I know Lou reviewed a Berenstain book for When We Were Little Sunday last week, but a golden photo opportunity this evening means a repeat mention is required.

The book is Old Hat, New Hat by Stan and Jan Berenstain. It was, I am told, my very favourite book as a toddler - one of those ones that I knew every word of and could tell straight away if a page was skipped (which means, of course, that I made my parents read this book over and over ad nauseum…) Although I don’t remember this experience in detail, the book held fond memories for me, and it was one of the first books I bought when I began working in a bookshop.

The book tells the story of a bear who goes hat shopping, entering a store with his ‘old hat’ and surveying a display of new hats. The shop assistant provides a range of many hats to try, and models showcase still more, but every hat has a problem.

The repetition and rhyme are great fun and as a read-aloud it lends itself to indignant tones, at an increasing pace, as the bear becomes more fussy and the shop assistant more and more exasperated. I think one reason toddlers love this book is because it allows them to imagine being able to refuse and complain as much as they like! In the end, inevitably, the bear realises that sometimes a new model can’t replace a trusty old favourite.

At dinner with my mum and dad and two sisters tonight, we were discussing Dr Seuss and Berenstein Bear books and I brought out my copy of Old Hat, New Hat. Rowan had it read to him for the first time. I think he enjoyed hearing it almost as much as I did as a toddler, but not quite as much as much as my dad enjoyed reading it again. That was, until the fourth reading, after which Rowan still called out, ‘Again!’

Check out these amazing food sculptures from Cooking for Monkeys:

So creative and so healthy at the same time! Not to mention combining my love of kids books and all things Japanese…

Pam, the author and creator of Cooking for Monkeys, is also a fan of Bing (see Lou’s review here).

Check out the Cooking for Monkeys site (and Flickr photostream) for more of Pam’s incredible food art - Curious George makes an appearance too!

I’m a little ashamed to say this, but we didn’t have a copy of Goodnight Moon on our shelves until I bought a copy for Rowan this week. First published in 1947, I’m actually not sure whether this title was very prominent in Australia when I was growing up. It isn’t one I remember from my childhood, or even from my early bookselling days. Don’t know if I was under a rock – maybe other Aussies can shed some light…

I’m confident the same couldn’t be said of US readers, as the book seems to be have been a hugely popular classic there. It is of course very popular here now too. Numerous ‘celebrity mom’ citings of Goodnight Moon verge on the off-putting (especially if you have a perverse streak like me). Anyone from Hilary Clinton to Tori Spelling seems keen to mention Goodnight Moon. Even ‘our’ Cate and Naomi are fans.

At first reading, the text of Goodnight Moon may almost seem a little glib. But you soon realise its charm. The rhyming, lilting text is mesmerising and the repetition of the words and illustrations is just so comforting. It is the quintessential bedtime story.

The book got a resounding nod of approval from Rowan. He is going through a stage at the moment when he often resists new books, especially at bedtime when he refuses anything unfamiliar. But he picked up Goodnight Moon with some curiousity and happily listened to a first reading and then requested THREE further readings.

There’s a lovely post over on Collecting Children’s Books discussing the identity of the ‘quiet old lady’ who features in Goodnight Moon. Worth reading, especially if you remember the story from when you were young.

I don’t have a particular time and place associated with my memories of The Velveteen Rabbit, but the story was firmly a part of my childhood, as it was for many before me… I hadn’t realised how old this book was, first published in 1922! The text was written by Margery Williams and it was illustrated, most famously, by William Nicholson. Anyone you know have an original edition? Check out how much one of those treasures is worth at Bookride (a blog about rare and valuable books with entertaining commentary)…

I just love the narrative style of this story, it is the perfect book to read aloud. Many of the beautifully composed sentences are filled with irony, or with a quiet understatedness that seems to be typical of early 20th-century children’s publishing. It’s a style that’s inclusive, drawing the young reader into assumptions or generalisations while using grown-up language: “He was naturally shy, and being only made of velveteen, some of the more expensive toys quite snubbed him… [The Rabbit] didn’t know that real rabbits existed; he thought they were all stuffed with sawdust like himself, and he understood that sawdust was quite out-of-date and should never be mentioned in modern circles.”

