Our Last Trip To The Market

Lorin Clarke’s charming picture book Our Last Trip To The Market is a story that will charm children with its colourful illustrations and playful rendering of a family trip to the market… as well as delight harried parents who are all too familiar with the chaos that shopping with kids can provoke.

Author Clarke says “it celebrates the naughty and surprising diversions that take place on a trip to the market, i.e. OMG why would you take six kids to a market? What are you thinking! Have a lie down…!”

She says she wrote the story because she wanted “a book about a woman parenting where the main feeling was of this is an adventure! not ‘we are learning a lesson’ or ‘we are being nurtured’. Not that there’s anything wrong with cuddles and lessons, but there wasn’t a lot of fun for or with Mums, I didn’t think, in books. Also I like the kids’ sense of naughtiness. It’s creative. The adults and the children collaborate in the end, in naughtiness.”

The humorous illustrations by Australian illustrator Mitch Vane allows children and parents to follow the adventures of the family through organic food aisles, sparkly glue, watermelons, pasta and flower stands, in experiences that reflect Clarke’s real life experience. “I was at the Ceres Market in Melbourne and I literally heard someone say “hands out of the lentils, Serenity!”. So I obviously had to write a book with that in it!” says Clarke.

Clarke says “there’s a gender ambiguous kid frolicking in a dress, there are different cultures everywhere, and one of the kids straight up steals a dog. It’s my first children’s book so the process was really collaborative between the publisher, the illustrator and me, and I’m super proud of the result.”

You can purchase Our Last Trip To The Market here.