Born to stand out

While I like to think I'm above judging a book by its cover, I do put some store by the jacket copy.

Wonder, by R.J. Palacio, is not the kind of book I ever would've considered picking up on my own, for me or my child. I'm all for overcoming adversity, and most novel plots play on some variation of this theme, but reading about overcoming physical adversity (as opposed to, say, character flaw — and I recognize that a good book, which this is, will still incorporate all that fine moral, social, character stuff regardless) generally isn't my thing.

But eleven years on, I am still hopeless at gauging my daughter's tastes.

She received Wonder back in November, and over several weeks I'd been reading it aloud to her at bedtime.

August Pullman was born with severe facial deformities. Because of his health and all the surgeries he'd undergone, he was homeschooled. But at age 10 he enters fifth grade at a mainstream school, where he learns all about the real world of the social politics kids play at. This, compounded by the fact that he has the kind of face that makes people scream, shudder, turn away. Born to stand out, and sometimes invisible because of it. But he makes some true friends, and ultimately the entire school rallies around him.

The novel starts from Auggie's perspective, but it switches between several narrators, including Auggie's sister and some of his friends. This helps keep the story fresh, unpredictable, and moving swiftly through the school year.

It's all told with a light touch — it's funny and deeply affecting. And when Auggie's dog dies, Helena and I were in tears (I think reading it aloud made me feel it more intensely); we had to skim over a couple pages.

Books with "serious" subject matter, aimed at kids, I think run the risk of moralizing too much. For my taste, it could've been a tad more subtle: For example, one teacher at the beginning of every months presents precepts for consideration, which are nothing if not hitting you over the head with a life lesson. But coming from a teacher, these were more natural and easier to swallow than if they'd come from the narrator, or even a parent. That said, Helena was unfazed, and didn't detect any preachiness at all. (And to be fair, many of the precepts come from the likes of Virgil, Confucius, Pascal.)

Helena rates it four and half stars out of five, and is hoping for a sequel. It's a book we continue to talk about well after having turned the final page. Consider it recommended for that age set.

The open call (now closed) for postcard precepts on the author's website indicates that another book is in the works, but there's no indication how it will relate to Wonder.

Book trailer.

It was a dark and stormy night

So begins Madeleine L'Engle's A Wrinkle in Time. "It was a dark and stormy night." What kind of deprived childhood did I have that I'm reading it only now?

It's touted as a classic, and I'd picked up a copy this summer thinking it would make for perfect mother-daughter bedtime story reading. I hadn't read it, and I figured I could force it into Helena's perfect childhood, or rather, with this act I would perfect her childhood, and right my own.

(Also, she reads at this level comfortably in French, and readily picks up whatever her peers deem the cool livre du jour. She's not exposed to English books much except through me, and I continue to find it tough to inspire her with anything other than comic books and compilations of weird facts [not that there's anything wrong with that]. This novel seemed likelier than some.)

So we started. And she fell asleep. A few nights later, we decided to continue. Only she didn't remember anything, so we went back to the beginning. And she fell asleep. And some nights after that... Lather, rinse, repeat.

I know chapter 1. I know every square inch of Meg's attic. I can picture every shelf of the pantry. I know intimately Mrs Whatsit's socks. (Helena has not yet had the pleasure. Or at least, she doesn't remember it.)

One dark and stormy night this week I'd had enough and stormed off to read the rest on my own.

Suddenly she was aware of her heart beating rapidly within the cage of her ribs. Had it sopped before? What had made it start again? The tingling in her arms and legs grew stronger, and suddenly she felt movement. This movement, she felt, must be the turning of the earth, rotating on its axis, traveling its elliptic course about the sun. And this feeling of moving with the earth was somewhat like the feeling of being in the ocean, out in the ocean beyond this rising and falling of the breakers, lying on the moving water, pulsing gently with the swells, and feeling the gentle, inexorable tug of the moon.

Beautiful! And it reminded me of something else I'd heard by a fellow also familiar with time travel.

Do you know like we were saying? About the Earth revolving? It's like when you're a kid. The first time they tell you that the world's turning and you just can't quite believe it 'cause everything looks like it's standing still. I can feel it. The turn of the Earth. The ground beneath our feet is spinning at 1,000 miles an hour and the entire planet is hurtling around the sun at 67,000 miles an hour, and I can feel it. We're falling through space, you and me, clinging to the skin of this tiny little world, and if we let go... That's who I am.

