The Thirteen Days of Christmas

It was time for a refresh so I pared the blog 'design' down a little. Design is in inverted commas because really that's a rather inflated word for what happens when I play around in a slightly panicky way with the blogger default settings and backdrops. I dunno. Font choices are HARD.

This is mostly a post about 'The Thirteen Days of Christmas' by Jenny Overton but it's also a small paeon of praise to the precious, precious treasure that is an independent local bookshop. A bookshop which knows you by name and knows your taste and knows what to put into your hands and say 'here, read this, you'll like it.' I might not have found 'The Thirteen Days of Christmas' without mine doing just that and that would have been very sad indeed. Because I DO like it. Bookshops are not just for Christmas but they are especially nice at this time of year. Go and spend money in one yourself. It'll make you and them both happy.

So. 'The Thirteen Days of Christmas' (illustrated, small drumroll, by a certain Shirley Hughes) was originally published in 1972 but has just been reissued. It's essentially a creation story for that ever-favourite-if-a-bit-interminable-when-sung-by-your-otherwise-obviously-delightful-children-in-a-loop-at-full-volume carol 'The Twelve Days of Christmas'. Set in the eighteenth century, it's the story of overly-romantic Annaple Kitson being well and truly petard-hoisted by her younger siblings: Desperate to see her married off so they can escape her inedible cooking they provide helpful inspiration to her apparently staid suitor Francis. But Francis, it soon transpires, has plenty of inspiration of his own and a seemingly bottomless purse. Will there be a wedding on the thirteenth day? Well what do you think?

The great conceit/joke of the book is that Francis not only provides the named gift for the day, he also provides the chorus duplicates daily. Thus on the fifth day, Annaple not only receives 5 gold rings, she also gets another 4 calling birds, 3 french hens, 2 turtle doves and pear-tree roosting partridge. And so on. Requiring the construction of ever more elaborate livestock containment and the consumption of massive quantities of eggs and milk; in the end used for bathing and shaving as well as drinking. Funny.

The other pleasure is the education it provides in some long forgotten Christmas traditions. The twelve days of Christmas each presented with their own name and associated rituals: St Thomas of Canterbury's Day (day 5) for instance where all keys are brought to church for blessing and sparrows are fed or Eve's Day (day 11) bringing treats for all the women of the house. I'm re-establishing that one forthwith. The book is peppered with contemporary carols and verses that must have once have been folk knowledge. It's got to be the Most Christmas book I've ever read.

'The procession turned into Ship Street. The choir-boys ran ahead, banging on the doors of all the houses where there were young children and shouting, "Ransom your brats, ransom your brats, a penny a piece for your babies." The pennies showered from the windows. Will dipped his hand into his sack and threw handfuls of nuts and little bags of sugar plums to each ransomed child, and the choirboys stuck sprigs of holly through each door knocker to mark the fact that the price had been paid.'

There's lots of this sort of stuff and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It might rather reduce the charm for the child reader though. They'll need a taste for the sophisticated and historic or an ability to skim the slower pleasures. This is a book for reading aloud I reckon; a family fireside appreciation with something for everybody. A chapter a day when the actual twelve days arrive? That's what I'm planning. Lovely. Thanks 'The Children's Bookshop'.

'The Thirteen Days of Christmas' by Jenny Overton, illustrated by Shirley Hughes, pub. OUP, isbn 978-0-19-273543-0

Dixie O' Day

'Dixie O'Day: In the Fast Lane' written by Shirley Hughes and illustrated by Clara Vulliamy.

Honestly, if you have any interest in children's books at all, I shouldn't need to write any more than that in this review. You should've already turned away from the screen, grabbed your wallet and keys and headed out the door to your nearest bookshop. In your pyjamas is fine in this case. Scoot.

Because a new book by Shirley Hughes AND Clara Vulliamy? Their first mother/daughter collaboration? Their first early chapter book? Come ON you can't tell me that's not jiggle-up-and-down-smiley, wave-small-flags, do-special-happy-dance-while-juggling-chocolate-muffins-in-the-sunshine kind of news?

I'm not alone in being excited. Dapper driver dog Dixie and his best pal Percy's first adventure has already been selected as Children's Book of the Week by the Sunday Times and (ooo escalation) Book of the Month by Waterstones. There's a bit of a buzz there is. I was practically camped by my letterbox whilst I waited for my copy to arrive.

But y'know buzz shmuzz, Sunday Times Shmunday Shtimes, Waterstones Shmaterstones...there's only one opinion that counts in this house and many are the mighty who have supplicated before him and been spurned.

I speak of course of the exacting standards of Fellow Reviewer Eddie, who like a Roman Emperor, will thumb up or thumb down a book with scant regard for reputation or social nicety.

