The Magic Pudding

Story

The Magic Pudding can be whatever flavour you want and never runs out, no matter how many slices you eat. It has spindly legs and arms and a sulky, devious manner and its three owners – Bunyip Bluegum (a polite young koala), Bill Barnacle (a sailor) and Sam Sawnoff (a penguin) are keen to keep it for themselves. But the world is full of cunning puddin’-thieves who will stop at nothing to have the pudding for themselves.

Why we chose it

Author Philip Pullman first read The Magic Pudding when he lived in Australia as a child and describes it as ‘the funniest children’s book ever written’ and ‘one of the great illustrated books of all time’. Outrageous and energetic, it combines colourful characters, extravagant insults and slapstick humour, and has become a classic of Australian children’s literature.

Where it came from

Norman Lindsay was born in 1979 in Victoria, Australia and always loved art. By the age of 16 he was drawing cartoons for newspapers, illustrations for books, and writing novels designed to shock stuffier folk. When a friend of Lindsay’s claimed that children liked books about fairies, Lindsay argued that they preferred eating and fighting, and wrote The Magic Pudding to prove his point.

Where it went next

The Magic Pudding has been adapted as a play, puppet show, opera and, in 2000, as an animated film voiced by John Cleese, Hugo Weaving, Geoffrey Rush and Sam Neill. Lindsay is widely regarded as one of Australia’s greatest and most prolific artists, admired for his etchings, watercolours, oil paintings and sculptures.