Younger Readers
AISLEAIN McGILL gives a resounding thumbs-up to a new batch of illustrated books.
Picture Perfect
My Little Grandmother Often Forgets (Walker Books) is a touching, rhyming tale about the effects of memory loss (clearly through the onset of Alzheimer's disease).
Adults experiencing the heartrending and increasingly common situation of having a parent become a child again will recognise the checklist of symptoms laid out here in matter-of-fact stages: grandmother can't find a thing, forgets about the oven, gets lost, and, poignantly, mistakes her grandson for her son.
As her condition deteriorates, she repeats herself, or is silent. Eventually moving in with her family, the grandmother remains a dignified figure. My Little Grandmother is an incredibly moving story, with detailed and appealing illustrations. Highly recommended.
Little Neighbours of Sunnyside Street may well have a little grandmother in their number. This exuberant picture book sets out its stall on the cover: Playing, Making, Bumping, Bashing, Singing.and what child could resist?
Each of the houses in Sunnyside Street is bursting with action, their walls straining to contain the mayhem and bonkers fun within. Rollicking, rumbustious and ridiculous, with a cow named Philip, Ian the dog, and a supporting cast of deliciously silly characters, this book is a winner, a joyful bedtime read.
Walker books have republished On Your Potty! by Virginia Miller. Splendidly simple, the story of how Bartholomew doesn't think he needs his potty is perfect for parents who are beginning the sometimes fraught process of training their toddlers. A toilet book in more ways than one.
Parents out there of a certain vintage will remember the World Book Childcraft books. A children's encyclopaedia-lite, if you like, the collection had fifteen volumes, featuring science, history, geography, and how things work. Volumes one and two: Poems and Rhymes and Once upon a Time, were my childhood favourites, containing international stories and classic fairy tales. Chronicle Books have now compiled Sea Stories, with accompanying illustrations from the likes of Edmund Dulac and Norman Rockwell, which continues in the Childcraft vein, albeit with nautical themes. Extracts from the expected classics are here present and correct: Moby-Dick, Robinson Crusoe, Treasure Island, The Little Mermaid and so on are interspersed with sea shanties and other verses.
Fabulous stories all, but it is the stunning illustrations which make this book a covetable tome, memorable images on each page will stay in the mind's eye long after readers have moved on to other titles. These alone mark this volume out, and the inclusion of Eugene Field's lullaby/poem 'Wynken, Blynken, and Nod', which tells the tale of how they "Sailed off in a wooden shoe - Sailed on a river of crystal light, Into a sea of dew" can only add to the perfection of this vintage beauty.
