Mush and the Big Blue Flower

Mush is a Gypsy word meaning 'friend'. Mush and the Big Blue Flower is the story of a little boy who is persuaded that he has lost his voice. Unwilling to return to his mother without it, he goes looking for it. He meets a rather strange cast of characters and befriends a magical flying teapot who becomes his guide and transportation as he travels around looking for his voice and other senses, which the odd individuals he meets persuade him he is missing. Deeper and deeper into the lands of magic he travels, becoming more and more confused. For it seems that, although the people he meets are most friendly and determined to help him, they are all so dangerously misguided that time and again Mush is only able to escape danger at their hands with the help of the teapot and its counter-spells. A final terrifying confrontation puts Mush to the ultimate test. Despite his terror, he manages to summon enough courage to surmount his fears and in the process clears the way for a happy reunion with his voice and his other senses. With playful humour and a delightfully loopy cast of characters, Mush and the Big Blue Flower tells how we all lose our voices, along with our ability to dream and to believe in the magic of imaginative play, as we emerge from childhood. It also tells how, with courage and the determination to be free, each of us can rediscover our own authentic selves.

huswap-based writer Laurie Payne was born and raised in England. He is an artist whose work has been exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and the Bau Xi Gallery in Vancouver. He is also a sculptor, working in large-scale ferro-concrete installations, a potter, and a musician. Mush and the Big Blue Flower is his first children's book.