A Barmy Prophecy

February 3, 2022February 3, 2022Leave a comment

So, Castle Barmy, a fairy tale for our times, is still making its way in this crazy world, over troubled moats, while not yet quite storming the ramparts. It’s in a warehouse, in the Railway Land Store, in some wonderfully supportive bookshops and with a distributor in Wales. It’s even popped up in Waterstone’s.

Strangely, the story has grown less and less like a fairy tale, and closer and closer to the truth, as the world spins upside down. We have King Boris hoping the poisonous dragon will go away, so that he can enjoy his fun and games. We have a birthday party, a picnic, the stealing of gold, and a flurry of excuses and lies for the bad behaviour of kings and magicians. And then we have King Boris being cast adrift in a boat, so that the land can grow greener and the kingdom ruled over by women and children instead of powerful men. Ah, we can but hope…

And we also have this animation by our amazing illustrator Kate Chesterton, to tempt you to join us at Castle Barmy, and share in a bedtime story that promises us all happier times ahead.

Wordle 2: Sign of the Times

February 3, 2022Leave a comment

Oh Wordle, you were set for free!
We loved you for your lack of fee.
Now New York Times makes you her bride,
And wordles, words and worlds collide.
We can’t begrudge you such a bid,
But trust you will not slide off grid.

Wordle 1: Barmy

February 3, 2022Leave a comment

Welcome to our worldle, oh joyful Wordle!
You encircled our globe like a global girdle.
Now I can’t help but nurdle five-letter words,
Like brain and brawn and beast and birds,
Like times and clock and tocks and ticks,
How sad your name requires six.

HAPPY WORLD BOOK DAY!

March 4, 2021February 3, 2022Leave a comment

May all your stories have dragons,
May all your dragons have knights,
And may all your nights have stories…

Text © copyright 2020 Jason Hook
Artwork © copyright 2020 Kate Chesterton
From ‘Castle Barmy’ by Jason Hook & Kate Chesterton
Ebook published December 2020, Hardback published May 2021
Available from railwaylandpress

Turning the World Upside Down

February 14, 2020February 14, 2020Leave a comment

On Valentine’s Day, I’ve treated myself by spending a little time and showing some love for my unpublished children’s book, Isabella Mawtle’s Immortal Vanishing Cream. This excerpt is from the chapter where Pip and Molly Mawtle, trapped in their Great-aunt Isabella’s bewitched house, tumble through a revolving floor, and find their world turned upside down in every conceivable way.

I hope you don’t mind me sharing…

“As the Cursery Rhyme whirled about her ears, Molly’s end of the see-saw soared too high. Molly see-ed up and Pip saw-ed down, and the floor revolved until it stood on end – and then tipped completely over. Their world turned upside-down and Pip and Molly were sent somersaulting into the darkness as, high above them, a fading violin voice whirled…

‘I’ve looked inside your hearts
To see the whats you whish to do!
You’ve dreamed all night, now hold on tight,
We’ll make them all come true…’

Faster they fell, the air rushing cold over their cuckoo-cropped scalps. Down and…

n…

faster…

fasterfasterfaster…

until, at last, a blood-red floor rushed up to meet them. They gritted their teeth. They clenched their fists. Remembering suddenly the wish they had made never to grow old, they thought for the first time of just what that wish might really mean, what double meanings it might hold, and how careful you should be when you whisper the words of your wishes in a witch’s house. And for the first time in their young lives they felt a vague sense that life might not last for ever. They held their breaths and waited a witch’s tick for the coming true of that careless wish: for the thud of young bone on stone, the thump of young skull on floorboards, the thwack, the crack…

…the squish!

Pip and Molly hit the floor without thud, thump or thwack. They landed not on hard as rock, but on soft as jelly; not egg on concrete, but rubber ball on space hopper.

They felt themselves sink gently into the softest, the bounciest, the most trampolinest of floors…

‘Balloons!’ Molly cried.

‘Balloons!’ laughed Pip.

And they remembered how in the back of a black carriage an age or so ago they had wished for a house with floors of balloons and ceilings of feathers, so that they might bounce up into the air and then fly back down again.

The first of these they did now, for what goes down must come up. With a squeal, the floor of balloons sank beneath their weight, and then sprang up and launched them into the air. They trampolined towards where they had fallen from, as if the cogs of the morning had been put into reverse. And as they flew back up through the darkness, Pip and Molly peered up towards where they knew a wooden floor to be – a floor that was now a ceiling, and a ceiling, since they were falling upwards, that was also now a floor! Never had their world felt more turned upon its head.

They had wished for balloons and they had got balloons. Now they wished even harder for feathers. And the darkness above sang out to them in a choir of honey-toned hoots. It sounded like an orchestra of bassoons blowing one huge ‘HOOT!’ above them, around them, inside them. They vibrated like reeds in the two ‘Os’ of that hoot, as if they had been sucked into the wind-pipes of a church organ. And as they flew towards the floor that was now a ceiling, the ceiling that was now a floor, they waited for the sharp rap of wood. Instead, they felt the soft wrap of feathers. They flew up into down – beautiful, feathery down – which caught them as softly as a woollen mitten catching two dandelion seeds.

