A Note to Mem Fox

Dear Mem,

We read "Where is the Green Sheep?" today, Lily and I, and we quite liked most of it. Actually we liked it enough for her to bob up and down and want to eat the pages.

I know, because I've read your papers, that you think an awful lot about political correctness, that you think a lot about racial and gender stereotyping, that you are truly trying to make the world a better place and I am sure that you must really get tired of people drawing your attention to all sorts of innuendo both intended and accidental in your work, and using very long sentences when they do, but why oh why do you call thin sheep "thin" while the considerably less thin sheep is so insanely politically correctly labelled "wide"?

The opposite of wide is narrow, not thin, and even at five months of age, Lily seems quite confused by your juxtaposition of these not-quite antonyms. Those among us who are narrow of frame are equally capable of taking offence at the use of such stereotypical adjectives as those who are wider. We are, after all a minority.

Why, may we ask, are wide objects given such deep and thoughtful consideration when less wide are not?

I have a wide chance of you ever seeing this, but I have written it anyway in the hope that some time in the future you may consider the incorrectness of political correctness.

Perhaps you won't, but I shall not be deterred. It's not over as they say, until the wide lady sings, or perhaps until we find yoghurt on our supermarket shelves labelled "95% wide free".



(Note:  Despite my harsh critique, it took two years for Mem to craft those 190 words, and grateful for her skills though I am, I remain bemused by her reluctance to use the "F" word.  Her story of the story may be found here.)