When the rhinoceros first arrived in their comfortable sitting room in Richmond, Surrey, England, Diana’s father called for help and her mother fainted by the sofa. It was left to Diana, a resourceful child, to notice that the rhinoceros had a bad cold and needed copious amounts of cough mixture and hot buttered toast.

Edward Ardizzone’s deliciously eccentric story of how Diana and her rhinoceros grew up and old together was first published in 1964 and is now back in a fine facsimile edition. My personal dilemma is whether to keep the small battered paperback edition I have treasured so long and give this new hardback to the next generation or greedily keep the hardback for myself!