December the 11th can’t come soon enough for me after seeing this preview released today. Although for Australia and New Zealand it will be almost a month behind the movie’s release in the rest of the world who will see it all on November 21. There is even a petition on line to try and get Warner Brothers to move the date to back for Australia and New Zealand.

On Mugglenet they have posted still images from the trailer so that you can view it shot by shot and not miss anything! Very cool!

While scouring the net for Harry I also found this first trailer for the next Disney Pixar film called Up. With echos of The Red Balloon and The Wizard of Oz this teaser is beautiful.

Thankyou Youtube

A big box arrived in the post from Japan last week – full of many of the kids’ book related treasures I acquired in Tokyo… Here are some of my favourites…

The Very Hungry Caterpillar containers and drink bottle. The containers stack into each other, and the big yellow one is the perfect size for me to take a sandwich to work in!

The Very Hungry Caterpillar stationery – also perfect for a serious career woman like me!

These Hungry Caterpillar souvenirs were found in a shop in ‘Tokyo Character Street’, which I literally stumbled across on my way to finding the post office as we were catching the train to leave Tokyo. Character Street is one part of the massive shopping real estate under Tokyo Station. It’s dedicated to anime, manga, games, and character goods, including Hello Kitty, Snoopy and Leggo shops. Clearly I got stuck in the Hungry Caterpillar section…

But I also found these Gaspard and Lisa tiles.

Moomin plastic sleeve and keychain (for your mobile phone) and gorgeous letter sets from Ito-ya. (Fabulous NINE-storey stationery store in Ginza; I was in heaven…)

I’m prepared to let Rowan use this one… a Maisy cup, bought from a random homewares store.

And my final kids’ book related purchase was red a ‘Gummi Girl’ by Yoshitomo Nara, cult Japanese pop artist and author of picture book, The Lonesome Puppy. Gummi Girl is made of moulded plastic, and she came with gummi-girl shaped jubes. She was available in an array of colours (blue, green, etc) but the red is definitely my colour. I bought her at a beautiful shop called Sweets and Objects located in the very, very exclusive Omotesando Hills centre in Harajuku. There is something very mysterious about the expression on this Gummi Girl’s face and she currently keeps me company on my kitchen window sill as I do the dishes.

And I also had a bit of a splurge on craft purchases (linen fabric, tape, pattern books). I was very restrained though…

Further to Katie’s post on the Moomin fabric which is divine, I have to share my favorite fabric which I bought off ebay when Ned was born. It is Little Prince fabric but the Japanese Little Prince not the French one! I didn’t even know there was a Japanese version until I saw this fabric and fell in love with it. I have stretched it over an artist’s canvas and it hangs over Ned’s cot.

I have searched for more but never found it. Maybe someone out there knows where to get more?

And here is a shot of Ned, the little bookworm, in his room perusing his bookshelf while his dad took photos of the fabric for the blog.

When I was little, we spent lots of long weekends and school holidays at my grandparents’ house in Myrtleford, in country Victoria. They had a big set of shelves in the playroom at the back of their house, containing books dating from my dad’s childhood. I spent many hours reading the books from those shelves. It felt like I was rediscovering them afresh each time we visited.

My very favourite book was called A Big Ball of String, written and illustrated by Marion Holland, and published in 1958 in the Random House Beginner Book hardback range.

It’s sometimes strange to revisit a book you loved as a child because there are certain elements you forget and others that stand out more prominently in your memory than appear on re-reading. My memory of A Big Ball of String is that a boy who is sick and confined to his bed becomes very inventive, and uses a big ball of string to rig up all sorts of contraptions in his bedroom. Even though I have read this book again in recent times, I was still somewhat shocked when I picked it up again today to discover that in fact this sequence does not occur until page 46 of a 64-page book!

The simple yet endearing illustrations use just three colours, and the images are contemporary to the time of publication. I wonder now whether my fascination with this book was related to watching countless Leave it to Beaver repeats on TV at about the same time. There are certainly a few similarities between the both the physical appearance and the escapades of Beaver and those of the protagonist of A Big Ball of String.

