Mixed up Fairy Tales

Half term and lucky-devil-away-gallivanting husband dictates ready meal and another quick post tonight.

Despite their 'for the girls' reputation traditional fairy tales have always been very popular in this house. So has Nick Sharratt. The two in combination are pretty irresistable. Following a trip to the Puppet Theatre yesterday to see Norwich Puppet Theatre's  spooky, back-to-roots production of 'Red Riding Hood' we found ourselves falling into a bookshop once again on the way home and walking out once again (ahem) with a discreet package ('3 for 2'- it would have been rude not to!). 'Asterix and the Olympic Games' and 'Super Diaper Baby 2' were our other 'bargains' but Hilary Robinson and Nick Sharratt's 'Mixed Up Fairy Tales' was what I at least was really after.

One of the wonderful things about acquiring a canon of classics as your literary backbone is of course the opportunity to re-appreciate them as they are endlessly reinvented.
Thus yesterday morning, in preparation for our theatre treat, we ended up reading the pretty trad. Hutchinson Treasury of Fairy Tales version of 'Red Riding Hood' and also Laurence Anholt's Seriously Silly 'Little Red Riding Wolf'. We took the Read it Yourself Ladybird version with us on the bus. The puppet show drew on both Perrault and the Brothers Grimm and had an ending that I'd never encountered before; with two washerwomen performing the woodcutter role of rescue (not to mention Red Riding Hood's escape by way of faking the need for a poo).

Nick Sharratt was where we ended up however- and probably just as well for the prevention of nightmares (the poo was popular but the puppet wolves definitely threatening). This book of split pages allows the retelling and mixing of 12 different traditional tales in ever more inventive- and of course silly ways. We've all been enjoying it since but particularly Master Eddie. Here he is demonstrating (he also demonstrates his efficient but not necessarily charming double nostril nose pick-please avert your eyes):

although he has yet to really get the hang of arbitrary mixing in the manner of his big bro. who finds it hysterical to end all his stories with 'a helping of porridge'. He's right actually. That is pretty funny stuff. Especially if you're marrying Cinderella to it.

'Mixed Up Fairy Tales', written Hilary Robinson, illus. Nick Sharratt, pub. Hodder isbn 978-0-340-87558

Billy Bonkers

'Pinterest' turns out to be a great way to find a day gone whilst having fun kicking cans about the backalleys of the internet. I started my first 'boards' yesterday: 'Style advice from Children's Literature' and 'Food in kids books' are pretty self explanatory but I also had fun with my 'The Real...' board featuring the real Enormous Crocodile, Very Hungry Caterpillar and, of course, Little Wooden Horse amongst others. Let me know what you think I should add to any of them.

'Billy Bonkers' and 'Billy Bonkers 2' by Giles Andreae, illustrated by Nick Sharatt are today's book recommendations for you from Bill and me. Bill would like to be 'The Real' Billy Bonkers come to think of it.

Each book contains three delightfully silly adventures for Billy and his family. It's pretty standard stuff; an every day family situation starts peacefully but then spirals out of control, Mum and Dad Bonkers panic, cool headed sister Betty makes a clever plan and Billy  carries it through, saving the day, lives, the planet and normally getting to eat inordinate amounts of cake and chips at the end. I admire the total maxing out of the silliness though.

In the first story, 'Billy Bonkers and the Great Porridge Incident' for example, Billy eats so many raw porridge oats for breakfast  that he produces enough gas to swell up like a balloon and rise up through the ceiling and the roof of the house. He's only saved from rising further by his unravelling pyjama bottoms tethering him to a tree. Quick thinking Betty works out he needs to burp and uses Mrs. Bonkers' enormous, comfy mummy pants (I recognise these) to fire a gigantic pork pie at Billy to thump him on the back and;

"There was a small pause. Then Billy felt his tummy begin to turn around and around like a washing machine. It churned and wobbled and rumbled and then it happened...
BLLOOAARRGGGHHHPPP!!!
Billy did the most enormous burp the world has ever known. I don't really know how to spell a burp such as this. I couldn't get anywhere near to imitating the sound, but I hope you can imagine the kind of burp that this was. It was the kind of burp that shook houses and that blew birds out of trees."

