The other morning on the radio I heard Andy Griffiths (popular Australian author, most well-known for The Day my Bum Went Psycho or … Butt … in the US). He was a speaker on a panel for a Deakin University debate on the topic, ‘Yes, I can’t read and write but it’s not my fault.’

Andy was talking about the books he loved as a child: Dr Seuss, Alice in Wonderland, Cole’s Funny Picture Book, and Enid Blyton’s ‘canon’. But clearly one of his very favourite books was Struwwelpeter.

Der Struwwelpeter was first published in 1845 by German author, Heinrich Hoffmann, and first published in English in 1848. The book is made up of a series of short stories, each devised to teach a lesson, and in each one a child comes to a very sticky (and frequently morbid) end. Through an adult’s eyes, it’s really very gruesome. In the story of Kaspar who did not have any Soup, a healthy, strong boy proclaims that he will no longer eat his soup, and consequently wastes away to death. In the story of Little Suck-a-Thumb, a mother warns her son not to suck his thumbs. When she goes out he continues his thumb sucking, until a tailor appears and cuts off his thumbs with giant scissors. Nice. And worth remembering that when written this book was intended for an audience of 3 to 6 year olds…

Andy’s memories of Struwwelpeter are of it being one he read at his grandmother’s house, and he would approach reading it with a mixture of joy and dread. He said he thought it was a great example of children’s literature because you never knew what would happen next: it could be ‘horrifying or funny or a mixture of both’. When Andy became a secondary English teacher, he realised that one of the reasons his students were not motivated to read was because they hadn’t learnt books could be fun; his students had never had the chance to meet deranged characters like those in Struwwelpeter.

Have been thinking about this since, even in relation to some of the books that Rowan loves as a toddler… more thoughts on this soon.

We’ve been working on something exciting…

We can’t wait to show you – very soon!

Unfortunately no longer in print The Cow Who Fell in the Canal was the book that I borrowed over and over from the library, driving my mum crazy. “Don’t you want something different this time?” she’d say.
But no, I loved this book most of all!

Published in 1957 it is the story of Hendrika, an unhappy and bored black and white cow who lives on a farm in Holland. She is told stories of the city from the cart horse Pieter and she longs to see the wonderful things he talks about. Until one day while fat Hendrika is chewing her way through the pasture she gets the adventure of her life, falling into the canal and travelling via raft down the waterway to the city. Once in the city Hendrika takes off, running down the cobbled streets discovering and exploring all the things she’d only heard about in Pieter’s stories.

The Cow Who Fell In The Canal is a lovely story about adventure and curiosity, things that every child can relate to.

Peter Spier’s illustrations are gorgeous in this book, the double page spreads are alternated between black and white sketches and then glorious colour. His vibrant use of blues and yellows create spectacular scenes that make you feel sunny and warm just looking at them. The detail he uses is exquisite, there is so much to look at in each picture and his landscapes have amazing depth, it’s like the lush green fields go on and on.

Recently I bought a copy of The Cow Who Fell In The Canal off Ebay, battling three other bidders for an old ‘Bell Primary School Reading Scheme’ paperback. When it arrived I realised that I still loved it very much.

In 1995 Scholastic Publishing made a short film of the book and I found it here, it’s beautiful and worth taking 8 minutes out of the day for.

Is this not one of the most gorgeous photos you’ve ever seen? It was taken by photographer Jennifer Zwick and is titled The Reader. It is part of a series of constructed narrative photos that Jennifer has created that all feature young girls in adventurous and magical environments. Of course I love this photograph, what better than the combination of a strong female character and literature. I really adore the concept of the woods being her library, the little girl could almost be levitating on the leaf litter. She doesn’t look one bit alone amongst all those books.

You can see the lengths Jennifer went too to create this beautiful picture here. And her website here.

Thank you immensely to Jennifer for permission to show her photos.

The selection of which vintage kids’ books are labelled as ‘collectables’ always seems a bit arbitrary to me, and I’m often surprised to discover how coveted some books are.

