Tomi Ungerer is 80 today! He has joined those other wonderful octogenerians of the children's lit world, Russell Hoban, Maurice Sendak, Eric Carle, Brian Wildsmith, Judith Kerr and Shirley Hughes. It is so good that they are still having plenty to say and either doing new books or having old ones reissued. Tomi has just had three of his books reissued in time for Christmas presents. They are the adventures of the Mellop brothers. These pigs are back to excite a new generation of children and the new covers are much more inspiring than the old. Now all I need is for his wonderful version of Red Riding Hood to be reissued. When I first started teaching I read it to a Year 5 class and they were still getting over the fact that RRH married the wolf, weeks later. They were shocked. It just was not meant to happen. Many see his books as being subversive. He says on his interview (that is for you and not children) here "Children have to be faced with the absurd because the world is absurd."
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