Despite the old-world setting of this book – with its descriptions of the nursery toys, playing in the wood and scarlet fever – it has the ultimate timeless subject matter: a child’s relationship with a favourite toy. How easy it is to identify with the toy rabbit, who is at first ignored, then gradually becomes a much loved companion and before long one without whom the little boy can’t sleep. When I was little, I felt a real connection with the story, and I distinctly remember likening details of it to elements of my own life: the description of the gardener’s bonfire location is inextricably linked to a memory of our own backyard incinerator.

I also had a very special rabbit toy myself, which must have been given to me as a baby. It had a bell inside it, and was much loved, with patches of fur worn off. One day I lost ‘Bummy’, and although he was replaced with an identical newer model, it was never the same, and even today, I feel a lingering sense of loss for this toy… Isn’t it strange how such a toy can imprint on us emotionally?

When Brad and I were choosing readings for our wedding, I knew when I came across a passage from The Velveteen Rabbit that it had to be part of our ceremony. Two of my little sisters did a beautiful rendition of the passage on becoming ‘Real’:

“What is REAL?” asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?”

“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become REAL.”

“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.

“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.”

“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?”

“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints, and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”

A big box arrived in the post from Japan last week - full of many of the kids’ book related treasures I acquired in Tokyo… Here are some of my favourites…

The Very Hungry Caterpillar containers and drink bottle. The containers stack into each other, and the big yellow one is the perfect size for me to take a sandwich to work in!

The Very Hungry Caterpillar stationery - also perfect for a serious career woman like me!

These Hungry Caterpillar souvenirs were found in a shop in ‘Tokyo Character Street‘, which I literally stumbled across on my way to finding the post office as we were catching the train to leave Tokyo. Character Street is one part of the massive shopping real estate under Tokyo Station. It’s dedicated to anime, manga, games, and character goods, including Hello Kitty, Snoopy and Leggo shops. Clearly I got stuck in the Hungry Caterpillar section…

But I also found these Gaspard and Lisa tiles.

Moomin plastic sleeve and keychain (for your mobile phone) and gorgeous letter sets from Ito-ya. (Fabulous NINE-storey stationery store in Ginza; I was in heaven…)

I’m prepared to let Rowan use this one… a Maisy cup, bought from a random homewares store.

And my final kids’ book related purchase was red a ‘Gummi Girl’ by Yoshitomo Nara, cult Japanese pop artist and author of picture book, The Lonesome Puppy. Gummi Girl is made of moulded plastic, and she came with gummi-girl shaped jubes. She was available in an array of colours (blue, green, etc) but the red is definitely my colour. I bought her at a beautiful shop called Sweets and Objects located in the very, very exclusive Omotesando Hills centre in Harajuku. There is something very mysterious about the expression on this Gummi Girl’s face and she currently keeps me company on my kitchen window sill as I do the dishes.

And I also had a bit of a splurge on craft purchases (linen fabric, tape, pattern books). I was very restrained though…

When I was little, we spent lots of long weekends and school holidays at my grandparents’ house in Myrtleford, in country Victoria. They had a big set of shelves in the playroom at the back of their house, containing books dating from my dad’s childhood. I spent many hours reading the books from those shelves. It felt like I was rediscovering them afresh each time we visited.

My very favourite book was called A Big Ball of String, written and illustrated by Marion Holland, and published in 1958 in the Random House Beginner Book hardback range.

It’s sometimes strange to revisit a book you loved as a child because there are certain elements you forget and others that stand out more prominently in your memory than appear on re-reading. My memory of A Big Ball of String is that a boy who is sick and confined to his bed becomes very inventive, and uses a big ball of string to rig up all sorts of contraptions in his bedroom. Even though I have read this book again in recent times, I was still somewhat shocked when I picked it up again today to discover that in fact this sequence does not occur until page 46 of a 64-page book!

The simple yet endearing illustrations use just three colours, and the images are contemporary to the time of publication. I wonder now whether my fascination with this book was related to watching countless Leave it to Beaver repeats on TV at about the same time. There are certainly a few similarities between the both the physical appearance and the escapades of Beaver and those of the protagonist of A Big Ball of String.

“I had a little string. It was no good at all. I went to look for more string to make a string ball.”

And so the boy starts his adventures collecting pieces of string from wherever he can find them to make a BIG ball of string. Then all that remains is to find some good kind of thing to do with the string!

