On the front cover of The Age newspaper today there is a stunning illustration and poem, ‘From the Shadows’, written in response to the Victorian bushfires by the amazing Graeme Base, author and illustrator of incredible picture books such as Animalia and Enigma.
Prints of the illustration can purchased through The Age’s photo sales department with all profits of the sales going to the Red Cross Bushfire Appeal 2009.
The Story About Ping, first published in 1933, is a classic and if you were to make a list of the children’s picture books that one must own then Ping would have to be on that list. I can remember it being read to us often at school and as an adult I certainly knew that this was one book I needed to have on the shelf.
However as an adult reading this book actually makes me a little sad and I wonder if that feeling is what makes me remember Ping from childhood?
‘Once upon a time there was a beautiful young duck named Ping.
Ping lived with his mother and his father and two sisters and three brothers and eleven aunts and seven uncles and forty two cousins. Their home was a boat with two wise eyes on the Yangtze river. ’
The theme of the story is a common one amongst children’s literature; Ping is exploring his environment as all children do and, not concentrating, he misses his call to return to the boat. Knowing that the last duck across the bridge onto the boat will get a spank with a big stick, Ping hides in the grasses on the bank of the river and watches as the boat sails away.
Kurt Wiese’s illustrations are gorgeous and portray the environment perfectly as Ping paddles down the crowded, yellow waters of the Yangtze. Wiese gives the little yellow duck so much emotion and personality in his face and body movements.
While travelling down the river Ping also see fishing birds – cormorants – which have metal rings tight around their necks so that they could never swallow the fish that they catch. Hence leaving the fish for the fisherman.
Ping almost becomes dinner for a family on the river who capture him and leave him under a basket until the little boy of the family quietly slips him back into the river. Ping successfully finds his boat but is again late and gets whacked with the stick as he crosses the bridge. Happy ending – Ping is back with his relatives in the relative ‘safety’ of his home.
There are many, many reviews of this book on Amazon that are very interesting, ranging from customers loving the book, to mixed feelings and those who think it is racist and cruel. It is interesting to see what the adults who are reviewing the book take from the story, some believing that it has a great moral about facing up to consequences and taking a punishment for what you have done wrong or one reviewer who mentions that you could use the story to argue in support of Fascism, Communism, Capitalism, or Social Darwinism!
Even after writing this I am still not sure why I remember this book from my childhood. As an adult though and after rereading the story today I still love the illustrations and the tale of sailing down the Yangtze however the fear that Ping has of being hit because he is last over the bridge as well as the yoked birds does irk me. I do appreciate that the story was written in a very different time and found the review on Vintage Kids’ Books My Kid Loves very interesting inrelation to children learning about the world of their grandparents.
It would be interesting to hear from others who remember Ping and also from people who have read it to their children. What do children in 2009 think of The Story About Ping?
Note: I thought it was funny that some of the reviews for Ping on Amazon are actually for computer programming books. I had to have a look on Wikipedia to find out what it is.
Since it was first released late last year, we’ve seen Dallas Clayton’s creation, An Awesome Book, featured on numerous fabulous blogs. Check out Design Mom, D Sharp, Oh Happy Day, frolic!, and Meet Me At Mikes for just a few.
So we’re very excited to now have copies in our hot little hands – and in our store!
It’s hard to find a good word to describe a book that already calls itself awesome, but this book lives up to expectations. Imaginative, thought-provoking, inspiring, it’s reminiscent of the best classic children’s books, yet it is different to anything I’ve come across before.
Best just to take a look for yourself, and you can flick through the entire book here.
We felt very honoured to have a chance to interview Dallas, the writer, illustrator and publisher of An Awesome Book.
Can you tell us how your book came about? Where did the inspiration come from?
I wrote it for my son, to have something nice to read to him, and also to share with the world. I was inspired by everything that came before it in some way or another. But mostly by people who set out to achieve things that seemed impossible and then achieved them.
Tell us about the feeling when you opened the first box of ‘An Awesome Book’.
I was actually waiting an extra week due to postal delays and was really surprised by the size of the order. Books take up a lot of space. It’s kinda crazy. I was also quite concerned that they might come printed upside down or in the wrong colors or in another language. Honestly the emotions were relief followed shortly thereafter by joy and magic.
There is some amazing imagery created through both the illustrations and the text in ‘An Awesome Book’ – which comes first, the illustrations or the words?
Oh the words for sure. I don’t even know if I can consider myself an illustrator just yet, I’ve kinda been thrust into it and am in a sink or swim place right now. Ha!
What did you dream of when you were a child?
I wish I could remember most of them, but they vanish so quickly. Kinda the object of the book I suppose, to try and hold onto them. I know there were a lot having to do with color, and shape, and sometimes random celebrity cameos. Just the other day I had my first dream about flying. Imagine, that? Why did that take so long?
What were your favourite books when you were little?
All of the obvious ones ( Seuss, Sendak, etc.) out of the way I really loved Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs by Judi and Ron Barrett. The illustrations in that are so unreal.
We understand you have a five-year-old son. What role, if any, did he play in the process of writing your book?
Total inspiration and reason for being. Also he’s my agent.
Tell us about the work space where you wrote and illustrated ‘An Awesome Book’.
Ha! Workspace? More like – Living room, beach side, basement, diner, strange apartment, yard, park, bed…
The popularity of ‘An Awesome Book’ obviously surpassed your expectations given that it sold out in two weeks. What role do you think the internet had in this success? Was the book also promoted in the traditional media?
