"Dent quality"

As mentioned in yesterday's post, my attraction to Paris Adventure was its cover and the resemblance of its characters to Paris's Tarek and his cousin, Cori. But also the endorsement of the Times Literary Supplement, which I found unusual:

"Underlines the Dent quality in children's books."

The "Dent quality."Took me a moment to figure out that Dent is the publisher, and that "Dent quality" is not an oxymoron but a good thing. A common surname in England, "dent" is cognate with dinn or dind -- the Old Irish words for hill. A hill, too, is a good thing, if you are seen to be on top of one.

Also on the cover is Notre Dame Cathedral, which puts our characters across the Seine on the Rive Gauche, or Left Bank, maybe even in front of Shakespeare & Co, where I read to people (and pigeons!) in the spring of 2002.