The Magic Cap

What do gnomes like to eat? When Arlo and Isaura go in search of a gnome who they hope can cure their ailing hedgehog Crispin, the answer to that question is key.

They think about how to catch a gnome.

“We could try to lure it with a bit of food,” answered Isaura.
“We hide, we wait, and, when it appears, we ask it for help.”
Excited by their plan, the children searched their home from top to
bottom for a bit of food to attract a gnome. An old crouton?
A slice of blood pudding? Perhaps a few raisins?

They settle on the last of their stock of milk, carefully poured into a small bowl. When they carry it into the woods and set it down, they find that other creatures are drawn to drink, but no gnomes appear. The next day, with no food in the house, the children forage for berries and mushrooms and again leave the bowl in hopes that a gnome will come. A toad gobbles up all the berries, leaving behind “one measly mushroom”.

And apparently gnomes like mushrooms, although not to eat. The gnome who comes to investigate the bowl takes the mushroom for a parasol. Rather inexplicably, the gnome expresses his thoughts in rhyme, the only place in the text where rhyme is used:

“Red cap, magic cap
Will you take a look at that?
Can’t resist a gift just right
Make a trade into the night”

In payment, the bowl is filled with gold coins. (As is common only in folklore, the standard currency is gold coins!) The money will buy food for the children, but Crispin is still sick. Fortunately, after seeing that the coins are not enough, the gnome offers up his magic red cap. It is delivered by a friendly bird and put on the hedgehog’s head where it provides warmth and, happily, spurs the little animal’s recovery.

So the two little children lived happily ever after in their
tiny thatched cottage in the woods, together with their pet hedgehog,
some friendly wild animals and a few magical gnomes…
…that they are still yet to see.

The Magic Cap has all the hallmarks of a traditional tale, with its straightforward telling and familiar elements: children living on their own far from other humans; a close, unthreatening relationship with undomesticated animals; a search for something magical to solve a problem. There are a few instances where the urge to make the language colourful is a bit laboured – the gnome’s rhyme is an example – but, in general, the text flows smoothly.

Parent, a Quebec artist, has filled the oversized pages of the book with images of animals and plants rendered in a simple style. The children’s having heads somewhat out of proportion to the size of their bodies gives them a doll-like appearance. Their garments are flat swaths of plain colour or print. The deer, the fox, the badger and the other animals that Arlo and Isaura make friends with are solidly present and shown without much detail. There is no note about the medium used in the illustrations, but they have the look of having been rendered in soft tones with coloured pencil. The strokes of the pencil and the patterns in the fabrics are the only things that provide texture to the pictures.

The real delight for the reader of The Magic Cap will be trying to spot the spritely gnomes that appear on many pages, hiding behind bushes and rocks or perched in trees. Sometimes it is only a conical red hat that gives the game away.

The Magic Cap is a pleasant addition to the storytime shelves.