But getting back to page 46, our new friend eventually comes down with a cold, at which point he realises he can use his string to make his day stuck in bed more interesting:

“NOW I know what will be a good thing! I can stay in my bed with my big ball of string! I can play in my bed! I can do ANYTHING!”

And so this resourceful and inventive boy ties string to his darts so he can get them all back again. He rigs up a string and box on a pulley system between his bed and his shelves so that he can get his books. He ties string to his window blind, to his light switch and to his door. He even ties some string to a toy mouse so that he can play with his cat.

Looking back, I reckon it was partly the independence of this boy that held such strong appeal for me: on his own and without the intervention of adults, he strives and succeeds. And throughout all his misadventures he has complete faith that he can achieve ANYTHING. And after a little while, it’s hard for some of his attitude not to rub off on you.

Amherst, Massachusetts that is. ‘Cos this Saturday 26 July there’s the chance to meet Eric Carle…

If anyone reading this goes to the event, please let us experience it vicariously and tell us about it??!

Further to my previous post on The Very Hungry Caterpillar fabric, I have just found out about this Moomin fabric (via the groovy and talented Loobylu):

Not sure where you can source it, unless you happen to live near London (or Finland) but it is very lovely.

HandmadebyMia on Etsy has some gorgeous totes made from re-used and recycled Moomin fabric.

Meanwhile, I need to get around to making something with my Hungry Caterpillar fabric…

Adapting a children’s picture book for the stage must be a daunting task. How do you capture the creativity allowed by the illustrated page? A typical picture book is 32 pages – how do you make a production last a full hour? The age range of your audience may be broad – how do you create something to entertain them all? How do you let the original picture book stand on its own and yet put your own creative stamp on the adaptation?

This task is something that the Patch Theatre Company have made their specialty. They have adapted four of Stephen Michael King’s picture books in a production called Emily Loves to Bounce, which we saw on stage at the Darebin Arts Centre earlier this month. Previously, Patch Theatre has also done two productions of Pamela Allen’s picture books. Most of their productions are geared to children aged four to eight years.

Emily Loves to Bounce uses four of King’s picture books – The Man Who Loved Boxes, Patricia, Emily Loves to Bounce, and Henry and Amy – as inspiration for ideas. It doesn’t retell the narrative from these stories, but instead uses the ideas and messages and creatively adapts them. For example, in the story Emily Loves to Bounce, a little girl called Emily bounces through the book. In the stage production, there is an enormous purple ball, named Emily, who is bounced between the performers.

The production incorporates many different media. Live music and song are important elements, and a violinist and piano accordion player are on-stage and part of the action. There is a sequence of shadow puppetry, which forms an ideal introduction to this medium for young kids. Props are integral, and a magical array of boxes of different sizes, many lit from within, make a visually stunning setting for the opening scene.

Emily Loves to Bounce is currently on an Australian national tour, culminating in November 2008. ACT, NSW, Tassie, Victorian regional and Qld readers might have a chance to catch them. More details available here.

Photo credit: Sarah Long c/o Patch Theatre Company. Pictured are Briohny Campbell, Sarah Brokensha and Nathan O’Keefe.

My dear friend Nicci, who has impeccable taste in kids’ books, recommended Follow the Line by Laura Ljungkvist in a comment on this blog.

The latest book in the same series, Follow the Line Around the World was released in the US in May and is due out in Australia next month.

The concept at the heart of these books is one of those deceptively simple ideas that is very, very clever. The illustrations are based around a single continuous line that winds its way through the entire book to form a multitude of objects: buildings, faces, vehicles and animals. As a wise commissioning editor once taught me, sometimes the simplest forms of expression are the subject of a great deal of effort and thought. I’m sure that principle is true for the artwork in these books.

As a reader, you can’t help but obey the book’s title, and follow the line with your finger across each double-spread as it forms skyscrapers, sailing boats, fish, trees and more. Behind the main line sit flat shapes in bold retro colours, filling in selected detail. A typewriter font and lovely matt paper add to the retro impression. Sometimes I hold a book in my hands and am just so happy to count it as my own, and Follow the Line is one of these! As Nicci commented, this is a book that bears repeat reading, and will be especially appreciated by design-conscious mums and dads.

The author’s website illustrates the line in motion and is good fun.

Don’t forget to enter our current competition to be eligible to win a gorgeous book backpack – entries close shortly!