Children’s books of the month: creature comforts

When choosing books for children, it is hard to know how much to trust – or impose – your own preferences. There is a risk that the republic of bedtime reading can slide into dictatorship: the process of discovery, even if a child is drawn to a book that the parent loathes, is crucial to the development of their tastes. A similar predicament applies to authors too. How much of their knowledge of the world can be communicated effectively to those who know far less? Do they remove the concerns of adult life or hope that, by including them, their readers will grow in understanding?

Those questions are particularly pertinent for authors who have previously written only books for adults. Max Porter’s Dylan Thomas prize-winning debut novella, Grief Is the Thing With Feathers, is far removed from Dogs and Bears (Faber, £7.99, published 30 July), his first book for children, but it shares an affection for the unexpected.

The bears don’t like their canine counterparts. They’ve been “brawling” for some time over the pettiest of things: dogs wearing “jackets, cloaks or bandanas”; or their habit of making sweets causing the smell of “burnt sugar on the breeze”. That’s enough, as Dorothée de Monfreid’s illustrations show, for the bears to chase the dogs up flagpoles and into bushes, while, after warming up with yoga, barbells and tai chi, the dogs retaliate with poodles yanking their enemies’ ears and terriers kicking their shins.

A moralising narrator makes clear its feelings about these skirmishes before summoning an intervention that helps the bears and dogs see the error of their ways. The fights are off, at least temporarily, and the once-sparring factions become unlikely allies on a joint errand – the bears carrying the dogs when they tire and the dogs entertaining the bears with beatboxing and quizzes.

This is a story full of delightful details but one that asks a lot of its young readers. The narrator interrupts often, preaching the virtues of peace and detracting from the absurdity of the story. There is too much of the adult world.

Neighbour’s Cat (Walker, £7.99, 2 July), by Michael Rosen, finds a better balance. The book that made Rosen’s name, We’re Going On a Bear Hunt, gave its protagonists an adventurous spirit, wading through rivers and swishy-swashing through grass in pursuit of a mysterious other. His latest flips that narrative on its head, with a feline foreigner encroaching on someone else’s territory, sampling every seat in search of comfort and complaining about the volume of the TV.

When the cat goes upstairs, the narrator imagines all sorts of boorish behaviour: constructing a vast marble run, indulging in a bubble bath, even planning an escape from the attic to space with a horde of robot cats – all imaginatively illustrated by Alex Willmore. That these fears are unfounded is a far simpler lesson than Porter’s convoluted advocacy of non-violence.

Equally pleasing is Harry Woodgate’s The Butterfly House (Andersen Press, £7.99), which in the writer’s own illustrations presents its tale of acceptance and community in a riot of colour. We follow Holly as she offers an olive branch to Miss Brown, the neighbourhood outcast whose garden is overgrown. Dragging along her brother Arlo and eventually a glut of assistants, Holly helps Miss Brown embrace the joy of nature.

Rather than Woodgate’s kaleidoscopic pictures, Pam Fong relies almost entirely on monochrome pencil sketches to illustrate a transformation from boredom to awe in Claire and the Cathedral (Greenwillow, £14.99). Claire kicks her heels in a Notre Dame-like building before finding joy in the sounds of a violinist and the sight of a stained-glass window.

No matter your faith or lack of it, you are likely to recognise the feeling that places of worship can inspire. It’s an instinctive reaction; a rapt stillness that momentarily helps you forget the world outside. That’s true of Fong’s wordless tale, too: here there is no judgment and no moralising, just wonder. It’s the kind of book I would encourage any child to open.

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Illustrations courtesy of Dorothée de Monfreid, Alex Willmore, Harry Woodgate, Pam Fong