Apartment Therapy did a fantastic spot this week on Yoshitomo Nara goodies. The post looks at some of the lovely accessories that Nara has lent his designs to – perfect for a funky nursery. I would love one of the flip clocks myself; they contain 84 Nara illustrations, there’s one for each hour and each minute. Actually I would like one of everything in the post!
One of the things I love about going on outings with Ned is watching the way he interacts with other children, and adults for that matter. He is a very social little boy, it’s part of his personality but I think it is part of all children to be really open to meeting new people and making friends.
I love observing Ned watching other children and I can often see in his eyes the hope that they will notice him and talk to him, not in a sad way, just a hopeful, inquisitive way. He is never afraid to inch closer to another child and quietly join in to a game or garbled conversation.
Recently I have taken my favorite picture book about friendship off the shelf and I hope to start reading it to Ned soon. Leon and Bob by Simon James is a simple but really powerful picture book and one that won my heart the instant I read it.
Leon has moved house; he lives with his mum and his dad is away in the army. Leon is lonely so he creates Bob, an imaginary friend who only he can see.
‘He always walked to school with Bob.
He always had Bob to talk to.’
On Saturday Leon looks to the house next door and he sees a new family moving in and a boy just like him. Leon keeps thinking about the boy and decides in the morning to visit the boy but only if Bob goes too.
But Bob leaves Leon just as he is about to ring the door bell and Leon must summon up his courage to do it alone.
‘Leon rang the bell and waited.
The door opened.
“Hello,” said the boy.’
The ending to this beautiful picture book is just gorgeous as Leon makes a ‘real’ friend and guess what his ‘real’ friend’s name is…?
Simon James’ watercolour-and-ink illustrations are simply divine, his characters and settings are so realistic. I adore his use of light in the illustrations and the shadows that his characters cast. There is an image of Leon walking up the steps to the neighbour’s house – the steps and the house seem so huge and Leon so small with his little shadow beside him on the stairs. The elongated format of the picture book also helps give that sense of being small and longing.
Just like what I see in Ned’s eyes though, the story is not sad – it is happy and hopeful. The endpapers sum up the story perfectly, at the front of the book the park that spreads over the double page is quiet and empty and on the last double spread Leon and his new friend are playing soccer, gleeful to have found each other.
Simon James has written and illustrated many critically acclaimed beautiful picture books, he has a fantastic website which contains many of his lovely illustrations and a bio. I love this quote…
“Watching children draw, it is easy to see drawing as a natural joy, well beyond criticism or judgement. It’s a kind of conversation with one’s self.
Drawing is good for you.”
There are some really gorgeous picture books about friendship and I have many more favorites that I will write about over the next couple of weeks. But now I’m off to admire my Stephenie Meyer boxset that arrived from the US today – yippee!
If you are a Lauren Child fan, check out this interview in The Times (found via 123oleary). For me, it painted such a vivid mental image of Lauren, on a pink sofa, sipping from a Moomintroll mug and surrounded by colour and swatches of fabric she uses as inspiration for her collages…
I’ve mentioned before, I think, that I lived in England for two years when I was little. I have a small collection of books from that time, the Little Grey Rabbit books, by Alison Uttley. When I opened one this week, the inscription reminded me of a very special birthday party my mum put on for me when we were living in England. The inscription is from my aunty Jenny, and reads:
To Katie, Happy Grey Rabbit Party Day. Love Jen.
Alison Uttley wrote over 100 books, including the Little Grey Rabbit series, Sam Pig books and a novel, A Traveller in Time. For her era – born in 1884 – she was clearly lucky to be able to get an education that matched her intellect. She progressed to Manchester University, where she got a scholarship to study physics – and became the second woman to graduate with honours.
I also learnt that Uttley’s writing career came about when she began writing to support herself (and her son) after her husband died in 1930 from deteriorating health complications due to the First World War.
Each of the little books tells a short story about one of the characters in Little Grey Rabbit’s world – there is the gentle and endearing Little Grey Rabbit, cheeky Hare who often thinks of his stomach first, and the slightly vain but helpful Squirrel. There is a lovely tenderness in the characters that Uttley creates, and the stories convey a certain time and place: a time when gipsies came to call, when clothes were washed in a tub, and children paid a penny to go to school each day.