My review of 'In the Fast Lane' is that is a little gem. A gorgeous, small but chunky hardback; just the right size for the new independent readers it's designed for. Vintage vehicles, plentiful biscuits and ice cream sundaes, a Proper baddy (never trust a woman who has a specially designed motoring hat) and a race of twists, turns and escaped sheep make for pages that demand to be turned. This book will make you smile; it bubbles with the joy and warmth of its makers. Never have the words 'made with love' seemed more appropriate.

And Eddie's opinion? Well, when Eddie likes a book there's only one thing he's going to do. Read it, and read it continuously. Out loud from start to finish with voices and brooking no interruptions. On about his third go round, I put the camera on and filmed him surreptitiously and I want to give you a little snippet of his pleasure in the book here. He's mid flow when he turns the page and finds some illustrations that bring him up short and demand his attention. It's a nice little vignette of how beautifully text and pictures can weave together a complete, immersive reading experience. Author, illustrator and reader are ALL in perfect harmony.

Look! A cow in a motorcycle sidecar! Ain't life grand?

'Dixie O'Day, In the Fast Lane' written by Shirley Hughes, illustrated by Clara Vulliamy, pub. The Bodley Head, isbn 978-1-782-30012-0

Hero on a Bicycle

A brand, spanking new book by Shirley Hughes? Her first novel you say? Count me in; I think I've mentioned before I'm a bit of a fan.
'Hero on a Bicycle' is a tautly written thriller set in and around Nazi-occupied Florence at the end of the war. Thirteen year old Paolo and his older sister Constanza must tread a careful diplomatic path with both neighbours and occupying forces; their mother is British and their anti-Fascist father has disappeared to join the Partisans.
Paolo however, has a teenage boy's thirst for adventure and his illicit night time sorties on his bicycle soon ensure that keeping a low profile is going to get even trickier. The whole family become involved in hiding escaped Allied prisoners and aiding the local Partisans hiding in the mountains. And as the end of the war draws closer and invading troops arrive on the doorstep, the risks begin to escalate.

It's an old fashioned page turner of the best sort. There are cliff hangers a-plenty and just the right amount of Gestapo officers knocking on doors in the dead of night. Having said that it's also as infused with genuine warmth and humanity as Shirley Hughes' books for much younger audiences. The divisions between 'goody' and 'baddy' are not clear cut and the complications of being a teenager evidently don't disappear just because there's a war on. I particularly like the complicated relationship drawn between Constanza and her best friend Hilaria, daughter of wealthy, Nazi-sympathiser black marketeers: A teenage girl friendship of mutual need/envy coupled with mutual distrust that rings very true.

I think this book is probably best enjoyed read aloud as a family. It has a slightly understated air which might lead to it otherwise falling neglected on a bookshelf by those browsing for flashier delights. But as entertainment to be read around a winter fireplace or a holiday patio 'Hero on a Bicycle' will satisfy and grip all ages together; rather like the best bank holiday old movies. It falls into very nice 'installments' and as any Alfie fan knows, Shirley Hughes' prose is always a pleasure to speak. For those with older children who have fallen out of the habit of a nightly bedtime story this would make a lovely reminder of the pleasures of book sharing. Pack a copy for your next family holiday as a better alternative for evening entertainment to watching foreign versions of 'The Weakest Link.'

"Down in the cellar Paolo was standing frozen with fright. He expected a blow, or two hands reaching out from the darkness to lock in a stranglehold on his throat. But the figure a few feet away remained quite still. All he could hear was his own breathing. Agonizing minutes passed.
'Hello?' he whispered hoarsely. No answer. 'Hello?'"

The book also has it's own website here which is full of interesting titbits and a great film of Shirley Hughes explaining how she came to write the book based on her own experiences.
'Hero on a Bicycle' by Shirley Hughes, pub. Walker isbn 978-1-4063-3610-8

Out and About

Ah nothing like sledging down the hill post school drop off to set you up for a blog post.

We've had our annual day of snow this weekend and I spent a couple of my 28 (actually 26 and a half in the end but I won't quibble) child free hours fighting past everyone else's children to secure a spot with my toboggan on our slightly over crowded London slope. Brilliant- because normally my job would be pulling the boys back up the hill like a carthorse and watching demurely at the top as they hurtle down without me. I then passed our sledge on to our 60+ neighbour who fearlessly launched herself down, scattering the climbers yelling; 'OUTTA MY WAY CHILDREN! MAD GRANDMA IS COMING!'. We may both sneak back there this morning now the kids are safely in school although it's melting fast.

