Bill the Minder

A mushroom gatherer who can hear his crop growing sets the tone for this illustrated children's fantasy by W. Heath Robinson. Crispin's illness gives way to an appetite so demanding that his wife, Chloe, spends her days cooking. With ten children to care for, she seeks a minder and tests applicants on Chad, whose teething makes him especially difficult to cheer. The family's troubles turn ordinary childcare and household work into occasions for extravagant nonsense.

The book's episodes bring in a king, a mariner, triplets, a doctor and other unlikely figures. In one passage, a charwoman's search for clove kernels leads from restaurant menus to a child's brass buttons and then to a fishing boat offshore. Everyday objects acquire absurd importance, while elaborate explanations make impossible situations sound perfectly reasonable. Readers who enjoy fairy tales with comic exaggeration will find a world shaped by peculiar appetites, odd occupations and persistent misunderstandings.