Shirley's Winter Wonderland

I finished work yesterday until the 6th January, and I woke up at 6am this

morning being sick.

 

Toddler E and I have been taking it easy this morning on the sofa under a

duvet. After watching The Muppets Christmas Carol, we got out some books for

a read, mostly Shirley Hughes today.

 

I LOVE Shirley Hughes. There's something so cosy and real about her words

and images. With the family theatre of bathtimes and bedtimes, trips to the

park and the shops, set against the backdrop of nature so evocatively

painted through the seasons, they remind me to appreciate the new things E

is learning everyday. And not just her numbers and letters, but the myriad

of things which occupy her mind.

As Shirley says of children in this

articleat

The Times Online:

"They are learning more at this stage than at any other, grappling with

these big things: are my boots on the right feet? Can I safely put my

security blanket down? You have to tap into the way they feel about these

things."

 

There are the things E experiences everyday, the things she notices and

hasn't yet learned to take for granted, and through Shirley Hughes's books

they are captured in such beautiful detail: the cat on the wall on the way

to the park, the difference between day and night, the sound of falling

rain.

They remind me what it's like for E to be a small child, and they also

remind me to appreciate these things too.

 

Over at the Penguin

websiteshe

says this:

"I want children, however tiny they are, and wherever they live, to use

their eyes, to look out and see that it's ravishingly beautiful out there."

 

I really knew nothing of what Ms Hughes looks like or about her personal

life before reading these articles though, but I liked this, also from The

Times:

"Appointed OBE in 1999 for services to children's literature, Shirley Hughes

at 78, tall and upright in elegant, home-sewn clothes, shows no sign of

slowing down"

 

Websites:

Penguin www.penguin.co.uk/nf/Author/AuthorPage/0,,1000015904,00.html

The Times

entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainmen...

 

Recommendations

The pic is of E reading

Colours,

from Shirley's nursery collection which also includes Noisy, Bathwater's

Hot, All Shapes and Sizes, and When We Went to the Park. We have these as

individual books and also as a collection. The individual books are better

because the illustrations are bigger and given the right amount of space. In

the collection some are cropped.

 

E is nearly three and still really enjoys these books. She is getting Rhymes

for Annie Rosefor

Christmas

Done