It prompted a rifle through the bookshelf for good seasonal fare, which proved a little disappointing; I think most of our best 'snow' books have come through the library. But. No matter. Because I did lay my hands on another favourite Shirley Hughes book, which is both seasonal and great for the littlest ones. It's been four weeks, that's not too soon to re-review an author as good as her is it?

'Out and About' features Katy and Olly, a brother and sister slightly younger than the perhaps better known Alfie and Annie Rose. It's a trip through the seasons in the form of loosely written poems accompanied by Shirley Hughes' usual, delightful, love-filled illustrations. Particularly fine are the four full double spread pictures for each season, packed with detail for parent and child to explore together.

This was one of Bill's favourite books when he was two and a half or so. I imagine that Katy in the pictures is about three and her baby brother Olly just turned one, so it was aspirational stuff for Bill and then baby Eddie. There's nothing children like more than looking at and reading about children just a tiny bit older than them doing the same sort of stuff as they'd like to and that instinct seems to be there from birth. I liked reading 'Just Seventeen' magazine when I was thirteen; same principle.

The book has a dreamy, thoughtful quality: The poems are written from the point of view of Katie and her appreciation of  and interaction with the natural world around her. At the same time  as being simply written they introduce some nice alliterative vocabulary which reads out loud well:

'Wind

I like the wind.
The soft, summery, gentle kind,
The gusty, blustery, fierce kind.
ballooning out the curtains,
Blowing things about,
Wild and wilful everywhere.
I do like the wind.'

I think one of Shirley Hughes' great skills as an illustrator in this book (other than an intimate understanding of  the body language of very small children) is a perfect capture of seasonal light: The particular quality of  4pm dusk in November or the rolling skies of a briefly sunny June day both timelessly transposed and recognised by child and parent alike. She makes me remember my own childhood in a way no other author manages I think, whilst still remaining relevant to my own children. A shared experience that is the essence of  the best picture books, but very rarely achieved so well.

'Out and About', Shirley Hughes, pub. Walker, isbn 1-84428-473-5

My Naughty Little Sister

When I was little girl, (begins all Dorothy Edwards' lovely stories- but also me today) we didn't have such things as MP3 players or even CDs or even tapes. There was an old portable record player in the playroom and a choice of about 6  singles to play on it. We had Johnny Morris reading Thomas the Tank engine stories. We had Joyce Grenfell doing her 'George Don't Do That' nursery school monologues (please follow this link if you don't know them - perfection). We had 'Lilly the Pink' by The Scaffolds and some honkytonk piano sung to by a man with a gravelly voice who's name I can't remember.

And we had two stories from 'My Naughty Little Sister' by Dorothy Edwards. It was a bit of a treat to listen to any of these records in my memory. As I was the youngest of four, they'd already seen some duty and were inclined to jump about through scratching if you moved; so I had to remain perfectly still whilst they played. They were something brought out when confined poorly to bed (along with the juice beaker shaped like an orange) and thus had Special Status.

The stories were written in the fifties and early sixties and fictionalise the pre-war childhood exploits of Dorothy Edwards and her little sister Phyllis (although neither girl's name is ever used in the books). Written in the first person, the narrator takes on the persona of the wise older sibling commenting with benign superiority on the mischief making and scrapes of her lovable little sister. It's a very clever device because any child listening to or reading the stories is directly addressed and immediately given the status of the Wise and Good themselves. New concepts and ideas are often introduced with 'Now, I know, you would never do this but...' or 'You know what I am describing but my naughty little sister didn't so I am going to tell you...'

The story I particularly remember listening to was called 'The Birthday Party' and describes my Naughty little sister going to a party at her friend Bad Harry's house. The children sneak downstairs whilst all the 'good' children are playing 'ring-o'-roses' to have a look at the Birthday Tea.
They admire the table set out with sandwiches, cakes, blancmanges, jellies and biscuits and then:

"Bad Harry said, 'There's something else in the larder. It's going to be a surprise treat but you shall see it because you are my best girlfriend.'
So Bad Harry took my Naughty little sister out into the kitchen and they took chairs and climbed up to the larder shelf; which is a dangerous thing to do and it would have been their own fault if they had fallen down.
And Bad Harry showed my Naughty little sister a lovely, spongey trifle covered with creamy stuff and with silver balls and jelly sweets on the top."

The children proceed to dare each other to steal first sweets and silver balls from the trifle, and then the cream and sponge, until finally they are forced to eat the whole thing.

"Bad Harry said; 'Now we've made the trifle so untidy, no one else will want any so we might as well finish it all up'"

They are discovered, my Naughty little sister runs all the way home and both she and Bad Harry are so ill in the night that they never want trifle again.

