5 Stars

"I'd like to give it 5 stars" my 5 year old daughter said, "because the lion didn't eat anyone."

We both judge books according to how much we enjoyed reading them, as opposed, for example, to literary merit, cultural significance or the authors' writing talent. The short discussion I had with my daughter about rating picture books on Goodreads showed me, however, that we can be using quite different criteria in our judgements. We both enjoyed Deborah Niland's Its Bedtime, William, the story of a little boy who finds a lion in his room at bedtime. I enjoyed seeing the tables turned and a toddler having to deal with bedtime avoidance strategies from an unfamiliar angle. My daughter was pleased that the lion was satisfied with an apple as a bedtime snack, and William survived to string out bedtimes in the future.

The ratings that I give reflect my personal and usually immediate reaction to a book. How I feel about a particular book on a particular day is, however, influenced by a whole range of factors. Was I in the right mood for this book? Was it written in the style I like, or a genre I enjoy? Did it suffer in comparison to other book I've read recently, or have I given it a higher rating than I would otherwise because it stood out in a field of less than enjoyable reads? While I do sometimes go and back and adjusted ratings (usually, but not always, down), the fact remains that the ratings I give are an emotional response not an objective one.

When I first started using Goodreads, it was to record what I’ve read because my memory for titles and authors is so unreliable.   After a while, I decided I’d use the rather clumsy  star rating system to record  how much I’d enjoyed the books, because even with authors, titles and cover images recorded, my memory again proved unreliable.  Though I’ve sometimes found the reviews written by other Goodreads users useful, I decided against writing any myself, reasoning that any time spent writing means less time for reading. And I would rather be reading.

Readit 2011: Geekreads

I approached geek reads, the readit 2011 theme for August, with trepidation. Science just does not stick with me.  However clearly a theory is explained, however well I think I understand, it's all gone with the turn of the page.  I think it's something to do with how poorly my mind processes symbols, numbers and patterns. I don't spell well, I can't play card games without muddling the suits and forgetting the rules and I have tremendous trouble remembering my home phone number and car numberplate.

So I approached Matthew Hedman's The Age of Everething: How Science Explains the Past with care.  This book explains a range of methods that scientists use to determine age. Aimed at non scientists, it is clearly written with very accessible explanations.  To ease myself in gently, I decided that I'd  just read a few chapters.  Though many were tempting (the Mayan calendar, the pyramids, human DNA) , my passion for Tony Jones' Time Team pushed me in the direction of the chapters that dealt with Carbon 14 dating.

Hedman first explains atomic structure, the difference between normal carbon (carbon 12) and carbon 14, and why measuring the amount of carbon 14 in organic deposits can be used to determine the age of those deposits.  He takes a brief step in the direction of quantum physics to address the question of why, if each carbon 12 atom could change  to a cabon 14 atom at any point, they do so in a nice uniform, yet individually unpredictable way that makes carbon dating possible.  I was quite happy with the explanation, which as I understand it can be summarized as 'because'.  This is the sort of scientific explanation that is within my grasp. 

I read another chapter, dealing with the practical application of the science in dating the human habitation of the Americas, and at this point, feeling quite pleased with my progress, put the book down.  I'd like to go back and read more chapters at a point when I can find some quiet stretches of time and give it my full attention.

Sally Magnusson's The Life of Pee: The Story of how Urine got Everywhere is an ideal book to read when quiet time is not plentiful, and you can just fit  in a page or two at a time.  It is a collection of urine related facts, some scientific, some historical and some just plain strange.  The entries, in short paragraphs and arranged alphabetically, include  C for cocain (the use of wich can be accurately guaged by testing waste at sewage treatment plants) , M for Marathon Runners (who apparently do not stop to visit public toilets) and P for Picasso (who attempted to use urine to hasten the oxidation process on his bronze sculptures).  Mildly amusing and informative, it captured the interests of the kids who attended my library's after school book group.

My third geek read was a biography: Darwin, His Daughter and Human Evolution ( also published as Annie's Box and Creation) by Randal Keynes, a great great grandson of Charles Darwin.  The book emphasizes Charles Darwin's family life, with his wife Emma and  their 10 children, and suggests that this family life was influential in the development of Darwin's scientific theories.  Keynes shows the detailed notes that Darwin made observing his own children's early development, and those he made on the first orangutangs to be displayed at the London zoo, and argues that these, along with observations made on the Beagle voyage and then poetry of Wordsworth shaped Darwins thinking on human nature and evolution.  Further, Keynes argues that the death of Charles & Emma's eldest daughter, Annie, at age 10, led Charles (but not Emma) to a rejection of religious beliefs. He never attended church again after Annie's death. 

