Bedtime reads

Because our family routines are a little topsy-turvy at the moment I've been in charge of Jude's bed time stories. He's too young to understand what I'm reading but since most of my parenting knowledge comes from watching 'Three Men and a baby' many years ago, I know this is unimportant. So, I've been reading some of the slimmer books on the shelves.

We started last week with 'Exercises in Style' by Raymond Queneau. This is a fascinating little book telling the same, very short story over ninety times but in different style. Jude liked the Italian style best.

Then, we moved on to 'Letters from a Lost Uncle' by Mervyn Peake. This is another odd read. Peake tells the tale of an adventuring uncle writing back to his nephew from the snowy wastes of the world. The uncle is either a fantasist or the whole story is more a fantasy story than I first took it to be. the story is written on a typewriter, on yellowed paper and pasted onto pen and pencil sketches. It's not just a good read, it's also a beautiful and rewarding piece of art.

Since we read that in two days we've now moved on to another Mervyn Peake book called 'Boy in  Darkness.' One reviewer on Amazon describes this as "... definitely not a book for children." Good job Jude doesn't understand then.

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