When We Were Little…
This was my favorite of all the Miffy books when I was little. When our family went to the beach, we would all yell ‘I see the sea’, excitedly, just like Miffy.
I love the Dick Bruna website where Miffy is described as ‘uncomplicated and innocent’, don’t we all need more of those qualities these days! Dick Bruna is the master of creating beautiful simple characters that yet have so much personality. I was interested to find out that he has always used the same colours through all his work and never varying. His trademark use of solid blocks of colour and his use of white as well as strong black lines are instantly recognisable.
On the Bruna website I discovered that it is only when he has finished the pictures for a book that he starts the text, ‘For Bruna is first a painter and illustrator and second an author’.
Even the text in his books is clean and simple, they are perfect to read aloud to children and they may even read them back to you before long.
Recently Madman in Australia have released the original Miffy animation series onto DVD. The packaging they have chosen is gorgeous, it’s cardboard and has been designed to look like a book.
Have a look at this sweet little clip, it’s in Japanese and so cute!
The Japanese have really embraced Miffy because she is so kawaii. They have Miffy licensed product galore, like on this site.
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One of my son’s first books that *truly* entranced him was a Miffy book my Grandmother bought him.
I was totally amazed at her non-Granny-like selection, and total ‘rightness’ of choice. Solidified her as a God in my mind ..
.. and we still love that book
18 Nov 2008 at 8.49 pm
Excuse my ‘wooden-shoe-English’, but I have to comment:
How nice to find our Dutch rabbit at your site. She’s called Nijntje and in Holland she has her own musical too. Such a nice first contact for a child with the theater. Mister Dick Bruna plays in it too (not the real one, an actor I mean). He sings: “On a bike, on a bike, this way I travel as I like, on a bike you can see all the things there are….Do you know who I am? I am Dick Bruna. You can see it at my moustache and my glasses. And when I see a rabbit, I stop and I stand stil for a little while. And I write down: make book about a bunny..”
In DUtch there is a rhyme!
And on it goes, I know it still after all these years.
One last tip of a great Dutch childrens books: last years “Childrens-book-week gift book (with a lot of drawings)” from writer TOnke Dragt and illustrator Annemarie van Haeringen was a fairytale about unicorns, the Arc of Noa and narwals. This years “Childr… drawings)” was without text, of the great illustrator Charlotte Demantons.
Keep up your good works!
Groeten uit Holland,
MArleen
21 Nov 2008 at 8.56 am