The Emperor's New Clothes

Lewis presents a plain and powerful retelling of a tale that needs no embroidering. The relevance of a yarn about a pair of spivs marketing a non existent commodity, and using the vanity and insecurity of an entire nation in order to convince the populace of its indispensable value, has a cultural, political and religious relevance which is blazingly radiant. Read this to infants and juniors, but do not forget to persuade older children to discuss its implications too. Barrett has set the tale in the pre Great War belle epoque, with a sleazily effete emperor surrounded by lap dogs and sycophants. The verisimilitude of her paintings of the fashions and ephemera of the time are impressive. Perhaps she could be persuaded to do a 1990s version some time?