The Places You Will Go

Picture Book of the Month: The Lost Thing

April 2007

The Lost Thing: A Tale for Those Who Have More Important Things to Pay Attention To

By Shaun Tan

Publisher: Lothian Books, 32 pages

A boy encounters a "lost thing" on the beach. Despite it's huge size, no one else seems to notice it, being too busy with ... life. At home, it towers over his parents, as they read the papers and watch telly, but remains "invisible". When the thing is pointed out to them, they make irrelevant comments and then ignore it again. The boy decides to find a place for the lost thing to go. He sees an ad in the paper, posted by The Federal Department of Odds and Ends, whose motto is "Sweepus underum carpetae". It claims to  be the place for lost things. The boy sets off, with the thing, to find this department, but gets mysteriously directed elsewhere. Will the lost thing ever belong? And what about the other lost things in this world. Do we even notice them or do we have more important things to pay attention to?

Uncle Cleans Up

UNCLE is an elephant. He is immensely rich, and he's a B.A. He dresses well, generally in a purple dressing gown, and he often rides about on a traction engine, which he prefers to a car.

He lives in a house called Homeward, which is hard to describe, but try to think of about a hundred skyscrapers, all joined together and surrounded by a moat with a drawbridge over it, and you'll get some idea of it."

The above paragraphs make up the foreword for Uncle Cleans Up by J. P. Martin.

I am featuring illustrations from the book, which is the second in a series of six, all illustrated by Quentin Blake, who is best known for his work with Roald Dahl. (By the way, the books are out of print, although a two-in-one edition of the first two books was re-issued about six years ago by Red Fox. The first book, Uncle will be re-published in June this year under the The New York Review of Books imprint.)

Blake's quirky drawings go well with Martin's rather mad story and even madder characters. Uncle, pompous, eccentric, and bursting with charisma, is definitely my favourite fictional elephant. Babar who? Uncle tips the scales on all counts!

Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Anniversary Celebrations

To celebrate the anniversary of the CILIP Carnegie Medal (outstanding children's book, 70th year) and Kate Greenaway (outstanding illustrations in a children's book, 50th year) Children's Book Awards, top 10s in both categories have been announced. You can also vote for your favourites here. (The results will be announced on 21st June.) For more about the awards go here.

Thursday's Child

This week, I'm featuring illustrations from Noel Streatfeild's Thursday's Child, by Peggy Fortnum.

I especially like Fortnum's figure-drawings, which, no matter how sketchy, are always bursting with character.

Thursday's Child is about the adventures of Margaret Thursday, an orphan who was left on the church steps on a Thursday, with "three of everything, all the very best quality.".

Not-So-Plain Jane 2

I just noticed this story, in Guardian Unlimited, about a portrait of Jane Austen. Wordsworth Press wouldn't need to photoshop this one!

Endearing Memoir

First published on 14th June 2002 in StarTwo.

Review by DAPHNE LEE

ELEGY FOR IRIS

By John Bayley

Publisher: Picador, 288 pages

(ISBN: 978-0312421113)

Nicholas

Nicholas was written by Rene Goscinny (1926-1977), the author of the Asterix comics (with illustrator Albert Uderzo) and illustrated by Jean-Jacques Sempe (1932). It is the first of a series of five books about the adventures and misadventures of a French schoolboy. First published in 1959, it was released in English, by Phaidon, in 2005.

Floyd in Singapore

I was in Singapore from 9th to 11th April to interview Keith Floyd who was in town for the 2007 Gourmet Summit.

Before Nigella, Jamie and Bourdain, there was Floyd. I used to enjoy his TV shows (in the 90s) and still watch him from time to time on Discovery Travel and Living. What I didn't realise was that some of the episodes aired now, were actually made several years ago. And so, I wasn't quite prepared for Floyd to look quite so weathered.

He's a very funny, interesting and charming interviewee and when he hosted his dinner, Uncorking Keith Floyd, he was hilariously, entertainingly irreverent, downing glass after glass of wine, breaking for "a fag, not a faggot" and calling all TV directors and producers prats and wamkers.

His latest book is A Splash and a Dash: Cooking with Keith Floyd, which celebrates a joyful, intuitive approach to cooking, sans measuring jug and weighing scales ... something he learnt from his mother. The book is dedicated to his parents.

Illustrated Monday: Nurse Matilda Goes to Town

Edward Ardizzone (1900-1979) was a writer and illustrator.

Among the many books he illustrated was the Nurse Matilda series, written by his cousin Christianna Brand (1907-1988). The stories, which make up three books (Nurse Matilda (1964), Nurse Matilda Goes to Town (1967) and Nurse Matilda Goes to Hospital (1974)) were told to Ardizzone and Brand by their grandfather.

The Nurse Matilda series was re-issued in hardback by Bloomsbury in 2005. A movie tie-in version was also released in conjunction with the film Nanny McPhee.

Breaking Barriers

StarMag, 8th April 2007.

Breaking barriers

By DAPHNE LEE

An author who wrote about an Australian teenager struggling with her faith strikes a chord among Malaysian teens.

IN Does My Head Look Big in This?, Randa Abdel-Fattah describes the experiences of a young Muslim Palestinian-Australian after she decides to wear the hijab (veil).