The soft watercolour illustrations by Margaret Tempest, reproduced in full colour on every page, are integral to the loveliness of this series – with coordinating borders and in various shapes, they seem like a peephole to the world described by Uttley.
Alison Uttley died in 1976, but – judging by my party’s theme – clearly her Little Grey Rabbit books were still popular in the 80s. It also appears that velvet party dresses were in vogue that year…
I remember loving our hats – made by mum – each one denoting a different character. No surprise, look who got to play Little Grey Rabbit! And from the background of the photo above, it looks like we played ‘Pin the tail on Grey Rabbit’.
Even my cake has a scene with rabbits… Mum did a great birthday party.
Too hot here to play tennis, and too hot to think for me. But not too hot to read, and Rowan and I have been devouring books in an effort to entertain ourselves indoors…
Will be back with the highlights soon. Meanwhile, don’t forget tomorrow (Wednesday) is the last day to enter our giveaway competition!
I wish I could buy some of this lovely Seuss bedlinen. I love the white sheeting with all the characters on it – The Lorax, Thing One and Thing Two, Red, Yellow and Blue Fish, Horton – just gorgeous.
“You can’t stay in your corner of the Forest waiting for others to come to you. You have to go to them sometimes.”
There is no denying that A.A. Milne created the most well known character in children’s literature. Milne created the bear of very little brain, Winnie the Pooh, for his son Christopher Robin and Pooh has since been reincarnated many times by Disney in cartoons, movies and merchandise galore.
The original books, Winnie-the-Pooh – first published 1926 – and The House at Pooh Corner – first published 1928 – are classic and sometimes have been over shadowed by the more recent animated franchises.
Winnie was named after a real Canadian brown bear who lived at the London Zoo, and who Christopher Robin loved to visit, and Pooh was the name of a swan who lived near their country home. The gorgeous charm in the Pooh stories is that Christopher Robin is one of the main characters, even if we now know that the real Christoper Robin didn’t actually have a close relationship with his father – we can ignore that!
A.A. Milne’s stories and poems are a joy to read aloud, they are soothing and calming, perfect for bedtime. There is nothing challenging or frightening about the tales, they are just pure pleasure for children and adults alike. They transport the reader to another time and an enchanted place where friendship is the most important thing.
To speak about Winnie the Pooh though E.H Shepherd’s beautiful illustrations must also be mentioned. Evidently Milne and Shepherd spent hours and hours together in the woods that inspired the 100 Acre Wood in the stories. Shepherd sketched the landscapes and the animals that were to become Owl and Rabbit and others. It’s these sketches and subsequent watercolours that make the stories come to glorious life on the pages of the books. The bear that was inspiration for Pooh was actually Shepherd’s sons teddy and not Christopher Robin’s.
It is reported that E.H. Shepherd actually resented being asked to illustrate the Winnie the Pooh stories. Read this article from the BBC News Magazine - but I’ll chose to ignore that too to preserve my love of Pooh.
I don’t think there would be a more lovely gift for a newborn baby or for a first birthday than a copy of a Pooh book or of Milne’s poetry for them to treasure forever and hand down to future generations. To me Pooh will never grow old.
This week it was announced that Return to the Hundred Acre Wood, the first ever authorised sequel to A.A. Milne’s original books, will be released on October 5 worldwide. It is to be written by novelist and producer David Benedictus who said this about getting the job, “I hope the new book will complement and maintain Milne’s idea that, whatever happens, a little boy and his bear will always be playing.”
It will be illustrated by Mark Burgess and it is hoped that it will be a huge seller. The initial print run in the US is said to be in excess of 100,000 copies. Fingers crossed it’s good.
Whether or not you approve of the rise of the ‘babyccino’ in cafes around the globe, I think urban babies are here to stay.
