Badger's Parting Gifts

This gifted young artist has made a poignant and special picture book about Badger, who dies, leaving his friends with fond memories and 'gifts' he has left them. There are clever reverberations of The Wind in the Willows and other childhood tales. Is the writer/artist giving the pastoral tradition a crisp contemporary edge? The writing is humane, gentle, poetic; the pictures are integral. The telling is slow and not at all morbid. One not to be missed from a talent whose work could become significant.