When I was little we lived for two years in the UK, and amongst the books of my childhood are many very English books. Ernest Owl Starts a School and Postman Joe are two such books and are part of the Blackberry Farm series by Jane Pilgrim, first published in the early 1950s. They are amazingly timeless stories, and the pen and watercolour illustrations by F. Stocks May are beautifully vibrant. The illustration style is very realistic, and detailed. This accuracy makes the lovely additions of clothes on Mrs Nibble the rabbit, and her children, very charming. (Curiously, the rabbits, squirrels and mice are the only animals who wear clothes, although Ernest the Owl sports spectacles and Postman Joe a satchel.)

The books tell stories of life on the farm which is owned by Mr and Mrs Smiles and their children, Joy and Bob. But the main stars of the show are the animals, which include typical northern hemisphere robins and squirrels as well as the all the usual farm crew.

In a sign of the books’ era, Postman Joe tells the story of the arrival of a new animal to the farm: the Large Red Animal - an animal which breathes out smoke as it crawls along the lane. The illustration shows that this animal is in fact what we know is a tractor. Through the illustration of the family standing proudly around the Large Red Animal, and from the other animals’ reactions, you can immediately relate to the novelty of such a vehicle.

Of course there are plenty of baby animals among the residents of the farm, which is why Ernest Owl decides to start a school. I think Ernest was a very progressive teacher for the 1950s, because he structured his lessons for individual learning needs, and even designed tasks to suit personal motivations of his students: Mary Hen was taught to count marbles so that she could tell how many eggs her mother had laid! And meanwhile the bunnies learnt to write the letters of their names.

I love the way the narrative in these books includes lovely asides. When we are first introduced to Mrs Nibble’s three little bunnies, we are told they had been ‘in bed with the measles, but they would soon be better.’ Jane Pilgrim includes some gorgeous details which make the scenes believable, such as the pot-plants which are used for stools in Ernest’s school.

A few years ago, a collection of the Blackberry Farm stories were re-released in a compendium, The Complete Tales of Blackberry Farm, which is available from Amazon. This format doesn’t seem nearly as nice to hold in your hand - especially a small hand - as the individual volumes, but happily ensures a new generation of children will know and love these characters.

“O come with me across the sea
To a beautiful palm fringed isle,
Where row on row the coconuts grow –
Yes the coconuts mile on mile
And if you feel hot, you are very soon not
If you plunge in the waves awile;
And if you feel cold, on the sands of gold
You can bask in the sun and smile.”

“The mermaids there, with golden hair.
Sing melodies low and sweet,
The murmuring caves and the winds and the waves
Their magical songs repeat.
And I have come o’er the white sea foam,
Little earth-child, to your feet.
Oh come with me across the sea,
Where the birds wing fat and fleet.”

For this weeks When We Were Little Sunday post skip lighty over to the beautiful blog Vintage Kids’ Books My Kid Loves - the MOST amazing blog and now an Etsy store as well. So much Joy!

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.

Unfortunately no longer in print The Cow Who Fell in the Canal was the book that I borrowed over and over from the library, driving my mum crazy. “Don’t you want something different this time?” she’d say.
But no, I loved this book most of all!

Published in 1957 it is the story of Hendrika, an unhappy and bored black and white cow who lives on a farm in Holland. She is told stories of the city from the cart horse Pieter and she longs to see the wonderful things he talks about. Until one day while fat Hendrika is chewing her way through the pasture she gets the adventure of her life, falling into the canal and travelling via raft down the waterway to the city. Once in the city Hendrika takes off, running down the cobbled streets discovering and exploring all the things she’d only heard about in Pieter’s stories.

The Cow Who Fell In The Canal is a lovely story about adventure and curiosity, things that every child can relate to.

Peter Spier’s illustrations are gorgeous in this book, the double page spreads are alternated between black and white sketches and then glorious colour. His vibrant use of blues and yellows create spectacular scenes that make you feel sunny and warm just looking at them. The detail he uses is exquisite, there is so much to look at in each picture and his landscapes have amazing depth, it’s like the lush green fields go on and on.

Recently I bought a copy of The Cow Who Fell In The Canal off Ebay, battling three other bidders for an old ‘Bell Primary School Reading Scheme’ paperback. When it arrived I realised that I still loved it very much.

In 1995 Scholastic Publishing made a short film of the book and I found it here, it’s beautiful and worth taking 8 minutes out of the day for.

The selection of which vintage kids’ books are labelled as ‘collectables’ always seems a bit arbitrary to me, and I’m often surprised to discover how coveted some books are.

