LETTER: A natural born killer? Not Abigail

From Mr Felix Pirani

Sir: Carolyn Hart ("Children are obscene but not heard", 8 March) gives a sympathetic account of the obstacle course that authors of children's books must traverse in these post-Whitehouse politically correct days, but there is one hassle she does not mention: having one's work misrepresented by those who write about it.

Nowhere in my book Abigail at the Beach does the eponymous heroine "threaten to mow down some intrusive boys with a machine-gun" as Hart claims; Abigail's fantasies about what her father might do to them do not include "Kill[ing] the bastards" as Hart implies, and the comparison that she makes with the film, Natural Born Killers, from what I've heard of it, although perhaps flattering, is egregiously inappropriate.

Yours faithfully,

FELIX PIRANI

London, WC2

8 March