Do you remember the Usborne First Thousand Words books? They came in various languages, including English. I think they were one of those things that parents might buy in another language, and hope some of it would stick.
What definitely stuck was the spot the duck bit. Hidden on every double spread is a duck, with a very inscrutable expression – a bit like Gromit, but without the eyebrows thing. And, of course, the duck turns up in various guises – some ‘sensible’, some less so.
These days, you can’t move for the ‘spot the themed item’ in children’s books (improving or otherwise). And it is fun. But the bigger enjoyment of the duck was the way he turned up in pictures to poke fun at what was happening.
I can’t detail too many, or it would spoil the fun. Let’s just say that duck eating spaghetti is one of my personal favourites.
There seems to be an Usborne book for everything these days. I’m not knocking it –
I get quite a few of them, and I rather like their colour in cards.
But those earlier books retained a little of the genuine scruffiness of childhood experiences: dads with hair going the wrong way and shirts coming out; kids not wearing matching anything, and far more interested in getting close up to a manic duck.
And I like that. But I also like the broader notion that there is absurdity out there – we just have to keep our eyes peeled.
It may be camouflaged in daily life, but it is still available. And when it turns up the scruffiness of parenting life, it is all the more welcome.