Mum, You Forgot To Shut The Window!

My Next Junior Fiction Series

Aug 29, 2024

In 2021, my children’s book, Weird School was published by Penguin Random House. As part of the Covid delayed book launch event, I asked the live audience for some feedback on a range of subsequent children’s book ideas, that I was hoping to pitch to the publisher. However, the books were literally a work of fiction. They existed merely as a selection of fictional book covers that I’d mocked up as visual jokes for the launch.

There were a few recurring themes, but easily the most well received was the ‘Mum Series’. In fact on the day, the ‘Mum Series’ proved to be just as popular as my actual book. The kids loved them, the adults loved them & most persuasively of all, the host of the book launch loved them. In fact, he loved them so much, he called a meeting at which he told me ‘If I was your publisher, I’d be telling you to forget about any of your other ideas and write the ‘Mum Series’

Despite the urging of Andy Griffiths, the highest grossing children’s author in Australian history, I am yet to write the Mum Series. (Sorry Andy!)

For those familiar with my creative output, I don’t want for projects, so the fact that this has gained no further momentum, is not a question of work ethic, it’s just that other projects have been prioritised over the ‘Mum Series’

However, one of the reasons that it has continued to be pushed down my ‘to do’ list is that the book covers are funny enough on their own. Extrapolating on the visual gag, feels like buttering both sides of the crumpet.

Let’s examine the above book jacket by way of example. ‘Mum, You Forgot To Shut The Window’ doesn’t bear further examination within the acceptable and responsible realms of children’s literature. Even assuming the protagonist’s younger sibling survives, by page 3 the cops are involved. By page 5 the social workers have stepped in and half way down page 8, the protagonist and the baby have been removed from the family home, pending a family court hearing.

During my school visits during 2024 Book Week here in Australia, I decided to add some new titles to the ‘Mum Series’ hoping this process might help me overcome my prejudice against adding pages beyond the front cover.

However, it hasn’t been easy. If you scan down to the next book cover, ‘Mum, I Think The Bath Is Full’, you’ll see that a behavioural pattern is emerging from the titular ‘Mum.’ If it is indeed the same ‘Mum’ from the open window incident, one would have to query whether she was fit to be the primary guardian of a minor: A minor who appears to be stepping up to compensate for her diminished capacity to balance family life. Even if the judge had erred on keeping the family intact after the buzzard kidnapping, the regrettable aquatic situation unfolding on the upper levels of their dwelling, will surely lead to an adverse finding.

From hereon, I’ll push past my reticence and attempt to expand upon the book cover, and write the first page of each book.

‘Mum, I think the bath is full!’ I yelled over the deafening torrent, as water freely cascaded out of the upstairs windows. I desperately held on to the door frame as the fast moving current deposited all of my wordly possessions onto the street below.

‘I know!’ yelled my helmeted mum, who was back paddling against the current in her canoe. ‘Jump on!’ she held out her left hand as her right clutched her oar. I leapt on behind her and wrapped my arms around her neck. Moments later, the canoe plummeted out of the window down into the newly formed creek below.

Three years later, mum was selected to represent Australia in Canoe Cross at the Olympic Games … but I was living with dad by then.

‘Mum, can I change schools?’ I pleaded as the doctor plastered the lower half of my left arm. ‘This is the third time I’ve fallen down an open grave this term.’

‘Silly duffer!’ Mum replied as she scrolled on her phone.

‘Mum! The only reason I wasn’t buried alive was the guy driving the excavator heard my phone ringing.’

‘That’s nice love!’

‘No, it’s not nice mum,’ I continued on my rant. ‘And I’ll tell you what else isn’t nice: Digging up a skeleton in the sandpit and nearly getting run over by a hearse during little lunch last week;’

‘Give it a little while sweetheart! I’m sure everyone is just running a bit late,’ Mum reassured.

‘They’re not running late. They’re not coming!’ I explained again. ‘I told you. Everyone in my class said they wouldn’t come if we have my party here. It’s terrifying! Jillian O’Farrell is still in therapy after she thought the giant head was talking to her at the parish picnic.’

‘Well, that’s just silly!

‘Is it mum? I’ll tell you what’s not silly, Henry Stapleton almost dying from tetanus after going on down the left leg at his family reunion.’

‘Oh well then, you find someone nice to play with,’ she suggested. ‘Mummy will pick you up in a few hours after she’s finished having a few wines with Aunty Nelly, OK?’

She had disconnected the FaceTime call before I could respond.

‘

‘Mum, I don’t really like playing with our new neighbours,’ I confided through the bars of my dungeon cell.

‘But sweetheart, I thought you liked doing recreations of the French Revolution,’ mum replied, passing me a husk of stale bread through a gap in the bars.

‘It was fun at first, but now they’re beheading anyone with royal blood!’

“Well, just don’t tell them you’ve got royal blood.’

‘Mum, when you sent me over to play with them, you made me wear a T-shirt that says ‘I’m the Dauphin’s Second cousin’

‘Oh I did too,’ she said slapping her forehead. ‘Silly me. Tell you what. I’ll give the Scarlet Pimpernel a call … Although, I think he might be away on a cruise.’

‘Mum, Dad has entered himself in the Melbourne Cup again!’ I called out from the kitchen window as I watched dad give Uncle Barry a piggy back around the backyard. He was dressed in jockey silks and dad whinnied with every strike of his whip.