Bye, Spot!

Amused to see what Adam at Crockatt and Powell Booksellers has been getting up to with some favourite children's books. They really suit my jaundiced mood and made me laugh. (Laugh, that is, with the crazed cackle of the Seasonally Affected Editor whose deadlines are all clashing and whose favourite (ancient) FatFace trousers just fell apart in the wash.)

Here are a couple of examples - there are lots more here and (by special request) here (though please don't click if you're below a certain age or likely to be offended!)


Have any other weary, jaded parents ever got to the stage where they can read The Very Hungry Caterpillar and other favourites aloud while actually thinking about something completely different (and I mean completely different!) and then come to with a start when it's finished and think 'oh, where am I?' - without the hapless young listener having noticed that anything is amiss?

After 14 years I have it down to a fine art.





I do like Eric Carle's books a lot, but I've always seriously had it in for Spot. Hate the pics, hate the bland, unimaginative 'stories', hate (with a deep, brooding, black malevolence) the videos, hate the fact that I have spent several hours of my life laboriously sellotaping and pritt-sticking all the little lift-up flaps back on, time after time.

I finally sent the whole lot of them to the Mersea Island Charity Shop last year - hooray! So this one is very apt.

Thanks Adam. Please come up with more sooooooon!

Oh, and I do commend C&P's lively blog to book lovers everywhere, especially any who have ever worked on the other side of the counter. I particularly enjoyed this recent post on the future of 'real' books.