The Log of the Ark

by Geoffrey: Walker Kenneth and Boumphrey

1 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1923

Reviews

[Sibyl · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a joy to reread. But unexpectedly sombre too.

And as with all good children's book, it has layers of meaning which only an older audience can appreciate.

There's the half-remembered humour of all the minor misadventures that take place when all the different animals have to live in the Ark, away from dry land and fruit trees, subsisting on a diet of porridge and treacle.

But there's also a decidedly noir narrative about an animal called the Loathly Scub, who goes around stirring up division and suspicion.

There's no Deity in this story. And other than Noah's family, no humans. But this is a book about the Fall...

[valpal · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was in my grandfather's book collection. I stayed up all night reading it when I was in the 5th grade and had a broken arm.

[Heather Tribe · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Now, one hot afternoon, a little group of animals were dozing lazily in the shade when a magpie flopped excitedly down among them. Without stopping to catch her breath, she blurted out her extraordinary news: an old man with a white beard was building a perfectly absurd home on the other side of the hill!”

It is dedicated to “The Very Old Tortoise at the Zoo” and directly inspired by Kenneth Grahame when he challenged the authors “to write it themselves” when they asked him to write a book featuring jungle animals. Kenneth Grahame’s involvement is revealed on the inside flap of the dustjacket; he (Grahame) wrote: “I know all about the inhabitants of English woodland and meadows and river banks but I have never been inside a jungle. You have-so why not write it yourself-Kenneth Grahame”.

‘The Log of the Ark’ by Kenneth Walker and Geoffrey Boumphrey is secular in nature and recounts the story of the ark, but from the animal’s perspective. It is clever, exciting, and a little bit eerie - just the right amount of eeriness for a children’s book as a creature called “The Scub” is also on board the ark. The resulting uneasiness is similar in feeling to that gained by readers of “Gollum” in ‘The Hobbit’; that of something not-quite-right. Both my son and I loved it.

The wonderful illustrations are based on cave painting and indeed the illustrator’s titles read: “Drawings restored by”. How wonderful!