Verdict: utterly charming. Space travel, time travel. A showdown between good and evil. A two-dimensional planet. Alien music. A dystopian planet with some semblance of a hivemind but controlled by an evil intelligence. Furry, tentacle creatures of wisdom. What's not to like? The religious references felt a bit heavy and unnecessary, but really, I didn't mind. I think Helena would like it.

Oh, and! Tesseract! And lots of useful quotations in various languages! And a general appreciation for math and science and history and words.

"In your language you a have a form of poetry called the sonnet." [...] "It is a very strict form of poetry, is it not?" [...] "There are fourteen lines, I believe, all in iambic pentameter. That's a very strict rhythm or meter, yes?" [...] "And each line has to end with a rigid rhyme pattern. And if the poet does not do it exactly this way, it is not a sonnet, is it?" [...] "But within this strict form the poet has complete freedom to say whatever he wants, doesn't he?"

[...]

"You're given the form, but you have to write the sonnet yourself. What you say is completely up to you."

A child is rather horribly perfect

Good science fiction movies for kids are hard to find, but The Last Mimzy may qualify.

Helena and I watched The Last Mimzy this weekend, finally, many, many months after the IT guy at my office (since retired) recommended it. (Actually, we'd watched the beginning on Youtube but had been unable to find all the movie's parts; conveniently, a DVD turned up to be included among Helena's birthday presents.)

You may recognize "mimzy" as "mimsy," a word occurring in Lewis Carroll's "Jaberwocky," which served as inspiration for Lewis Padgett's 1943 short story, "Mimsy Were the Borogoves":

How can an immature human understand the complicated system of social relationships? He can't. To him, an exaggeration of natural courtesy is silly. In his functional structure of life-patterns, it is rococo. He is an egotistic little animal, who cannot visualize himself in the position of another, certainly not an adult. A self-contained, almost perfect natural unit, his wants supplied by others, the child is much like a unicellular creature floating in the blood stream, nutriment carried to him, waste products carried away —

From the standpoint of logic, a child is rather horribly perfect. A baby may be even more perfect, but so alien to an adult that only superficial standards of comparison apply. The thought processes of an infant are completely unimaginable. But babies think, even before birth. In the womb they move and sleep, not entirely through instinct. We are conditioned to react rather peculiarly to the idea that a nearly-viable embryo may think. We are surprised, shocked into laughter, and repelled. Nothing human is alien.

But a baby is not human. An embryo is far less human.

The story is rather philosophical (as all the best SF is), and uses a mathematical paradigm to demonstrate its thesis. The film diverges greatly from its source material, and at times comes across as more new-age-y than scientific. But it embodies a similar, even broader, spirit to the story, and it is nonetheless thoughtful and thought-provoking.

Full text of "Mimsy Were the Borogoves."
William Shatner reads "Mimsy Were the Borogoves" (in 6 parts).

La drôle d'aventure

I'm fixing supper when Helena taps me on the shoulder, "Just tell me I'm hired." "Hired for what?" "A job! Just hire me." "OK. You're hired." A few minutes later, Helena shows up for work the next morning. We are uncertain as to the precise nature of her job, but she settles into her workstation and asks where she can get a coffee. I bring her an iced chocolatte, "Don't get used to it." And it soon becomes clear that she's taking her new job, a writing gig, very seriously.

Here's part 1 of what I hope will be an ongoing serial from my blog writer intern.

La drôle d’aventure de Tommy

Il était une fois un petit garçon qui s’appelle Tommy. Il était très tannant à l’école. Aujourd’hui le 15 septembre, Tommy avait un examen de maths, mais… bien sûr Tommy n’a pas étudié. Le matin avant l’examen, dans la cour, tout les élèves de la classe de Tommy étaient très stressés de l’examen, à part Tommy qui… lui a pas trop d’interêt à faire du travail. Au retour de la récré, l’examen commence. Après deux ou trois minutes, Tommy lâche son crayon et relaxe comme si rien n’était. Tout le monde le regardait, et bien sûr son meilleur ami, Max, continue à faire son travail. Il savait que Tommy n’allait pas faire son travail. Comme d’habitude!!! Madame LaPoire, la prof, voit que Tommy fait encore des niaiseries. Elle le mets en retenue à la récré. Il est rentrée dans le local et il y a un monsieur assie à la table, Tommy le rejoint et lui aussi se met à la table. Le monsieur dit –Tu es le garçon parfait!– –Hein?! Je ne comprend rien!– Aussitôt, avant que Tommy n’ait fini sa phrase, il disparut! Il apparut sur une planète bizarre.

