The Seventh Samurai

"Sibylla, a single mother from a long line of frustrated talents, has unusual ideas about child rearing. Yo Yo Ma started piano at the age of two; her son starts at three. J.S. Mill learned Greek at three; Ludo starts at four, reading Homer as they travel round and round the Circle Line. A fatherless boy needs male role models, so she plays the film of Seventh Samurai as a running backdrop to his childhood. Ludo, aged five, moves on to Hebrew, Arabic and Japanese, edible insects of the world and aerodynamics. At last, he embarks on the search for his father. A dazzling concoction of a book, by turns hilarious and heartbreaking, it is a book for anyone who has ever wanted better parents than those fate has provided - a novel for anyone who has ever learned an alphabet and never wanted to eat an insect."