This isn't mine, it's something a friend wrote after a phone coversation, "I've got a fantastic idea for a children's book..." ah yes -- one of those conversations. "...wanna do the Illustrations?"
So I did a couple of scribbles and sent them to him after I received this, alas his creative font dried up after he got these few lines out of his system, which was a shame really, although I understand because he was under quite a bit of stress at the time. It's a shame because it was interesting project, something tangential to the norms of children's literature but like all such projects much more of it was committed to the aether than paper. No hope of picking up interest from a publisher of course but it might have prompted some creativity in the rejection notices.
One aspect that would cause consternation for publishers is kitty's predicament, in fact I think that would fatal as far as interest from that quarter, resulting in a swift transit of a manuscript to the bin. Of course I share those concerns but this issue highlights a interesting point for me, in that I think the obstacle represented by this aspect of the story is cultural specific. Not the animal abuse aspect, although I acknowledge that the UK along with most of the English speaking world, is more sensitive on such issues but the copycat concerns that it would prompt. You know, the same kind of thing that had people berating the producers of Batman in the sixties, although here I think such concerns are more likely to be reflected by reality than the faux perils represented by the moral panics that persist in relation to comic characters.
NAUGHTY BOY ISLAND
Maffew was a naughty boy. One of the naughtiest boys in town.
Sometimes he would put grapes down the loo.
“Maffew, stop putting those grapes down the loo!” his Mum would cry.
“No, shu’up!” said Maffew rudely, as he ran away.
Other times he would throw Kitty down the stairs.
“Catch!” shouted Maffew. But there was no-one there to catch his poor cat.
“Maffew, you mustn’t throw Kitty down the stairs,” his Mum said crossly.
“No, shu’ up!” said Maffew.
One day Maffew was in his garden and was pushing the lid down on a box where he had hidden Kitty.
An old lady was watching him over the garden wall.
“You mustn’t put your cat in a box like that, she said. “It doesn’t like it.”
“No shu’up!” cried Maffew, “I can do what I want!”
“We’ll see about that,” said the old lady and off she went. A short while later, over the din that Kitty was making, Maffew could hear the whirring blades of a helicopter.
It got closer and louder.
And closer and louder.
Until it was right above Maffew’s garden.
Suddenly a net dropped from underneath the helicopter and fell on top of Maffew.
“Hey!” he shouted “Hey, stop!”
The helicopter’s net scooped Maffew off the ground and lifted him into the air.
“Help!” he cried, “I can’t get out!”
But the helicopter pilot took no notice. The helicopter flew higher and higher. And higher and higher. And took Maffew further and further away.
Until they came to a place far away. A rock. In the middle of the sea.
The helicopter went down and down closer to the rock and then lowered Maffew in the net until it was almost touching the ground.
Then without warning the net opened and Maffew fell out onto the ground.
“OW!” he said.
The helicopter hovered above him for a moment and then it flew higher and higher. And further and further away.
“Come back!” shouted Maffew. But the helicopter didn’t come back. It just got further and further away until Maffew couldn’t see it or hear it any more.
“Who are you, big nose?” said a boy standing on a rock next to a tree.
“What’s it to you fatso?” said Maffew. “Where are we?”
“Don’t you know?” said the boy. “You’re on Naughty Boy Island”
I've no idea what should happen to, "Maffew" after he arrives the on the island, beyond maybe a few japes in the same mold as those that might appear between the pages of the Lion or Valiant. Maybe that's a bit mundane though, perhaps he deserves a more surreal treatment, just this side of James and the Giant Peach, I think.
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