Always Remember: The Boy, The Mole and the Millennial Losers buying this drivel
Always Remember, the sequel to Charlie Mackesey’s bestselling The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse, could be this year’s Christmas number one. Anna Moloney despairs
What makes a number one Christmas book? The formula for the last 20 years has been remarkably consistent: five Guinness World Records books, four Jamie Oliver cookbooks, three David Walliams children’s books and a partridg—no: a smattering of autobiography (Michelle Obama and Alex Ferguson). Adult fiction as a whole has only managed to muster mass appeal twice (Richard Osmon, 2020 and Dan Brown, 2009) while a murder-mystery-themed puzzle book – that’s right – took the top spot in 2023, presumably reflecting some sort of national yearning to solve things. Alas.
So, what could take the crown this year? Richard Osmon’s cosy crime fivequel The Impossible Fortune, bolstered by the recent Thursday Murder Club Netflix adaptation, is one contender, though it will have to compete with Lee Child’s Jack Reacher thirtyquel Exit Strategy, along with whatever romantasy is currently topping the fiction hardback chart. Phillip Pullman’s return to the Book of Dust trilogy could be a nostalgia hit, while Jeremy Clarkson’s fifth Diddly Squat diary and Gareth Southgate’s Lessons in Leadership lead the way in terms of dad-buy celebrity fodder. And, of course, a Guinness win can never be discounted.
But there’s another contender this year, in a category almost entirely of its own invention: The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse, written and illustrated by former Spectator cartoonist Charlie Mackesy. You may remember it from Instagram, where shots of its one-page wisdoms became gospel in lockdown Britain following its 2019 release. Set in a bucolic woodland full of sage animals, it consists of stylised line-sketches accompanied by two-to-four-line exchanges between said boy, mole, fox and horse. One image – “What’s the bravest thing you’ve ever said?” asked the boy. “Help,” said the horse – went particularly viral. We must remember the age: pans were being banged for the NHS and Captain Tom was still doing laps of his garden.
It went on to be the bestselling book of 2020 and was named the biggest-selling adult hardback of all time in the UK the following year. No surprise that its sequel, Always Remember: The Boy, The Mole, The Fox, The Horse and The Storm – take a breath – released this autumn, has been quick to reach the top of the Sunday Times bestseller list.
Is The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse a children’s book?
A book that seeks little more than to celebrate kindness and friendship, it would take a particular degree of hard-hearted mean-spiritedness to decry its success. Allow me to rise to the occasion (perhaps I have been empowered by The Horse: “Being honest is always interesting,” he tells The Fox). The problem with this book is not that it promotes kindness but that it does so with an unwavering sincerity unbecoming of our proud, sarcastic nation.
Consider this extract, another favourite of the Instagram quote brigade: “What do you want to be when you grow up?” asked the mole. “Kind,” said the boy. Right, so the boy’s a loser, then. I for one don’t know any little boy who would choose being kind over some sort of transport operator and arguably, that’s because this book isn’t really for children at all.
Dr Ann Alston, a specialist in children’s literature at the University of the West of England, says she doesn’t think it’s a children’s book, rather one for adults that plays on our nostalgia for children’s literature. “It’s set in this idyllic world,” she says, referencing the soft, pastoral watercolours, free from any intrusion of modern technology. “The appeal of children’s literature in lots of ways goes back to the appeal of the Romantics, for a time when things were better… It’s fantasy, but I think it’s adult fantasy.”
Its style has been compared to AA Milne, but I would argue the comparison makes Winnie the Pooh, lazy and honey-addicted, look positively edgy. The most Mackesy can offer in the way of personality is a mole that likes cake, a conceit that delivers punchlines similar in sharpness to Prosecco Mum kitchen signs.
In 2025, deemed by some as the dawn of a post-literate society, this is where we are: a more sanitised Winnie the Pooh marketed for millennial adults. Oh, bother.
This piece is published in City PM The Magazine, Winter edition, distributed at major Tube stations and available to pick up from The Royal Exchange