Nibbling trees

Oh books books books.  such a good distraction from our appalling colds and coughs...  whether you are reading them aloud, trying to read them yourself from memory or simply trying to chew them.

Christopher Nibble by Charlotte Middleton.  Christopher Nibble is a quirky little guinea pig who, along with all the residents of Dandeville adores eating dandelions...  unfortunately the dandelions run out.  Christopher finds the last one, cares for it, waits, and then blows the dandelion clock to re-sow the favourite food all over again.  This is a unique little story that J picked herself at the library.  She liked the endpaper pictures of Christoher Nibble in all his different pairs of shorts.  I like the theme of growing things and the illustration of the dandelion seeds blowing everywhere is gorgeous.  It is also hilarious to me as an adult that the dandelions would run out.  That would never happen... maybe we need a few guinea pigs in our garden?!

Up the Tree by Margaret Atwood.  This is so nicely and simply illustrated and its also a pleasant poem-story written by Atwood in her early days.  A foreword explains the illustrations were in only 2 clours, red and blue (with a purple-brown mix of the 2 for interest) due to printing cost limitations.  Its all the more beautiful for the lack of colour.  I wish we owned this one... its whimsical, its fun, its about that freedom to play in a tree all day.  I love anything about trees or treehouses anyhow.  I will never tire of reading it over and over.

(My message in 'Book borrowers round up' posts is to say: use your local library whenever you can.  borrow books... go... borrow them.  Keep our local libraries open! )

New baby books

Inspired by an old friend who has just told me her second baby is on the way (these things always excite me incredibly !)  I thought I would pop up a few books that we loved while preparing J for the arrival of her sister.

My Baby Sister by Emma Chichester Clark.  I adore Emma Chichester Clark.  ('We' love you, Blue Kangaroo.)  This book features some of her new characters, Humber and Plum.  This is an excellent book.  It centres around Humber's Mum going into hospital to have a baby and how he misses Mum when Dad and Gran don't know what his normal routine is.  Then when Mum returns it takes Humber a while to get used to baby sister, in fact he even wants to send her back, but while Mum is sleeping he plays with her and looks after her alone and realises he loves her and okay, she can stay.  My quick summary doesn't really do this book justice, its lovely and fresh and a perfect introduction to tell an older child a sibling is on the way.

Share! by Anthea Simmons. We absolutely loved this book.  Its very light and funny and Juliana really enjoyed it and still mentions the book even though it was one we borrowed from the library.  The book focuses on sharing with a new sibling.  "I love my fluffy teddy, but baby wants him too...Share! says Mummy, so I do"  It also lets the older sibling know that sometimes baby might not understand, might chew things they shouldn't etc.  There are lots of good preparation talking points in this book! The last bit of 'sharing' in the book is my favourite and is the bit J still mentions, she often quotes the book to her sister and laughs... "Shall we share our Mummy?... so we do"

Bears!

The girls are going to bed at around the same time each evening (for now!!) so last night we let B. sit in on bedtime stories.  We did a few books for bubbas that we own, and a few books for J that are this weeks library picks.  It was really nice to read to them both together and to have them both listening.  The theme was bears, how could I lose!

B. is loving the 'That's not my...' books just as her sister did, and probably all babies do...

The Wheels on the Bus by David Ellwand.  We also love this book for the younger ones.  B. likes the fact it plays the tune in a light music box style and I think its this that grabs her more than the pictures at this stage.  J and I love the old style teddy bears that are the stars of the story though. 

Best Bear by Emma Dodd. I picked this one out for J as the 'Best Bear' of the title is very similar to her own best polar bear teddy.  This is all about a boy and his special teddy and how they are there for each other. I love the simple rhyming poetry in this, especially this verse; " worn fur kissed away, was white now grey". awww.

 Bug & Bear.  A new book published this year.  The illustrations really grabbed my attention, bright colours against a tea stained backdrop, and J thinks the story is very funny.  Bear wakes up grumpy and bug wakes up wanting to play.  Bear is pestered by bug all day, but all ends well when they eventually take a nap together, renewed friends.  Its a simple, uneventful story.  The pictures are better than the story itself but J still seems to like it!

Can you see a little bear? by James Mayhew and Jackie Morris. Lastly one picked because I love Jackie Morris' illustrations and I love white bears.  Each page in this is heavily illustrated with lots going on in a very fantastical and captivating setting.  Ladies riding on swans, hot air balloons and deserts mixed with snow.  A world of different creatures appear and the book is written in poetic questions "Elephants are big, mice are small, can you see a little bear standing on a ball?"  This is great as it makes the child really look at the picture and its easy to spot the bear, but as we look we see so many other things to talk about.  J likes the page where the little polar bear buys his own little white teddy polar bear.  This is a gorgeous book that is definitely on my wish list, if not J's too.

click image to link to The Imagination Tree !

jumpers and rumpus

As a 'knitter mummy' this recent library find really appealed.  Such a simple story but just perfect for kids who have that special security something-or-other that they take everywhere with them...

The story is as follows...  A little mouse has a favourite jumper knitted by his granny, and he wears it everywhere.  He gets too big for it but still wants to wear it.  Eventually she knits him a new one but softens the transition by unravelling the old jumper and knitting it into a teddy for him.  Of course he takes the teddy everywhere.  I just loved this satisfying ending and so did J.

This week we also borrowed,

This one revives those tired old ubiquitous nursery rhymes and reworks them into a funny story that J loved.  Miss Muffet is bored and wanders off through the pages of the book and asks to join in with some other rhymes like, for example, hickory dickory dock (Miss Muffet climbed up the clock).  J really loves the illustrations in this one and the drawing sparked lots of conversations.  Her favourite moment is when Miss Muffet joins in with Hey Diddle Diddle.  The dish is not best pleased when it is Miss Muffet who 'runs away with the spoon' instead.  J loves the expressions on the dish and spoons faces (!) when, as the book says, a rumpus breaks out all over the page.  This is a really good, funny and fresh picture book.  Borrow it if you can!

