When I was little, my grandparents’ house had several copies of the Pookie books by Ivy Wallace. I remember rifling through the soft creamy pages, taking in all the details from the pastel illustrations.

Pookie is a rabbit with wings, and he comes to live with a woodcutter’s daughter named Belinda. He sleeps in Belinda’s work basket, with red satin lining, and wears flounced blue overalls. A total of ten books were published in the series, between 1946 and 1966. In the early 90s Ivy and her daughters initiated a re-release of four of the titles through their own publishing venture, Pookie Productions.

I think my favourite title would have to be Pookie Puts the World Right - the ambition of the title alone makes me love it. In this story, there is a terrible storm in the wood, and Pookie and Belinda take in the homeless animals - Pookie makes tiny beds for them in cardboard boxes with miniature sheets and pillows. While out checking for more animals in need of shelter, Pookie encounters Winter, who with its icy voice, speaks to Pookie. Pookie loses his temper and shouts at Winter, telling it to go away for it has come too early. And, to Pookie’s amazement, Winter listens! The animals call Pookie a hero! But little by little the woodland animals realise that that they can’t manage without a Winter - they need it for resting-time, for their winter coats, and for their winter stores of food. So it’s up to Pookie to put the world right again. In the era of climate change, there is a message here that’s more poignant than ever.

The detail of the illustrations of these books is exquisite - the animals, flowers and woodland scenes are so very English, and the interiors of the woodland cottage perfectly of the 1950s era. The muted blues, greens and oranges of Wallace’s pallate are beautiful. The pages are quite heavy with text, but the dialogue-rich text make these books lovely read-alouds. As I flick through their pages, I can almost smell my Nana’s flannelette sheets, feel her hot water bottle on my feet and fluffy eiderdown up to my chin…

There is some gorgeous inspiration around the blogs at the moment on ways for little people to make their own personal books…

Relevant to our recent Top 5 post on museum books, the lovely Books Together Blog shares the idea of making a child’s personal art book. The idea is that your child collects a postcard or two of favourite works of art at the end of an art gallery visit. They can be staple-bound (or even put in a small ‘brag-book’ photo album) so that kids can enjoy an ‘I Spy’ in the style of Lucy Mickelthwait with their own collection of art. A gorgeous idea for encouraging a love of art - and bridging the gap between art in museums and art at home. And it creates a lasting souvenir…

A similar idea was suggested by Susan Benford, of Masterpiece Cards. In a comment on our museum’s post, she suggested starting a visit to a museum/gallery at the gift shop. By buying a few postcards of artwork at the start, you can make the gallery visit into a treasure hunt. What a great idea - and one that formed the basis of her business, creating beautiful flashcards of art masterpieces.

The stunningly popular (and deservedly so) Soulemama showed an idea for creating a blank board book (pictured above) so you can write and illustrate your own stories. She found an old board book, used sandpaper to roughen the glossy pages and then painted on Gesso to provide a clear, blank surface. Personally, I would find it difficult to complete step 1 of this process (selecting the old board book to sacrifice) but maybe it would be possible if I found a despised board book secondhand somewhere…! Soulemama also has an older post here on some inspiring books about making books.

Soulemama drew my attention to a great US site, Bare Books which sells blank books of all kinds. They don’t ship outside the US, unfortunately, but scrapbooking sites may be able to help elsewhere…

I’ve been coveting the books made by Blurb for ages now. Blurb allows you to self-publish a ‘bookstore-quality’ book in hard- or softcover, and is ideal for photographic books. Some friends of ours created a beautiful hardcover book of their wedding photos. These would make a very special gift and it costs less than you’d think, with small square-format softcovers starting from just $12.95.

Lisa at the Red Thread wrote about the gorgeous Once-A-Year books, handmade by Kasia Jacquot of Laikonik. These Polish folk-art-inspired concertina books provide room for a photo and notes for each year of your child’s life up to the age of 18. Laikonik also has a lovely post on keeping children’s artwork. She has started creating books of the artwork of her children and the images in this post are stunning.

And while on the topic of making heirloom gifts for a child, Kasia pointed me in the direction of the amazing Elsa Mora, an artist and mum. Elsa created what she named ‘The Blank Book Experience‘ a sort of time capsule recorded over 15 days. Using a blank Moleskine book, she, her mum and her daughter Natalie collaborated with words and pictures to create a book for 5-year-old Natalie to re-open in ten years time. Some of the artwork and words of advice that were recorded for Natalie were very special - it’s an inspiring project. You can read it from end to beginning here.

Thanks to Amanda Soule and Kasia Jacquot for permission to use their photos.