Many families treasure the precocious sayings of their very young, later bringing them out on public occasions to the chagrin of the original speaker. Poets’ families no doubt accumulate better bon mots than most; thus we’re not surprised when the dust-jacket reveals that many of the expressions in Susan Musgrave’s book came from her daughter, Sophie. The book’s unnamed central character mishears “fierce” as “fear us” – hence, a “fear-us tiger.” “I am pudding on my clothes,” she tells her mother. “Get it?” She asks to stay up “early” instead of “late.” Instead of ridiculing or correcting such mistakes, Musgrave intimates we should celebrate them as rudimentary forms of poetry. The same thing goes for dreams, which throw up some very peculiar images: a spotted cat laying spotted eggs in a nest on the dreamer’s head, a flying bathtub draining onto her new school.

At first this little girl – wonderfully drawn by Marie-Louise Gay as spindly-legged, gap-toothed, and original in dress – is afraid to go to sleep because she’ll have nightmares. By the last pages, however, she and her dreams are reconciled; having successfully negotiated her first day of school, she’s even planning to bring her dreams to Show and Tell. What makes this possible? Growing up in a loving family environment (here all-female: the only human males are the bully boys at school) where both fears and dreams are acknowledged by a caring parent.

Occasionally the text seems flat, disjointed, or hard to read, but the heroine’s candour is engaging, and the pairing of writer and artist is inspired. Gay keeps things light with lively, stylish drawings of cannibal hotdogs, and wildly animated shoes and underpants, and the cutest kid with the cutest stuffed toy I’ve seen in a while.