The internet is a crazy place I am still trying to understand. I haven’t done any traditional press for the book yet, sold it in any stores other than Family Books where I had my release party or made it available anywhere but on my site. Not that I’m trying to hide it from people, but I honestly haven’t even had a chance. My second pressing basically sold out between when I ordered it and when it arrived. I’m on my third pressing in three months and the only place it’s been talked about has been on people’s blogs. People are awesome. Blogs are awesome. The internet is awesome.
Where to next? What can be more awesome than ‘An Awesome Book’?
Honestly I’m just focusing on keeping up with sales right now. Making sure everyone that wants one can get one, reading to schools, hospitals, that sort of thing. I might go on tour this summer. I have two more books in the works this month which will be out as soon as I can get them, after that just keep creating, keep sharing, making people happy and dreaming big.
Thanks for allowing us to interview you, Dallas.
Totally. Thanks a million for the interview. Your store is looking so great!
Lou and I are feeling for those directly affected by Victoria’s fires this weekend.
For non-locals, the bushfires took place in several locations in our state, some only 60 kilometres away from the centre of Melbourne.
The death toll is at 130, and will inevitably climb further. Over 750 homes have been lost. Schools, libraries, businesses, whole communities and their histories gone. And there are fires still burning right now.
As a community, we have been asked to ‘dig deep’, and it seems that everyone is. We are donating whatever we can spare to Red Cross. Brad and Lou have registered to donate blood (I wish I was eligible). My department at work has got together and contacted some of the affected primary schools, offering to donate stationary. Our childcare centre is organising a collection of children’s clothes and food for one of the relief centres. Someone at Brad’s work is collecting towels and animal cages for injured wildlife.
Yet, we still feel very helpless. We can only imagine what it would be like to lose everything, let alone to have family members and friends missing.
I feel lucky to still have on my bookshelves some of the books I read when I was a little girl, and even some that my mum read when she was a little girl. For more than 750 households in our state, this – and so much more – will not be possible.
At the moment it seems that the most needed resource is money. In an effort to help the fundraising efforts, for the next while, Lou and I will be donating all profits from the sale of books in our store to Red Cross.
This book, I think, goes some way to explaining my semi-obsession with design blogs of the likes of Apartment Therapy and Ohdeedoh. Not to mention Grand Designs on TV…
And by the looks of the reviews on Amazon and Good Reads – and of the prices secondhand copies demand – I am not alone in loving it.
Published in 1981, Need A Mouse? Call Ms Mouse! is by George Mendoza with amazing illustrations by Doris Susan Smith. Ms Mouse is Henrietta, ‘a world famous decorator’ … artist, designer, dreamer, builder, creator… Henrietta is charged with designing the perfect home for her forest friends.
As a first introduction to the importance of responding to a brief, this book is perfect: Henrietta designs a completely different building for each of her clients, and every detail is conceived to suit their character. And I don’t know about you, but I LOVED examining a cross-section of a building when I was little… (I think I still do).
There’s the house for rabbit – the industrious vegetable farmer.
A Japanese-inspired pad for lazy cat:
And the perfect launching place for frog:
I wish I could show you every illustration in this wonderful book. Even now, I pour over the detail in its pages, filing away in my head ideas and details for MY dream house…
It seems there were actually two English editions of the book, the other one from the UK and titled House by Mouse. The text is very different between the two editions – would love to know the story behind this. More scans of the illustrations are viewable here and here (note the different text on frog’s page in these scans?!).
Check out this great NY Times review of the book, couldn’t agree with it more (via Vintage Kids’ Books My Kid Loves).
I have never met anyone, child or adult, that hasn’t adored The Jolly Postman or Other People’s Letters. First published in 1986, Janet and Allan Ahlberg created one of the best known and most popular children’s books ever. Together they created the concept of combining text with real letters to be opened and read within a picture book.
Once upon a bicycle, So they say,
A Jolly Postman came one day, From the hills And far away..
With a letter for the Three Bears.
The story follows the lovely ‘jolly’ postman as he delivers letters to familiar fairytale characters. Mr and Mrs Bear receive a sincere apology letter from Goldilocks, Cinderella gets a sample from the Royal Publisher of the book they have created to celebrate her marriage to the Prince and the wolf dressed as ‘grandma’ gets a letter from Little Red Riding-Hood’s solicitors demanding a cease in harassment. The humor in this book is fantastic and it works for so many age levels – little ones like the gorgeous illustrations and the familiarity of the characters and older children and adults can enjoy the very clever puns.
In an article in the Guardian in 2006, Allan Ahlberg explained that the concept had been born from his 2-year-old daughter Jessie’s fascination for opening their mail. I can really relate to this at the moment because Ned just loves posting letters as well as opening them. As it was his birthday recently I really noticed the excitement that he had from opening birthday cards and he was just as excited about the cards as he was about the presents.
Actually does the excitement of receiving mail ever go away? Well maybe not getting bills! I LOVE coming home to find a parcel, a magazine, a pretty catalogue or a postcard in the mail!
This week I came across a simply beautiful post on the blog Oh, hello friend that mentioned author Danni’s love for the Postman books. This week she had created her own envelope book for her partner, here are some gorgeous photos…
Have a look at Danni’s post for more photos and read about her memories of the Postman books.
I was thinking about how lovely it would be to create a book like this for or with a child.
||The Jolly Postman or Other People’s Letters available online from Readings||
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