Two monsters…
I just picked up David McKee’s (he of King Rollo, Mr Benn and Not now Bernard) Two Monsters to read to my youngest this morning… Maybe it’s just me, but it came over as an acutely prophetic (first published in 1986) parable of the Northern Ireland story.
Two monsters on two sides of a mountain (west and east) who never see each other but communicate through a hole argue over whether sunset is day leaving or night arriving. They fight, using rocks from each side of the mountain until it is flattened.
Then…
“they each walked into the middle of the mess they had made to watch the arrival of the night and the departure of the day together.
‘That was rather fun’, giggled the first monster. ‘Yes, wasn’t it’, chuckled the second. ‘Pity about the mountain.’”
Topic: Government, Politics, Society and Culture
Region: Northern Ireland
Yes, it reminds me of East Beast and West Beast by Dr Zeuss.
David McKee rocks – although some of his illustrations are quite disturbing, as I seem to recall.
I also heartily recommend Raymond Briggs’(The Snowman, When The Wind Blows) ‘The Tinpot Foreign General and The Old Iron Woman’, a picture book about the Falklands War, told in very plain language, about the futility of it all.
Those awful Falkland Islanders will never be forgiven by certain people for getting themselves invaded and getting Maggie re-elected.
They should have accepted the rule of a fascist dictatorship to spare us from an elected government of Tory fascists…errr… how do those Dave Spart pieces end again?