— from La drôle d’aventure de Tommy, by Helena Kratynski-Fournier (age 9).

6 more reasons to love Wes Anderson

[Via MobyLives.] Shelly and the Secret Universe, The Francine Odysseys, The Girl from Jupiter, Disappearance of the 6th Grade, The Light of Seven Matchsticks, and The Return of Auntie Lorraine.

The house of ideas

"How rude of me not to introduce myself," the lizard who had been doing all the talking said. "I am Reynold and these are my friends, Reynold, Reynold, Reynold, Reynold, Reynold, Reynold, Reynold, Reynold, Reynold, Reynold, and Reynold."

"Is everybody here called Reynold?" I asked.

"Of course not," Reynold said. "That would be ridiculous. There are lizards named Raymond and Helena and a lot of things."

There are times I feel pretty ripped off about my childhood, my youth. Not that I had a tragic upbringing or anything, but sometimes it seems to me that it was somewhat confined, limited. Like how come I never got to read Lizard Music as a kid?

I've been hearing great things about Lizard Music, by Daniel Pinkwater, over the last several years and particularly since it's been reissued in The New York Review Books Children's Collection. So I picked up a copy for Helena (my 9-year-old daughter, not a lizard) last Christmas.

She hasn't read it yet. I had started to read it aloud one evening this winter, but I got a little uncomfortable at the bit where 11-year-old Victor is trying his mom's cigarettes, and I thought I should read ahead on my own to see what we were in store for.

This book is very cool. A whole lizard society just beyond our reach!

Victor's parents are away on vacation, and Victor's big sister goes off with her friends, so that leaves Victor all alone, building model airplanes and watching late night TV. After the movie, the lizard band comes on. A bunch of weird things happen in the next couple days—Victor meets the Chicken Man and his chicken Claudia whom he keeps on his head under his hat—and most of the weird things have to do with lizards, and so Victor undertakes an investigation.

The book is a little dated in terms of the references to Walter Cronkite (Victor's obsession with him is shared by the lizards). Also the television world of the 70s included poor reception, snow, stations going off the air at a certain hour, and late night programming, all of which may feel a bit ancient to a culture where you can watch SpongeBob SquarePants on demand.

I think Helena will love it, eventually, when I manage to convince her to give it a try (she's just not the reader I was at her age). I know she can really get behind concepts like pod people and invisible islands.

The House of Ideas was a big empty building with nothing in it. It had no windows and only one door. Outside the door a lizard sat at a small desk. On the desk was a little wooden box. If a lizard had an idea, he could go to the House of Ideas and give an Agama Dollar to the lizard at the desk. Then the lizard at the desk would unlock the door for the lizard with the idea, who would slip inside and shout his idea. For example, a lizard might get the idea that lizards should not give advice to their friends unless they were asked for it. He would go to the House of Ideas, pay one Agama Dollar, and shout, "Lizards should not give advice to their friends unless the friends ask for it." Then the lizard at the desk would lock the door, and the lizard who had the idea would go away satisfied.

"In this way," Reynold explained, "we have collected and kept safe all our ideas for generations."

"You mean that you think all those ideas are still in there?" I asked.

"Of course," Reynold said. "How are they going to get out?" This struck me as a little dumb, but it didn't seem polite to say anything about it.

You can listen to Lizard Music, read by the author, at the Pinkwater Podcast and Audio Archive (files are available under a Creative Commons license).

Neeble neeble neeble.

November days

Helena turned nine this month. Part of her special day included a trip to the toy store, where she casually informed me that she didn't believe in Santa Claus anymore. She hasn't believed in a while, she says. I guess she just wanted to get it out in the open.