The gorgeous Ant and Bee series of 13 books by Angela Banner was published in the UK in the 60s, and republished in the late 80s and 90s. I love these books, but it seems incredible that even the newer editions are selling for extraordinary prices on Amazon and the secondhand book sites. Do people really pay hundreds of dollars for these?!

The books are some of the smallest you’d fine – and gorgeous hard backs editions. They are quite long – my one is 96 pages. Nevertheless – somewhat incongruously – they are intended for pre-schoolers and typically introduce basic concepts of the alphabet, numbers, shapes and colours. Key words are printed in red to help beginner readers associate the words with the illustrations, and sometimes pictograms are used.

When I first picked up my copy of Around the World with Ant and Bee (bought new, in the late 90s) it was a strangely familiar series. I still can’t quite put my finger on where I read this book when I was little, but it definitely left a strong impression. I had to buy the copy I found immediately…

The illustrations are very distinctive: it’s almost a naive style – flat, simple shapes, and Ant and Bee themselves have simple ’stick’ legs and faces. Yet, there are also instances where the illustrations have great detail: in Around the World, there are beautiful images of different landscapes and cultures. The colouring is impeccably done – in gorgeous contrasting limes, reds, yellows and oranges.

The text is unusual and also quite distinctive – very repetitive (I guess to reinforce the teaching theme) and at times the turn of phrase is almost awkward, but I think this is one of the very endearing aspects of the books.

In Around the World with Ant and Bee, Bee loses his treasured umbrella, which somehow gets blown away and ends up on a plane and taken overseas. Ant and Bee must travel the world to find the umbrella, and through their visits to different parts of the world, we learn the name and shape of different countries and some distinctive features of the culture there.

I love the excitement of the journey Ant and Bee take and all the details of how they travel. There is something magical about holding a small book in your hands, and imagining the existence of even smaller creatures and their adventures.

Today is the United Nations Anti-Poverty Day, and I have been giving some thought this week to children’s books on the theme of poverty. Thanks to Lisa for drawing my attention to Blog Action Day, which was on Wednesday.

Poverty is of course a big and complex issue, and a challenging one to convey adequately to small children. Nevertheless, I couldn’t help thinking of this book, Mutt Dog, which offers a sensitive depiction of homelessness and poverty in an urban Western environment and I think can be used to gently introduce some of the concepts of poverty to children.

Mutt Dog belonged to no-one, he ate whatever he could find, and looked for a new place to sleep every night. One day he finds a halfway house, where there are people who are cold and tired like him.  A lady who works there notices him and although she tries put him outside and send him on his way, she eventually changes her mind and takes him home with her. And it’s in her home that Mutt Dog experiences the joys of a bath, a bowl of food and small pleasures like a bone.

Stephen Michael King’s illustrations are lovely – and they cleverly convey a sub-plot that adults can discuss with children or let them discover for themselves. As a background to the analagous story of Mutt Dog, the illustrations show plainly some of the discomfort and emotions of poverty. I find the illustration of the halfway house very touching in the body language and expressions on the peoples’ faces. I think the book successfully helps children to think about what it might be like – for an animal or a person – to go without food, or to have to find a place to sleep each night.

I love these photos we took of Ned and I really wanted to share the book that he is enjoying. It’s called Brave Little Penguin by Australian author/illustrator Anna Pignataro and I bought it for Ned – my brave little penguin – and his dad on father’s day this year.

This little picture book is stunning, it is cloth bound with the title and stars embossed in silver dancing across the cover. The endpapers are a divine dusty blue with the little sketched penguin in white tumbling around.

I have always loved Anna’s illustrations but there is something really whimsical and loveable about these little penguins in particular; they have so much personality and convey so much emotion.  For a small picture book Anna really doesn’t let any space go to waste, she captures the immensity of the icy landscape and the rolling sea perfectly on the smaller pages.

