Mog's Box

Meg and Mog

by Helen Nicoll, Jan Pieńkowski (Illustrator)

When Meg casts a spell to make a lunch box for Mog, the box contains a caterpillar which eventually turns into a butterfly.

Genres: Picture Books

28 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1987

About the author

Helen Nicoll was born in Natland, Westmorland, in 1937. She was educated at schools in Bristol; Dartington Hall, Devon; and Froebel Education Institute, London. Helen Nicoll married Robert Kime in 1970 and they have one daughter and one son.

Helen Nicoll was a television producer with the BBC for many years. It was here, as Producer of the children's educational series WATCH, that she first met Jan Pienkowski. After working together for four years, they decided it was time to preserve their creativity in book form for future generations of children to enjoy. The result is the immensely popular MEG AND MOG series.

In addition to the MEG AND MOG series, Helen has a long and varied association with Puffin - as editor of the Junior Puffin magazine THE EGG from 1977 - 1979, as compiler of the popular children's poetry anthology POEMS FOR SEVEN YEAR OLDS AND UNDER, illustrated by Michael Foreman, and through her partnership with Puffin, the enormously popular series of Puffin Cover to Cover story tapes of which Helen is the Producer.

Reviews

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this one! The story is so simple - but it's the expressions of Mog, the cat, and the owl, who are in fairly fierce competition with each other. Mog is off to school, plus important lunch box, with various treats inside - bat bun! Meg of course is oblivious and simply forges ahead with her own plans for the day, or season, etc. And feeds a small caterpillar, found in the lunchbox - spinach, yeuch! - who emerges one spring day as a - butterfly, but meantime Mog and Owl are hungry!

The pictures explain everything - minimal writing, gorgeous drawings.

4/5/6 year old audience - totally captured.

[Abigail · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mog the cat becomes progressively more jealous of Owl in this thirteenth entry in the Meg and Mog series, observing the wonderful lunches - beetle burgers, vole roles, hot frogs - that Meg prepares for him. When he demands a lunch box of his own, Meg's spell - "Pat of butter / Eye of fly / It may not work / But it's worth a try" - produces one that contains, not a juicy treat, but a growing caterpillar. Mog and Owl both observe as Meg searches for food for this new friend, who eventually creates a cocoon for himself, and emerges as a butterfly.

With the same simple text and brightly colored illustrations that have distinguished previous entries in the series, Mog's Box will provide an entertaining picture-book experience to young children. I found the scenes in which Mog becomes jealous - his expression becomes ever more hostile in each panel, from Tuesday to Friday, as he sees the lunches prepared for Owl - particularly droll, and his subsequent burst of frenetic rage quite hilarious. Readers familiar with the series will enjoy seeing the feline/strigine rivalry, hinted at in teasing comments back and forth between Mog and Owl in previous titles, expanded here. The development of the story itself, which shifts focus from Mog and Owl to the caterpillar, is a little less humorous, although still engaging. The two-page spread in which the caterpillar munches his way through a series of leaves is reminiscent of Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar . All in all, this was an amusing addition to a classic series.