We visited Granny this weekend at her new house in Suffolk, and came across a wonderful secondhand bookshop, in an old Methodist chapel in Westleton >http://www.chapelbooks.com/shop/chapel/index.html. The proprietor, resplendant in hat and pyjama bottoms, offered us tea and coffee as we browsed through higgledy piggledy shelves of treasures, stumbling across the occasional sculptures and eccentric objets.
I headed straight for the children's books, and had to restrain myself from pouncing on Louisa M Alcott. Definitely too soon to expect little a to sit through Little Women. But what an instant hit from memory lane to find a Little Grey Rabbit book, with its distinctive title type and layout, cover design, the line-drawn endpapers, and of course Margaret Tempest's beautiful illustrations.
We couldn't wait. We started reading in the car on the way to the beach. Fuzzypeg was an instant hit with little a. And if being in the bright sunshine of the beautiful countryside hadn't already made me want to run away from the big smoke, Little Grey Rabbit's adventures learning how to make lace had me yearning for a little green-doored cottage of my own. There is something so irresistible about hedgerow creatures dressed in Cath Kidston-esque outfits wishing on the moon.
It sounds twee, and I suppose if you were to be critical, then yes it is. But it's also surprisingly witty (Squirrel and Hare are the comic foil to Little Grey Rabbit's sensible country housewife) and gritty ('Let's cook him for dinner'). And I love this quote from the introduction: 'The country ways of Grey Rabbit were the country ways known to the author'.
Seems poor old little grey rabbit is out of print - how can this be? She is every bit as good as Beatrix Potter ...
Thursday, 29 April 2010
Friday, 23 April 2010
The witching hour
Tonight, even though it's nowhere near either Hallowe'en or Christmas, we treated ourselves to The Nightmare Before Christmas.
I loved the film, and picked up this copy from the pulp shelf when I worked at Penguin - long before little a was even a twinkling in the eye. As far as I can remember, I hadn't opened it again until this Christmas.
It claims to be written by Tim Burton - I have no idea if a ghost was involved (no pun intended. Actually I hate it when people say that. It's like saying 'I don't mean to be rude but ...' Clearly the pun was intended, and clearly I had a clever self-conscious moment thinking oh how witty that would be. But anyway, back to the point). It's illustrated by him too, and he is clearly a talented and impressive man, even if he did manage to make Alice in Wonderland too scary for little a to watch until she's about 21.
If you're not afraid of a bit of gothic, and your child has a slightly strange attraction to skeletons*, then The Nightmare Before Christmas is a refreshing change to all schmaltzy Christmas ick that I gritted my teeth through this year. Do you find me still reading Just For You Blue Kangaroo or Angelina's Christmas as the tulips are blooming? No - they are safely tucked up with the stockings in the loft. The Nightmare is fun enough, and dark enough, to haunt us all year round.
*When little a was about two and a half, the Wellcome Institute held an exhibition of skeletons unearthed in London. There was a poster at the tube stop we saw each day, with a huge skull on it. She loved it. So I took her to the exhibition, and she loved that too. I revelled in the contrasts: bouncy toddler in a crowd of serious academics, full of life but fascinated by relics of death. Somehow it wasn't morbid at all, but felt like a celebration of life. I suppose because the bodies were displayed as insights into history. We bought a book there - Allan Ahlberg's Bump in the Night. Sad to say, not up there with Each Peach or Burglar Bill, but fun enough if you like your skeletons a little less, well, skeletal.
I loved the film, and picked up this copy from the pulp shelf when I worked at Penguin - long before little a was even a twinkling in the eye. As far as I can remember, I hadn't opened it again until this Christmas.
It claims to be written by Tim Burton - I have no idea if a ghost was involved (no pun intended. Actually I hate it when people say that. It's like saying 'I don't mean to be rude but ...' Clearly the pun was intended, and clearly I had a clever self-conscious moment thinking oh how witty that would be. But anyway, back to the point). It's illustrated by him too, and he is clearly a talented and impressive man, even if he did manage to make Alice in Wonderland too scary for little a to watch until she's about 21.