For a moment, Pip and Molly were suspended there, side by side, sensing in the darkness the soft outlines of giant feathers. In silence, they hung there, happy to be neither falling nor rising, glad just to be still there and still.”

Wendy and the Wallpaper Cat: the show

October 27, 2019November 10, 2019Leave a comment

When Grandpa Walter opened the door,
he was wearing a green suit that looked
just like his garden. ‘Welcome to my world
of wonderful wallpapers!’ said Walter.
‘I wonder which room will be your favourite…’

When I wrote Wendy and the Wallpaper Cat for V&A Publishing a few years ago, my idea was that a picture book about a magical house in which the wallpapers come alive might in turn bring fresh life to the wallpapers in the V&A collection by inviting young visitors to the museum to look at the patterns and pictures not just with their eyes but with their imaginations. Grandpa Walter was named after Walter Crane, whose wallpaper designs form the backdrops in the book, and the artist Ilaria Demonti breathed life into the characters of Walter, his sleepless grand-daughter Wendy, and the fiddle-playing Wallpaper Cat with her fabulous illustrations.

We published the book, we celebrated, and that might well have been that. But if cats have nine lives, then it seems wallpaper cats have at least two. Last week, I had the thrill of watching Lisa O’Hanlon and Dan Willis perform Wendy and the Wallpaper Cat at the V&A theatre to row upon row of young, wide-eyed, shrieking spectators. Now the wallpapers, and the book itself, really did come to life. Butterflies flitted over Walter’s wallpaper garden; rose petals tumbled from the sky; sea-shells carried the sound of the ocean to a hundred eager ears; a giant orange was bounced from hand to hand; and, wonder of wonderful wonders, children gasped at nothing more, nothing less, than projections of Victorian wallpapers as Wendy dashed from room to room.

When the electric-blue Wallpaper Cat leapt from the walls to play enchanted fiddle music, not just Wendy but all the children in the audience ran through the midnight garden and danced. And so the Wallpaper Cat lives on, summoned from the wall to play for any child struggling to get to sleep.

Many thanks to Lisa and Dan for their wonderful work, to Ilaria, and to everyone at the V&A including Astrid, Harriet and Tom.

“Wendy looked up at the roses on the walls.
When she reached up to touch them,
a red petal fluttered down.”

“And when at last she caught up with the cat,
he played his fiddle and they danced together
the whole night long.”

The Big Butterfly Count of July ’38

August 5, 2019Leave a comment

There are a number of butterflies hidden in the poem.
In a Small Butterfly Count, can you find and count them?

1
Welcome all of you here to this barren small heath,
Where the speckled woods rise from the plastic beneath,
And the dead meadow browns under orange-tip sun,
Which glares down clouded yellow on all that we’ve done.
We have gathered today, as we’ve gathered each year,
To record and survey all our planet holds dear,
Tell your last swallowtail, and remember the date,
The Big Butterfly Count of July ’38.

2
In my childhood days, all you needed to do,
Was to laze in your garden while they came to you,
And the air would grow bright with their scrap-paper hues,
Green-veined whites, purple hairstreaks,
small coppers, large blues,
Like kaleidoscope blossoms blown down from the trees,
A collection of postage stamps thrown on the breeze.
Let us wait as the gatekeeper closes the gate,
The Big Butterfly Count of July ’38.

3
Where they once flew in wildflower meadows and parks,
Now they shrivel and die like a bonfire’s sparks,
Chanting brimstone and treacle, on large heath or small,
There’s no witchcraft can roll back this butterfly ball.
We have broken their butterfly wings on a wheel
That stops turning for children whose ringlets we steal,
And the last chalk hill blue is wiped clean off the slate,
The Big Butterfly Count of July ’38.

4
When a butterfly won’t flap its wings in Brazil,
Will the wind cease to blow and the oceans grow still?
Will we go to the wall with our hothouse neglect,
As we gaze through the glaze of our greenhouse effect?
Will our butterfly minds flutter on and forget
The last butterfly stitch in our butterfly net?
Now the old purple emperor lies here in state,
The Big Butterfly Count of July ’38.

5
Is there anyone here who remembers last year,
When we waited all day for just two to appear?
But how lucky we were! Now our race is near run,
As we set out to find and record the last one.
Because all of our one hundred eyes looked away
While the last painted ladies made peacock display,
And the northern brown argus predicted their fate,
The Big Butterfly Count of July ’38.

6
There it is! The large white! What a sight! What a tale!
A great white that’s as rare as Old Ahab’s white whale,
Like a blank scrap of paper, a snowflake, a ghost,
As the last grizzled skipper abandons his post;
We are stood on the bridge looking down on the drop,
This is not just a comma, but final full stop.
Sail a fleet of red admirals before it’s too late,
The Big Butterfly Count of July ’38.

RedAdmiral

© Text copyright Jason Hook 2019

Frida and Diego

August 6, 2018August 6, 2018Leave a comment

So, when starting work on a new children’s poem about chameleons falling in love, why wouldn’t I name them after Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera…?

