Meg's Veg

Meg, Mog and Owl work in their vegetable garden in this seventh entry in Helen Nicoll and Jan Pieńkowski's witchy picture-book series, planting peas and carrots (Owl), a pumpkin (Mog), and some unidentified seeds (Meg). When the weather turns cold, Meg makes a sunshine spell - "Camel's hump / And vulture's eye / Make it bake / And frizzle and fry" - only to see the sultry heat all but destroy the garden. Fortunately, her spell for rain - "Splish splosh / All awash / Wellington boots / And macintosh" - brings much needed relief, and the trio close by weeding all the flowers Meg has inadvertently planted, and then eventually enjoying their harvest.

As with previous forays into the Meg and Mog series, I enjoyed Meg's Veg, appreciating its show more quirky cast of characters, and the vivid illustrations. The language in these books is simple, with no more than a sentence or two per page, and the layout of the text - split between the main narrative voice, which tends to run along horizontally, and speech bubbles for the characters' exclamations, which tend to run on diagonal or curved lines - is creative. Pieńkowski's artwork is colorful and appealing - I particularly liked the two-page scene in which the three friends take shelter under a colorful red umbrella, as a black raincloud hovers above them - highlighting once again, for this reader at least, how seemingly "simple" picture-books require a great deal of skill and craft to create. Recommended to young children with a taste for witchy tales, or who have enjoyed other entries in the series. show less