If you're not afraid of a bit of gothic, and your child has a slightly strange attraction to skeletons*, then The Nightmare Before Christmas is a refreshing change to all schmaltzy Christmas ick that I gritted my teeth through this year. Do you find me still reading Just For You Blue Kangaroo or Angelina's Christmas as the tulips are blooming? No - they are safely tucked up with the stockings in the loft. The Nightmare is fun enough, and dark enough, to haunt us all year round.
*When little a was about two and a half, the Wellcome Institute held an exhibition of skeletons unearthed in London. There was a poster at the tube stop we saw each day, with a huge skull on it. She loved it. So I took her to the exhibition, and she loved that too. I revelled in the contrasts: bouncy toddler in a crowd of serious academics, full of life but fascinated by relics of death. Somehow it wasn't morbid at all, but felt like a celebration of life. I suppose because the bodies were displayed as insights into history. We bought a book there - Allan Ahlberg's Bump in the Night. Sad to say, not up there with Each Peach or Burglar Bill, but fun enough if you like your skeletons a little less, well, skeletal.
Thursday, 22 April 2010
Confessions of a working mother
I haven't been home in time for stories once this week. Hate that.
When I was having a particularly low time in the work/life juggling act last year, my friend Katy sent me a copy of I don't Know How She Does It by Allison Pearson. I have to say my instant reaction was 'why do I want to read about this? I'm living it' - I wanted escape, not to have my nose rubbed in it.
But you know, it's funny and it's true and it makes you want to press it in to the hands of your husband and wail 'this is my life this is my life!' You're safe to do this, there's no way he'll read a book so pink, and when you've calmed down again you'll realise that maybe it's just as well because there's not a lot he can do to make things better.
Because the true cause of things feeling wrong is emotional, not circumstantial.
Six months on, a line from the book keeps coming back to me:'nobody told me'. It's so true, that nobody tells you how it will feel when you have to leave a sick child to go to an important meeting; nobody tells you how it will break your heart that you can't make the Christmas play, or rush in late and miss the crucial bit. Before your child is born, you think about them in terms of logistics. After you've met them, the worst thing is that you still have to plan everything as logistics, but all you really want to do is pour all your energy and love and creativity into them and to hell with all the careful plans.
But the other truth that shines to me is that the pressure comes so much from ourselves. It's not about what's best for the child: god knows little a is healthy and happy, and chucks my energy and love and creativity back in my face most of the time; and it's not even about what work demands of us. It's that we think we should be able not to have it all, but to do it all. We want to be perfect mothers and perfect career girls. It's the perfectionism that does us in.
So, give yourself a break. Read Allison Pearson. Laugh, cry, and then go back to crazy multi-tasking.
When I was having a particularly low time in the work/life juggling act last year, my friend Katy sent me a copy of I don't Know How She Does It by Allison Pearson. I have to say my instant reaction was 'why do I want to read about this? I'm living it' - I wanted escape, not to have my nose rubbed in it.
But you know, it's funny and it's true and it makes you want to press it in to the hands of your husband and wail 'this is my life this is my life!' You're safe to do this, there's no way he'll read a book so pink, and when you've calmed down again you'll realise that maybe it's just as well because there's not a lot he can do to make things better.
Because the true cause of things feeling wrong is emotional, not circumstantial.
Six months on, a line from the book keeps coming back to me:'nobody told me'. It's so true, that nobody tells you how it will feel when you have to leave a sick child to go to an important meeting; nobody tells you how it will break your heart that you can't make the Christmas play, or rush in late and miss the crucial bit. Before your child is born, you think about them in terms of logistics. After you've met them, the worst thing is that you still have to plan everything as logistics, but all you really want to do is pour all your energy and love and creativity into them and to hell with all the careful plans.
