Snugglepot and Cuddlepie

1946, 1987 Bluegum edition
"Pictures & Words by May Gibbs
Snugglepot and Cuddlepie
Original price unknown, purchase price $6.00
OK condition paperback
C+

I bought this one because the title characters sound like cutesy pet names that lovers give each other.  Actually, they're foster brothers who are gumnuts that look like Kewpie dolls.  In fact, there's a very 1910s or 1920s feel about the book, not surprisingly since the series began in 1918.  But the earliest date on the copyright page is '46 and, as with The World Of Jeeves, I'm going to assume that the act of collection is what matters.

It's a very odd book, if not as bizarre as Wonder City of Oz.  The fact that this edition has no page numbers adds to the feeling of everything just spilling out of Gibbs's mind in a stream of consciousness.  S & C decide to go see humans, "at a distance" (which is often the best way), but they keep getting sidetracked, until you realize that the sidetracks are the plot, such as it is.  There are three stories in the book, but you only know this because there are three sort of resolutions, and after the first two you get a new title page.

The pictures are better than the words, with some of the underwater views quite lovely.  The text sometimes refers to the pictures, such as when explaining that one "Native Bear" (Koala) isn't visible because he's up a tree.  The Nuts (male) and Blossoms (female) are almost naked, in that they wear clothes that don't cover up anything, but they're as sexless as Kewpies, so I guess it's all right.  (Some Nuts do go on strike, the leaf-banners proclaiming that they want more clothes.)  At the end of the last story, Ragged Blossom, who's raised a baby who's now a princess older than her, wants another baby.  Snugglepot knows how to give her one:  he'll take her to the Baby Shop. 

There is a marriage, with Ann Chovy marrying evil John Dory to save the protagonists' lives, and of course her love redeeming him.  But there's actually more about employment than romance, with the Nuts and Blossoms easily getting jobs wherever they go.  The creatures do have a version of civilization, even if it's kangaroos for cabs and a praying mantis (I think) for a dentist.  There are also evil banskia cones who sometimes work for the evil Mrs. Snake.  (When the first becomes deadibones, another Mrs. Snake appears.)

The book feels like such an oddity it's a shock to read on the back cover that it "has become, undoubtedly, Australia's best-loved children's book."  Maybe The Wizard of Oz feels as weird to people outside the culture, but I doubt it.