Festus & Mercury

A few months ago at the library we stumbled upon the book "Ruckus in the garden" by Sven Nordqvist and were immediately captivated. The story of a funny man and his equally funny talking cat who attempt repeatedly to grow a garden of vegetables and meatballs while plagued by a variety of animal hazards was hilarious and the illustrations equally fantastic.

Since then we've read a number of books by this Swedish author and have loved all of them (particularly "When Findus was little and disappeared" pictured on the left). Admittedly our relationship is at times strained: Lena loves them so much that it is not uncommon for her to ask for the same book each night at bedtime for days on end. They are really wonderful though and highly recommended.

One small warning: in the first book that we read the man's name was translated as "Festus" and the cat as "Mercury". In translations of other books the man has gone by "Pettson" and the cat by "Findus". In our house it has been slightly hard to give up our dear friends Festus and Mercury and so Morgan and I have become adept at translating Pettson and Findus into their alternative names (quite a feat when very sleepy, but Lena keeps us on task). Here are several of the ones we've read and recommend (unfortunately openlibrary doesn't have covers for many of them so you'll have to take our word on the great illustrations):

Ruckus in the garden
Festus and Mercury attempt to plant a garden of vegetables and meatballs respectively but face one set back after another.

When Findus was little and disappeared
Festus tells his cat the story of how they came to live together and how when Mercury was small he was lost and scared by a badger.

The fox hunt
We've only gotten this one out from the library once but it is fantastic. Festus and Mercury attempt to outfox a fox (and end up outfoxing a fox hunter as well).

Pancakes for Findus
On Mercury's birthday the tradition is to always make pancakes (Lena's favorite breakfast!) yet a couple hurdles arise which result in some outlandish behavior that raises the eyebrows of the neighbors.