member of the Fogarty's Bookshop clan recently bestowed one of the greatest honours upon me: entrusting me with her much-adored copy of The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick. (And what is not to adore about a story that contains - amongst many other marvellous things - a toymaker magician, a precocious and bookish young girl, and last but not least, Hugo himself as orphan, clock-keeper and thief-by-trade-but-not by-nature...?)

While the skillfully woven tale had me gripped from the words, "Chapter 1," (and left with sun-scorched, pink skin afterwards!), there was more to it than that. The book was, quite simply, Beautiful.

A friend of a friend's mother once won hundreds of thousands at a casino, which then entered her into the lucky draw to win a brand new car, which she then went on to win, too. I think I know how she must have felt. It's what I felt when I held Selznick's book in my hands.
Hundreds of thousands and a brand-spanking new car. All mine.

In a special blend that draws on cinematography, the graphic novel, and the classic book (from when the realm of bookmaking belonged to the craftsman), the author nobly achieves his dream. Having "long wanted to write a story about George Mielies," the surrealist French filmmaker, Brian Selznick's palpable love of art, beauty, and magic is soaked into every single page of this treasured work of children's fiction. The Invention of Hugo Cabret is nothing shy of alchemy.
I reluctantly returned the much-adored book to the much-adored friend of Fogarty's. And were it not for the latest offering by the team that brought us The Spiderwick Chronicles, handing back Selznick's masterpiece may have been harder on me.

In The Spiderwick Chronicles: The Completely Fantastical Edition, Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black have frankly outdone themselves.

Some books do in fact have you by the cover, and this one had me with with its cover of the young Grace trio, silhouetted against a midnight forest landscape alit by 'fireflies' (well, let's be honest, we all know that they're really faeries!). The spindly title deliciously inviting in embossed gold, the kind that you just know you have to run your fingers over before holding the book close to your chest.

And as if having all five stories in one complete package weren't enough, the creators of the Spiderwick tales have been so generous as to add to this, shared moments from Tony DiTerlizzi's own sketchbook (with commentary from both co-authors). Here readers are welcomed into DiTerlizzi and Black's imaginative worlds, to those special moments where their characters were first born, and inspiration first found.

But wait...You've got it, there is More... (What? You want More?!)

Ever wondered where lost chapters go? To the island of Lost Socks, perhaps?
Spiderwick's lost chapters have not been altogether lost... In "Lost Chapter: Goblins Attack," "Thimbletack Solves a Riddle and Becomes a Boggart," while in "Lost Chapter: The Great Escape," "Hogsqueal Finds Himself in a Cage." This way, readers and fans can make up for formerly missed opportunities.

Have you had your fill quite yet? Once again, DiTerlizzi and Black are yet to be convinced... And in the final pages of this Completely Fantastical Edition, the two implore similarly Faerie-minded colleagues/illustrators to try their hand at Spiderwick-dom, reinventing characters with curious and curiouser results.

Employing such dazzling, diverse talents as those of Gris Grimly, James Gurney, Scott Gustafon, and my new favourites, Peter Brown and Tim Basil Ering, it is this last installment of the collector's edition that really resounds with the book-lover in me. Something of an artist's gallery, it serves, too, as a balm for the childish soul, celebrating the men and women who have the courage to be shamelessly imaginative and, most importantly, to believe in Faeries.