The gorgeous Ant and Bee series of 13 books by Angela Banner was published in the UK in the 60s, and republished in the late 80s and 90s. I love these books, but it seems incredible that even the newer editions are selling for extraordinary prices on Amazon and the secondhand book sites. Do people really pay hundreds of dollars for these?!

The books are some of the smallest you’d fine - and gorgeous hard backs editions. They are quite long - my one is 96 pages. Nevertheless - somewhat incongruously - they are intended for pre-schoolers and typically introduce basic concepts of the alphabet, numbers, shapes and colours. Key words are printed in red to help beginner readers associate the words with the illustrations, and sometimes pictograms are used.

When I first picked up my copy of Around the World with Ant and Bee (bought new, in the late 90s) it was a strangely familiar series. I still can’t quite put my finger on where I read this book when I was little, but it definitely left a strong impression. I had to buy the copy I found immediately…

The illustrations are very distinctive: it’s almost a naive style - flat, simple shapes, and Ant and Bee themselves have simple ’stick’ legs and faces. Yet, there are also instances where the illustrations have great detail: in Around the World, there are beautiful images of different landscapes and cultures. The colouring is impeccably done - in gorgeous contrasting limes, reds, yellows and oranges.

The text is unusual and also quite distinctive - very repetitive (I guess to reinforce the teaching theme) and at times the turn of phrase is almost awkward, but I think this is one of the very endearing aspects of the books.

In Around the World with Ant and Bee, Bee loses his treasured umbrella, which somehow gets blown away and ends up on a plane and taken overseas. Ant and Bee must travel the world to find the umbrella, and through their visits to different parts of the world, we learn the name and shape of different countries and some distinctive features of the culture there.

I love the excitement of the journey Ant and Bee take and all the details of how they travel. There is something magical about holding a small book in your hands, and imagining the existence of even smaller creatures and their adventures.

Bill Peet wrote over 35 classic children’s picture books before he died in 2002 but this one was my favorite. He is considered one of the most important author/illustrators in American history and he is still very much a favorite there. (It is hard to find his picture books in Australian bookstores - although they are all still in print). What I hadn’t realised until this weekend was that Peet actually wrote and produced for Disney and worked on amazing films like Fantasia and Peter Pan. When I re-read Jennifer and Josephine (published in 1967) last night I found that his illustrations really take on a life of their own, they are very atmospheric and almost run past your eyes like the animation in those classic films. This must have been one of the things I loved about this book when I was little.

The Jennifer from the title is an old automobile built in 1933. She is worn out and sits in a junkyard, her friend is Josephine a “scrawny stray cat”. Josephine has raised kittens in Jennifer and they are great friends until one day Jennifer is bought from the junkyard by a very rude and frantic man they nickname Mr. Frenzy.

The story is all about friendship and loyalty as Jennifer and Josephine stick together and look after each other to get through their hair raising journey with Mr. Frenzy.

Another thing that I now recognise I must have loved is actually what an adult storyline this book has. Peet dosen’t tell a soppy story, Jennifer and Josephine travels at a fast pace with some spooky bits “Billowing black clouds rolled over the countryside, and a streak of lightning shot through the sky followed by a great rumble of thunder.” And lots of adventure: “the road was hilly as a camel’s back and all mud” .

From the Houghton Mifflan site I found this quote from Peet: “Most of my animal characters have human personalities, and some are much like the people I know.”  Jennifer and Josephine is dedicated “To three stray kittens the Peet family discovered on the Malibu Road” - I love that.

When I pulled this off the shelf a couple of weeks ago to read and write about, Ned adopted it and has been devoted to it ever since. It has a lot of text but Ned loves to lie back with daddy and have Jennifer and Josephine read aloud to him.

When I was little, my grandparents’ house had several copies of the Pookie books by Ivy Wallace. I remember rifling through the soft creamy pages, taking in all the details from the pastel illustrations.

Pookie is a rabbit with wings, and he comes to live with a woodcutter’s daughter named Belinda. He sleeps in Belinda’s work basket, with red satin lining, and wears flounced blue overalls. A total of ten books were published in the series, between 1946 and 1966. In the early 90s Ivy and her daughters initiated a re-release of four of the titles through their own publishing venture, Pookie Productions.

I think my favourite title would have to be Pookie Puts the World Right - the ambition of the title alone makes me love it. In this story, there is a terrible storm in the wood, and Pookie and Belinda take in the homeless animals - Pookie makes tiny beds for them in cardboard boxes with miniature sheets and pillows. While out checking for more animals in need of shelter, Pookie encounters Winter, who with its icy voice, speaks to Pookie. Pookie loses his temper and shouts at Winter, telling it to go away for it has come too early. And, to Pookie’s amazement, Winter listens! The animals call Pookie a hero! But little by little the woodland animals realise that that they can’t manage without a Winter - they need it for resting-time, for their winter coats, and for their winter stores of food. So it’s up to Pookie to put the world right again. In the era of climate change, there is a message here that’s more poignant than ever.

