Mog in the Dark.

Our copy of Mog in the Dark, which my wife found in a second-hand bookstall at the school fête, and which is by far the most psychedelically deranged of all the Mog series, has old library stamps on the title page and ancient, yellowed tape holding together its profusion of rips. Since coming to our home, the dried-out glue and dog-eared pages have suffered further ignominious attention from my two year-old son, and I have just spent the evening repairing the dear old thing, laying new tape over old and affixing the loose folios and pages in the right order. English-language kids’ books are hard to find here in Brazil, and the whole endeavour took on a weirdly symbolic dimension, like carrying fire or passing on priceless artefacts for future generations whom I shall never know and whose pleasure in reading I can only imagine.

Mog in the Dark: quite a trip.