I have been searching and searching for a set of books I loved as a child. I grew up in Ireland so they are probably UK based. I would rent them from the library when I was about 7 or 8 I think, so around 1992 but I suspect they were older than that.
From the little I can remember these were hardback books in primary colours (I seem to remember orange) where a kid and an animal (I am 99% sure a tiger) would have adventures. There may have been a third character also. There was a lot of text with some informal / childlike pen and ink drawings that would sometimes interact with the text.
Any help or further info would be so appreciated. I’m expecting my first child and would love to be able to share these books some day.
Do you mean In the Attic by Hiawyn Oram, pictures by Satoshi Kitamura? A boy finds a tiger friend in a secret world in his attic. First published in Great Britain in 1984.
Thanks for the suggestion – but it doesn’t look like that is the book. The books I’m describing are less ‘picture books’ from what I remember, with mostly text and some small drawings.
I doubt that this is the one, but just in case: could it be Crockett Johnson: Ellen’s Lion (1959)?
Thanks so much, I think it was much later than this but great to narrow down the search!
Sounds like a perfect description of the Calvin and Hobbes comic
Oh man, I wish it were that easy! 😉
Could it be Judith Kerr’s ‘The Tiger Who Came to Tea’?
Not part of a series (that I know of), nothing in there that I can recall about the fourth wall being broken, and the illustrations are not at all like your detailed descriptions but maybe, possibly “Moonshadow” by Justin Todd and Angela Carter?