Picture Book Review | Grill Pan Eddy by Jeanne Willis and Tony Ross

My first encounter with Grill Pan Eddy was at our local library, where my wife and I borrowed a copy to read to our little girl. As my wife put it to the librarian, speaking for her child in that peculiar way that mothers do, “We thought we’d try this one out because that mouse has my daddy’s name.” The librarian’s deadpan response was almost as amusing as the devilishly amusing tale that she was checking out: “Grill Pan?”

Jeanne Willis’s deceptively mellifluous elegy is by turns moving and macabre. She introduces us to the eponymous hellraising rodent; has us succumb to his cheeky charms; and then suddenly kills him off in his prime, only for him to be swiftly succeeded by his equally-anarchistic son: Grill Pan Freddy. Indeed, the increasingly desperate attempts to rhyme something with “Eddy” (steady, heady... leady) actually belie quite a touching tale about domestic tolerance, loss, and the circle of life, all aspects of which are colourfully - and, on occasion, deliberately drably - captured by Tony Ross’s arch illustrations.

As wicked and charming as its ill-fated protagonist, Grill Pan Eddy is a must for any family library. The moment that my daughter’s first pet falls off its perch, I’ll be reaching to the bookshelf for this one as I try to usher in its not-quite-identical replacement.