Alex Crumbie’s sixth book. A short story, written in verse, about a tapeworm named Terry. As a tapeworm, Terry’s existence is parasitic, and as such he faces the fine balancing act faced by all parasites: he must take from his host in order to survive, but be careful not to take too much or else his host may perish…

The book is a modern fable about greed and myopia, particularly in relation to how the human race relates to plant Earth.

The book has received some rave reviews:

“An important warning call for all of us to heed, especially in relation to the climate crisis.” George Mon Bio, The Grauniad)

My books are written for children, adults, and everyone in between. I believe that the best art and story-telling should have something for everyone, so I aim to incorporate important philosophical ideas and concepts into easily understood tales.

The book itself is A6 size, handmade and printed on recycled paper using vegetable-oil based inks. It has 24 pages and 8 large illustrations.

As the printing is done using a Riso printer, the most ecological form of printing around, colours are printed layer-on-layer, which in some cases can mean some misalignment. I prefer to see such misalignment not as a mistake, but as a quirky stylistic feature. Hopefully you will too.

More about Riso printing…

The soya ink print process uses digital machines called Risographs. This process avoids all the worst aspects of the printing procedure. The ink is soya-based and contains none of the solvents that cause volatile organic emissions. There is no waste ink, no fixers, no wash downs, no disposable aluminium plates. The Risograph printer uses very little energy as there is no heat involved – it is a wet ink process. (This description is taken from MARC the Printers, a members-owned printing social enterprise in Manchester).