Wild Stories

Colin Thompson (author)

Random House, Australia: September 2010

ISBN: 9781864718263

Genres: animal stories, short stories

Issues: animal welfare, environment

First published in the UK from 1991, Wild Stories brings together all of Thompson's early works -tales of the miscellany of creatures that occupy the garden of ‘the house that is called fourteen'. After the old lady who owns the house dies, the various creatures find that 14 has become a sanctuary, although with a little less food than usual. With his usual quirky perspective and whimsical humour, Thompson introduces Sid the Mosquito, Ethel the Chicken, Bob the Slug, Brenda the Tadpole and a menagerie of creatures of all shapes, sizes and personalities.

Each story could well have become one of the picture books for which Thompson is so justifiably famous but as an anthology they interlink to create a complete world. Sometimes only a few pages in length, each ‘chapter' is a small gem that will brighten the reader's day. Interspersed between stories are occasional poems that are of equal importance in adding depth and texture to Thompson's portrait of this small world. The Old Dog, for example: ‘He sits by the door/ And looks out at the rain/ As it falls soft and warm on the lawn./ The summer has nearly faded again/ And each winter comes with a little more pain/ And a little less fight for the storm.' (p9)

Underlying the collection is a strong suggestion that humans are becoming too disconnected from and inconsiderate of the natural world; that we should be more sensitive to the impact our lifestyles have on our fellow creatures. Thompson's stories are almost allegorical at times, using the anthropomorphised animals to explore particular patterns of human behaviour, relationships and need, making the collection of interest to a wide range of reading ages. The black and white illustrations add humour and character; in a perfect world Thompson's work would have been better served in a hardback edition with colour plates, where readers could be more fully drawn into the world of ‘the house that is called fourteen'.