Imaginary Friends – an e-book!

Titled ‘Imaginary Friends’, it contains 26 stories about various entities who don’t normally talk. But hey, normal’s over-rated, don’t you think?

The stories are quirky and Aesopian at first glance. But one soon realises that the ‘moral of the story’ reads more like a comic punchline (cue boom-boom-room style drum roll – “ta dah BOOM”) than anything else! And yes, these are indeed pithy truths that we wished our mothers told us at some point.

I would agree with the author though, that it’s not for children per se. Teenagers would grasp some of it better, and I personally think it’s best appreciated by jaded old fogies like myself, haha!

Some of the vignettes are a tad dark (think plot to send piano prodigy cat to permanent end), some are irreverant, one really tugged at my heartstrings, and some are downright hilarious. I had to stifle a chuckle as I read it whilst on public transport.

Initially I thought a book like this would be fine without illustrations, since the beauty of fiction also lies in conjuring up images in your own mind’s eye. But the one colour illustration at the start of each story here works well. I love the expressive ‘faces’ of some of these erstwhile inanimate objects. The depiction of jelly bean jar politics (who would have guessed the extent!) is my favourite, and the “cat at piano” drawing is gorgeous indeed. Super, Sher!

For mums of young children familiar with all manner of predictable alphabet books (hmm in fact those might have driven inspired my dear Mel to parody?), the choice of characters for some letters are wonderfully refreshing. Think X for the Xenophobic Xerox machine, and Z for for the Zealous Zither. Just makes you want to grab a copy.