But the other truth that shines to me is that the pressure comes so much from ourselves. It's not about what's best for the child: god knows little a is healthy and happy, and chucks my energy and love and creativity back in my face most of the time; and it's not even about what work demands of us. It's that we think we should be able not to have it all, but to do it all. We want to be perfect mothers and perfect career girls. It's the perfectionism that does us in.
So, give yourself a break. Read Allison Pearson. Laugh, cry, and then go back to crazy multi-tasking.
Sunday, 18 April 2010
the future of bedtime?
This week I bought the app of Guess How Much I Love You?
A review in The Bookseller promised 'you need never read a bedtime story again' which seemed a little sad to me.
Little a might disagree though. Essentially, it's an audiobook and ebook combined: you press the button to turn the pages, which appear just as they do in the book, and a recorded voice reads the text for you.
It has rather a nice feature which allows you to record your own reading. Brilliant, I thought, at last my outstandind reading abilities can be recorded for posterity.
Not so. We now have half a customized version of Guess How Much I love You? Featuring my dulcet tones overlaid with the wails of little a: 'I want the MAAAAAN! No mummy no! you're not LISTENING TO MEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!'
She loves pressing the button. She loves the man.
I hate the sticky fingers on my precious iphone and being upstaged by a recording.
But most of all I hate that this charming story with its elegant illustrations has become appealing because of gadgetry when what I always loved about it was the chance to curl up with my own little nutbrown hare and tell her I loved her to the moon and back. Get the app if you must, but please enjoy the book as well ...
A review in The Bookseller promised 'you need never read a bedtime story again' which seemed a little sad to me.
Little a might disagree though. Essentially, it's an audiobook and ebook combined: you press the button to turn the pages, which appear just as they do in the book, and a recorded voice reads the text for you.
It has rather a nice feature which allows you to record your own reading. Brilliant, I thought, at last my outstandind reading abilities can be recorded for posterity.
Not so. We now have half a customized version of Guess How Much I love You? Featuring my dulcet tones overlaid with the wails of little a: 'I want the MAAAAAN! No mummy no! you're not LISTENING TO MEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!'
She loves pressing the button. She loves the man.
I hate the sticky fingers on my precious iphone and being upstaged by a recording.
But most of all I hate that this charming story with its elegant illustrations has become appealing because of gadgetry when what I always loved about it was the chance to curl up with my own little nutbrown hare and tell her I loved her to the moon and back. Get the app if you must, but please enjoy the book as well ...
Friday, 16 April 2010
sugar plum fairies
A confession: I'm starting to worry about just how girly and wrapped in cotton wool little a is becoming.
I started with the best intentions. I avoided pink and nurtured her instincts to climb to the very top of whatever tall thing she could find.
But pink was the first colour she recognised, auntie's gift of blue shoes induced a tantrum that could be heard in Camden - and she loves ballet in the way it seems only little girls can (Billy Elliot doesn't seem to have had a great deal of impact on our patch of SE London).
It really struck home to me this week on our trip to the Tower of London with our friends and their son. When he corrected my authoritative discussion of the catapult in the moat by the entrance by pointing out that it is in fact a trebouchet, I realised I was totally out of my league. Resplendent in knightly armour of purest plastic, he galloped around, sword in air, shouting 'chaaaaarge' at passing groups of gormless teen tourists, while little a skipped the corridors singing about princesses. Should I worry about this? Is it just the natural order of things asserting itself? Or should I have embraced the opportunity to discuss the finer points of warmongering and kingship in a hope that our bloodthirsty surroundings might shake some of the sequins out of her head?
I definitely shouldn't be reading her Angelina Ballerina. But I can't resist. The intricate illustrations, filled with cottages and chintz and home-made jam, remind me of the brambly hedge stories I loved as a child (must try and track some of those down ...) and the mouselings' adventures are sweetly pretty in every way. Billy Elliot would approve, I'd think: it seems there isn't a problem in the world that can't be solved by a delightful ballet dance.
