"What is worth doing and what is worth having?" asks Vasco of his friend Mr. Curly.

"It is worth doing nothing and it is worth having a rest", advises the sagacious Mr. Curly. "In spite of all the difficulty it may cause, you MUST rest Vasco - otherwise you will become RESTLESS!"

Mr Curly and Vasco Pyjama are very different in nature but have been great friends for a  long time.  The wise and grounded Mr Curly leads a contented life birdwatching and tending his vines on the shores of Lake Lacuna, near Curly Flat, while the adventurous, inquisitive and sometimes fragile and despondent Vasco circumnavigates his world from the comfort of his amphibious club armchair, accompanied by his ever faithful direction finding duck (who always points toward new joys).

We first met Vasco Pyjama and shared in his adventures and epiphanies way back in the Second Leunig.  It seems the restless Vasco is driven almost to exhaustion in his search for truth and self discovery - such is the nature of all great explorations no matter what their geographic scale.  Periodically he returns to Curly Flat to join his mentor Mr Curly and picnic by the shores of Lake Lacuna, but throughout his journey the friends share their adventures, wisdom and thoughts through handwritten letters, some of which have appeared in print over the years. In this, Leunig's 18th book, we are privy to a further 29 of these letters from a bundle which simply appeared, in mysterious circumstances, tied up with a thin blue ribbon.  The letters are faithfully reproduced and accompanied by beautiful illustrations, some of which will be familiar to regular readers and many of which have never been seen before.

The Curly Pyjama Letters comes in a hardbound edition of 74 pages on shiny paper.   The content embodies everything we've come to love about Leunig - humour, insight, whimsy, pathos, optimism and a little cynicism.    This is Leunig at his best and a great initiation for the not-yet-converted; in fact the naive ruminations of Curly and Pyjama could even launch it from the orbit of regular Leuniphiles to become a popular philosophic stimulant alongside  J.L. Seagull and Sophie's World.