Pop up Charlie

Eddie my younger son has a long history of sleeping with books. His first obsession was with Lucy Cousin's 'Hooray for Fish' to which I shall certainly give proper consideration at some point. He carried it around with him like a comfort blanket from about the age of 1 and snuggled up to it (along with his purple magnetic letter S -but that's another story) in bed. He now sleeps surrounded by a tower of books on all sides and I worry slightly that I will find him crushed one morning like the princess's pea under a layer of hardback picture books. He favours a weighty tome. I worry even more since my husband read a history of Chairman Mao which revealed that he had a specially constructed bed on a slant to cope with the weight and amount of books that he too liked to sleep with, but Eddie's similarity to Chairman Mao hopefully will end there...

His current obsession (he goes in for obsessions) is Roald Dahl and particularly a beautiful new pop up version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory that I knew had his name on it as soon as I saw it in the bookshop. Quentin Blake in 3D! Hooray! Finally it is possible to almost literally (almost- mind) enter that chocolate factory and dive after Augustus Gloop into the river should you wish to.

Eddie holds the page open where the chocolate factory gates spring up to you and presses his nose up to them in much the same way as a starved Charlie Bucket. He also enjoys unwrapping a chocolate bar within and revealing his own golden ticket again and again.

The text is abridged but not to the point of desecration; obviously purists should have the original as well. The pop up tricks are fabulous; illustrations extending round the back of the book, and robust enough to cope with the treatment he has been meting out to it daily. My particular favourites are the pull tags with which you can help the bad children along to their fate, eg. rolling the violet Violet as giant blueberry along or tugging the appalling Veruca down the chute. Pulling them out makes the children disappear and reveals the Oompa Loompa's song of their downfall. Most satisfying.

The final page has the Great Glass Elevator shooting out the top of the book just like breaking through the factory roof. I hope they make the sequel now...but feel a frisson of fear at what those paper artists might do with the Vermicious Knids...

This was Eddie's choice to take into school on 'take a toy to school' day. It's also part of the bed tower...the highest accolade he can award.

I have just edited out photos I took where the smears of chocolate beetroot cake can be seen on the kitchen worksurface..but maybe I should have left them in for authenticity. Must clean kitchen worksurface now.

'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Pop-Up Book' Roald Dahl, illustrated by Quentin Blake and designed by The Story Works, pub. Puffin, isbn 978-0-141-32887-4

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

Back to the beginning

Books for babies... I'm not sure there was such a thing when I was a baby (my memory is hazy on the subject). I guess there were the fabric sort, perhaps minus the modern day excitements of crinkly patches, beepers, bells and zips, but I'm not sure the board book had been invented way back then. Babies ate their parents' newspaper and waited to grow into the proper stuff.

Now of course there is a whole section of any self respecting bookshop specifically catering for the needs of the under 2s. This is of course a Good Thing but the proliferation of texts for older children being turned into miniaturised board books for the very very young I find somewhat mystifying. I just don't think an under 2 needs a copy of 'The Snail and the Whale' yet and the 3 year old who does would prefer the illustrations BIG please, no matter that the corners get ratty with use. A board book 'Flat Stanley' is probably already in production.

Both Bill and Eddie enjoyed a good selection of chewable  interactive baby books from the beginning. We had the full set; fabric books (with ALL 21st century's finest squeaky bits and rattly bits), wipeable sponge bath books, 'feely' page books, books with just mesmerising high contrast black and white images in them, books with peekaboo flaps, books with spinning wheels, books with photos of other babies faces. All were appreciated to the point of disintegration. I can still recite the whole of Bill's particular favourite 'Baby Boo':

'wakey wakey sleepy baby, kiss kiss I love you, tickle tickle smiley baby, do you want to play? baby knows just what to do. baby baby where are you? peekaboo it's you! (obligatory mirror on last page)

We read it A Lot.

The 'That's Not My (insert whatever you like eg. pony, robot, monster, kitten etc.) series by Usborne are pretty fine examples of the genre...and must do well as I chuckled at the adult parodies this Christmas: 'OMG- That's Not My Child' and 'OMG- That's Not My Husband'.

But the first 'proper' text or story that I can remember being conscious had gripped Bill was Jez Alborough's lovely 'Hug'...which we did have in board book format as it happens.

