'Written with the art that conceals art ... Hideous Kinky has a delightful lightness of being ... the landscape sparkles with allure and minor characters stand out vividly against it. Beggars, shepherds, innkeepers, idiots, dubious Moroccan and eccentric European ladies are funny and appealing and seen with affection' The Times Literary Supplement

'Sheer delight ... a strange, wonderful book, full of evocative description, bright humour and melting melancholy' Women's Journal

'Just open the book and begin, and instantly you will be first of all charmed, then intrigued and finally moved by this fascinating story' The Spectator

'With a quite remarkable skill, Esther Freud presents life on the road in Morroco with a well-meaning hippie mother from the point of view of her five-year old daughter. To write in this context with absolute conviction and without falling into the trap of becoming sentimental, is fiendishly difficult, not least because it has to sound effortless. Freud does it beautifully' Sunday Times

'The best writer about childhood we have' Independent on Sunday

'A remarkable triumph... Not just beautifully written, but forces the reader to look at the world of childhood in a new and exciting light' Sunday Telegraph

As promised, Bilal took us to visit his family in the mountains. We travelled through a whole day on a bus packed with people and then shared a taxi with a man Bilal knew and was happy to see. We had presents of a large packet of meat and three cones of white sugar for Bilal's mother.

The whole village was waiting to greet us at the end of a narrow track that joined the road. 'They welcome you like a wife,' Bilal whispered as Mum stepped out of the taxi. She was dressed in a swirling bulue cloak of material that covered her hair and swathed her body in folds that reached the floor. when she walked she drew up the cloth and let it hang over her shoulder.

Bilal introduced us to his mother. She was a large lady with a throaty voice tha tbillowed out from under her veil. Bilal's father was really an old man and half her size.

The women threw flower petals into the air and sang a low lilting song as we walked back along the path. From time to time they let their fingers brush against my hair. I held tightly on to my mother's hand.

The village was a cluster of low white houses at the foot of a hill that was almost a mountain. We followed Bilal into the dark inside of his family's house. Bilal's family trooped in afer us, and we all stood about smiling. Bea nudged Mum and she remembered and handed over the meat and the sugar.

'You see, she likes the presents,' Bilal whispered as his mother nodded, unwrapping and rewrapping her gifts. I had tried to convince him that she might prefer a Tintin book or a clay drum.

That night Mum, Bilal, Bea and I all slept on rugs in the room that was the house, and Bilal's parents, his brothers and sisters, their wives and children all slept outside in the garden. It was a clear warm night and very light from so many stars.

'I wish we could sleep in the garden too,' I said to Bea and she agreed.

'Where's Abdul?' Bea asked next morning over breakfast. We were drinking coffee sweetened with sugar we had brought. Abdul was Bilal's youngest brother and the same age as Bea. We had tried to teach him hopscotch the evening before.

'Abdul goes to look after the sheep,' Bilal said. 'He is up before the sun.'

'Where?' I asked, looking round for even a single sheep.

'On the other side of the mountain.' Bilal pointed into the hazy distance. 'Over there are all the sheep of the village.'

'Are there other people helping?'

'No, just Abdul.'

So Abdul was a shepherd. I had seen a shepherd that wasn't old and frozen and on teh front of a Christmas card. By lunchtime he was back from his day's work. He sat with hte sun on his back and ate bread and tajine, his feet covered in dust from the long walk home.

'Bea, would you like to be a shepherd?' I asked her.

'No, not really.'

'What would you like to be then?'

'I don't know. Normal, I think.' She was marking out a new game of hopscotch with the toe of her plastic sandal.