This month I started exercising. Not that I believe much in exercising, beyond that I know that I should. Mostly with the encouragement of my physiotherapist and for the benefit of my knee, I bought an exercise bike (because, who's kidding whom, I will never get my lazy ass to a gym). And I bike almost every day. I'm not sure I've seen much benefit apart from more mobility in my knee, but I suppose it's helping to counterbalance all the cakes I've partaken of this November. Most remarkable of all is how easy it was to develop this new habit. Which has me thinking I ought to try developing more new habits.

The first day of the exercise bike, I figured out how to position and fasten my ereader. But for the time being, it's still a bit awkward — I'll leave ereading for more advanced exercise sessions. Audiobooks are easier. I've just finished listening to Late Nights on Air, by Elizabeth Hay — it was charming and poignant and even tragic. But, in its being read me, I feel it's been interpreted. A much more passive experience than reading — I don't get from it what I get from the page when it's at a pace I set in my own voice inside my head. A nice way to pass the time, though.

One of my birthday gifts to Helena: The Invention of Hugo Cabret, by Brian Selznick. Mostly because I wanted to read it myself. I can't say Helena was particularly thrilled, but then we saw the movie, and we were enchanted, so now we are reliving the magic in book form and waiting for snow.

Rainy afternoon

It's rainy and cold.

Before surrendering to a lazy day, I thought I'd give it one last shot to get the kid active, even though I didn't much feel like it myself.

"How about we go shopping for a skirt, like you wanted?" "No!" "What if we hang out at the bookstore?" "Yes!"

She never ceases to surprise me.

So we went to the bookstore.

I thought about buying a copy of The Train (Simenon) for myself, seeing as how my electronic review copy is set to expire in a few days and I have to have this book on my shelf. But more than that, I wanted to browse, to discover something.

I opened a copy of Nicholson Baker's The Anthologist, started reading it, and, three pages in, determined it was crap, or, at least, not for me, not today.

Here's what we bought:

• The Adventures of Ook and Gluk: Kung-Fu Cavemen from the Future, by George Beard and Harold Hutchins.
• Panda Man to the Rescue, story by Sho Makura, art by Haruhi Kato.
• The Lazarus Project, by Aleksander Hemon.

The Project's for me, of course, and I must say its first three pages were vastly more compelling than anything else in the store. Today anyway. It's been on that list in the back of my mind of books to watch for for some time, and it puts me in mind of that Doctor Who Episode, The Lazarus Experiment — I'm sure they have nothing to do with each other, but it's as valid a reason as any to choose one book over another.

Happy, rainy reading.

Atomic secrets

The Atomic Weight of Secrets, or The Arrival of the Mysterious Men in Black, by Eden Unger Bowditch, is the first book in The Young Inventors Guild trilogy.

Jasper and Lucy ran up to their rooms and dropped off their bags. Looking around for a place to put their satchels, they opted to shove the lot under their beds.

"That's as good a place as any," said Jasper, pulling the edge of his quilt down so the satchel was completely hidden.

"I really think it's just awful keeping all these things from Rosie," said Lucy, "and from Miss Brett and. . . It make me feel like a naughty girl."

"Well, you're not a naughty girl. None of us is naughty. And we're not telling lies either. Not really," he said. He stopped rushing for a moment and looked Lucy in the eyes. A sneaky smile spreading across his face, he said, "It is terribly exciting, isn't it, Lucy? I mean, it's exciting as well as dangerous, amazing, historic, and brilliant, and, of course, terrifying, and horridly worrying. Still, all said, it is frightfully thrilling, isn't it?"

Lucy smiled. "Yes," she said in earnest. "Frightfully."

It's a mysterious and charming story. Helena is a little young yet for the attention a book like this requires, but I will encourage her to read it someday. Reminds me a little of Lemony Snicket, but without so much snark, and maybe not quite so nefarious.

A group of kids — 2 girls, 3 boys — ranging in age from 6 to 13, specializing in different kinds of science and themselves the children of the world's most important scientists, are taken from their parents and thrown together into a private boarding school, for them alone.

There's not much the teacher can teach such clever children, but she does find a gap in their education that she is able to fill: nursery rhymes and other children's literature.

On weekends the children are taken to their respective parentless homes, where the nannies attend to their needs. The homes abut a shared meadow.