Keynes show just how radical Darwin's theories appeared to many of his contemporaries.  He also show Charles Darwin as a warm and loving family man, who welcomed and enjoyed the company of his chidren.

The Recipes in My Life

For me, cookbooks and food magazines are entertainment rather than applied science.   I flick the pages, browse the illustrations and occasionally read an entire recipe with no intention of doing anything so practical or active as actually preparing food.  My pallet is broad.  I'll browse any number of international cuisines, celebrity chefs & quirky ingredients.  I'm particularly partial healthy lifestyle and gourmet cookery, opposites that to me represent lifestyles I'm equally unlikely to experience. A sweet tooth and a fondness for pretty pictures adds to my enjoyment cake decorating books, and I felt great kinship with a group of preschoolers who visited my library and 'read' a birthday cake book together. They examined every image, discussed the desirable features of each cake, then (in contravention of our no food in the library policy), 'ate' each page, accompanied by gobbling sounds.

Occasionally, though, I am inspired to actually try a recipe, and even more occasionally, that recipe becomes a regular in our food repertoire.

Some of these recipes have suited us so well that we aim to reproduce them in every detail, including suggested accompaniments. These include 'Pork Steaks with Brown Sugar Apples' (Marie Claire Food Fast) 'Carrot & Thyme Tart' (The New Glucose Revolution Life Plan), 'Steamed Chicken Breast' (Stephanie Alexander's The Cooks Companion), 'Garjar, Aloo, Mattar' (Vicky Bohgal's Cooking Like Mummyji) and 'Chicken with Pumpkin & Spicy Sauce' from the long defunct SimplyLite magazine (Summer 2000 edition).

Some recipes require a little tweaking.  I prefer to use Balti curry paste, rather than Korma when making 'Spicy Chickpea Fritters' (Super Food Ideas, February 2010 edition) and always omit the flour when cooking Stephanie Alexander's excellent 'Bolognaise Sauce'. 'Moroccan Roasted Sweet Potato Soup' (The Soup Book) becomes more kid friendly if commercially mixed Harissa is replaced with a home made spice blend with less chili, and 'Banana & Almond Loaf', (Gabriel Gate’s Family Food) is much enhanced by doubling the cinnamon and sultanas and omitting the almonds.

Sometimes, we've combined elements from two recipes.  'Carrot Soup with Hazelnut Dukkah' (Australian Gourmet Traveler, August 2007 edition) becomes a heartier meal when chickpeas are added, as suggested by the recipe for 'Carrot & Chickpea Soup' (Super Food Ideas, May 2009 edition), but possibly less gourmet when the Dukkah is omitted, as suggested by my kids. Elements from both the 'Sweet Cherry Tomato & Sausage Bake'' (Jamie At Home) and 'Brunch Bake' (Taste.com) have combined to make a oven baked sausage and veg dish that all members of my family will eat without argument.

There are some seasonal features in our repertoire.  If I don't get round to making the 'Light Fruit Cake' (Australian Gourmet Traveler, November 2001 edition) that features dried pawpaw, pineapple, apricots, peaches and pistachios at Christmas time, I'll cook it a few weeks later for my husbands birthday. While my mum continues to advocate for the pastry recipe she learnt at school (which she enticingly describes as 'half fat to flour'), I always make my mince pies using with 'Almond Pastry' (Australian Gourmet Traveler, December 2004 edition).  I would not, however, dream of making my own fruit mince as suggested.  Jars of Robinson's fruit mince are one family tradition from which I will not deviate. My annual contribution to our family's Christmas buffet (and anywhere else I'm asked to bring a plate) is 'Roasted Warm Potato Salad' (Potatoes: From Gnocchi to Mash). My habit is so well known that when someone bought a similar dish to a recent get together, everyone assumed that they were just helping to carry my offering. Ever since, I've taken my second string salad: a mix of leaves with 'Dressing for Green Salad' (The Cooks Companion).

