The Skeleton in the Cupboard and Other Stories

This charming collection of stories for children is, I think, the first book by its Latvian author to be translated into English. Its curiously named characters, brought to life by the author’s own illustrations, remind me somewhat of Tove Jansson’s Moomins. The Squishbod of the opening tale even looks like a Moomin. This community, too, lives close to nature, lyrically invoked by Berzinska, but on the wooded Livonian shoreline rather than in the Finnish forests. Like the Moomins, these creatures are human in everything but shape. And, in their original Latvian names and appearance, they are mostly closer to real Livonian fauna than the Moomins are to anything found in Sweden or Finland. The stories are fables in the manner of Aesop that examine human foibles, aspirations and passions with sympathy and irony. In the title story, Squishbod takes his secret skeleton out of the cupboard once a year to dust it off and take it for a walk, careful that no one should see, blissfully unaware that his neighbours are wondering whether he might welcome some help in this awkward solitary stroll. In a beautiful and salutary tale of reciprocal sacrificial love, restless Sea Wolf stays with Hare because he realizes that Hare needs him, only for Hare to release him back to the sea when he sees the sadness in his friend’s eyes. There are creatures of whom the author clearly disapproves: shopping-mad Spendthrift is one; as is Waterboatman, whose life revolves around success and winning the approval of others. But mainly these are tales about more vulnerable and anxious characters, who feel a lack of confidence in themselves and their aspirations, or are assailed by a fog of more general confusion (literally in the tale entitled ‘The End of the World’). They are gentle folk who find loving friends to offer them companionship and reassurance.