As quite a good little girl myself, the transgression of this story and others sent frissons of excited appall down my spine. Vicarious naughtiness was very satisying. But despite having loved these books myself, it took me a while to introduce them to Bill and Eddie. I thought they might be too girly or feel dated to revisit. I bought an audio CD as much as out of nostalgia for myself as for them.

I was wrong; they loved them and still love them. They were of course a period piece when I was little and they don't feel any more so now. Bill is both wistful and admiring of the freedom of their childhood (as am I): My Naughty little sister is allowed to roam the local streets and visit her friends houses entirely independently from the age of 3 or 4. She travels on the train in the company of the guard alone at the same age to go and stay in the country. She goes fishing just with her big sister. Their world is populated by helpful adults; postmen, chimney seeps, window cleaners etc. who befriend and look out for them As an adult reader, I am less wistful about the sheer amount of drudgery and female labour described within: Much of their exploits occur when the sisters are left to amuse themselves whilst their mother boils the washing, beats the carpets and scrubs the floors in a seemingly continuous loop.

These books are typeset in such a way as to make them ideal transitions from picture to chapter books for new readers. They also have the added bonus of illustrations (pretty early in her career I think) by Shirley Hughes. I can't remember who read the version that I listened to, a fair few years ago, but I can say that Jan Francis does a great job on our current versions- a big recommendation for audio book fans.

'My Naughty Little Sister's Friends' written Dorothy Edwards, illus. Shirley Hughes, pub. egmont,
 isbn 978-1-4052-5335-2
I should say this is not the volume with 'The Birthday Party' in it- which I've lent out I think- but they're all good!

Bonting

There's going to be a bit of Shirley Hughes featuring here. She writes beautifully! She draws beautifully! I am in awe of her multi-tasking. I was recently recommending her work to a friend with a two year old son in Singapore. She was moved to invest heavily in a big UK Amazon order but I'm still waiting to hear what she thinks. The thing about all her books is they are so visually, seasonally and culturally rooted in Britain that I'm not sure what happens to them when read in the steam and colour of an equatorial upbringing. Maybe they'll feel pleasingly exotic and other worldly to Ingo, or maybe just  irrelevant; I hope not.

I can think of few other authors who can connect into the consciousness and concerns of a three or four year old better than Shirley Hughes. Her stories are domestic in scope and tone but they have a warmth and reality that appeals to me far more than some anthropomorphised tale of stoats going to space say. They also have a seriousness in considering those childish concerns which makes them feel important to my kids and my kids/any kids themselves therefore get to be important.

One of my favourite of her stories features in 'The Big Alfie Out of Doors storybook' and is called 'Bonting'.
Alfie finds a stone in the garden which feels comforting in his pocket and 'by the end of the day, Alfie had decided that the stone had become a real friend and he called it Bonting.' Alfie's mum tells him that Bonting is thousands and thousands of years old which makes him even more special to Alfie and he is made his own bed from a box and his own hat and scarf and bathing suit from a scrap of left over material.
Then Alfie and his family go to the seaside for the day with Bonting. (One of the ways in which Shirley Hughes is brilliant is that she applies equal weight to describing the preparations and tedious hot car journey to get there as she does the loveliness of the arrival- She understands that children don't differentiate their experiences in the way adults do and there is interest in everything)
The family have a lovely day at the beach...but at packing up time...DISASTER...Bonting is lost. The whole family search and search with proper seriousness. 'there were stones everywhere, hundreds and hundreds of them, but not one was wearing a green and black striped bathing suit.' Eventually they are forced to give up and head home.

'"But we can't leave Bonting behind!" wailed Alfie. "He'll be all lonely on the beach at night!"
Dad put his arm around Alfie and explained that Bonting wouldn't be lonely because he would have so many other stones to keep him company. So he wouldn't mind at all.'

I know you're worrying...but it all ends up okay...Bonting is discovered the next morning at the bottom of  Alfie's little sister Annie Rose's bucket when the seaside treasure of the day before is being sorted through. AND mum promises to make him a new red bathing suit to make him easier to spot on future outings. phew.

There can be few of us that haven't had a 'Bonting moment' when some precious item of our childrens was lost or worse discarded. Eddie decided to bring much of his substantial 'stone museum' back from the beach on holiday this summer and they surround him in bed. (Just as well we weren't flying Ryanair) I am not as good as Alfie's mother though as they still swim and sleep naked...

I apologise for the condition of these photos...(not my strong suit to start with) Our much loved copy of this book met an accident with an open water bottle in the back of the car and despite a long stay in first the oven and then the airing cupboard, never really recovered. I really should buy a new copy!

'The Big Alfie Out of Doors Storybook' Shirley Hughes, pub.The Bodley Head, isbn 0-370-31516-2