Michelle Sinclair Colman started a lovely series of books chronicling new age babies, when she wrote Urban Babies Wear Black in 2005. With stylish and stylised illustrations by Nathalie Dion, the books were a success, and a series was born. I love the concept: as board books, these are meant to be read to babies, and it’s the babies who are the focus of the illustrations (the adults’ faces are never visible). But the text and illustrations are pitched firmly at the adult reader, poking fun at us parents of the ‘noughties’ and cleverly playing with double-meanings.
When you’re the parent of a baby, a book that provides a bit of entertainment for you is much appreciated.
The next two books in the series were released in 2007, Winter Babies Wear Layers and Beach Babies Wear Shades. And hot off the press are two more, Eco Babies Wear Green and Foodie Babies Wear Bibs.
Thanks to Simon & Schuster Australia, we have a copy of each of the Urban Babies books to giveaway. To enter, jump to our Win! page.
A little spotlight on our store, as we start to get some lovely new stock in for the new year.
In the box I opened today was one of the books that quickly and quietly ran off our shelves before Christmas. Before we even had a chance to promote it, this book sold out!
My Village is a collection of twenty-two rhymes from around the world, each one presented in its original language (and script where applicable) accompanied by an English translation. A colourful double-page spread illustration accompanies each rhyme, fashioned from beautiful collages by Mique Moriuchi. As in all good picture books, Moriuchi’s illustrations compliment and build on the text, and help to bring further meaning to the rhyme with the inclusion of culturally appropriate details.
It’s never too early to help kids to learn that other people have a different way of communicating than they do, and that a language can convey much about a culture. At the same time, this book serves as a lovely introduction to poetry – the short rhymes and colourful illustrations will hold even a small child’s attention. The rhyme chosen for France is one of my favourites, Que fait ma main? and I’m sure all the others have been selected with fondness and love.
Danielle Wright, who collected the rhymes, has a great website, with information about her journey working on the book, and lots more, including a collection of great tips on ‘raising a reader’.
I’m also thrilled that another of our favourite books with an international flavour is now in stock. A while ago I reviewed Laura Ljungkvist’s Follow the Line, and we love her follow-up, Follow the Line Around the World just as much. Using one single continuous line, on bold graphic backgrounds, Ljungkvist cleverly traces a whole world of animals, plants, people and planets. It includes interesting facts about individual countries. The funky design in this hardback makes it a book that grownups will cherish too.
||My Village available at the We Heart Books store||
||Follow the Line Around the World available at the We Heart Books store||
I went to a very special little girl’s party today. Evie turned 3; she loves fairies and had her dream birthday cake, a princess fairy cake. It got me thinking about the fairies I imagined as a little girl.
For my part, I was convinced fairies lived at the bottom of my grandfather’s garden. Papa would take us grandchildren on walks down a damp and shady path that ran the length of his garden, telling us about the fairies who lived there. They had mossy stones for seats, toadstools for meeting places and lichen for staircases; completely believable and utterly magical. My grandparents also had several of Peg Maltby’s books in their bookshelves, and perhaps her artwork influenced our fairy walks.
Peg Maltby’s Fairy Book was first published in 1944. Peg moved to Australia from the UK when she was in her twenties, soon after she was married. Her Fairy Book became a huge success on publication, selling over 100,000 copies, mainly in Australia. My copy is of an edition that was republished in 1975, and was given to me by my auntie Ali in 1977. According to the dust jacket text, the original artwork for the book was lost, and so, aged in her seventies, Peg re-illustrated the entire book – no mean feat!
The book is comprised of several short stories, each accompanied by a full-page colour illustration and a set of black and white marginal illustrations. The narrative of each story is self-contained, and describes a particular vignette involving ‘little folk’ of goblins, elves and fairies, as well as insects and other small creatures. In each case, the reader is immediately immersed in the detail of the scene and of the particular characters involved. The stories are the perfect length for bedtime reading.
Peg’s illustrations depict rosy and expressive faces of goblins and the beauty of fairies with gowns made of rose petals and veils of spider woven lace. Flowers and berries abound, and Australian flora and fauna are often included.
It’s a lucky child who has adults in her life to help bring the world of fairies alive, like my grandfather for me did on walks in his garden. Books like Peg Maltby’s do this too, making the make-believe world more real.