topics: |  fiction | children

Excerpts

[mother dies when he was 4 mos old. so my father] washed me and fed me and changed my nappies and did all the millions of other things that a mother normally does... But my father didn't seem to mind. I think that all the love he had felt for my mother when she was alive was now lavished upon me. 11

There was an apple tree [with some boughs] hanging right over the caravan and when the wind blew the apples down at night they often landed on our roof. I would hear them going thump ... thump ... thump ... above my head as I lay in my bunk. 15 [believability via detail]

Danny can tell if someone's smile is real or fake:

      [His father is an eye-smiler - only his eyes
	twinkle when he smiles. ]

	it's impossible to make your eyes twinkle if you aren’t feeling
	twinkly yourself. A mouth-smile is different. You can fake a
	mouth-smile any time you want, simply by moving your lips. I've
	also learned that a real mouth-smile always has an eye-smile to go
	with it, so watch out, I say, when someone smiles at you with his
	mouth but the eyes stay the same. It's sure to be bogus.

3 Cars and Kites and Fire Balloons

I'll tell you something about the old bullfrog. He often becomes so
pleased with his own voice that his wife has to nudge him several
times before he’ll stop his burping and turn around to hug her... we
men are not so very different from the bullfrog.

5 The Secret Methods

    "All the best ways of poaching pheasants were discovered by my old dad,"
my father said. "My old dad studied poaching the way a scientist studies
science. ... whenever my dad thought up a new method of catching pheasants,
he tried it out on a rooster first to see if it worked."

Pheasants," he whispered, "are crazy about raisins.  ... Method Number
One," he said softly, "is known as The Horse-hair Stopper."

    "How does it work?"

    "It's very simple," he said. "First, you take a few raisins and you
soak them in water overnight to make them plump and soft and juicy.  
Then you get a bit of good stiff horse-hair and you cut it up into
half-inch lengths."

     "Here's what my dad discovered," he said. "... believe it or not,
the pheasant never moves his feet again! He becomes absolutely rooted to
the spot, and there he stands pumping his silly neck up and down just like
a piston, and all you’ve got to do is nip out quickly from the place where
you’re hiding and pick him up."

6 Mr. Victor Hazell

[one day their rich neighbour, Victor Hazell, arrived] at the pumps in
his glistening gleaming Rolls-Royce and had said to me, ‘Fill her up and
look sharp about it.’


quentin blake's illustrations show the p.o.v. of a 8-year old...


I was eight years old at the time. He didn’t get out of the car, he just
handed me the key to the cap of the petrol tank and as he did so, he
barked out, ‘And keep your filthy little hands to yourself, d’you
understand?’

I didn’t understand at all, so I said, ‘What do you mean, sir?’

There was a leather riding-crop on the seat beside him. He picked it up
and pointed it at me like a pistol. ‘If you make any dirty finger-marks on
my paint-work,’ he said, ‘I'll step right out of this car and give you a
good hiding.’

[daddy heard this and refused to serve him.  
And then a horde of government inspectors arrive at the station and harrass
them. ] 

Contents

 1  The Filling Station
 2  The Big Friendly Giant
 3  Cars and Kites and Fire Balloons [soapo]
 4  My Father's Deep Dark Secret [wakes up in the night to find his father
	 gone.  Turns out he loves to poach pheasants.]
 5  The Secret Methods
 7  The Baby Austin
 8  The Pit
	[daddy had gone poaching in Mr. Hazell's woods.  But they have dug
	 a pit and daddy has fallen in the pit when danny comes to rescue him.
	 Fortuitously, danny has driven up in the baby austin they were
	 repairing. ]
 9  Doc Spencer
10  The Great Shooting Party
11  The Sleeping Beauty
12  Thursday and School
13  Friday
14  In the Wood
15  The keeper
16  The Champion of the World
17  The Taxi
18  Home
19  Rockabye Baby
20  Good-bye Mr. Hazell
21  Doc Spencer's Surprise
22  My Father