The Tiger Who Came To Tea

[nigelslaterfan]

dd loves this book but am I being unreasonable to suggest that Sophie and her mother are massive pigs to sit at home and have such a massive tea of cake and buns and sandwiches? I mean it seems greedy to me.

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

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??

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? .

yes my son always points at the baby tiger!

who wrote where the wild things are?

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...

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!

Brilliant, Redlentil, love it. Like the 'canned' referring to the tin of tiger food at the end. You should be on my Children's Literature MA at Roehampton, or have you already graduated?!

So many children's picture books have this kind of carnivalesque breaking-out. Of course, The Cat in the Hat is another favourite one. I will keep my eyes out for the carnival next time I read a bedtime story...

I'm an old colleague of a Canadian lecturer in the department there, Foxy. We used to teach together at a university in the Midlands.

The children's literature MA sounds great. Sadly, I am old and wear the bottom of my trousers rolled.

20thC Irish writing in English is my usual stomping ground.

The cafe is wonderful isn't it.We always read it as CAF -FAY in a flamboyant kind of way and sing 'Toodle-oo, toodle-oo, toodle--oo' at the end.

And we always sing gooooodbye gooooodbye gooooodbye, for a wee while my ds used to say that to everyone instead of his more customery, bye (moist eye emoticon)

when you read this story, what sort of voice do you give the tiger? I give him a sort of posh, modest voice - just right when he says "I think I'd better go now"

tiptop thread

Ah brilliant thread.

When I was little, I thought the fact that Sophie got to go to the cafe in her nightie was the best bit (even more exciting than the tiger!). That was the most "moment of misrule" part for me. I thought wow, once a tiger's turned up and eaten all your food, my god anything can happen...

I thought the definitive performance was by Marc Warren (blond one out of hustle) on Cbeebies bedtime story. His tiger was kind of growly/fruity and very posh, with fantastic eyebrow movements.

thank you very much for the buns and biscuits

Restorative buns here after the class too Cory.

Carnival tights - genius.

I think we are barking up the wrong tree though in seeing the loss of water as a bad or threatening thing.(and in 1968 the book pre-dates the 1970s strikes).

For parents it would be a nightmare, but for Sophie the lack of water means not having to go through the nightmare of having her long hair washed and getting shampoo in her eyes.

No water=a good thing.

RedLentil, I think that the subjugation of the carnal dsires which takes place on Daddy's return is symolised by the transormation of the tiger into a small marmalade domestic cat who picks his way through the rain, amidst the rest of the humdrum traffic, as they walk home from the cafe. Daddy's order is fully restored.

Apart, of course, from the can of tiger food which lurks within the dark, secretive, closed interior (a clear vaginal metaphor) of the kitchen cupboard. The constant challenge to reason.

Has anyone got The Dancing Tiger? Now that is so obviously about female sexuality I can hardly read it without blushing. Old granny passes onto her her granddaughter her thrilling secret that once a month (!) she sneaks off at midnight and has an, ahem, "dance" with a magical "tiger".

Blu - that chimes with the reading of the small cat we had earlier. Now if we need intertexts we can link it to Hemingway's 'Cat in the Rain' ...

Not to mention Pigwitchery, in which a pig-witch loses her wand and with it her ability to do magic.

Until the wise old pig of the forest tells her she doesn't need a wand to do magic, all she needs is her own tail - and promptly goes into a sequence that can only be interpreted as orgasmic. Seems so obvious to me I was quite embarrassed when DS wanted his grandpa to read it to him...

LOL Blu at Daddy and the carnal desires and the little marmalade cat - good call, I have to respect that! Daddy comes home and stands all huge in the door to return the house to ORDNUNG!

emskaboo yes yes yes yes! singing the end just like that!

Redlentil love the carnival tights too

time4tea exactly that voice yes!!

Also for those of you who love Daddy coming home and rescuing the feminine principle from imminent self destruction by its own lust, what say you about his incredibly sad and loving expression as the titchy munchkin wifey expounds upon the tragedy of the empty cupboard? He looks like Gregory Peck in To Kill A Mockingbird - Noble Forbearance and Mature Love Up Against the Horror of the Real World

I am now so very much in love with redlentil, emskaboo and blu.

I really must spend more time here.

And maybe read the Tiger who came to tea.

Tiger voice- deep, slow, posh, slightly sing song
Mummy - very very RP,radio announcer from 1950s, hint of repressed hysteria, clearly highly self medicated
Daddy voice- soft cockney- hints that possibly mumy married beneath her and hasnt really got a grip on having to do domestic things oneself darling

but he neeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeveeeer did

(Anyone else find themselves reading Dr Dog's voice in clipped pyscho-analyst style German?)

PerArdua

It was roundwindow who noticed the carnival tights btw. If this thread goes on it's going to need a proper referencing system.

I noticed today that Mog, the definitely female cat, is always under pressure to submit to the desires of others. Not just because she is a version of a toddler, but a version of a mother too (she often dreams of having kittens.

She feels suffocated by the demands of a baby, disrupts a cat beauty pageant and fights back against medical intervention by a vet who is definitely up to something dodgy with his submissive veterinary assistant.

Even in the burglar one she strikes a blow against patriarchy by sitting on top of the television and obstructing Mr. Thomas's view of the boxing.

Do I need to get out more? You can answer honestly.

Grammar awful there. Sorry.

Nah, not get out more, just publish

If the Tiger were a film:

Tiger - Benecio del Toro/Robert Mitchum
Sophie - Saoirse Ronan from (younger girl from Atonement)
Mummy - Shelley Winters
Daddy - Gregory Peck

But what about Mog's Bad Thing? The Shame.
And Mog's Christmas?
The Talking Tree? The Aunties on tippy toe? The garrulous uncles? The terrible juggled dead mice? The tragedy of Mog having gone Up Onto The Roof? The cancellation of Christmas? It's too awful.