Chocolate slugshake, anyone?

Sick of slugs?  Then I’m sorry, but you’ve come to the wrong place.  Sun Dried Sparrows is full of 'em.  Here are some more.

I got this great little paperback when I was in my twenties, on a trip to London, from one of those bookshops where nothing seemed to be in any order, just jumbled up for you to rummage through, piled up on tables and underneath them too so you had to get on your hands and knees and have a good old grope around.  So there I was on all fours when, quite fittingly perhaps, I found this.  It's one of the few books I've kept for all that time.

I’ve gathered it’s a bit of a classic - although out of print now, I think.

  

Those who know me will know that I can get a little tired of doing ‘cute’.  It helps to pay the bills but my darker inner self longs to fill pages with the weird, the wild and the ugly: bats, rats, mammoths, boars and manatees, perhaps.   I can't find anyone who'll take that risk with me...

Slugs would be just fine, wouldn't they? 

 But I couldn’t compete with these.

And just so you know…

If you do treat your slugs badly,
- like this, perhaps...

 or this…

 This is what happens to you.

Think on.

('Slugs' was written by David Greenberg and illustrated by Victoria Chessman.  Published by Pepper Press, 1983)

Picture (book) post

Today I just wanted to post some illustrations from a couple of beautiful old books that have been kindly passed on to me, having been in my family for a long time.  These publications date back to the early 1900s, although the originals were created some time before that, around the 1860s I believe.  The illustrator, Randolph Caldecott, died aged only 40 in 1886.

There’s a light sense of humour in his work which would become more evident later when he also illustrated for ‘Punch’ magazine, and he was known for gently poking fun at the establishment.  I’m sure some of the pictures I’ve posted below could elicit some interesting captions (that Queen of Hearts has such a wicked look on her face, I'm sure she's not really thinking about jam)… if you can think of anything, feel free to suggest it!