The particular stage in our lives at which some recipes became regulars is easy to pinpoint.  We first cooked 'Pasta with Pepper Relish' (Delia's  How To Cook) when a lengthy period of painful acid reflux banished tomatoes, and consequently the pasta sauces we regularly cooked, from our diet. 'Cheese Sauce' (Robin Barker's Baby & Toddler Meals) was a standard when our children were at the mush eating stage. In the months after we acquired an ice cream machine, 'Vanilla Bean Ice Cream' from (SimplyLite, Summer 2000 edition), and a home grown variation, coffee bean ice cream, were churned almost weekly. Our attempt to adapt a delicious recipe for strawberry and clove ice cream (Australian Gourmet Traveler November 2000) to create blueberry ice cream resulted in such an unappetizing icy mess that we have been permanently discouraged.

Some recipes, once firmly in our repertoire, have fallen away.  We can no longer make a delicious African inspired stew of turmeric rubbed chicken since the recipe, with its long list of spices, was lost. All attempts to recreate the dish from memory, or locate the original source (perhaps The New York Times magazine, from some time in the early 1990s) have been utter failures. Some of the more complex, time consuming or strongly flavoured dishes we enjoyed before having children have been retired too, among them 'Chicken with Red Wine Vinegar & Tomato' (The Cooks Companion) and 'Pork Fillet, Sweet Potato & Sesame Seed Salad' (Australian Gourmet On The Run) and 'Salmon Burgers' (Rosemary Stanton's Healthy Living Cookbook).  Thankfully, as they grow, the kids are both more willing to try a variety of dishes, and more able to consume some without making a major mess. Soup is back on the menu, after a short hiatus. I highly recommend 'Roast Pumpkin with Middle Eastern Spices' (Australian Gourmet Traveler, August 2001 edition), 'Roast Red Pepper, Fennel & Tomato' and 'African Sweet Potato Soup' (but caution that it does contain peanuts), both from The Soup Book.

The kids are enthusiastic in their support of regularly cooking and consuming the cakes in our repertoire. They both love 'Sticky Gingerbread Cake' (Healthy Lunchboxes for Kids), that can be relied upon to turn out well every time, no matter how many helping hands are dipped into the batter. 'Coconut Cake with Lime Syrup' (Australian Gourmet On The Run is a messier favorite. There have been some disappointments, though.   I will never forget the look of anger and dismay on the face of my eldest at 15 months, when the promised  'Buttermilk  Pancakes" (The Cooks Companion), were found to be more pan than cake. Though a favorite with most of the family, 'Simple Lemon Slice'  another find from The Cooks Companion (I double the base and cook the topping for  20 minutes longer than recommended) is too sharp for my youngest, and a recent discovery, 'Poppy Seed & Ricotta Cake with Lemon Curd' (Australian Gourmet Traveler, October 2010 edition), has been retired from family gatherings, since we discovered her poppy seed allergy.

Of course, not all recipes in our regular repertoire come from books.  Some come from friends: we regularly enjoy what is known as 'Michael's Bean Salad', though his partner has pointed out that it should more accurately be named after her, and  'Gayle's Mother-in-Law's Chocolate Fudge Slice' is a reliable favorite. Other meals are inspired by the food our parents fed us as children: South African inspired curries, English Shepherds Pie, Sausage  & Mash,  Egg & Chips, roast dinners with plenty of veg and casseroles.

Over the years of cook book browsing I've discovered many recipes that have transformed from words on a page to part of my life and the language of my family.  It's enough to encourage me to keep browsing.

Readit 2011: Whodunnit?

The Readit 2011 theme for July was Whodunnit?  While I don’t often read in this genre, advice from library borrowers and the Novelist Plus database led me too some excellent and varied writers, who in turn led me to conclude that I can only read a limited number of violent and psychopathic murders, before I need some light relief.

All but one of the books I read were part of series, which I found myself pursuing, partly because when I find an author I enjoy reading, I want to prolong that enjoyment, and partly to find out how the recurring characters develop (or don’t) over a number of books.

Mary Higgins Clark’s On the Street Where You Live is the one stand alone title that I read.  It deals with the murders of young women that parallel a series of unsolved killings that occurred in the same costal community more than a hundred years before.  Clark sets up a cast of potential victims and murderers, some with family links to the century old murders, introduces a long lost diary, the possibility of a re-incarnated killer and main character troubled by a broken marriage and stalker.  The tension builds, but reader never doubts that the killer will be found.

Cassandra Clark’s Red Velvet Turnshoe is the second book in a series featuring the Mediaeval Abbess of Meux.  I think that I would have taken more from this book if I had read the first and had a greater understanding of the relationships between the recurring characters, especially as Clark writes to obscure her central character’s thinking, distancing the reader from any emotional engagement.   I also wonder how realistic the depiction of a woman of this time travelling so extensively is.  Despite this, Clark successfully evokes the cold, dirt and discomfort of medieval travel, and writes some intriguing (incidental) characters.