As well as the books, there is the live English National Ballet show, which entranced little a when we saw it last summer, and a beautifully intricate pop-up house with paper dolls, that can keep her occupied for half an hour at a time.
Next week, I promise, I'll read her something macho. But this week we're being girly and frou-frou and dressing mainly in pink froth.
We chose Angelina and the Royal Wedding on our trip to http://www.primrosehillbooks.com/ today. Such a lovely lovely bookshop. Could almost have been conjured up by Angelina's creators Katharine Holabird and Helen Craig - just what a bookshop should be.
I started with the best intentions. I avoided pink and nurtured her instincts to climb to the very top of whatever tall thing she could find.
But pink was the first colour she recognised, auntie's gift of blue shoes induced a tantrum that could be heard in Camden - and she loves ballet in the way it seems only little girls can (Billy Elliot doesn't seem to have had a great deal of impact on our patch of SE London).
It really struck home to me this week on our trip to the Tower of London with our friends and their son. When he corrected my authoritative discussion of the catapult in the moat by the entrance by pointing out that it is in fact a trebouchet, I realised I was totally out of my league. Resplendent in knightly armour of purest plastic, he galloped around, sword in air, shouting 'chaaaaarge' at passing groups of gormless teen tourists, while little a skipped the corridors singing about princesses. Should I worry about this? Is it just the natural order of things asserting itself? Or should I have embraced the opportunity to discuss the finer points of warmongering and kingship in a hope that our bloodthirsty surroundings might shake some of the sequins out of her head?
I definitely shouldn't be reading her Angelina Ballerina. But I can't resist. The intricate illustrations, filled with cottages and chintz and home-made jam, remind me of the brambly hedge stories I loved as a child (must try and track some of those down ...) and the mouselings' adventures are sweetly pretty in every way. Billy Elliot would approve, I'd think: it seems there isn't a problem in the world that can't be solved by a delightful ballet dance.
As well as the books, there is the live English National Ballet show, which entranced little a when we saw it last summer, and a beautifully intricate pop-up house with paper dolls, that can keep her occupied for half an hour at a time.
Next week, I promise, I'll read her something macho. But this week we're being girly and frou-frou and dressing mainly in pink froth.
We chose Angelina and the Royal Wedding on our trip to http://www.primrosehillbooks.com/ today. Such a lovely lovely bookshop. Could almost have been conjured up by Angelina's creators Katharine Holabird and Helen Craig - just what a bookshop should be.
Wednesday, 14 April 2010
happy feelings make you fly
Bookstart http://www.bookstart.org.uk/Home is the most amazing initiative. Free books for pre-school children at key stages seems to me to be an impossibly generous and imaginative scheme.
Given my profession, little a is if anything over-exposed to books. She's devouring stories and learning letters at an alarming rate. We've even considered Steiner education just to hold her literacy back (they don't formally teach children to read until age six or seven. I like this - let their imaginations run riot while they can, I say). I wish there was an equivalent scheme for sporty things.*
I'm especially grateful to Bookstart because one of those nice free books in our most recent treasure chest box was Some Dogs Do. Ooh it's lovely.
Do dogs fly? Well ... some dogs don't and some dogs do!
*I'm being unfair. There is of course the swim4life scheme, which gives little a the chance to go swimming for free at our local, freezing, mouldy and stained pool. Rather like handing out mildewed second-hand-books in terms of inspiring us to take part, I fear.
And on the subject of Steiner - of course I'm being flippant. If I was rich enough not to work but still have the money, she'd be there with all the tiger lilies and elvises, playing with wooden toys and learning to weave.
Given my profession, little a is if anything over-exposed to books. She's devouring stories and learning letters at an alarming rate. We've even considered Steiner education just to hold her literacy back (they don't formally teach children to read until age six or seven. I like this - let their imaginations run riot while they can, I say). I wish there was an equivalent scheme for sporty things.*
I'm especially grateful to Bookstart because one of those nice free books in our most recent treasure chest box was Some Dogs Do. Ooh it's lovely.
