I could not resist a post on this gorgeous dress I found whilst poking about on Made It this morning. I adore the Japanese fabric and the rest of Bear and Sparrow’s store is lovely too.

Katie has mentioned the beautiful illustrations of Margaret Tempest before in her When We Were Little post on Allison Uttley’s Little Grey Rabbit. It was interesting because that post generated so many comments from fellow children’s literature lovers who remembered the series about the Little Grey Rabbit and many who in particular loved the illustrations.

Margaret Tempest began illustrating in the 1920’s and illustrated the Little Grey Rabbit and Fuzzypeg the Hedgehog books for Allison Uttley. It is interesting that in some reading I have done on the Grey Rabbit books it is said that Allison Uttley and Margaret Tempest would argue as to who should take the credit for the characters’ success.

Margaret Tempest did write and illustrate 20 books on her own and one of those is very dear to me. My creased little copy of The Little Lamb of Bethlehem, first published 1957,  is treasured as it holds many memories of childhood Christmases.

It is the story of the birth of Jesus told through the eyes of a lamb who follows the star of Bethlehem to the manger. On his return to the hills from witnessing this great event he spreads the word to the birds who carry the message throughout the world.

The story is sweet but it’s certainly Tempest’s gorgeous, subtle watercolours that make this little book so special.

When I visited France, many moons ago, I loved seeing all the Little Prince merchandise and at any chance I sent a Little Prince postcard home. Today I found a lovely store called rougestore via Mathilda’s Market that stocks a whole range of beautiful Little Prince merchandise and now I just want everything!

My favourite is these party invitations, they are in French but how gorgeous.

They stock a whole collection of Little Prince as well as some great Asterix and Obelix bowls and mugs on their Big Cartel store. They will have the character ware at Mathilda’s Market in Hawthorn today and then have their equally lovely French linen collection at Magnolia Square in Brighton on the 3rd, 4th and 5th of December.

My favourite book of 2008 is still a favourite.

Ned’s dad and I were watching At the Movies the other night when Margaret and David reviewed the new animated – Performance Capture animation - film version of A Christmas Carol. We both agreed that we thought the story was very dark and not really appropriate for little kids, although maybe many people will be drawn in by the fact that it is animated – so beautifully. I guess it is the same question about audience that has been debated with the Spike Jonze film version of Where the Wild Things Are.

A Christmas Carol is a dark and grim story that I have never really related to Christmas even though that is the theme of the novel. There have been countless film adaptations of Scrooge and his redemption and my main memory is of the Disney charcter version with Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck.

Today I saw this book trailer for a version of A Christmas Carol illustrated by the amazing Brett Helquist.

I cannot think of a more appropriate illustrator for this classic story, his Scrooge reminds me a bit of Count Olaf! Having not ever owned a copy of the Dickens story (although this one is an adaptation) I think this will be the version I lash out and buy this Christmas because although it’s grim I think it’s one I should have.

Marc Boutavant is one of our very favourite new illustrators. We were first introduced to him through Around the World with Mouk, a true visual feast of quirky characters and amazing colours.

So we were very excited to hear about not one but two new books illustrated by Marc – Lou first posted about For Just One Day here and he has another new release called All Kinds of Families.

The cute concept at the heart of All Kinds of Families is that you can find a family in all sorts of everyday objects – the food in the fridge, buttons on a shelf and fingers on a hand! Dozens of types of families are mentioned in the text, and the graphic genius of Marc Boutavant contains even more to spot.

Gently and in cute rhyming verse, this book sheds light on the concept of a family in a beautifully child-friendly way…

For Just One Day also has a strong concept at its core – asking the reader to imagine a day in the life of a variety of animals. Marc Boutavant’s illustrations really shine, as he cleverly gives animal features to his human characters and quirky human elements to the animals.

The matt pages and funky colours will make this book, like Mouk, an object of desire for lots of adults as well as littlies. I really adore this book!

||All Kinds of Families and For Just One Day are available in the We Heart Books store||

Locals may notice we are featured in this month’s Christmas Gift Guide for Melbourne’s Child/Sydney’s Child magazine… yippee!

We have some new Charley Harper products in store for Christmas – as well as the gorgeous board books and flash cards, we now have the Charley Harper Memory Game. Lovely Charley Harper gifts for all ages…

On the weekend we took a trip into town to see the Myer windows. This year they are themed around the gorgeous picture book Olivia Helps With Christmas by Ian Falconer. Olivia is one of my all time favourite picture book characters; she has spunk and a huge personality.

Ned loved the windows and kept repeating “Owivia” at the top of his voice. Although I was a little disappointed with the translation of the book to the window -but maybe I was expecting to much. The main thing is Ned had a good time.

My all time favourite Myer Christmas windows are still Wombat Divine in 2006. Does anyone else have a favourite?

An update from motherland… thanks everyone for the lovely comments and emails. Otto is doing very well – we are lucky that so far he seems very settled baby. This is considerate of him as Lou and I have been very busy with preparing the store for Christmas and Magnolia Square. Otto will be coming with us to Magnolia Square – he may just be the youngest member in the audience at our storytime sessions.

Here are some photos of cuddles with Rowan…

Planning to post some photos of some corners of Otto’s nursery soon.

 Our great friend Nicci directed us towards this hilarious clip on Youtube… 

The Terrible Plop is definitely one of my favourite picture books this year.