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BOOKS
175
January14
I Ate Tiong Bahru
Stephen Black
Book Merah | 125 pages
Get it from Books Actually in Tiong Bahru or in e-book form
from Amazon, Kobo or Xinxii
When I say this is a delightful
little book, I don’t just mean it’s
a slim volume: it’s literally the
size of your hand, so small (and
white) that it’s apt to get lost in
the bedclothes.
The author is an American
artist and writer who has lived
in the Art Deco Tiong Bahru
estate for around three of his
11 years in Singapore, and
he describes IATB as a “fact-
based, lyrical documentary”.
Part stream of consciousness, part poetry, part historical
research, it’s a deeply personal yet wholly accessible
journey that apparently follows the route of the old Hock
Lee Bus #6, which entered the estate at Tiong Poh Road,
Picking Up a Penguin’s Egg REALLY Got
Me Into Trouble
Written by Neil Humphreys; illustrated by Cheng Puay Koon
Marshall Cavendish Children | 28 pages
This is the third in the
popular
Abbie Rose & the
Magic Suitcase
series by
Singapore-based British
expat Neil Humphreys. Four-
year-old Abbie’s suitcase
has magical powers, which
means she can travel to far-
flung destinations with her
sidekick bear Billie.
The first thing that caught
my five-year-old and three-
year-old’s attention was the puzzle that came in the three-book
boxed set. This gave them plenty to fight over, before I finally
managed to grab their attention away from said puzzle and
draw them into the book.
MAINLY FOR CHILDREN
eventually skirting the Great World Amusement Park (now
a mall, of course) before returning to Chinatown. That cost
just five cents.
Along the way, Stephen uncovers Tiong Bahru’s 1930s
origins as Singapore’s first public housing estate; immerses
himself in its famous food as he breakfasts on half-boiled eggs
with
kaya
toast or dines on porridge,
mee pok
or
yong tau
foo
; and reflects with some pain on astronomic price rises, a
creeping loss of authenticity, and the fall of the area to yuppies,
expats and the super-rich.
Cute as the presentation of this diminutive book may be, I’d
like to see it in a larger format – and perhaps illustrated with
the kind of gritty yet dreamy photography that we saw in the
same author’s
Bus Stopping
a couple of years ago.
Verne Maree
Abbie Rose journeys to the South Pole, where she
mistakenly picks up a penguin egg and soon finds out this
was not the right thing to do. The storyline and style of writing
were just right to keep my elder child entertained, while the
younger one was most drawn by the lively and colourful
pictures of animals. There were giggles at mentions of Daddy’s
sweaty, cheesy feet, soon repeated ad nauseam when their
own daddy came home.
I have also been instructed that a magic suitcase is now
on my eldest’s birthday gift list, meaning a big thumbs-up for
the book itself, but a minor struggle for me in the gift shop.
Amy Brook-Partridge