Q: What was your favorite children’s book?
A: Clearly there are too many to choose just one. If pushed, though, I’ll go for ‘The Truck On The Track’ by Janet Burroway, wherein a fantastical circus troupe attempt to free their vehicle before it’s mown down by a train. Inevitably, they fail. The final orgy of destruction was always my favourite part as a child. The story has the quality of the best children’s (or adult) fiction, in that it’s entirely deranged; the cumulative rhyming form just adds to the weirdness. And there’s a yak involved. Tragically it seems to be out of print nowadays.
Matt Thompson’s story “Luminaria” was published in Metaphorosis on Friday, 29 July 2016. Subscribe to our e-mail updates so you’ll know when new stories go live.
