No. 13: Read a story to a family member I've never met

I read Annabel, my cousin of 8, one of my all time favourite books; The Lost Happy Endings by Carol Ann Duffy. I've read it nearly as many times as points on this list. It's brilliant. Like most of the books I enjoy it is pretty dark in places. I do hope it didn't scare her and give her nightmares. That would be most unfortunate. She is brave though.

It goes like this...

Jub (who is a six-fingered oddity) has a very important job - she is in charge of releasing all of the Happy Endings from a huge sack into the night so that fairytales conclude in the manner that was intended.

One night on her way to fulfill her role, she is stopped by a frightfully grotesque witch. The witch snitches her sack and takes off with it into the forest.

That night there are no Happy Endings as the parents read stories to children. Red Riding Hood is eaten, Hansel & Gretel burn to death and Cinderella's foot is too fat.

Jub weeps either sorrow until the morning. She eventually falls asleep and dreams of a magic Golden Pen that can write on night itself. When she awakes, it is sitting in her bedside table.

She runs into the forest to write her own Happy Ending in which, the horrid hag burns herself to a crisp, allowing Jub to retrieve the sack.

Here are a few extracts; absolutely beautiful writing style.

One evening, as Jub set off with her full sack, she noticed scarves of mist draped in the trees. One of them noosed itself round Jub’s neck; soft and damp, and made her shiver. By the time she had reached the middle of the forest the mist had thickened and Jub could only see a little way ahead. The shadowy trees looked villainous; tall ghouls with long arms and twiggy fingers. Bushes crouched in the fog as though they were ready to pounce like muggers. Jub hurried on. “Hello, my small deario."

The witch lived in the trunk of a dead tree in the darkest, thorniest part of the forest. When she had forest opened the sack of Happy Endings she had been furious. They were worthless to a witch. They were boring and stupid. She had flung the sack into the corner of her lair and gone out again to bite the head off any small bird she could catch and crunch its beak between her long yellow teeth. But tonight the witch had decided that she was going to burn the sack of Happy Endings to make a fire for herself. She was going to dance around that fire and shout out terrible bad words and then drink poison berry juice (her favourite tipple) and smoke a clay pipe.  

Carol Ann Duffy really is a most excellent scrivener. The illustrations by Jane Ray are also completely brilliant - it's worth scouting out. There are not enough children's authors who not only weave a yarn to entertain sprogs but also make the adults reading them smile.

A very wise man once said; "A children's book that cannot be enjoyed by adults is not a good children's book in the slightest." And he should know, he wrote The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.