The Prickletrims Go Wild

The Prickletrim family love their garden – but control it in such detail that their gardener cannot stand it, and leaves. The family learns what happens when ‘the plants, full of life, burst forth EVERYWHERE!’

Dorleans has constructed a simple yet clever narrative here, with a similar message to Emily Gravett’s Tidy: that a world in which we control nature is in effect not really wild, and accepting that brings freedom. The artwork tells the story just as much as the text, moving from spare lines on a white page with lots of blank space standing for walls, paths, &c, to exuberant and less ruler-sharp depictions of leaves and flowers. Note the end papers: the first endpaper has regimented, almost characterless tulips in regular boxes; in the last endpapers the same boxes of five plants are bursting with exuberant flowers.

But what of the family, the Prickletrims? They are not without love for their garden – we see them enjoying it early on – but they are controlling to an annoying degree: witness the Mum checking the leaves against colour matching cards, or the Dad measuring the topiary. There is comedy here in their expressions and body language, underlined by the subdued colours. When their gardener – his name is Florian, linking him to the flowers – has had enough and flounces off, the drama and the comedy take over. The Prickletrims are increasingly unable to cope. The best openings to my mind are where ‘Deliveries soon became difficult,’ and we see an arm reaching up from the thick foliage to knock at the door and then later, where Dorlean suddenly changes the colour scheme to show us the joy and wonder of the garden at night.

While the family learns to enjoy their riotous garden, they cannot hold back time, and autumn – and a return to school and work – begins to beckon. What will they do? If the arrival of a ‘land-clearing company’ seems drastic, all is not lost, as the final opening shows.

The message is clear, and if on some level this all seems a little formulaic, there are plenty of readers who will enjoy this, revelling in the explosion of colour, and there would be plenty of short and long term class projects that could arise from or be enriched by the straightforward narrative and artwork.