November 26, 1973

Daniel Hahn (November 26, 1973) is a British writer. He edited the The Oxford Companion to Children’s Literature (2015). Hahn is also a translator, for  instance, of the Portuguese You Can't be Too Careful (Roger Mello), which is about:

A 'White Rose... guarded closely by the gardener, who once caught a cold walking barefoot trying to find his shoes, which had been hidden by a cat, which was a gift from his younger brother, who was married to Dalva, who had inherited the cat from her uncle, who died of a broken heart awaiting a love letter that never arrived... Eventually, we see how one tiny action can have marvelous consequences, and the story turns like a ferris wheel.'

Daniel Hahn is a book reviewer. Here are excerpts from what he wrote about a children's book, Catlantis, by Anna Starobinets.

'This is the story of Baguette, a domestic ginger cat living in a twelfth-floor apartment, and of his efforts to win the hand (paw?) of his beloved fiancée, Purriana.

'After a courtship conducted mostly by letter (friendly dogs pass the notes on their behalf), Purriana welcomes Baguette’s advances, finally turning down another suitor – the sinister Noir – to accept his proposal of matrimony. But tradition dictates that, for a cat to marry, he must first perform a heroic feat, which is why the distinctly unheroic Baguette finds himself travelling back through the perilous Ocean of Time to the lost city of Catlantis, in order to bring back a strange, magical flower and help an old, dying oracle fulfil a prophecy. The oracle happens to be Purriana’s great-great-grandmother, so Baguette is keen to impress her.
...... [T]he white Catlantic flower – though largely forgotten over the centuries – has a powerful magic that gives cats their nine lives, which means that, inevitably, Baguette isn’t the only one after it.

'Starobinets has woven some lovely cat mythology into Catlantis, which she uses to explain the origins of our contemporary cat society, such as the different talents bestowed upon, respectively, cats who are “white like mountain snow”, those who are “grey like the sky before a thunderstorm”, those “black like the deepest ocean”, and the cats who are ginger “just like a carrot” (not to forget, of course, the spotty and stripy ones); and there’s some catty wordplay, too, with nice equivalents supplied here by translator Jane Bugaeva. But it’s the spritely, pleasingly odd and quite original story that makes the book feel so fresh and fun – there’s a lot for child readers and/or listeners to like here. And there’s even a nice joke about French semiotics thrown in for the grown-ups. What more could you want?'

And, Daniel Hahn is an historian, the author of of The Tower Menagerie (2003) an historical account of the zoo kept originally by British royalty. The menagerie began with a gift of three lions to Henry III of England.

Like many good things begin.