Anyway, as a result Rosie has become intrigued with Quentin Blake. We've had questions such as; "Did Quentin Blake live next door to Roald Dahl?" (I love this idea of 'our Roald' nipping over to 'Quentin's' to draw the page he'd just written!).
Of course, nowadays though Blake is recognised, in his own right, as one of the greatest contributors to children's literature. He was the first ever to be honoured as Children's Laureate and has pretty much won every award going!
This contemporary fable Daddy Lost His Head is illustrated and translated by Blake with the original story by Andre Bouchard. And the first page reads:
Daddy had lost his head.
It was plain to see that there was nothing on his shoulders.
So like any decent offspring would, the kids make him a new one. They use newspaper, paint, a carrot and some wool, and voila! A fully headed father, just the way we like them. The new head is a real winner; no more snoring and no telling you off if you do something silly. He doesn't have a brain see, so furthermore Mum gets to boss him around, having him doing every chore there is.
One day Daddy comes home with his real head and it turned out he'd left it at the office all along. Don't you just hate it when that happens? So life returns to normal. Which has it's upside (he remembers a fab chocolate cake recipe) and it's down (poor Mum has to readjust to having a snorer at her side).
We thought it divine. And it certainly got little Rosebud's mind wondering. We had our usual bombardment of questions; "can heads really get lost?" "what do brains look like?" "how do you think you take your head off, a zip?" As usual post-bedtime - I'm shattered!
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