The Tiger Who Came To Tea

Maggie, it was Maurice Sendak, not really relevant to this thread, but another children's classic. Must have been covered here by these literary brainiacs already though!

Since I know that Judith Kerr, who I think is a great writer and illustrator, is Jewish, and that her family were directly affected by the Second World War (they fled to the UK), I read the tiger as more threatening. I wonder whether he is a kind of a cover story or a screen for something far more disturbing that might come into the house and ransack the place? And yet, although big, powerful and ravenous, he also seems benign, almost friendly. I like the way that Sophie's mum buys a big tin of tiger food, in order to be prepared for future visits. I haven't got any of that in my cupboard at home...

I also enjoy the way that the tiger resembles Mog, Judith Kerr's other well-known picture books. Don't you just love the retro style of her pictures? So evocative, takes me back to my own 70's childhood...

yes my son always points at the baby tiger!

who wrote where the wild things are?

Ah, Jessia, I think Sophie's Daddy is immaculate - love his raincoat.
In fact what I love most about the book is the palpable sense of excitement in going out for tea to a cafe - it seems such an innocent, 70's kind of pleasure somehow, and doubly special because it's dark and all the shops are lit up etc. (Plus the cat - tiger? - in the street)
I resolve to go out for more cafe teas on the strength of this book!
Can we do 'Where the Wild Things Are' next please, or has it been done? .

Think this has to be one of the best threads I've ever read on Mumsnet.
DH and I were always of the tiger = fantasy/desire school of thought, but as soon as I realised that Kerr was she of WHSPR it gained a whole new level.
Sophie's daddy in fact looks suspiciously like my DH (dress sense not much better either ). And the "nothing for tea - well we'll just have to get a pizza in go to a cafe" scenario is all too familiar as well. Should I be worried??

i say 'we' but i mean you clever lot!

can we analyse six dinner sid now. by inga moore. ?

Just want to say how much fun it's been reading this thread, thank you all for spilling the contents of your brilliant minds Nothing to add though. Except that when the word 'carnivalesque' came up I immediately thought of Sophie's tights.

Fabulous! love the literary analysis! Brings back my post-grad days...
I think I'll hide under the table with Cory!

Not being a native, I thought I was not feeding my child enough when I saw Sophie's tea! Wondered about the water as well. '70s cutback?

Excellent thread, I gave up English lit but never stopped reading, the dcs don't have too many books just not enough shelves.

As an engineer specialising in steam if anyone wants a technical thread on Thomas and the Fat Controller I have a lot to say about the engines running with their drains open all the time. My dc 4&2 have certainly learnt the difference between steam and smoke and shout they've left the blower on at tv interpretation.

Today, the house is a tip, I can't be arsed to cook and I certainly feel like telling Dp the tiger came to tea - sometimes a cafe would just be a cafe.

Ooh, I was told it was a feminist tale - that Sophie's mummy was so pissed off with having to cook and clean and keep house, that she invented a tiger as an excuse not to have to do it anymore. Then daddy had to sort it out himself by taking them to a cafe.

Have you noticed how tiny Sophie's mummy is compared to Sophie's daddy? Much as I love the book, I find that element quite disturbing.

Just saw this thread in the newsletter - love it!

DD got Tiger who came to tea with a little tea set for christmas, love the tea set - hate the book!

I'm sorry, was only an idle speculation!
Mr Mog is a fine upstanding chap, I am sure .
Liking the Paddington/Dracula analogy btw.

Covering my ears about the idea that Mr Mog could be having an affair.

I've just been digging about for my copy of the Isherwood book now to start it again, so thanks for prompting me to think of it.

Just to throw in one last happier theory.

I've just remembered the excitement my three have about going outside after dark-we hardly ever do.

Anyway, when Sophie gets to wander outside in her nightie and eat sausage and chips, it lets her fulfil the fantasy of joining in when mummy and daddy go out at night for a meal ...

Cory, are you ok under there?
Good luck for tomorrow.

When the young man near the back with a very high opinion of himself tries to make out that he knows more than you and is in fact Derrida, give him a Paddington stare and move on. All will be well, and all manner of things will be well...

Such a fabulous book - I love Sophie's lovely cafe nosh. Still faintly peeved I never read it as a little girl.
Re the Mog books, in 'Mog and the baby' (as I think it's called - can't check as in dd's bedroom), did anyone else notice the slightly suspicious ending when the mother of the baby (who has just been rescued from a near fatal accident by Mog) is driven home by the Mog family dad.
She was meant to be at work...in other words, is she having an affair?
Perhaps I am over analysing. As you were!

I haven't, but I will, thank you.

I know what you mean about putting people off, and I did mean to say sorry to NigelSlaterFan. Please come back, I didn't mean be unsettling

I love this book, loved it as a child, was the first thing I bought my dsd, would have bought for my sister's three but she beat me to it, think she may have bought it when pregnant the first time and read it over and over to my ds. It is a lovely exciting, safely scary book.

Emskaboo-have you read Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood? Totally brilliant on the decadence of Berlin in the '30s.

That perspective does make it possible to see the tiger as a Berliner who is at home with the family but represents a terrible threat too.

It would be a shame if reading this put anyone off the book though. When I eventually look back on the time I have spent reading to my three children, a lot of those happy memories will be of sitting on the floor reading about Sophie and the tiger.

RedLentil, oh I agree with you about the sense of freedom the tiger represents, but for me that chimes with some of the stuff I've read about the rise of the Nazi party, the impulsiveness of the followers the violence and the pleasure in it, the terrible allure which pulled people in.

I'm glad it put the dad in a better light though, even when I was little he seemed so worried and weary to me.

I should also say I have no great attachment to my theory, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar!

Also when I read it as an adult I was shocked by how sexist it seemed, my mum and dad had always changed it to say, mummy and daddy's beer, and the mother was worried about their being no supper for her and daddy, not just daddy.

The mother is depressed or having an affair thats why there is no food.

Emskaboo - I didn't know all that about Judith Kerr and I hadn't read pink rabbit. Really fascinating and it does put the dad in a better light.

The tiger is both frightening and hugely attractive though. And he represents a kind of freedom from inhibition at the same time as the threat you describle.

Kerr's other cat, Mog, the hapless domesticated toddler/cat, pines for the kind of wild freedom he has. She dreams about being a bird all the time, tries to escape cages, jumps out of windows, forgets her cat flap ...

NigelSlaterFan - toddlers, like Sophie do see him again though because they invite him back into their lives each time they open the book.

And the Bakhtin idea of the carnival is that there is a time-limited reversal of roles in society that lets the powerless have power for a moment so that they can release their resentments (largely through laughter) before the status quo is restored. So the tiger going is part of that kind of plot.

Sorry, domestic cat