Along with our selection of hand-me-down toys, both Hugh and I have quite a few books lovingly kept by our parents from our childhood.
The Quangle Wangle's Hat is one of Hugh's old books. The Edward Lear poem is illustrated by Helen Oxenbury - probably now most famous for her illustrations of 'We're Going on a Bear Hunt'. Her (much earlier) style here is so different... but I love it.
I'm quite tempted to scan and frame some of these spreads.
Henry is not a great reader (yet...) but he's starting to show more interest. Coco has slightly dubious taste sometimes; when I let her choose her own books from the library I do sometimes find myself yawning while reading - never a good thing. Most of the time though I do love looking at books with her and revisiting some of my old favourites and I'm excited about the years to come. I found an old copy of Charlotte's Web the other day and we've got all the Roald Dahl books to get through.
Bring it on!
I love those illustrations! I'm going to have to google to find a copy :o) x
ReplyDeleteI love kids books too, it's so clever how an illustrater can make a story come alive and make the little folk want to read a story time and time again. x
ReplyDeleteI have the images reproduced and framed. I have a 1973 hard cover of the original book that my mother and father read to my brother and I. The "attery squash" was our favorite page to get to every time we read it. Now I read it to my kids.
ReplyDeleteI recently found that to get an original copy with original Oxenbury art is hard to find.