Embedded Files
Anne-Cath Vestly
I was very excited recently to find a Puffin first of this as it is one of a series I loved growing up and wanted to share with people. It is a lovely, quiet family story about the lives of a family with young children. Tensions are of the everyday sort like worries about being new to driving and a lack of money. Overwhelmingly though the book is positive and uplifting as an example of a wonderful family that the reader gets to feel part of. Unusually, especially when it was written, it features a stay at home dad while the mum goes out to work. This challenging of gender norms is fairly lightly done and mostly taken in a matter of fact way. It mostly comes up when talking to others who have their assumptions about what a family looks like challenged (This would be a great book to use alongside @moffat_andrew's No Outsiders work), most notably by the old women they meet on holiday. This in turn is done well, those who make assumptions about their family are not bad people but quite nice when they get to know them. In a lovely symmetry Aurora comments on the fact that they weren't at all like she assumed on first meeting them.
Another key theme of the book is breaking down the barriers between adults and children. The adults are fallible, have their own worries and insecurities but are overwhelmingly well meaning and treat the children as equals. This is particularly clear when the father talks to Socrates (Aurora's baby brother) in a way that shows he thinks Socrates can understand a lot, even if he can't communicate much yet. In response to this parenting that is open about the challenges of the world Aurora is emotionally observant, while retaining a child's experimental way of interacting with the world - often acting out various roles.
The early part of the book focusses on Aurora's dad learning how to drive, this is a great normalisation of the insecurities and difficulties of learning. At one point when learning the Highway Code Aurora suggests he read it to her and Socrates as a bedtime story. This is a wonderful insight that the power of reading to children comes only in part from the engaging nature of a text but in far larger part from that closeness between people spending time together with a book as a focus. This in turn creates a love for books in general.
The book is set in the block of flats where they live and get to know various neighbours. There are many other series written by Anne-Cath Vestly but sadly most are not translated into English. The line illustrations which I really enjoy are by Gunvor Edwards, better known for some of the Thomas the Tank Engine books. This would be a great book to read with Year 1/2 as respect for the child is foremost and their perspective is written into the book, all children will see something of themself in Aurora and Socrates. I would love to work with people to crowdfund to bring these back into print and translate more of the books into English.
Written by Jack.
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