THE GRUMPY GRAYLING, the sixth book in Robyn Goodwin’s Backyard Tales Series landed in its author’s eager hands last Thursday. Flicking through the pages before engaging with the story itself readers will be amazed by the level of invention in the colour illustrations. It can’t be easy putting Frog and a duck named Dabble together on a fly fishing expedition along the ‘backyard’ creek. Dressed in the right gear, waders and all, and dreaming of the digestive satisfaction a fish is going to bring the two of them, Frog might be failing to anticipate the fight-back courage of Grayling the fish. Read on. Well, read on if you can take your eyes off the pictures. I guess we are all so used to looking at printed pictures, photographs or drawn illustrations that we tend not to engage with the process of creating them unless they are framed behind glass and hanging on a wall somewhere. But this is art, as good as any other and more difficult to produce than most of the rest. It’s one thing to paint a landscape or flowers in a vase but quite another to present a frog in short sleeved shirt and waders, rod and reel in hand attempting to outsmart a fish. So while the story might appear to be most suitable for children – though that’s only if you obey silly rules supposedly imposed by age – these illustrations are for everybody. Like Tinniel’s famous Alice in Wonderland illustrations they take you to a whole lot of places your imagination just can’t wait to visit.