The text is very simple, just a few words per page but that’s all that’s needed to tell the gorgeous story of a papa penguin and his little penguin. Anna’s description is beautifully lyrical, the penguins live “in a white peppermint world“, be “back before the moon” calls little penguin when papa goes looking for food. Little penguin has to keep himself busy while papa is away and is overjoyed when papa returns. It is such a perfect story of reassurance, love and comfort. Ned is sometimes upset when daddy heads off for work but he knows that like papa penguin, he will be back.

This fantastic little book was published earlier this year and is actually a companion to Anna Pignataro’s 2006 picture book called Always. Always is also cloth bound but is embossed in gold on the jacket. This is a mummy story and is also beautiful. The characters in this book are bears, baby bear Oli and his mamma. Oli questions his mamma, “Mamma, how long will you love me?” “‘Always,’ Mamma smiled.” Once again the theme of the story is reassurance; reassurance of mamma’s love for her baby and a lovely tale for bedtime.

These lovely books are $15.00 each in Australia, which I think is just a bargain for what spectacular productions they are.

The amazingly talented Jennifer who creates and writes the blog Minor Details has posted some photos of the room she created for CookieLiving.

It is ‘incredible’ just like the inspiration she used – The Incredible Book Eating Boy by Oliver Jeffers. The room is called Merle’s room and on her blog you can see more photos including one of Oliver Jeffers himself visiting the room and leaving a little mark.

I can’t think of anything better than designing a room around a beautiful picture book and it has made me think about what I could do in Ned’s room when he gets a bit older.

Thanks to Jennifer for giving us permission to use these beautiful photos.

Bill Peet wrote over 35 classic children’s picture books before he died in 2002 but this one was my favorite. He is considered one of the most important author/illustrators in American history and he is still very much a favorite there. (It is hard to find his picture books in Australian bookstores - although they are all still in print). What I hadn’t realised until this weekend was that Peet actually wrote and produced for Disney and worked on amazing films like Fantasia and Peter Pan. When I re-read Jennifer and Josephine (published in 1967) last night I found that his illustrations really take on a life of their own, they are very atmospheric and almost run past your eyes like the animation in those classic films. This must have been one of the things I loved about this book when I was little.

The Jennifer from the title is an old automobile built in 1933. She is worn out and sits in a junkyard, her friend is Josephine a “scrawny stray cat”. Josephine has raised kittens in Jennifer and they are great friends until one day Jennifer is bought from the junkyard by a very rude and frantic man they nickname Mr. Frenzy.

The story is all about friendship and loyalty as Jennifer and Josephine stick together and look after each other to get through their hair raising journey with Mr. Frenzy.

Another thing that I now recognise I must have loved is actually what an adult storyline this book has. Peet dosen’t tell a soppy story, Jennifer and Josephine travels at a fast pace with some spooky bits “Billowing black clouds rolled over the countryside, and a streak of lightning shot through the sky followed by a great rumble of thunder.” And lots of adventure: “the road was hilly as a camel’s back and all mud” .

From the Houghton Mifflan site I found this quote from Peet: “Most of my animal characters have human personalities, and some are much like the people I know.”  Jennifer and Josephine is dedicated “To three stray kittens the Peet family discovered on the Malibu Road” – I love that.

When I pulled this off the shelf a couple of weeks ago to read and write about, Ned adopted it and has been devoted to it ever since. It has a lot of text but Ned loves to lie back with daddy and have Jennifer and Josephine read aloud to him.

It is a beautiful sunny day in Melbourne and Ned and I are getting ready to go and spend some time outdoors.

Last week Ohdeedoh featured a post on a lovely combination of the outdoors and reading. Have a look at the post here; it came to them via blog Sweet Fine Day. Bryant Park in New York has a dedicated space for tables and chairs and bookcases – in the middle of the park. They have even catered for kids, with little versions of the tables and chairs available, as well as a children’s book selection.

There are more pictures and information on the Bryant Park website and you should pop over to Sweet Fine Day for some great photos and a lovely description of time in the park. Actually Sweet Fine Day is a really gorgeous blog to visit especially if you want to daydream of New York and see some really spectacular photography and amazing food.

I think Ned and I will definately pack some books for our morning out in this glorious weather.