Charity Shop Book Shopping and Sesame Street: News Flash - Old Woman Who Lived in the Shoe

So my I cannot resist going into charity shops with my four year old.  Sometimes you find real gems - especially in the book sections.  This was our most recent haul, setting me back all of two euros!

Forgive my terrible photograph, but this is My Naughty Little Sister, by Dorothy Edwards.  I had heard of this series of books, but didn't read them myself until now.  My four year old loves them and so do I.  The stories are well written, witty - something for the parents and the child to laugh about, which is always good - and the stories sound authentic to the child, getting up to mischief, tantrums, etc.  These stories are more than 50 years old but age has not withered them...

This is part of the Frog and Toad series by Arnold Lobel.  A lot of his stories were illustrated by Maurice Sendak.  Haven't started in on these yet, but his previous stories are great - amiable nonsense about an owl who thinks the moon is following him, who feels sorry for the cold winter and opens his front door to let it in to warm itself by the fire (he lives to regret this decision...)

Another series by Arnold Lobel.  

The Dolls' House by Rumer Godden.  Written in the 1940's it tells the tale of a family of dolls who long to move out of their shoe box and into a proper doll's house.  Their dreams come true but then Marchpane arrives - a beautiful, but cruel, doll who plans on taking over the dream house...! We read the first chapter of this at bedtime tonight - so far so good!

The Little Girl and the Tiny Doll, by Edward and Aingelda Ardizzone.  We already have this in an anthology of childrens stories.  It's about a tiny doll abandoned in a shop freezer and the adventures she has there (stacks of frozen food are like skyscrapers to her) until she is finally rescued by a little girl.  It's one of our favourites. 

Mo Willems reads We Are in a Book!

This is a piece about Mo Willems 2010 "We Are In A Book". 

Mo Willems is great, as anyone who's read his Pigeon Series or Knuffle Bunny stories will testify. 

He also works on Sesame Street so that would make him all right in my book anyway.

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/books/2012/03/mo_willems_meditation_on_death_.html

A Father's Day Card and Louis C.K. on Father's Day

This is a card my four year old made her daddy.  As you can see she is a superhero(ine) and she is peeping through a window preparing to do a super good deed for a friend.

And this is Louis C.K.'s take on Father's Day...

10 Best Illustrated Books for Children

http://gu.com/p/2yd6y

This is a list that was published in The Guardian some time ago. The list includes books such as Dare Wright's "The Lonely Doll", "Madeline" by Ludwig Bemelmans and "The Sign on Rosie's Door" by Maurice Sendak.

What do you make of this list?

Is there anything else you would include on this list?

Letters of Note: Part of this world, part of another

Letters of Note: Part of this world, part of another

This is amazing; a letter from Gene Wilder with notes on the first sketches he had seen of the Willy Wonka costume.
I do plan on posting some illustrations again soon!

Moonrise Kingdom Animation

If you saw "Moonrise Kingdom", Wes Anderson's latest film, you will have noticed the books Suzy packed in her suitcase when she ran away. Six artists were commissioned to create the artwork for the front covers of the fictitious books and then six short animated pieces were created as a supplement to the film. These are great and there are no spoilers if you haven't seen the film.

http://insidemovies.ew.com/2012/06/07/moonrise-kingdom-animation/

Child Star and Patience and Prudence - Tonight You Belong To Me

It took a lot of hard work to keep from tipping over under the weight of those eyelashes but at least her cape was nice....
Patience and Prudence were very famous for a brief period in the 1940's - you might know this song of theirs from a certain Steve Martin film...

Letters of Note: Be your own self. Love what YOU love.

Letters of Note: Be your own self. Love what YOU love.

Another from the great Ray Bradbury.

Letters of Note: All of my friends were on the shelves above

Just heard the sad news that the writer, Ray Bradbury, died last night.
He was a passionate supperter of libraries and this is a great letter he wrote in response to being featured in a sponsored city wide "Big Read".

Letters of Note: All of my friends were on the shelves above

The Countess and Pandora's Box - Louise Brooks Dances

This is the Countess.

I was thinking about a comic strip I used to do when I was in my teens.  It was about an almost wilfully naive girl named Charlotte, who was always having misadventures with silent screen stars.
I managed to work in references to this film.
The Countess I drew looked a little bit like this.   You can see she's doing her best "come into the parlour, said the spider to the fly" look.
Here's how she looked in the film.
Bit of a risque scene, this one, what with the Countess making a blatant play for Lulu and then they dance the tango together - at Lulu's wedding.  Eyebrows were raised... although it took more than a hint of stocking to shock people in the 1920's (don't ever believe those stories about Victorian piano legs being covered for modesty's sake, either....)