Mr. Bliss opens when the main character wakes up and decides to buy a motor car. His pet girabbit (a rabbit with a giraffe’s neck) tells him that it will be a good day. He bikes down to the shop and purchases a motor car with yellow paint and red wheels. He forgets his purse, so the owner of the shop keeps his bicycle until the bill for the car is paid. On his drive, Mr. Bliss picks up some unexpected passengers–Mr. Day, and Mrs. Night, plus their cabbages and bananas and donkey–on his way to the Dorkineses.
When Mr. Bliss drives through the forest, he is stopped by the bears Archie, Bruno, and Teddy. The playful bears take the cabbages and bananas and donkey and join the group. They drive down the hill too fast, crash into a wall, and fly through the air into the Dorkinses and their soup. The Dorkinses forgive them for this disaster and let them stay. The bears eat all the Dorkinses’ food, so they get chased out by the humans all the way to the bears’ home in the woods. Mr. Bliss gets scared by the bears and runs through the town and takes his bicycle back in the dark. Everyone else feasts at the bears’ house.
The following day, the bears, the Dorkinses, and all of Mr. Bliss’ unexpected passengers join with the shop owner and the constable to confront Mr. Bliss at his house. The broken car, the lost bananas, lost cabbages, and spilled soup need someone to pay for them. The bears just tag along to have some fun. The girabbit, whom Mr. Bliss has forgotten to feed, has escaped to cause even more havoc. In the end, Mr. Bliss makes it out with not so much money as he had before.
Mr. Bliss was a wonderful children’s story–a good narrative, both exciting and funny. The most interesting character to me was the blind girabbit. It was a creative and funny character to have in the story. This book is a good way to introduce younger children (and adults too!) to the wonderful writings of Tolkien.
Inkling Investigation 