When young, I went many times with my family to Cornwall for summer hols, and there was always the inevitable paddling in rock pools. There we kids were with our skirts tucked in our knickers holding a bamboo with a net on the end staring at a crab. It usually crunched up, or so it seemed to us. Dad would gently pick it up, explain how it lived inside its shell. We’d look at its legs – so many of them – and we would squeal, feeling it could give us all a pinch. And why not, when it had been picked up by a giant, and lots of small giants were oohing and ahhing, and squealing. Dad would replace it gently, and we would look in others.
No matter how gentle we were, good grief, they must have been fed up. It was their home, after all. Author Jennifer Bell obviously had similar thoughts, because in Ouch! a crab tells its story for the first time and if only crabs could read it would be top of the Crab Summer Reading Bestseller list, just as it will be with all the children who read Ouch!. Perhaps they would even wish they hadn’t carelessly thrown their crab back into the water, willy nilly.
Trust me, there will be a lot of interaction as children bellow “OUCH!”, along with the crab every time he’s tossed away, wham bam splash to become tangled in seaweed, or land upside down, rendering him helpless. I confess reading Ouch! transported me back to those days, and am so glad Bell wrote this book. It is extraordinarily evocative and brings alive the long summer rock pool experiences, all of which will hopefully not only encourage small children to respect the crab but empathise with all living creatures.
Children’s author Jennifer Bell has done crabs a good turn, really she has. She is the Champion of the Crabs as is her equally talented illustrator. Though this is not the first Jennifer Bell book…
Jennifer Bell’s two books about Jem, a young Cornish adventurer have been delighting youngsters in their homes and primary schools since the first was published in 2016 but Ouch! is their equal on so many levels.
By training, Bell was a nurse and co-founded a pottery, by inclination she’s a gardener of riverside land in Cornwall and a writer. She has always written – plays for school friends, stories long and short, poetry and verse and has been a frequent attender at literary weekends. Retirement has given her the opportunity to write when she can’t garden, and enjoy planting seeds in another way – producing books for children.
Jane Leitch the illustrator of the glorious images lives on the edge of Dartmoor, Devon, the area where she grew up. This environment is her inspiration – to capture the essence of nature and daily life in rural Devon, as well as on the West Country coast. Her paintings are sought after, and are in collections throughout the UK, Europe, the United States, Australia and the Far East. She exhibits in the annual Delamore Arts event near Ivybridge in Devon, biannually in Devon Open Studios with the Gidleigh painters, and at numerous nationwide exhibitions.
So, back to Ouch! What do I think? I implore you to read it to as many children as possible. It has pace and compassion. It is relatable. It is lovely.
Both Jane and Jennifer have given us permission to use these images fromOuch! which is available to purchase online from both Amazon, and Waterstones and the main distributors are Bookvault/Great British Bookshop. Always look in good bookshops as they will usually order it if they haven’t it in stock.
ISBN 978-0-9934032-9-3 Paperback. RRP £8.99