Inger Ash Wolfe is the pseudonym of a “well known literary” author, according the jacket notes of The Calling.  The central character, Hazel Micalef, is a woman in her 60s, acting as a police chief in a small town in rural Canada.  She lives with her impressive mother, deals with crippling back pain, seriously unsupportive superiors and her ex husband (and his new wife) while solving what initially appears to be a series of unrelated killings of terminally ill victims. Wolfe gives the reader just enough glimpses of the killer, alongside the main narrative of the police investigation, to build the tension the reader feels to levels of real anxiety. Highly recommended, though gruesome.  Wolfe has written a second novel, featuring Hazel Micalef, The Taken.

Susan Hill’s “Simon Serailler” series, recommended by a borrower at my library, plays with detective novel conventions.  Serailler, a senior detective in an English Cathedral town, is a minor character in the first novel, The Various Haunts of Men.  The focus is on the characters, including a police detective, who are eventually murdered by a serial killer. In second novel, The Pure in Heart, the focus shifts to Serailler and his extended family, but the ‘crime’ - the disappearance and suspected murder of a child - remains unsolved until the third novel in the series: The Risk of Darkness.  Hill is not scared to cull her recurring characters, via death or promotion.  Nor is she scared to make her main character quite unattractively flawed. I’m looking forward to reading the fourth and fifth titles in the series.

Rennie Airth’s three novels span a twenty year period and feature John Madden, who in the first novel is a police inspector scarred by grief of loosing his family and the trenches of the first world war.  Set at roughly ten year intervals (River of Darkness in 1921, Blood Dimmed Tide in 1932 & Dead of Winter in 1944), the police are shown coming to terms with a range of investigative techniques, including forensics and psychological profiling, as they solve first the murder of an entire family at a country home, then the violent killing of a young child, and lastly the very professional killing of a young Polish refugee in wartime London. Though the novels, essentially police procedurals, do at times rely on coincidence and cliché (all the murderers have cold eyes), they feature a cast of well drawn characters who mature and develop over the series.  Very highly recommended.

Finally, for a little light relief, I turned to Rhys Bowen’s Royal Spyness novels. that are set in the early 1930s, and feature Georgie, the impoverished daughter of the late Duke of Glengary & Ranoch and granddaughter of Queen Victoria’s least attractive daughter.  Invited to lunch with cousin Queen Mary (who has her eye on some of the Ranoch treasures), Georgie is asked to perform a series of “favours”: Spy on Mrs Simpson (Her Royal Spyness), baby sit a foreign princess (A Royal Pain), discover the identity of a would be royal assassin (Royal Flush) & represent the royal family at a wedding in Transylvania (Royal Blood).  In all her endeavours, Georgie is supported by a cast of characters including her “bolter’ of a mother, her (non ducal) grandfather, an ex policeman inflicted with doubtful cockney rhyming slang, an old school chum of independent means living the high life and her love interest, a handsome but impoverished Irish charmer. These novels are a blend humour, drawing room comedy and cosy crime, but hint at the very real misery of depression gripped 1930s London.

Going off on a Tangent

The Readit 2011 theme for June was Go Reads, and I thought that I’d read some travel guides to plan a holiday and some travel writers.  I even borrowed some from the library.  But I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to plan a holiday, or to read about other people’s travels.  I did dip into Jan Morris’ A Writers World: Travels 1950-2000 and enjoyed a few short pieces, but I didn’t recognise the Sydney that she wrote about, and quickly lost interest.

I decided that I needed to tackle the challenge from another perspective, and so turned to fiction.

The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy was sitting on my bookshelf, marked for a re-read following Towel Day on the 25^th of May.  My cousin first introduced me to Douglas Adams writing when I was 16, when our extended family was snowed in for more than a week in the English countryside.  No one could get in or out, and food and book supplies were dwindling.  We were surviving on cup-a-soups and I’d read my way through my grandmothers collection Catherine Cookson and Readers Digest condensed novels.  The Hitchhikers Guide was a revelation.  It was funny and thought provoking, and most definitely a different type of book to Tilly Trotter. 

Rereading the Hitchhikers guide, 25 years later, having read all Douglas Adam’s sequels, knowing the trials and tribulations ahead of Arthur Dent, knowing how long he’d have to wait to get a decent cup of tea, was a revelation all over again.  The writing, the ideas, the lunacy, are as strong and fresh as ever. 

