Looking After Little Ellie

An ordinary tale of baby-sitting Ellie, comforting, feeding and changing her, taking her out in her pushchair to the park to play on the swing and the see-saw and home again to mum, is made extraordinary when the sitters are half a dozen mice and the baby, an elephant. The very idea is risible and there are laughs aplenty as the absurdity of the situation is exploited in the illustrations and in the brief, deadpan text. The former combine pastel shades, paint, collage and photomontage. The result is irresistible to young children, especially the double spread of the mice (one with a peg on its nose, another in a gas mask and a third knocked out, half out of the frame) attempting to dispose of the contents of Little Ellie’s nappy: three steaming lumps of elephant poo.