The children come from unique backgrounds but find they have quite a bit in common when they start to discuss the circumstances by which they came together, so they put their inventive, scientific minds to work toward a common goal. The mysterious men in black factor into their separation from their parents, but it's never clear whether they are their jailers or their protectors.

The review at Young Adult Books Central sums it all up more succinctly than I can.

Dervishes and elephants

A prophecy. Hoopoes, harem gardens, and spies, oh my! The Oracle of Stamboul, by Michael David Lukas. I llllooovved this book! I ate it up in a day, and that's even after I slowed down at about the halfway mark trying to make it last.

This was an electronic review copy (and one of the cleanest — read: typo-free — proofs I've seen in a long time), but I'm set on acquiring a hard copy to place on the shelf so that my daughter might someday stumble upon it.

It's simply magical! The kind of book that wraps you up and keeps you warm and sends your soul aflutter. Maybe I'm predisposed to liking it. It's set in Stamboul, after all, to my mind one of the most romantic settings on Earth (I must go there one day!), and I seem to be surrounded by talk of Turkey these days. Also, it's about a very charming and clever 8-year-old girl, and as I have one of my own, I happen to think they make for fascinating subjects. It reads like a fairy tale.

The author in his essay "Oskar and Eleonora" explains how this novel is a meditation on the nature of history:

I was most taken, however, by those writers whose work falls into the subgenre I like to call historical fabulism — José Saramago, Günter Grass, Salman Rushdie, and Italo Calvino — storytellers of the old school who add a pinch of magic to the stew of history. I was particularly moved by Saramago's novel The History of the Siege of Lisbon, in which a bored proofreader literally rewrites the history of Lisbon, and by Grass's The Tin Drum, in which a clairvoyant young German boy named Oskar Matzerath disrupts the traditional narrative of World War II by beating on a tin drum. How wonderful, I thought, this idea that a single act, a single person, might change the course of history.

Eleonora is born in inauspicious circumstances. Her mother dies in childbirth while her village is ravaged by the 3rd Division of Tsar Alexander II's Royal Cavalry. Her childhood is mostly a decent one, even though her stepmother doesn't believe in educating her too much (Ruxandra's no ogress, but she has her ideas about how things ought to work). Elenora's good-natured about it though, and sticks to her monthly reading allotment of only one novel (gasp!). At the age of 8, she makes her way to Istanbul (I won't tell you how), where she has a taste of a more privileged lifestyle. But tragedy — and adventure — befalls her again.

It's not exactly a coming-of-age story, although Eleonora does have some growing up to do. The book's a little bit Dickens, a little bit Roald Dahl, every bit enchanting. And the ending is, in my view, perfect.

Late in the novel we meet Fredrick, a journalist, who latches on to Eleonora's story: "This is exactly what the readers want. They want dervishes and elephants. Just look at Kinglake. Look at the Arabian Nights. People want Oriental color."

I suppose that's not true for all people. But it works for me.

I'm curious to see to whom this book is going to be marketed, and what audience for it will finally emerge. It has about it everything of a children's classic: orphaned child confronted with adversity, a special gift, and a prophecy to fulfill. (And the magical tone reminds me specifically of one of my favourites: Frances Hodgson Burnett's A Little Princess.)

I found the prose to be fresh and lively:

• "Hoopoes coated the town like frosting, piped in along the rain gutters of the governor’s mansion and slathered on the gilt dome of the Orthodox church."
• "drinks in every hand and in every drink a piece of ice reflecting the sun."
• "a small flight of cormorants swept over the water like marionettes"
• "As the morning insinuated itself into her room, Eleonora lay curled around herself like a dried tea leaf..."
• "...he had the aspect of a well-fed rodent and eyes the color of unripe grapes."

A number of reviews are critical of the book's slow pace, that nothing happens, but I don't understand them. I was completely entranced.

Excerpt.

Bookstore

Today we went to the bookstore, me and the kid. Some ridiculous -20° outside, but we made this plan over a week ago, and and we've been looking forward to it.

I've long since (mostly) come to terms with the fact that Helena is not the sort of reader I hoped and expected a daughter of mine to be.