Sticking with the fantasy travel theme, I decided that it was time to broaden my understanding of time travel.  Alison Uttley’s A Traveller in Time was a childhood favourite I’m a big fan of Connie Willis and Audrey Niffenegger’s The Time Traveller’s Wife.  A quick search of my library’s catalogue confirmed that time travel crops up far more often in children’s books than it does in books for adults.  I chose two books that were currently available: The Boy I Loved Before by Jenny Colgan (also published as Do You Remember the First Time) and Robert J Sawyer’s Flashforward. 

Bumping into an old boyfriend at a wedding, Colgan’s main character, Flora, realises how dissatisfied she is with her job, her fiancée and life in general.  She wishes she could go back in time to make different choices, and is promptly transported back one month in time and transformed into a 16 year old schoolgirl, living with her parents again.  The story then revolves around Flora trying to fit in as a sixteen year old, encountering mean girls and making a friend at school, preventing her parent’s marriage break up, and sleeping with her ex boyfriends younger brother.  At the end of the month, Flora again attends the wedding, and transforms back into her 30something self, to find that her parents marriage has been saved, her unwanted fiancée conveniently wants to marry someone else, and the old boyfriend is still attracted to her – as is his younger brother who finds her strangely familiar.  I found this a messy and unsatisfying read.  The different elements of the story seemed glued together rather than integrated, and consequently, the conveniently tidy ending for all (one bridegroom substituted for another in the space of a month with no unhappy feelings!) was unbelievable. Far from being the type of sympathetic character you want things to turn out for, Flora is selfish and unlikable, especially in her treatment of the friend she makes as a 16 year old.

Sawyer’s Flashforward deals with freak series of events involving the particle accelerator at CERN that results in the entire human race “flashing” forward to experience a few minutes of their life twenty years in the future.  The characters then cope with the consequences of the flashforward, struggling to work out if the future is inevitable, or with foreknowledge, it can be changed.  This is  a wonderful set up, and I can understand why it appealed to the makers of the TV series it inspired, unfortunately, it does not live up to its promise.  Firstly, Sawyer spends a lot of time explaining and making the science plausible, in a clumsy way that intrudes upon, rather than enhances the storyline.  I would have been happy to accept that the flashforward happened, as a matter of suspended  disbelief. I don’t need to know the detail necessary to recreate the event in my own backyard. 

Secondly, Sawyers characters are one dimensional, obsessed with themselves and lacking empathy for everyone, even those you’d expect them to care for deeply.  As a result they are not just unlikeable, but unbelievable.  They feel like “types” or cogs in a narrative machine, rather than real people with real feelings.   One character, obsessed with “solving” his own future murder, hounds a traumatised young boy for details of an autopsy he witnessed in the flashforward, and barely registers the distress of his brother who is on the verge of suicide.  Another leaves strangers to care for the body of his stepdaughter, who dies as a result of the flashforward, in case he is needed back to work. Most jarring was the language used by a 30 year old character to describe the body of a 50 year old they saw in flashforward.  I’m willing to believe that a 30 year old man might not find a 50 year old woman attractive, but to describe her as a “hag”, and her body as like “fruit gone bad” seems excessive.

Undies!

What’s not to love about undies?  They keep you comfy, but more importantly, come in an infinite variety of colours and patterns, suitable for nearly every occasion.  It is hardly surprising that such a momentous and important item of clothing is celebrated by a wealth of picture books for children.

What Colour are your Knickers? by Sam Lloyd introduces two important concepts: undies are interesting, and bottoms are funny.  Each page shows a friendly cartoon animal, either clothed or posed behind strategically placed greenery, who is asked “What Colour are your Knickers?” Readers can lift the flap to find the answer and see the knickers in question.  Until the last page that is, when lifting the leaves strategically covering the nether regions of an elephant reveals that he has forgotten to put on any knickers at all!  The rhythmic repetition of the question, the colour based answer, simple enough for a toddler to give, and the bare bottom joke combine to make this a lovely book, suitable to read with a young child.

The infinite variety of undies is celebrated by Giles Andreae in More Pants.  All types of people and animals wear pants decorated to reflect their suitability for a variety of occasions:  an Egyptian mummy wears pyramid patterns, a gingerbread man wears icing sugar pants and  a dapper gentleman in a tail coat wears a pair of ‘dancing with the queen pants’ decorated with orb, sceptre and crown.  There’s a submarine shaped like a giant pair of yellow undies and a Viking ship with pair of pants boldly emblazoned on its sail.  Andreae uses simple rhyme, rhythm and humour that are perfectly complemented by Nick Sharratt’s bold and bright and funny illustrations.  Also included: a fart joke, a vigorous bottom scratch and an invitation to join the exuberant children on the last page in leaping high to celebrate undies ownership.

