Mr Gumpy’s Outing marks a significant stylistic break with Burningham’s earlier books for children. Where once a succession of evenly paced events separated the beginning of a story from the end, now the pages build momentum steadily toward some ‘inevitable’ climactic event. And gone is the bold, painterly style of Borka or Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, replaced now with finely worked crosshatching and subtle colour washes. Slow work, employed in the careful construction of key moments, each one an opportunity for pause and reflection: the heavily laden boat, the inevitable capsizing, the triumphant supper at the end of the book. We are invited to dwell on each.

These illustrations are not designed to move the story on quickly, to flick past, but reward further investigation with significant, often unexpected detail and flourishes of wit and personality much like the biblical events depicted on church walls by painters of the past.