Come Along

Based on Cosmo Sheldrake’s song of the same name, Come Along takes inspiration from Edward Lear, A A Milne and Lewis Carroll, and young readers will meet a heffalump, borogroves and slithy toves on an adventure that encourages them to escape the humdrum, depicted in Liniers’ painterly, detailed scenes as a sorrowful blue creature, with horns and something of a snail like appearance, protruding teeth notwithstanding. The ‘we’ of the story become two young rabbits, running on two legs and wearing the kind of outfits that the original readers of Milne would recognise, coats with collars, shorts. They race across the pages, embracing all the opportunities referred to in the text, enjoying a ‘Mad Hatter’s’ tea party with a range of equally formally dressed animals and birds, and gleefully follow the exhortation to dance and sing until sundown. The illustrations delight in all the joy presented through the text and will speak directly to children, while adults might pick up on the occasional notes of melancholy, but for both it will be a quirky, uplifting reading experience.

Read our Q&A interview with author Cosmo Sheldrake.