Freya was given her first Barbapapa book (having already inherited a thinner paperback-book from her mother) a few months ago now, and we all enjoy reading it at bedtime. That which lifts it above many of the other children’s books we own is the amount of detail/objects in each drawing, giving it a longer life span.

Her second Barbapapa book was bought about a month or so ago, and, while offering the same pictorial quality, shows the Barba family in a very different light. Entitled “Barbapapa and the Ark”, it covers environmental isues and animal rights in one fell swoop. Hunters, big-game hunters and whalers are given what for, whilst the rest of the population are shown to be uncaring abusers of their environment. It was quite a (pleasant) shock, considering its fluffy predecessors.

I wonder if the shape-changing family are vegans.