Little Fur Family

Here's a book you'll want to snuggle up with on cold winter days- literally, the book is covered in fur!  Garth Williams' pictures of a bear family are so cute. 

Little Fur Family

Margaret Wise Brown

pictures by Garth Williams 2003

A little bear goes for a walk in the world around him, visiting his grandfather, the stream, and and even meeting a tinier fur creature.

Other books by Margaret Wise Brown:

The Little Island

Home for a Bunny

The Runaway Bunny

The Golden Egg

The Friendly Book

Other books illustrated by Garth Williams:

Home for a Bunny

The Friendly Book

The Kitten Who Thought He Was A Mouse

The Golden Treasury of Elves and Fairies

Over and Over

The Tall Book of Make-Believe

Snowy Valentine

A perfect book for our snowy Valentine's Day today!

Snowy Valentine

David Petersen 2011

Jasper the bunny wants to get the perfect valentine for his wife, so he walks around to his friends' houses to get advice. (All the animals happen to live in super charming English looking abodes.) Jasper almost ends up as the special Valentine's dinner for Mrs. Fox- but he manages to get home and find that he's inadvertently created the best valentine for his wife.

I love books that anthropomorphize animals, especially if they're wearing vests and scarves like in this one. But I always think it's a funny thing if you have the predator animals and the prey animals living together.

Winter Poems

Winter Poems

selected by Barbara Rogasky

illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman

A book for those of us who love these cold and frosty months.  Barbara Rogasky has pulled together a wonderful collection of poems just about winter.  In the introduction she writes:

First, I love winter.  In cities, cold makes the air smell better and the streets look cleaner.  Snow quiets the busy racket of every day and slows things down.  In the country, where I live, all the seasons are beautiful.  But winter is the best.  A hard walk with breath a frosty cloud is much more refreshing than a sweaty walk in the hot sun.  The color and light over snow's whiteness are ever-changing and glorious.

Second, I love poetry.  A poem is a kind of miracle of words.  It can tell a story, flash scenes and images to the mind's eye, and use many fewer words than any other kind of writing.  Try putting down in prose what "Skiing" or "Cat on a Night of Snow" is about.  It'll take a lot more words than the poem does. 

Our beloved Trina Schart Hyman does the illustrations, including pictures of her daughter and grandson and the house and countryside where her and Rogasky live.  This is the book you pull out when the wind is bitter and you have a cozy night in bed. 

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird is one of my favorite Wallace Steven's poems.

Oh, The Prelude by Wordsworth- one of the most beautiful things ever written.

The Winter Bear

Of course I couldn't help but post another Blegvad illustrated book!

  

The Winter Bear

Ruth Craft

illustrated by Erik Blegvad 1976

Three siblings go out for a walk on a bleak winter day and find, stuck in a hedge, a teddy bear.  There's no explanation for how or why the bear is there.  But somehow the story doesn't need it.  The children take him home, clean him up, and give him something to wear.

 

Other books illustrated by Erik Blegvad:

Mud Pies and Other Recipes

Moon-Watch Summer

The Dirty Old Man

Anna Banana and Me

Shadow Castle

 Shadow Castle

Marian Cockrell 1945

Our latest chapter book.  I looked forward to reading this as much as Charlotte did!  There's sparse pictures and Charlotte had to keep looking back at the ones with Princess Gloria and Bluebell.  It's a neat story that I had never heard of before and just happened upon at the thrift store.   It makes you wonder how many other countless children's books have been overlooked and forgotten through the years.

Lucy wanders into an enchanted forest alone one day. She meets a mysterious man who shows her to a castle tower room where the magical air is filled with shadows.  He then tells her the story of a family of fairies.  There's Mika, a fairy prince who falls in love with the beautiful mortal, Gloria.  Their wedding sets the stage for a 1000 year enchantment that has a beautiful ending.  We read about a fairy godmother named Flumpdoria and a kindly dragon.  One story has evil goblins who try to trick the young prince Robin and another tells of his sister Meira who must decide which world she wants to belong to, the magical world of fairies or mortals.

This is definitely a book worth tracking down, especially if you (like us) like to fill your sleepy bedtime moments with fairy tales and fantasy.

Instructions

Sometimes you find an illustrator or writer that you wish you could be friends with in real life.  How I would love to sit over a pot of tea with Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess.  I feel like we would have the most amazing conversations about art and mythology, classic fairy tales, and fantasy.  They both create, one with words and one with drawings, these worlds that I wish I could inhabit.  Some people are lucky to have both incredible talent, and incredible imaginations.

 Instructions

Neil Gaiman

illustrated by Charles Vess 2010

 They've collaborated on other things, but this one is pretty special.  It's everything I love about them- the style of artwork, the blurred space between the real world and the world of fantasy, the respect for all the elements of a good old fashioned fairy tale.  Give it a look and then you'll find yourself searching for more of their work.