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I've just started The Magic Pudding; Being the Adventures of Bunyip Bluegum and his friends Bill Barnacle and Sam Sawnoff. So far, there is this koala, who has an uncle whose whiskers really annoy him (the koala--Bunyip). So Bunyip goes and talks to a poet koala, about what he should do with himself because he can't stand living with his whiskery uncle anymore, whose whiskers get in the soup, which makes Bunyip have to eat outside the house so he doesn't eat whiskers and---let me get this right--

Bunyip Bluegum was a tidy bear, and he objected to whisker soup, so he was forced to eat his meals outside, which was awkward, and besides, lizards came and borrowed his soup.

And in the picture, there are these two little lizards, like the size of small dogs compared to Bunyip, standing on their hind legs and holding bowls--they are holding bowls. They are standing up in Bunyip's tree, on hind legs, tiny lizards holding bowls and begging. Bunyip is sitting on a stool in this tree, kind of a small stool, and it does indeed look awkward.
So the uncle won't get rid of his whiskers, Bunyip can't decide if he should be a traveller or swagman, I'm not Australian so I have no idea, and the poet koala says, what you should do is get a cane. A fancy cane, and go around being fancy.
Wait. Shit. I forgot to tell you. The poet koala is Egbert Rumpus Bumpus. I don't know if he's important later in the story too, but there you have it.
So Bunyip takes his uncle's walking stick and he assumes an air of pleasure, the book says, and goes around walking, looking at stuff like dandelions and traction engines, the book says, being conversational with people and very polite. But he starts to get hungry.

"I had no idea that one's stomach was so important,"

he says to himself.
So then he finds Bill Barnacle, a sailor, and Sam Sawnoff, a "penguin bold" who also seems to wear gigantic red trousers up to his wings, like some kind of Fred Mertz of penguins. They are eating a pudding that smells good. Like, a meaty oniony pudding. Not like that you eat with a spoon. It's Australia, I don't know. Bunyip wants some but he's so polite, and Bill and Sam aren't, but the pudding, the pudding then pipes up--it speaks--and asks Bill where his manners are, to give Bunyip a slice. Of himself.

"There you are," said Bill. "There's nothing this Puddin' enjoys more than offering slices of himself to strangers."

And the pudding is not being polite, no. The pudding then recites a poem or song to that effect, that he's not into politeness. Politeness be hanged.
"Always anxious to be eaten....that's this Puddin's mania," Bill says.








Let's get that again:

"Always anxious to be eaten....that's this Puddin's mania"

Well, I just had a class tonight where I spent a good several minutes giggling about this, so.
Anyway, I'm feeling good about this book. I'm not sure I can read it to the class though because the vocabulary is so bizarre. Maybe I'll just read it myself.