It’s all very well to celebrate the infinite variety of undies, but it’s also important to examine the very important role that they have played in human development and society.  Slightly older readers will enjoy the stories told by Claire Freedman & Ben Cort in Dinosaurs Love Underpants, Aliens Love Underpants and Aliens In Underpants Save the World.

It seems that ancient people invented underpants to avoid being nude and rude. Dinosaurs, impressed, stole the undies, but could not share amongst themselves, resulting in “a mighty pants war”. Thus the entire dinosaur race was wiped out in, clearing the field for people to flourish and wear their undies in peace.

Aliens too, are keen on undies. In fact the primary reason for extraterrestrial visits to Earth is to steal our undies, as there are none in space.  When the Earth is threatened by a meteorite on a collision course, aliens rush to save us, constructing a giant pair of undies, and deflecting the meteorite back into space with some springy knicker elastic.

These books combine the simple rhyme and variety of undies found in the books for younger readers with engaging stories and the lesson that undies have saved the human race on more than one occasion.  It is interesting that while bottom humour, in the form of some blushing naked cave people, can be found in the first book; an important cultural difference is highlighted by the others: aliens do not seem to find bottoms either embarrassing or funny.

The Lego Book

In 1974, shortly after I unwillingly acquired a sister, my parents decided that the matchbox car they’d given me as a consolation prize was not working.  So my dad cut and saved coupons from the back of breakfast cereal packets to send away for some free Lego blocks.  Fortunately he stuffed up, and posted the coupons too late to be eligible for the box of blocks.  But the Lego people were kind, or maybe they just knew their market well, because although they couldn’t send be blocks, they did send me a pack of Lego people.  Specifically, they sent set #200, a mother, father, daughter, son and grandmother (complete with grey hair, worn in a bun) and my love affair with Lego began.

My Lego collection grew, though, in deference to my younger sister’s habit of putting everything in her mouth, my parents favored the larger Duplo blocks.  I acquired set #514 Pre School Building set, full of blocks and arches in bright primary colours, and a set of bogies, that I used to make trains for my people to travel on.  Being the smaller Lego, they didn’t click well into the Duplo, and often fell off. Only the Duplo people my sister acquired with Legoville set #524 traveled in true safely.

At Christmastime in 1977, a friend with cashed up Godparents got lucky and was given a battery operated Lego train.  As they’d previously given him a very gaudy gold music box in the shape of the Vatican, complete with saints waiving out of the windows, (which, while quite a talking piece among the children in the street, was not a lot of fun to play with), I suppose he really had earned his luck.  He was generous with the train too, allowing me to play with it for hours.  In fact, I played with it so often that I was asked to contribute my pocket money to the cost of replacement batteries.  Luckily, my parents decided that we should leave the country (for unrelated reasons) before my income could be garnered.

So how do I know all these detailed set numbers and dates of issue?  And how on earth does this relate to reading?  The answer is a set of two marvelous books published by Dorling Kindersley:  The Lego Book by Daniel Lipkowitz, and its companion Standing Small: A celebration of 30 years of the Lego Minifigure by Nevin Martell.    

These books are packed with illustrations, in what I think of as the Dorling Kindersley Style – clean white backgrounds, bright crisp photos, and snippets of informative text.  They chronicle the development of Lego, from the patenting of the first brick in 1958 to the present, and provide a reminder for every child who grew up with Lego of all the sets they had themselves, yearned for at the toyshop or begged for at Christmas time. 

Flicking through these books, I’ve been flooded by memories of my childhood; of playing with my own Lego collection, and with those belonging to cousins and friends. Mostly though, I remember how much fun we had, how the Lego would stay out on the lounge room floor for days as we grappled with construction problems and negotiated the demolition of one building to free up essential bricks for a new project.

I still have my Lego collection.  It lives in a large plastic box, shaped like a Lego brick, under my bed.  Though my Mum convinced me to give my Duplo away in 1981 (a decision I instantly regretted), the collection has grown considerably, thanks to a huge injection.  After years of marriage, my husband finally agreed to make the ultimate commitment and merge his Lego collection with mine.   We’re looking forward to the day when we can be confident that the kids can play with small Lego pieces without ingesting them, and the collection can be scattered across the lounge room floor again.