The It-Doesn’t-Matter Suit and Other Stories by Sylvia Plath

I had no idea that Sylvia Plath wrote children’s stories and I’m not sure why this surprised me so much. I think that my perception of Plath is of someone battling with depression and so my view of what her work may contain or the subjects that her compositions may be about has been tainted somewhat. That being said, a poem of hers called “Mirror”, which I must confess, is the only work of hers before this collection that I’ve read (shameful!) does reinforce this view, it being about a woman who’s ageing and doesn’t really like what she sees reflected back as a result.

This book, however, does much to present Plath in a more favourable light as it contains two stories and a poem aimed at children, and as a result, is filled with quirky characters and episodes and events that have elements of family and magic and all round goodness in them.

The first The It-Doesn’t-Matter Suit is a tale of a boy called Max desperate to have a suit of his own but before it becomes his, it has to go through a whole load of transformation until eventually, he gets to wear it. You could read some deeper message into this about individuality and not pigeonholing yourself into a certain mindset or group of habits from what happens in the story, or you could simply read it as a funny little tale of a boy and his aspirations for a suit to suit. Either way, it has charm.

The second story is Mrs Cherry’s Kitchen which was my favourite. It is slightly surreal, involves pixies and some appliances who want to diversify their roles in the kitchen and again, like The It-Doesn’t-Matter Suit, you could probably read some deeper meaning into it but I read it as a tale of silliness, resulting in chaos which is all reordered by the end.

The final entry is a poem of four-line verse called The Bed Book, which is an exploration of the many properties that beds can have and, I would surmise, seeing the bed as an area to indulge in play-pretend. I liked this one the least despite its rhythm and fun.

The book has a quality of a time gone by so I’m not sure how well today’s child would relate to it without some parental encouragement but worth exploring for its provenance? Maybe.