“I had a little string. It was no good at all. I went to look for more string to make a string ball.”

And so the boy starts his adventures collecting pieces of string from wherever he can find them to make a BIG ball of string. Then all that remains is to find some good kind of thing to do with the string!

But getting back to page 46, our new friend eventually comes down with a cold, at which point he realises he can use his string to make his day stuck in bed more interesting:

“NOW I know what will be a good thing! I can stay in my bed with my big ball of string! I can play in my bed! I can do ANYTHING!”

And so this resourceful and inventive boy ties string to his darts so he can get them all back again. He rigs up a string and box on a pulley system between his bed and his shelves so that he can get his books. He ties string to his window blind, to his light switch and to his door. He even ties some string to a toy mouse so that he can play with his cat.

Looking back, I reckon it was partly the independence of this boy that held such strong appeal for me: on his own and without the intervention of adults, he strives and succeeds. And throughout all his misadventures he has complete faith that he can achieve ANYTHING. And after a little while, it’s hard for some of his attitude not to rub off on you.

I have just ordered this most beautiful looking book from Amazon, called Come on, Rain!. It is the picture book companion to Karen Hesse’s Newbery Award winning intermediate novel Out of the Dust. The extract and description on Amazon has me writing this with tingles, isn’t it amazing when books do that?

A creeper of hope circles round my bones.
“Come on, rain!” I whisper.

Apart from Karen Hesse’s beautiful poetry, this book is illustrated by one of my favourites, Jon J. Muth. Muth’s book Zen Shorts is a New York Times bestseller and was awarded an honor for the 2006 Caldecott Medal. Zen Shorts is in fact more than a picture book, it is actually a fable, or three. Three children wake up one morning to find a giant panda called Stillwater sitting in their backyard with a red umbrella. Stillwater tells each child a story, a meditation, that is based upon Zen and Taoist tales that have been told for centuries.

Muth has so cleverly and softly melded these ancient teachings into a gorgeous modern picture book that is so beautifully illustrated with the most amazing watercolours. They make it absolutely a book of art.

There is a beautiful collectors’ edition of Zen Shorts available on Amazon too, which comes in a slipcase and a plush version of Stillwater; I’m so tempted!

Zen Ties is the new book and again stars the wise and gentle Stillwater but also introduces his nephew Koo a haiku-speaking panda. What is so lovely about both these picture books is that they are not patronising or forceful, children can take from the stories what they want and it will probably be something different each time.

I also have one of Muth’s other picture books, The Three Questions which is a retelling of Tolstoy’s short story of the same name. All of these books are special so much so that I even handle them differently, I find myself runnning my hand over the page wanting to touch the beauty and the creativity. True love!

Amherst, Massachusetts that is. ‘Cos this Saturday 26 July there’s the chance to meet Eric Carle…

If anyone reading this goes to the event, please let us experience it vicariously and tell us about it??!

Further to my previous post on The Very Hungry Caterpillar fabric, I have just found out about this Moomin fabric (via the groovy and talented Loobylu):

Not sure where you can source it, unless you happen to live near London (or Finland) but it is very lovely.

HandmadebyMia on Etsy has some gorgeous totes made from re-used and recycled Moomin fabric.

Meanwhile, I need to get around to making something with my Hungry Caterpillar fabric…

Adapting a children’s picture book for the stage must be a daunting task. How do you capture the creativity allowed by the illustrated page? A typical picture book is 32 pages – how do you make a production last a full hour? The age range of your audience may be broad – how do you create something to entertain them all? How do you let the original picture book stand on its own and yet put your own creative stamp on the adaptation?

This task is something that the Patch Theatre Company have made their specialty. They have adapted four of Stephen Michael King’s picture books in a production called Emily Loves to Bounce, which we saw on stage at the Darebin Arts Centre earlier this month. Previously, Patch Theatre has also done two productions of Pamela Allen’s picture books. Most of their productions are geared to children aged four to eight years.

