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Half a century ago, Belgian Zoologist Bernard Heuvelmans first codified cryptozoology in his book On the Track of Unknown Animals.

The Centre for Fortean Zoology (CFZ) are still on the track, and have been since 1992. But as if chasing unknown animals wasn't enough, we are involved in education, conservation, and good old-fashioned natural history! We already have three journals, the largest cryptozoological publishing house in the world, CFZtv, and the largest cryptozoological conference in the English-speaking world, but in January 2009 someone suggested that we started a daily online magazine! The CFZ bloggo is a collaborative effort by a coalition of members, friends, and supporters of the CFZ, and covers all the subjects with which we deal, with a smattering of music, high strangeness and surreal humour to make up the mix.

It is edited by CFZ Director Jon Downes, and subbed by the lovely Lizzy Bitakara'mire (formerly Clancy), scourge of improper syntax. The daily newsblog is edited by Corinna Downes, head administratrix of the CFZ, and the indexing is done by Lee Canty and Kathy Imbriani. There is regular news from the CFZ Mystery Cat study group, and regular fortean bird news from 'The Watcher of the Skies'. Regular bloggers include Dr Karl Shuker, Dale Drinnon, Richard Muirhead and Richard Freeman.The CFZ bloggo is updated daily, and there's nothing quite like it anywhere else. Come and join us...

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Tuesday, March 22, 2011

PINK WHALES IN CHILDREN'S LITERATURE

Yesterday Karl Shuker posted Part Two of his blog on the cryptozoology of Dr Dolittle and he bemoaned the fact that a certain mystery beast that he had been hoping to see in the 1967 movie was not there:

I was seven years old when the film musical was released in Britain in 1967, and on the day that my father took me to see it at the local cinema I was in a state of great excitement, especially as my mother had told me to make sure that I didn’t miss seeing “the great pink whale”. Sadly, however, despite paying particular attention throughout the film (no mean feat in itself, as its running time was a rather lengthy 152 minutes), I never did spot this wonderful yet evidently highly-elusive creature – but for good reason. When, returning home afterwards, I told my mother that I hadn’t spotted it, she confessed, in a rather embarrassed state, that she had somehow confused Dolittle’s great pink snail with another famous oceanic mega-beast – Moby Dick, the great white whale! Thus was born the great pink whale - albeit neither in nature nor on screen, but at least for a short time in my mother’s hazy recollection and, as a result, in my own enthusiastic imagination. A pity, really, as a great pink whale would almost certainly have been an even more amazing sight than either a great pink snail or a great white whale!

If you are looking for a great pink whale, you need look no further than Nighbirds on Nantucket (1966) - a novel by the incomparable Joan Aiken, and the third in her saga, usually named after the most famous book in the series The Wolves of Willoughby Chase (1963). It features a pink sperm whale called 'Rosie' who is pictured on the cover, and within the book.

It is rather nice to be able to write about classic children's books from an era when children's books could tell a story rather than have to worry about addressing `issues`.


If you have not read any of Joan Aiken's books I recommend The Shadow Guests (1980) to any reader of a fortean persuasion. It is genuinely creepy....

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