Snugglepot and Cuddlepie by May Gibbs

Part of Read it and Weed, where I take a quick look at books found on the shelves of the International School where I am librarian. 

Hiding in the cupboards of grade 3, under stacks of Junie B Jones and A to Z mysteries, lay a book I wasn't expecting.

At first I didn't think it was worth much at all. With its early 20th century illustration style and condescendingly twee title, Snugglepot and Cuddlepie looks like the prime macguffin of a horror movie involving children and abandoned libraries and hidden cemeteries. Something knocked together from the parts of other tales. But what I'd found was one of the foundational works from which all future twee descended. 

Snugglepot & Cuddlepie is the work of May Gibbs, whose English family emigrated to Australia around 1900, when she was a child. Obviously enchanted by the new landscape, plants and animals, she fell back on the storyteller's instinct to make sense of the world around her. Thus she created a world of gumnut babies and lizard friends, koala bear cuties and evil, prickly banksia men. 

Over the years her gumnut babies went on to colonize the Australian mythology, and exist today as a seminal part of Australian culture. That I knew nothing about it only confirms that sometimes culture doesn't export well, and often ages poorly. What passed for whimsical illustrations in 1918 serve as nightmare fuel for today's children. The drawings are harsh and weird; the linework wavering, and the gumnuts constant nudity is a little much even for non-prudes to brush away.

Still, as an example of what children's litrature used to be, Snugglepot and Cuddlepie deserve a spot next to Peter Pan and the Wizard of Oz. Unsettling and creepy to the uninitiated, but comforting and homey if you've grown up steeped in their culture.

Verdict: Keep, if only to trot out during world literature day, or the unit on the past and the present. 

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