Chameleon2

In a faraway land, by a sapphire-blue sea,
Two chameleons lived in a rainforest tree.
On the first branch, a boy named Diego was nesting
Next door to the branch where young Frida was resting.

Chameleons’ faces can often look glum,
But Diego was crying and sucking his thumb,
It was clear as he peered from the branch up above,
He was head over tails in chameleon love.

Now, they might not get tongue-tied when catching a fly,
But chameleon boys can be terribly shy.
‘I must go!’ said Diego, ‘I must say hello!’
‘Frida’s lovely and lives on the branch just below!’

Climbing down to the flower where Frida was basking,
He said to himself: ‘Well, there’s no harm in asking!
When left by myself, life gets duller and duller…
It’s hard to make friends when you keep changing colour.’

Chameleon3

Blood Moon

July 27, 2018July 28, 2018Leave a comment

The moon is rising full and round, a deep red-setter red,
The brighter that it shines, the more these voices fill my head.
I want to run and chase a ball, to boldly sniff your arse,
To urinate on lamp-posts and to defecate on grass.
I’ve torn off all my clothes but still I just can’t seem to sleep,
I long to ride into the countryside and worry sheep.
I ate a poodle late last night, my bark’s less than my bite,
Lock up your doors, chain up my paws, the Blood Moon’s up tonight.

The moon is rising full and round, with bloody lipstick lips,
I want to go out riding in my bicycle eclipse.
The beast in me is breaking free, the bat came out of hell,
I want to dress in leather and throw pussy down the well.
My booty call’s a duty call, do not pick up the phone,
I’m sniffing round a graveyard trying to find this dog a bone.
Lycanthropy, misanthropy, Lon Chaney’s out of sight,
Bring out your dead, and turn your head, the Blood Moon’s up tonight.

The moon is rising full and round, a scary clown’s balloon,
It lures me to the sewers of my friends’ impending doom.
I thought I was a vegan, but there must be some mistake,
I’m raving at this craving for a rare and bloody steak.
My claws are out, I’ve grown a snout, I want to see you bleed,
I’ve drunk a trunk of claret and I’ve turned all Ollie Reed.
Foie-gras and steak tartare, please pass the claret to the right,
The menu’s fresh with human flesh, the Blood Moon’s up tonight.

The moon is rising full and round, a bloodspot, bloodshot eye,
I feel a strange compulsion to start howling at the sky.
A glass of water terrifies, I’ll take a Bloody Mary,
I’ve always been hirsute but now I’m Wolverinely hairy.
My fingernails need filing and I’ve started having fits,
I’m running out of razors and my toothbrush is in bits.
This lunacy is killing me, my shirt is much too tight,
Let’s fire that silver bullet, there’s a Blood Moon up tonight.

Vintage-Wolf-Image-GraphicsFairy

Sweet and toffee, trough and snout…

March 26, 2018Leave a comment

You never forget the moment you first hear a witch sing a Cursery Rhyme. Not in a letter or from faraway. But up close. In the flesh. So you can smell her liquorice breath as she weaves her spell and tells you all the things she’s going to do to you, and all smuggled into your ears disguised in the old rags of a familiar verse…

“Beneath the causeway, they glimpsed again those strange orphan shadows that had chased them from the awfulage and which had played hide-and-seek among snow and pine trees during their carriage ride. Dark and plump as carp, they drifted now beneath the surface of the blood-red River Mold, diving or drowning among the weed, it was hard to tell which. And as those shadows swam by, Isabella began to sing. Her voice sounded both like the high note of a violin and the low rasp of the bow being scraped across it, and the burbling, bubbling voices of children rose from those diving, drowning shadows to join in the chorus. At the same moment, the handle of the music box around Molly’s neck began to turn, as it played along to the tune of Isabella’s song…

‘Two blind mice! Two blind mice!
See how they run! See how they run!
Cut out their hearts with a carving knife,
To see all the wishes they wish for life.
Hang up their hats on a thorny tree,
To let all the thoughts in their heads go free.
Cut off their tails for the cooking pot,
Tie them all up in a witch’s knot.

Sweet and toffee, trough and snout,
See a tooth and pull it out.
Conker, marble, snout and trough,
See a finger, chop it off!

Feed them cheese to make them dream,
Catch their nightmares when they scream.
Tease their ribs with prods and tickles,
Turn their giggles into pickles.
Call them names to make them cry,
Prick the teardrops from their eye.
Made from nephews, brewed from nieces,
Auntie’s little bits and pieces.

Sweet and toffee, trough and snout,
See a tooth and pull it out.
Conker, marble, snout and trough,
See a finger, chop it off!

Boil it in a jammy jar…
Melt it to a sticky tar…
Mix it to an oily ointment…
By a witch’s royal appointment!
Wear it where the wish-bones chime,
Cast it to a Cursery Rhyme.
Spell it right, her name’s a portal:
Isabella, Izzy Mawtle!
Two blind mice! Two blind…

…NICE!’ Isabella whooped.”

Jason Hook Books

Writing, commissioning and creating illustrated books

Tag: writer