Are you getting a flavour of why this book might be popular with my 7 year old son? The nice thing is that a lot of slightly formulaic stories would end there but this book then  escalates further to have Billy flying around the sky and then fortuitously making contact with a bunch of robbers in the middle of stealing all the loot from Mrs. Dingleberry's Cake, Sweets, Chocolate and Ice Cream Emporium.

"Not in their wildest dreams could they have imagined that a boy, wearing hardly anything at all except for his sister's frilly pants, would come hurtling towards them at a hundred miles an hour a few inches above the ground and slam right into them, knocking them over as they were trying to escape, and sending money, cakes, sweets, chocolates and ice cream flying about in all directions. But this is exactly what happened."

Billy is given a hero's medal by the police and promised free cake, sweets, chocolates and ice cream by a grateful Mrs. Dingleberry for the rest of his life. And that's just the first story.

I wonder if girls reading these books might start to feel a slight sense of outrage that in every case it is little sister Betty who actually solves the problems. In their defence Bill has made that connection himself. Betty is also the only character who escapes with dignity intact throughout. Girls will hopefully enjoy the fun just as much and swell quietly with their own sense of innate superiority. The Great Gender Divide at Five that seems to be fostered in some publishing divisions bothers me muchly. I just want good books not boys books or girls books.  How about some farting super-pony books or mutant robo-fairies bottling sunbeams?

'Billy Bonkers' written Giles Andreae, illus. Nick Sharratt, pub. Orchard books, isbn 978-1-84616-151-3

Eat your peas

Bill doesn't like peas. Or carrots. Or sweetcorn (he'll wolf down broccoli, spinach and a variety of beans though in case you were thinking I've completely Failed As A Mother)(...'wolf'.. may be overstating the case) It's still a puzzle. I'd go as far as to say he's almost phobic about peas. I had to individually fish them out of a shepherd's pie on a playdate recently whilst he cowered in his seat moaning; 'I can see another one mum. quick! there! under that piece of mashed potato! GET IT. QUICK....'

He shares this attribute with Daisy, the heroine of Kes Gray's wonderful 'Eat your Peas': Daisy and her Mum sit at the dinner table contemplating her plate, empty except for the hated peas.

'"Eat your peas," said Mum. Daisy looked at the little green balls that were ganging up on her plate. "I don't like peas," said Daisy.'

Daisy's Mum begins the well established practice of trying to bribe or 'incentivise' her to eat those peas. She starts small; 'If you eat your peas, you can have some pudding'...but without success. The incentives start to escalate. 'If you eat your peas, you can have some pudding, stay up for an extra half hour and you can skip your bath.'. Daisy's expression and response on each double page spread remains the same: 'I don't like peas.' The escalation escalates. 'If you eat your peas you can have 48 puddings, stay up past midnight, you never have to wash again, I'll buy you two new bikes and a baby elephant.' And escalates further: 'if you eat your peas, I'll buy you a supermarket stacked full of puddings, you never have to go to bed again ever, or school again, you never have to wash, or brush your hair, or clean your shoes, or tidy your bedroom, I'll buy you a bike shop, a zoo, ten chocolate factories, I'll take you to Superland for a week and you can have your very own space rocket with double retro laser blammers.'

This is a book which you shouldn't read aloud whilst anybody is drinking anything because they are guaranteed to start the sort of snorty giggling that makes milk come out of their nose. Nick Sharratt's deceptively simple, flat cartoon style of illustration complement the text perfectly; especially the small diagrammatic pictures accompanying Mum's promises.

Does Daisy eat her peas? Let's just say there's a nice twist, but ultimately everyone gets pudding. Mums' apparently aren't perfect beings either. This is a good reminder about the holes that may be dug in the name of Authoritarian Parenting.

There are lots of other 'Daisy' books, both in picture book form and as longer stories in simple chapter books. 'Daisy and the Trouble with Zoos' is one of the latter, and another favourite here; it's hard to resist a story of baby penguin kidnap. If Bill emulates Daisy in Pea Hatred I started getting ideas of my own from her at London Zoo's great new Penguin Beach Exhibit. Honestly, they swim so close to you, and they're very sweet, and then they'd fit in very well in this house because everyone likes to eat fish....

'Eat Your Peas' written Kes Gray, illus. Nick Sharratt, pub. Red Fox, isbn 978-1-862-30804-6