Bookseller: Fight for Libraries campaign

I love the word secret

I love the word 'secret'. The way it rolls off the tongue, the way it means something that is hidden, something to keep all to yourself; then share with others…

Who would not be intrigued by a secret? Anais Nin bought a house in Paris and was intrigued by a secret window - a fake window which was added to the front of the house for symmetry's sake but which could not be seen from the inside of the house. On holiday as a child the large old farmhouse we stayed in was all on one level, but there was a secret door, kept locked, that would have led to the upstairs…
A secret sets the imagination rolling.

Countless times I have read the book The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson-Burnett... I watched the film again over the weekend. It is a fantastically well-drawn narrative, clever enough to pull together an inner and an outer journey into one simple story.

The story begins in India during the early 1900s, when Mary Lennox is orphaned and sent to England to live in Misselthwaite Manor, the gloomy estate of her brooding and melancholy uncle, Lord Craven. Because the uncle is almost always away on travels, struggling to forget the death of his beloved wife, Mary is left mostly alone to explore the estate. She finds a door that leads to a secret garden left neglected since the death of her aunt… she befriends the young brother of a staff maid called Dickon and Lord Craven's apparently crippled son, her cousin Colin, who has been needlessly bed-ridden for years. Together the three children restore the neglected garden on the estate grounds. As the garden grows, the characters grow.

The metaphor used in this book is uncomplicated and yet so powerful. There is something universal about the use of nature is writing or poetry. We understand it because we are part of it. Life, death, light, dark and the changing of the seasons all reflected in our own lives. The closeness to nature and the importance of environment is one of the things I love about this story.

I am also interested in the initial setting of the book in India, the India of the British Empire. My family on my Dad's side lived in this India. My Grandfather grew up in the Punjab. And I recognise this India in The Secret Garden…

The main character Mary Lennox is all at once a child and a young woman, a little girl and a force - a catalyst. She is weak and strong, innocence and experience. In the film version, the character is exquisitely played by Kate Maberly. When Mary arrives at Misselthwaite Manor she is defiant and haughty in her speech and attitude and yet the body language she uses is that of a little girl afraid and unsure. This is excellent acting and portrays the layers of this character that are also evident in the book.

Isn't this just how we all feel day to day? We like people to think we know what we are doing, to think we are sure and capable adults… but inside we are still children. I have an excellent childhood memory. I can remember my emotions and responses to situations and experiences from as early as age 2. I can still recognise that 2 year old in myself today. I am the same person inside and I will be that person when I am 80. In some ways The Secret Garden is also about learning to be that person, whatever age we are.

With the girls I am currently enjoying this book Isabella's Toybox by Emma Thomson  within which a little girl discovers that the toys in her old forgotten toybox can 'come real' .  Throughout the book there are little flaps to lift up and find out a 'secret' about each toy.  Our favourite is "Oscar the giraffe has a secret spot drawn on with a felt tip pen..." 

we're off to see the tin man

Last week when we were walking back from swimming to catch the train home J spotted a 'tin man' in a garden.  She called him a 'metal man' and asked me to tell her a story about him... so, inspired by The Wizard of Oz I made up a quick tale about a tin man who rusted in a garden because of the rain.  She was very captivated by this, so when we got home a pulled out my copy of The Wizard of Oz by L Frank Baum .  My copy has lovely illustrations every few pages so I used the illustrations to tell her the whole story. 
After nursery yesterday she asked to go to the bookshop to get a copy of The Wizard of Oz "with not so much words in it" as Mummy's one.  I'll never refuse to buy her a book... so we went in and found this one which is just the right length for her.  The pictures are lovely too:

I am sure there is a picture book version out there somewhere too (which Santa might be able to advise me about).

I have really enjoyed being able to share one of my own childhood favourites with J this week.  Who would have thought that an ordinary day trip would take us all the way to OZ.

Fairytales in psychological order...

 There are whole theories on the psychology of fairytales; it is all extraordinarily interesting...  honestly.

Lately  J seems to be reading fairytales in psychological order!

I saw this quote on a leaflet from the library this week:

“If you want your children to be intelligent read them fairytales, if you want your children to be more intelligent read them more fairytales” (Albert Einstein)

If this is true then it’s possibly because life itself is a story.  Your story, their story. It’s all been said before but, children learn how to live life  by playing, play acting, role playing, imagining themselves to be someone or something else, reading about someone  else and having empathy with that character.  This is why books, (and therefore fairytales) are the most important thing  in a child’s life.  Well I think so anyway.  Me and Einstein; great minds think alike. Ha.

J’s first fairytale fascination was Goldilocks and the 3 bears.  This makes sense; young girl’s first venture out alone, her curiosity gets the better of her, then its ‘best run home it’s safer there’.  It’s a tale with no real resolution, things are tried out, and things get broken, nothing else is said.  For a toddler this tale is just like dipping your toe in the water of the world but nothing else. 

There are a few family stories about J. applying the Goldilocks story to life...  the best one was when we took J. to choose her first potty.  It was in Mothercare.  I lifted down a selection of 3 potties and asked her to choose one.  With a grin on her face she sat on the first potty and said no, sat on the second potty and said no, then sat on the third (at this point I realised what she was doing) and said ‘just right’.  Hilarious .

She is currently moving cautiously towards  Little Red Riding Hood.  Little Red is similar to Goldilocks, but she has a bit more of an adventure doesn’t she?  We love these versions:  

"One day you will be old enough to read fairytales again" (C S Lewis)