Ahlberg at his most geniuslike, sheer madness
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This is a fantastic story of a little boy called Banjo, who every day, rain or shine, summer or winter, has a sausage for his dinner. On this particular day, Melvin, the sausage, decides he doesn't want to be eaten. He gets up and runs away, pursued by the rest of his dinner, his cutlery, the furniture and finally Banjo and his parents.
Each of the items in the story is given a name, and as Melvin makes his escape we move through an increasingly surreal and fantastic landscape in which the doings of all the other items are also narrated.
The illustrations are quite unusual, and in themselves provide a lot of the impact and the talking points of the story. My kids, aged 8, 4 and 15 months love this story and never tire of hearing it. The greatest thing about it, in my opinion is the fact that it is interesting for adults as well because it never dumbs down. The use of language is interesting and even poetic in places and it has a lovely rhythm and narrative pace which gives it the shape of an old fashioned classic, rather like the gingerbread man, from which it undoubtedly took its inspiration. Inspired work.
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A great plateful of foolish fun - unashamedly silly!
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This book is utterly foolish, completely absurd, and as a result my boys (2 and 5) think its absolutely fantastic. Ahlberg's books range from really-quite-sensible to brilliantly-delivered lunacy and this is at the latter end of the spectrum. A sausage called Melvin jumps off the plate and runs away followed by the cutlery and crockery, table and chair, not to mention a little crowd of peas, carrots and French fries (called Francois, Fifi etc.). The carrots escape in a paper bag, two of the three peas meet untimely ends, and most of the French fries sit down to enjoy the cricket in the park. The chair gets sat on, the sausaage befriends the cricket ball in the long grass, and Banjo the boy goes home hungry for pudding.....
The illustrations are good - with a bright fun feel that perfectly matches the story - and the whole package is a great delivery of a quirky tale.
And if you enjoy this, then follow it up with Half a Pig or The Cat who got carried away, by the same author.
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great fun
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I bought this book, on the strength of a newspaper review, for my 3 year old daughter. She thought it was hilarious, and we've enjoyed reading it with her.
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