Jenny Blackford’s Fil and Harry

Jenny Blackford, with illustrations by Kristin Devine, Fil and Harry (Christmas Press 2021)

Christmas Press is a small, Armidale-based publishing house set up about seven years ago, initially intending to publish ‘beautiful picture books for children, featuring traditional tales — folk tales, fairy tales, legends, myths — retold by well-known authors and stunningly illustrated in classic styles that reflect the cultures the stories come from’. Since then their list has expanded, and in 2018 they began to publish chapter books/junior fiction. The world of Australian children’s literature is all the richer for their existence.

In the chapter book Fil and Harry, Fil has to negotiate the perilous world of primary school relationships, deal with an oblivious older brother, resist an over-zealous quasi-stepmother named Elspeth, and cope with life in general. Then her cat Harry starts talking to her. He not only talks, but he lends a sympathetic ear (not something I would expect of a cat, but I suppose I’m more of a dog person). And then he intervenes in ways that are definitely catlike – accidentally on purpose making life hard for those who deserve it and seemingly effortlessly make things go better for the afflicted.

The pencil drawings by Kristin Devine that are scattered through the text add depth to the tale’s sweet warmth. I especially like the double spread of Fil’s empty room with light and breeze billowing the curtains.

It’s a quiet, companionable tale that is just the wrong age for any of my young friends and relatives, so I get to enjoy it just for myself.

Fil and Harry is the seventh book I’ve read for the Australian Women Writers Challenge 2021. My copy of the book is a gift from the author. Full disclosure: when I was editor of The School Magazine we accepted a short story, ‘Barry’, that was published in the magazine in May 2006. Since then the cat’s name has changed and the story has grown longer and deeper to become this chapter book..