'Hug' tells the story of a lost baby chimp Bobo who wanders through the jungle spotting other baby animals snuggling their mums (or perhaps dads) and saying the single word 'hug' as he see them. The realisation slowly dawns on him that he hasn't got anyone to cuddle him and the word hug becomes first a question and then a cry for his own parent. An elephant helps him and his mum is found who obviously has been searching anxiously for him too and the book ends with a great collective relieved hug from assembled company. 'Hug', 'Bobo' and 'Mum' are the only three words in the book but the nuances distilled from them are skillfully extracted.

I remember reading it to Bill before he could talk and not being sure whether he really 'got' it only to have him burst into tears at the moment of peril when Bobo realises he's lost, followed by spontaneous laughter when his mother reappeared. Yay. He did 'get it'. It was great to share his first proper immersion into a story. Thanks Jez.

'Hug', Jez Alborough pub.Walker books isbn 0-7636-1576-5

Once upon a time...

seems like a good opening for a new adventure.

 Let's start with the inspiration for the title of this blog- Ursula Moray Williams; 'Adventures of the Little Wooden Horse' was first published in 1938 but still nails just what a good children's book should be. I can remember my dad reading it to me, sitting on the end of my bed taking occasional sips of his customary evening whisky whilst I curled under my covers agog and occasionally aghast; this is no saccharine tale.

Uncle Peder is a toy maker and peddler who walks from village to village selling his wooden toys. He makes the little wooden horse so fine that he is too expensive for anyone to buy, but in any case the wooden horse breaks down in tears at the thought of being separated from his master: 'Oh master, I don't want to leave you! I am a quiet little horse, I don't want to be sold. I want to stay with you for ever and ever...' And so Uncle Peder and his horse become friends and companions for life, with the wooden horse carrying the sack of toys and holding all the money in his hollow wooden body which can be reached conveniently by unscrewing his head.

Jeopardy has to follow of course. The wooden toy market collapses due to the import of cheap tin toys in new toy shops and the peddler economy collapses (sound fresh?). Uncle Peder becomes penniless and ill and collapses and although he is taken in by an old woman, she chases the wooden horse away with an axe not realising his importance to Uncle Peder.
And so the little wooden horse sets out on his adventures:

"'I must go and seek my fortune', said the little wooden horse.
He thought how splendid it would be to come back to Uncle Peder full of coins. He would take off his head and pour out the money through the hole in his neck. Then they would both be rich and happy, and Uncle Peder would only make toys for fun and for poor children who had none.
'For I am strong, and a quiet little horse,' said the little wooden horse. 'I ought to make my fortune very quickly.'"

They are pretty darn good adventures. From this point the wooden horse gets indentured to an evil farmer, escapes and joins a barge pulling race, gets transported across the sea with a circus elephant, becomes a pit pony (and goes blind! (briefly thankfully, but the horror of that revelation remains with me still)), pulls a royal procession carriage, wins a race, joins the circus, is abused by a nursery of rough children, almost drowns in a river, becomes a beach donkey, swims the ocean (also very traumatic...bad sea wave horses...), befriends a pirate, visits a treasure island and finally finds his way back home to Uncle Peder...only to find the cottage burnt down and abandoned.

There may be a happy ending but I don't want to give too much away.

The beauty of this book to read aloud is in its construction: Each chapter is a self contained adventure for the little wooden horse although some end on a cliff hanger that makes you long for the next bedtime installment. Terrible terrible things happen to the little wooden horse but they are balanced out by other lovely things too making it just exciting enough to bear....and throughout his fortitude, tremendous courage and modesty make him one of literature's most admirable creations.

As my father read it to me it was my first choice book to read to my oldest son at about 5 when I judged he was ready to hear something without pictures that could be sustained over several nights. I was horrified to discover at that point that it had gone out of print for the first time since publication but managed to get a unlovely second hand copy without trouble. I was delighted to discover a new hardback edition recently in my favourite children's bookshop, complete with original illustrations. I've just read it again to my second son also as he turned 5 (with his now 7 year old brother listening in and appreciating it all over again). A completely satisfying read.

Adventures of the Little Wooden Horse, Ursula Moray Williams, pub. Macmillan hb
 isbn 978-0-230-75495-9