Mr Potter's Pigeon

To whose who already love this book in its original format the Pocket Puffin will seem claustrophobic. Reg Cartwright's illustrations work best on large pages. However, it is still a gem. An inventive text leads the reader through far-flung scenes as the escaped pigeon travels its puzzling route then returns to Mr Potter's garden shed -- set in a very Douanier Rousseau garden with a most feral moggy called Lupin. The pictures and text combine to tell much more than just the story of the old man and his hobby: they reveal Mr Potter's sense of humour, his dependence on the pigeon, the arbitrariness of the natural world. In this edition the book ends with two pages of information; theories about homing pigeons, historical pigeons and record breaking pigeons. This is a particularly valuable budget book and a good addition to a Junior library.