The detail of the illustrations of these books is exquisite - the animals, flowers and woodland scenes are so very English, and the interiors of the woodland cottage perfectly of the 1950s era. The muted blues, greens and oranges of Wallace’s pallate are beautiful. The pages are quite heavy with text, but the dialogue-rich text make these books lovely read-alouds. As I flick through their pages, I can almost smell my Nana’s flannelette sheets, feel her hot water bottle on my feet and fluffy eiderdown up to my chin…

To me the Milly-Molly-Mandy Stories are like being wrapped in a big warm blanket and being hugged by my mum. They are comfy, cosy stories written about a time long ago, that are still relevant and adored today. Joyce Lankester Brisley first wrote about Milly-Molly-Mandy in 1928, she is a little girl growing up in a lovely little English village where she can roam and play without a care. This was obviously one of the things that really appealed to me at 6+ about the books was Milly-Molly-Mandy’s freedom to explore and experience new things in the village.

I loved that she lives in a thatched cottage with her extended family of Grandmother and Grandfather, Aunt and Uncle and Mother and Father, how wonderful to live with all those people to love you and look after you. I can also remember feeling embraced by the sense of community in the stories as Milly-Molly-Mandy attends fete’s and parties organised for the children of the village, she helps keep shop and gets to know the teacher, she helps thatch a roof and attends the blacksmiths wedding.

Brisley’s beautiful line drawings accompany the text perfectly, even though the illustrations were never in colour I could still vividly imagine Milly-Molly-Mandy in her pink and white striped dress. The end papers are a gorgeous map of the village which I loved pouring over to see where Milly-Molly-Mandy was in each story. Every couple of pages within the text there is a glorious illustration of a scene, full of quaint detail that you could look over again and again.

Although the stories could be twee I don’t believe that they are even today, they are certainly sweet but not sacrine. Milly-Molly-Mandy is an adorable character but she is also strong and confident. Joyce Lankester Brisley was a trailblazer, creating a strong female character who can certainly still sit beside recent strong little girl characters like Hannah created by Libby Gleeson, Sophie by Dick King-Smith and of course Lauren Child’s Clarice books.

Recently there has been an edition of Milly-Molly-Mandy released that is illustrated by Clara Vulliamy (daughter of Shirley Hughes) and it has just been rereleased in a gift box with a doll.

You need go no further than Facebook to discover the cult following of this vintage Australian classic. Believe it or not, at last count Grug had 25,659 friends!

It would have been a rare Australian primary school in the 1980s that didn’t have a copy of some of the Grug books on their shelves. The first four books in the series by Ted Prior were first published in 1979, and the colours and design give it that unmissable 70s style.

Grug is a small creature who began life as the top of a Burrawong tree, which one day fell off, and gradually morphed into Grug. He has a unique view on the world; he’s a bit of a loner, but occasionally sets out to interact with the world in his own special way.

I remember taking some of these books home as readers, and have a very nostalgic feelings towards little Grug - he’s so industrious, but also so sensitive and considerate …

There were about 25 books in total published in the Grug series,

issued right up to the late 80s and early 90s. One of Grug’s many fans includes Australian author, Marcus Zusak, most famous for writing The Book Thief.

Harry the Dirty Dog, originally published in 1956, is another book that I vividly remember from childhood and as a testament to its appeal it remains a huge seller in bookshops today.

Harry is a little white dog with black spots who has an aversion to baths (what dog doesn’t?). One day when he hears the water running he buries the scrubbing brush and runs away from home. Gradually during his very adventurous day around the city he becomes a very dirty dog: ‘In fact, he changed from a white dog with black spots, to a black dog with white spots‘.

When Harry returns home his family doesn’t recognise him as their dog. Then the real fun begins as Harry tries to convince the family that he belongs to them ending with…a bath!

Husband and wife team Gene Zion and Margaret Bloy Graham created several Harry books together; No Roses for Harry, Harry by the Sea and Harry and the Lady Next Door, all with simple story lines about Harry getting in - and out of - trouble. What really makes me love these books now as an adult is the illustrations by Bloy Graham and their lovely warm 1950s style. There is always so much happening in her artwork, I love the people with their wide eyed expressions, and Harry of course just has so much personality in his up turned nose.

This is one of those books that everyone I know always adds to their ‘must have’ children’s book list and rightly so, it’s a classic.