“N is for NEVILLE who died of ennui.” – Edward Gorey
The Gashycrumb Tinies has black and white pictures of children in it and sparse, rhyming text ordered alphabetically, so I suppose it could be categorized as a child’s alphabet picture book. Except it describes, with a hint of delicious glee, the unexpected ways in which 26 small defenceless children come to their (sometimes macabre) ends. Continue reading
“Long ago, in an ancient and distant realm called the Kingdom of Backgarden, there lived a warrior named ROCK.”
And so begins the story of the genesis of the most elementary and universal of playground games – Rock, Paper, Scissors. While I normally view with disdain and dismay the deployment of “pants” and other such underwear humour in children’s books, the challenge by Scissors to Rock to don his “Battle Pants” has us guffawing with hilarity. Continue reading
“I’m glad we met,” Sophie whispered. “Good friends are hard to find.”
Even with the umpteenth reading, it is hard not to think of Sophie’s Squash as being, quite possibly, the most perfect picture book ever written.
“The funny thing is, the moment I am in one country, I am homesick for the other.”
– Allen Say
Having lived as an immigrant almost all of my adult life, those words sum up my every day.
Stories That Stay With Us 