Do dogs fly? Well ... some dogs don't and some dogs do!
*I'm being unfair. There is of course the swim4life scheme, which gives little a the chance to go swimming for free at our local, freezing, mouldy and stained pool. Rather like handing out mildewed second-hand-books in terms of inspiring us to take part, I fear.
And on the subject of Steiner - of course I'm being flippant. If I was rich enough not to work but still have the money, she'd be there with all the tiger lilies and elvises, playing with wooden toys and learning to weave.
mum's the word
When I draw myself with Astrid (I don't want you to imagine high art here, we're talking skillfully executed stick people) I never draw glasses. Even though I've worn them more than half my life, I still don't think of myself as a glasses-wearer.
And it's the same when I'm reading stories. I'm never thinking of myself as the parent figure. I'm still there as the child, having the adventure, being eaten by the monster, or flying with the snowman.
And that's why, although I love The Tiger Who Came to Tea, it's also come as a shock to me. Look at Sophie's mummy, in her cardy and comfy shoes, not uttering a word of protest as the tiger scoffs every last one of her (no doubt) beautifully home-made cakes, her only concern being that there's no food left for daddy's tea. Is that me? Is that really me?
Or - worse - the slipper-shod mother in Raymond Briggs' divine The Snowman and the comfy-trouser-wearing mum in Penelope Lively's magical Two Bears and Joe. If mothers are present at all in these stories, they're the plumper-of-pillows, plonker-of-food, breaking-of-dreams figure in the background, slightly harried looking and always frumpy.
I think I may have to go on a mission now to find a mother-figure to aspire to. Until then I'm going to stick with projecting myself on to the lovely carefree children instead. So, like Sophie, I'm thrilled that a tiger drank all my bath water, that I got to eat sausages and chips and icecream at the local caff for tea, and I'm hoping one day he might come back to see us again some day.
(very sorry to see that Two Bears and Joe doesn't seem to be in print any more. If you can get hold of a copy, it's absolutely lovely: a little boy spends the day with imaginary bears, playing in the snow of his parents' bed, climbing the bannister forests, hiding in the bears' cave under the stairs, beautifully illustrated. Definitely worth 7p or whatever the second hand sellers are offering it for)
And it's the same when I'm reading stories. I'm never thinking of myself as the parent figure. I'm still there as the child, having the adventure, being eaten by the monster, or flying with the snowman.
And that's why, although I love The Tiger Who Came to Tea, it's also come as a shock to me. Look at Sophie's mummy, in her cardy and comfy shoes, not uttering a word of protest as the tiger scoffs every last one of her (no doubt) beautifully home-made cakes, her only concern being that there's no food left for daddy's tea. Is that me? Is that really me?
Or - worse - the slipper-shod mother in Raymond Briggs' divine The Snowman and the comfy-trouser-wearing mum in Penelope Lively's magical Two Bears and Joe. If mothers are present at all in these stories, they're the plumper-of-pillows, plonker-of-food, breaking-of-dreams figure in the background, slightly harried looking and always frumpy.
I think I may have to go on a mission now to find a mother-figure to aspire to. Until then I'm going to stick with projecting myself on to the lovely carefree children instead. So, like Sophie, I'm thrilled that a tiger drank all my bath water, that I got to eat sausages and chips and icecream at the local caff for tea, and I'm hoping one day he might come back to see us again some day.
(very sorry to see that Two Bears and Joe doesn't seem to be in print any more. If you can get hold of a copy, it's absolutely lovely: a little boy spends the day with imaginary bears, playing in the snow of his parents' bed, climbing the bannister forests, hiding in the bears' cave under the stairs, beautifully illustrated. Definitely worth 7p or whatever the second hand sellers are offering it for)
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