The funniest children's book ever

The author of the "Dark Materials" fantasy series introduces a surreal Australian children's classic that's nearly unknown in America, Norman Lindsay's "Magic Pudding."

By Philip Pullman

Jul 28, 2004 | "The Magic Pudding" is the funniest children's book ever written. I've been laughing at it for 50 years, and when I read it again this morning, I laughed just as much as I ever did. There's no point in trying to explain why it's funny. If there's anyone so bereft of humor that they can read these words and look at these pictures without laughing, then heaven help them, because they're beyond the reach of advice, instruction or despair.

But we can say something about the language. The book was written nearly a hundred years ago, but you wouldn't know it; it's so fresh and lively that it might have been written yesterday. Those of us who love the story, when we meet another fan, are happy to spend a long time exchanging our favorite sentences, quoting them from memory. And there's something about Norman Lindsay's muscular, vivid prose that makes it very easy to remember:

"Sam Sawnoff's feet were sitting down and his body was standing up, because his feet were so short and his body so long that he had to do both together."

Sam is a penguin. How else would a penguin sit down?

Or this, from Uncle Wattleberry, in a fury:

"'Nothing short of felling you to the earth with an umbrella could possibly atone for the outrage ... My feelings are such that nothing but bounding and plunging can relieve them.'"

Or this little exchange:

"'The trouble is,' said Bill, 'that this is a very secret, crafty Puddin', an' if you wasn't up to his games he'd be askin' you to look at a spider an' then run away while your back is turned.'

"'That's right,' said the Puddin', gloomily. 'Take a Puddin's character away. Don't mind his feelings.' 'We don't mind your feelin's, Albert,' said Bill. 'What we minds is your treacherous 'abits.'"

And then there are the pictures. This is one of the great illustrated books of all time. Look at the way Lindsay draws the Puddin', for a start: his long, spidery-thin arms and legs, his cunning, malevolent expression, the china basin upturned like a hat. Look at the vivid character Lindsay manages to put into every line of the Kookaburra, that low larrikin who exchanges insults with Bill, but gets away with it, because it's Bill's rule through life never to fight people with beaks. And there's one other little detail I love, and which shows Lindsay's mastery of the traditional disciplines of anatomy and composition. When a character is pointing at something in denunciation, or shaking a fist, or offering a hand in friendship, look at what his other hand is doing: as often as not, it's held in an energetic fist behind him, at the end of a tensely angled arm, so the figure is perfectly balanced. Every muscle is working: Every line is working. For example, look at the way the Puddin's arms match Bill's exactly, in the picture showing the aftereffects of Sam's attempt at breakfast humor.

And then there are the rhymes ... If you're reading this book for the first time, you might be tempted to skip the rhymes. After all, who speaks in rhyme in real life? People might say things like "If punching parrots on the beak wasn't too painful for pleasure, I'd land you a sockdolager on the muzzle that ud lay you out till Christmas," but they don't speak in rhyme.

Next Page: Then there's the rhyme we decided to leave out of this edition

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