
A Kid for Two Farthings
(The Bloomsbury Group)
By: Wolf Mankowitz
Paperback | 18 December 2009 | Edition Number 1
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144 Pages
20.2 x 16.4 x 1.0
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Six year-old Joe knows a unicorn when he sees one. His downstairs neighbour Mr Kandinsky has told him all about these mythical creatures, and there isn't anything in the world that this wise tailor doesn't know. So when Joe sees a little white goat amidst the singing birds, salted herrings and hokey-pokey ices of a Whitechapel market he has to have him. He knows it's just a matter of time before the tiny bump on the unicorn's head becomes the magic horn to grant his every wish.
For in the embattled working-class community of 1950s East End London, there are plenty of people in need of good fortune. The only thing Mr Kandinsky wants is a steam press for his shop; his assistant Shmule, a wrestler, just needs to buy a ring for his girl; and all Joe and his mother wish for, more than anything, is to join his father in Africa. But maybe, just maybe, Joe's unicorn can sprinkle enough luck on all his friends for their humble dreams to come true.
A Kid for Two Farthings is part of The Bloomsbury Group, a new library of books from the early twentieth-century chosen by readers for readers.
About Wolf Mankowitz
Wolf Mankowitz was born in 1924 in the East End of London, the heart of London's Jewish community. This background provided him with the material for three famous novels A Kid for Two Farthings, Make Me an Offer, and My Old Man's A Dustman. A Kid for Two Farthings was adapted as a film by the director Carol Reed in 1955. Make Me an Offer was filmed the year before. In 1958 he wrote the book for the hit West End musical Expresso Bongo. Mankowitz's remarkable output has included novels, plays, historical studies and the screenplays for many successful films which have received awards including the Oscar, Bafta, and the Cannes Grand Prix. Mankowitz was hired as one of the screenwriters for the first Bond Film, Doctor No. He later collaborated on the screenplay for Casino Royale. Mankowitz died of cancer in 1998, in County Cork, Ireland.
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'I'm telling you,' the baker said, 'it's the black bread. I'm a baker, shouldn't I know?'
'Hello, Joe,' Mr Kandinsky said, 'what you got there?'
'Cripple, ain't it?' said the baker.
'It'll grow,’ the man said.
'Can you lend me five shillings to pay for this unicorn, Mr Kandinsky?' Joe said.
'For a unicorn,' said Mr Kandinsky, reaching for the box he kept his change in, 'five shillings is tukke cheap.'
Later, Mr Kandinsky made a careful examination.
'Clearly,' he said, 'this unicorn is without doubt a unicorn, Joe; unmistakably it is a genuine unicorn, Shmule. It has only one small horn budding on its head.'
'Let's see,' said Shmule. Then after he looked and felt the horn bud he said, 'Granted only one horn.'
'Second and still important,' continued Mr Kandinsky, 'Joe went to the market to buy a unicorn. That is so, Joe?'
Joe nodded.
'Consequently,' Mr Kandinsky continued excitedly, 'it follows that he wouldn't buy something that wasn't a unicorn. In which case, he bought a unicorn, which is what this is.'
'There's a lot in what you say,' replied Shmule, 'although it looks like a baby goat, a little bit crippled that's all, not like a horse which is, after all, a unicorn except for the horn.'
'And this has a horn, yes or no?' asked Mr Kandinsky.
'Definitely,' replied Shmule, 'it has an undeveloped horn.'
'One horn only?' asked Mr Kandinsky.
'One horn,' agreed Shmule.
'So,' concluded Mr Kandinsky, 'it's not a unicorn?'
'What do I know?' said Shmule shrugging his shoulders. The shrug reminded him of his shoulder muscles, so he went on flexing and unflexing them for a while.
Then Mr Kandinsky sent Joe to the greengrocery to buy a cabbage and some carrots. 'And a couple of heads of lettuce as well,' he added. 'What he don't eat, we can put in the stew.'
While Joe was gone, Mr Kandinsky examined the unicorn again, while Shmule practised a half-Nelson on himself.
As he ran his hand over the unicorn, Mr Kandinsky sang:
One kid, one kid, which my father bought for two farthings.
Shmule looked around. ‘That's what I say,' he said. 'A kid.'
'What harm will it do, Shmule,' asked Mr Kandinsky, 'if we make it a unicorn? Oy,' he added, 'he really is crippled.'
Sadly beating his fist on the bench Mr Kandinsky sang:
Then came the Holy One, blessed be He,
The angel of death to destroy utterly
That struck down the butcher
That slew the ox
That drank the water
That quenched the fire
That burnt the stick
That beat the dog
That bit the cat
That ate the kid.
Shmule's low voice joined Mr Kandinsky's cracked one in the chorus. Together they finished the song.
One kid, one kid, which my father bought for two farthings.
ISBN: 9781408802946
ISBN-10: 1408802945
Series: The Bloomsbury Group
Published: 18th December 2009
Format: Paperback
Language: English
Number of Pages: 144
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Country of Publication: GB
Edition Number: 1
Dimensions (cm): 20.2 x 16.4 x 1.0
Weight (kg): 0.17
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