posted on 15 May 2025

Captain Toby by Satoshi Kitamura

There’s one land in which children and adults share the same status, where many of the everyday rules can be ignored or deliberately broken and to which we all have access for all of our lives: the land of dreams. Whether it’s a place we go to in our sleep or if we are awake but indifferent to the ‘real’ world around us, dreamworld is a place that is only governed by one power - our own imagination. There are no limits to what we can be or do and no bothersome rules of logic to obey – everything is possible.

And who better to take us on a trip to someone else’s world of dreams that the wonderful author and illustrator, Satoshi Kitamura? He takes us to meet Toby who is trying to settle down in bed for the night just as a big storm starts whipping up and rattling the windows and doors. But Toby finds his house has become adrift on a bucking sea – just as if he was in a ship – and, he is the Captain, trying to chart his way with just the help of his crew (well, actually, it’s his cat).

As if the stormy sea isn’t enough to cope with, he takes up his telescope, looks out of his bedroom window and sees a gigantic octopus heading towards them! However much they try, they can’t get away quickly enough and soon the tentacles of the octopus are pushing in through the windows.

Can anyone save them? Well, there’s always help at hand when your grandparent’s house is also a submarine and can fire lots of coloured ropes around the beast and set you free of danger.

Find out for yourselves just what the octopus does with the ropes – and I can at least reassure you that it’s not nearly as dangerous as trying to invade Toby’s house/ship.

Kitamura’s story was originally published way back in 1987 but this reissue was done by the good people at Scallywag Press and they’ve done us all a favour by making the delightful story and superb illustrations accessible to us all. 

Here at the Letterpress Project we are huge fans of Satoshi Kitamura’s wild and wonderful imagination and his immediately distinctive illustrative style that is perfectly suited to the dreamworld he creates.

You will be able to get a copy of the book from your local independent bookshop – who will be happy to order it for you if they don’t have copies on their shelves.

 

Terry Potter

May 2025