Confession: We do not have regular bedtime stories, and haven't had for years. If it wasn't fun, there didn't seem to be any point to it — more trouble than it was worth. There may not be a lot of support for this sort of strategy in the parenting books (although, I wouldn't know, not being the type to consult that kind of reference), but I think she's growing up to have a reasonable appreciation for books all the same.

We have the occasional evening or weekend afternoon, some spontaneous, some planned, full of books, mine and hers, and often cocoa, on my bed, and it is comfort and joy. And if she does not read every day, I think at least she remembers to make a special time for it.

Helena received a gift card for the bookstore for her birthday some time ago, and just last week was lamenting the fact that she didn't get the one book she really wanted for Christmas. So we made the plan to acquire it.

What's cool with second-graders these days and new on our shelf today: Geronimo Stilton: Le secret du courage!

The miraculous Matilda

Why didn't anybody tell me? Have you read Matilda? Have you read Roald Dahl? Are his other books any good?

The only other Dahl that I've read is The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar. And the title story in that collection — what a wonderful story it was! I know squat about its narrative structure, blah, blah, blah, but what a great frickin' story! And when I read it, when I was 11, or maybe 15, it blew my mind.

So here's this Matilda, which I read earlier this week, charming for all sorts of reasons, the well-read eponymous heroine, her criminally thoughtless parents, the weirdly nasty headmistress, et cetera — it's all so sweet (I mean that in a Dickensian way) and funny. But then! [Spoiler alert!] Matilda develops paranormal telekinetic powers! Which is what put me in mind of Henry Sugar.

I know Dahl by reputation (oh, and that terrific Mr Fox movie). Henry Sugar was special, special to me, and I assumed it was unique among his writing. But this paranormal angle fascinates me. Henry Sugar had it, and so does Matilda. Is there more? Do the other books also feature similar uncanny abilities? Are they all this good?

Watch your toes!

Behold the unholy Santy Claws and the TOE-nenbaum!

All profits from the sale of this book will go to the Make-A-Wish Foundation® in Canada and a major national children's charity in the United States.

It's not too late to help.

Uncle, again

Uncle Cleans Up, by JP Martin and illustrated by Quentin Blake, is the follow-up to Uncle (both now published in The New York Review Children's Collection). Uncle is a fabulously rich elephant who reigns over a motley crew inhabiting the grounds of his castle-kingdom. Things are upside down and backwards, odd and chaotic — rather subversive, really.

For much of the book, Uncle's little band is planning and provisioning for day-trip excursions to the far reaches of Uncle's domain.

At the first stop, which was called Rhino Halt, a thin but very happy-looking man came running to the side of the train.

"Got my museum money at last, Ninety!" he said joyfully.

"Sorry, Needler," said Ninety. "We can't take you today. Full up."

Needler burst into loud sobbing.

"After all I've done to save up! Done without lunch for nineteen days, and all to get into the museum!"

"Let him in," said Uncle; "we'll make room."

Needler's no-lunch habit had made him so thin that he slipped into a very small corner of Uncle's carriage.

Little Liz put out her tongue at him, but Uncle saw her and said sternly:

"If you do that again you will be put off at the next station!"

"I'm sorry," said Little Liz very quickly.

"Also, Needler," said Uncle, "I will pay your fare."

He handed sixpence to Ninety.

Needler burst into tears of joy. It really seemed unnatural for a man to cry so much. His tears overflowed his handkerchief and fell on to the floor in a stream.

"Thank you abundantly, sir," he said. "I never thought I would see this day. The cost of living keeps going up so much. But now what joy I've got in front of me! A long lovely walk through all the museum room, tea — they do you well at the tea-room for a halfpenny — and then I'll buy some picture postcards and take the rest of the money home, and live like a prince for a week!"

"I'm only glad you've cheered up," said Uncle, who hates crying of any sort.

I thoroughly enjoyed the first in this series, and I hope there is more to come. For the time being, the books are more suited to my sense of humour and reading sensibility than to my child's, but she is of an age where that may soon change.

Tales from Homeward: Uncle is still alive and well, and maintaining a blog.

Say "Uncle"

"Uncle is an elephant. He's immensely rich, and he's a B.A."

Uncle, by JP Martin and illustrated by Quentin Blake, is amazing. Imagine the Moomintrolls living in Gormenghast, only more urban.

