Cauliflora

An ordinary day during the summer vacation. Caulifora, a clever and mischievous redhead, with little ponytails sticking up on the top of her head, like Bilby’s plaits, is awfully bored. And she has used up her allowance. She wants to save up and buy herself “a pony, a rubber snake, and a trampoline,“ so she decides to go out and sell something on the sidewalk. Her mother suggests she should “sell all the stuff and nonsense that your room is full of,“ and at the same to tidy up. Cauliflora can’t decide what to sell. To her, the “stuff and nonsense“ is “nice and important things.“ After nostalgically rummaging through her belongings, at last she finds something that “isn’t worth anything“—“an old toy duck that is falling to pieces.“

Out on the sidewalk, Cauilflora puts an inflated price on the useless article, and drives a hard bargain with adults passers by. But the moment someone comes along who is prepared to pay, Cauliflora‘s heart makes a u-turn. The ugly duckling does not become a beautiful swan, but nevertheless, she falls in love again with her childhood toy. So her room will not be neat and tidy now.

Tamar Hochstadter’s first children’s book deals cleverly with children’s deep attachment to their belongings.