Emily Loves to Bounce uses four of King’s picture books – The Man Who Loved Boxes, Patricia, Emily Loves to Bounce, and Henry and Amy – as inspiration for ideas. It doesn’t retell the narrative from these stories, but instead uses the ideas and messages and creatively adapts them. For example, in the story Emily Loves to Bounce, a little girl called Emily bounces through the book. In the stage production, there is an enormous purple ball, named Emily, who is bounced between the performers.

The production incorporates many different media. Live music and song are important elements, and a violinist and piano accordion player are on-stage and part of the action. There is a sequence of shadow puppetry, which forms an ideal introduction to this medium for young kids. Props are integral, and a magical array of boxes of different sizes, many lit from within, make a visually stunning setting for the opening scene.

Emily Loves to Bounce is currently on an Australian national tour, culminating in November 2008. ACT, NSW, Tassie, Victorian regional and Qld readers might have a chance to catch them. More details available here.

Photo credit: Sarah Long c/o Patch Theatre Company. Pictured are Briohny Campbell, Sarah Brokensha and Nathan O’Keefe.

My dear friend Nicci, who has impeccable taste in kids’ books, recommended Follow the Line by Laura Ljungkvist in a comment on this blog.

The latest book in the same series, Follow the Line Around the World was released in the US in May and is due out in Australia next month.

The concept at the heart of these books is one of those deceptively simple ideas that is very, very clever. The illustrations are based around a single continuous line that winds its way through the entire book to form a multitude of objects: buildings, faces, vehicles and animals. As a wise commissioning editor once taught me, sometimes the simplest forms of expression are the subject of a great deal of effort and thought. I’m sure that principle is true for the artwork in these books.

As a reader, you can’t help but obey the book’s title, and follow the line with your finger across each double-spread as it forms skyscrapers, sailing boats, fish, trees and more. Behind the main line sit flat shapes in bold retro colours, filling in selected detail. A typewriter font and lovely matt paper add to the retro impression. Sometimes I hold a book in my hands and am just so happy to count it as my own, and Follow the Line is one of these! As Nicci commented, this is a book that bears repeat reading, and will be especially appreciated by design-conscious mums and dads.

The author’s website illustrates the line in motion and is good fun.

Don’t forget to enter our current competition to be eligible to win a gorgeous book backpack – entries close shortly!

When I was little I loved a book called The Rabbits’ Wedding. It was written and illustrated in 1958 by Garth Williams, who is probably best known for his illustration of American classics Charlotte’s Web by E.B.White and also of the Little House books by Laura Ingalls Wilder. I distinctly remember my dad reading this book to me and being absolutely besotted with it. Judging by all the customer reviews on Amazon I wasn’t the only one.

I have always been a bit of a romantic and quite sensitive to a love story in a book or on film and perhaps this book was the beginning of that. These two little rabbits, one black and one white, are best friends; they play all day together but every now and then the black rabbit stops playing and starts to look sad. “I’m just thinking about my wish,” says the little black rabbit to the white rabbit. “I just wish I could be with you forever and always”. Not even conscious as to the concept of marriage, I can really remember thinking how beautiful it was that the rabbits wanted to be together always.
And so all the rabbits in the forest come and dance a wedding circle around the two and the little black rabbit was never sad again because they lived in the forest together happily ever after.

The story is pretty simple but Garth Williams’ illustrations are what makes this book so special; the wide eyed rabbits are just divine and the little black rabbit makes my heart melt when he is sad. I still love this book today and I still believe in a good love/friendship story. (The Rabbits’ Wedding is still in print.)

Luckily I never realised that in its home of publication, the US, the book caused absolute controversy and was banned in some states because it portrayed a black and white rabbit getting married and was seen by some to be encouraging and promoting interracial relationships.

Katie and I thought we should start featuring some books on this blog that we loved as children, so we will write about one title each week. There is a wonderful blog which does this every day, Vintage Kids’ Books My Kid Loves, written by the talented Burgin Streetman. Burgin is so devoted to vintage children’s books and we love it.