Moat and drawbridge, of course. There are stairways and elevators and waterfalls and chutes and tunnels, and a bathing pool in a secret location that defies the logic of space. There are towers, so many towers, one of them haunted. There are 2 stores: one where things are impossibly cheap and one where they are outrageously expensive, in which Uncle found an artificial pineapple for 33 pounds and bought it at once. "Uncle is the last person in the world to put artificial fruit on the sideboard, but he can't resist anything that is capable of being thrown."

But it's an episode about shoes that made me a convert — not for the shoes in themselves but for the depiction of the politics surrounding them.

The Old Monkey's uncle is called the Muncle and he's a very nice person, but seems to live for footwear. Uncle likes him, but thinks he is a bit too fussy about shoes.

However, he told the Old Monkey that the Muncle would be welcome, and, about half an hour later, just as he had settled down to his paper, the Muncle arrived. He was wearing an enormous pair of travelling boots. These have electric motors in their soles so that they can run along with him, and they come up so high that he can lean on the top edges. He always keeps a lot of stuff in them, including several pairs of smaller boots and shoes.

He came scooting over the drawbridge with an anxious expression, then drew up with a joyous shout. "Not a spot of mud on them!"

He is always terribly afraid, when he comes to visit Uncle, that Beaver Hateman, the leader of the Badfort crowd, may splash his boots with mud. Beaver Hatemean always tries to. But today he had seen nothing of him.

He sat down by the open window with a smiling face.

"So glad to see you, sir, and also my nephew. He looks well, though I am sorry to see his shoes are dusty. Nephew, open the right-side compartment in my travelling boots and you'll find a pair of dove-coloured visiting shoes. Ah, that's a relief. My travelling boots are rather heavy."

Then he looked keenly at Uncle and said: "Excuse my saying so, sir, but your shoes are somewhat shabby. I wonder if you'd gratify me by putting on a really nice pair?"

Uncle said to the Old Monkey:

"Just look in my number eight shoe saloon, and on the fourth shelf to the left you'll find a pair of red ones; I rather think it's the sixty-ninth pair from the door. Bring them here."

The Muncle seemed deeply impressed by this speech. He had never imagined that even Uncle possessed such a vast stock. He was still more deeply moved when the Old Monkey appeared with an exquisitely shaped pair of elephant's morning shoes of a deep red colour.

"Oh, those look very well, sir!" he cried, in a rather envious voice. He was thinking hard how he might regain his lost ground as shoe expert.

Then he pulls some poems out of his pocket, and Beaver Hateman comes by and ruins the Muncle's shoes and it's decided they should give him a new pair from the store. And we never hear of the Muncle again.

It's a strange world Uncle lives in, but one that I have no trouble accepting — my 4-year-old's imagination devises similar joys and evils, where complications and near magical solutions are a matter of course. The child's logic reigns supreme here.

For example, the school room is immensely long, and the teacher is railed in, but beside their desks the boys can access the many underground passages that lead up into the teacher's compartment.

The Economist wonders whatever happened to Uncle:

Much of the humour in "Uncle" is so quirky and understated that it is more likely to appeal to an adult than a child. For example, in most successful children's literature, a haunted tower would be genuinely spooky. In Uncle's castle, however, it is a great disappointment. One room is said to be inhabited by a ghost known as the White Terror. But the phantom turns out to be only a foot high, and stands on a bedside table, muttering monotonously, "I did it! I took the strawberry jam!" Quentin Blake, the book's illustrator, muses that "The books have always had terrific fans, but they have never attracted a mass following because they are so eccentric." Charlie Sheppard at Random House agrees that "there just may not be enough truly eccentric children out there." Even the most ardent Uncle fans would probably also concede that the stories suffer from a certain lack of narrative structure.

Nothing much happens. I mean, lots of stuff happens, but there's no plot to speak of. Uncle keeps pace with a child's attention span and concept of cool.

I'll be scouring the shelves of the second-hand shops for more Uncle titles.

Fans of Uncle: sinister cabal.
Looking for Uncle: a plea for reissues.

Next fall, NYRB publishes the second volume of Uncle's tales, Uncle Cleans Up.

Tales from Homeward: Uncle is alive and well and maintains a blog.