Inspirational reading

Nicola & Pete plus daughters Lola, now 9 and Nell, now 7, spent last year exploring Britain in a carbon-light manner. Our spring 2008 challenge is to give up waste from 24 March to 24 April. Most posts are by Nicola (as it was her silly idea). This is how it’s going:

During the long Easter weekend our bedtime reading was Stig of the Dump, by Clive King. I hadn’t enjoyed it much when I was little but this time around the girls and I thought it was great.

The book is only just older than me – published in 1963 – and follows the adventures of eight-year-old Barney as he befriends a stone age man, Stig, who lives in a den on the landfill near Barney’s granny’s house. There’s some great descriptions of how to reuse things – Stig skins and strips a large car; turns jam jars into a window; cans into a chimney and after dissecting an umbrella ends up with a waterproof skirt, small spears and tripod legs to cook turnips over an open fire.

Verdict: Stig of the Dump has inspired us all to look at things a bit more quizzically before we write them off as one-use items.