"Hamish, the bear who found his child"
was the first of several books reviewed, and was
Glasgow Herald Children's Book of the Month
At first glance the lives of most of the children
and creatures that appear here are fairly humdrum.
However, the genius of clever, thoughtful picture
books like these is their ability to expose in a
brief sequence of text and images, the powerful
currents of emotion that run beneath the surface.
As we close the covers, we can still feel the deep
desperation of Hamish the teddy ... to find love
and companionship. Sure, they're visual feasts,
packed wtih fun and frolic but they're so much more.
As Francis Spufford argues in The Child That Books
Built, stories can bring a child into a new relation
to ideas because of the way they're crafted. Through
books, he says, children experience differently
flavoured lives to their own and it changes the
way they think.
Hamish by Moira Munro
Did you choose your teddy or did he choose you?
Hamish is an action bear, too busy whizzing about
on his scooter to listen to Big Bear telling him
about how a bear can find his own special child
to love. Then a little girl comes to the House of
Teddies and Hamish falls for her in both senses.
Hamish is the perfect cipher for a chubby, independent,
contrary toddler. Tiny changes to the eyes and nose
shift his mood from jaunty to grumpy to lovelorn.
Tension builds with the bear's desperation to be
chosen and the resolution is deeply satisfying.
Cleverly, we never see the girl's face in this impressive
debut from a Glasgow-based former health and safety
specialist.
Anne Johnstone, in The
Herald, 'Scotland's best-selling quality national
newspaper', 3 May 2003.
