Author and Illustrator: Susan Varley
Publisher: Collins Picture Lions, HarperCollins, 1984,edition featured 1992
This children's picturebook is a gentle, honest book about death, and coming to terms with grief. There's a sensible narrative about an old badger, quietly preparing himself for parting by readying a letter to his friends. Badger is presented as happy, ready and willing to pass away, watching his friends Frog and Mole run spiritly down a hill, while he feels old and tired. Full of appropriate simple adjectives about aging, the book steers away from gloominess, though at the same time is open about the grief that those left behind then feel.
The death 'scene' itself describes badger 'falling out his body' and running down a long tunnel, which, while somewhat cliched, is a useful, comprehendable anology for young children. One of Badger's friends, Mole, takes the news of Badger's death, harder than the others. Winter then sets in, passing into spring, which is a nice way of indicating to children that an amount of time suspended in this sadness has passed. The creatures then individually have memories of Badger teaching them to do things, so Mole remembers Badger teaching him how to make a paper chain, Frog remembers Badger teaching him to ice skate for example. These memories and teachings are of course, 'Badger's parting gifts', and the book ends with Mole on a warm spring day, on the hillside, looking up at the sky and thanking Badger for these gifts ( and we're reassured that Badger can hear him).
Sensitive and warm then, the narrative is reassuring rather than worrying and dwelling. Yes, there are slightly sugary moments of cliche, tunnels, clouds, seasonal change and the illustrations are soft and floaty, ink and water colour, not necessarily memorable. But all in all quite a helpful book for illiciting thoughts on death, discussion about death with preschoolers and young children.
Gangsta Grandma
Author: David Walliams
Illustrator: Tony Ross
Publisher: HarperCollins Children's Books, 2011
Guest Post tonight! Here's a review from my eldest son Alf ( age 7) who finished reading this book today...
Author: Julia Donaldson
Illustrator: Anna Currey
Publisher: Macmillian's Children's Books, 2005
Here's a book with a great longevity; enjoyed from the age of 2 years to 7 years in our house. At 2 years, children enjoy the onomatopoeia in this book, with capitalised noisy words used to express the story; 'PATTER, PATTER! SQUEAK, SQUEAK!' At 3-5 year children start to understand that the hat in the story, is instrumental to all the characters, somewhere to hide for a mouse, used to build sandcastles for some boys, becoming a nest for some birds. From 5-7 years children enjoy the cyclical journey the hat makes, eventually being returned to its rightful owner, Rosie. From about four years children come to understand that Rosie ages and becomes the firefighter, and it's a lovely moment to talk about, this understanding of generation, moving on, growing up, but loved items from childhood, and memories, still being there. Julia Donaldson revisits this theme latterly with her beautifully sensitive book, Paper Dolls.
Anna Currey's watercolour and pen illustrations in Rosie's Hat are very soft and flowing; they capture the ebb of the wind and waves nicely, supporting the theme of 'coming and going'. I also like that Currey plays with the 'in/consequential', so for example, the seagulls eating the fisherman's lunch, Rosie and her parents in the background of the beach scenes searching for her hat and leaving the beach. The illustrations also use character consistency, the fisherman, for examaple, later returning to the beach with his grandchildren, taking the photo of Rosie and her hat, and her loaning her firefighter hat to a child, to again stimulate this pattern of coming and going.
This book reads aloud well, and its quiet in nature, soft and lilting, so very calming and gentle at bedtime. The story is also soothing; Rosie looses her hat accidentally, on a sudden fateful breeze, but is reunited fortuitously with her hat, though by this point she has grown and found her path in life, having her own firefighters hat. This, like in Paper Dolls, is a nice metaphor for many possible themes and opening for discussion with children, about bereavement, memories, loss, and simply moving forward after painful moments.
Author and Illustrator: Shirley Hughes
Publisher: Walker Books Ltd, 1985
One very simple, beautiful poem called 'Bathwater's Hot', manages to manifest one massive place in my heart. I think this shabby ex-library book purchased on a second-hand book stall for 20p is one of the most valuable things I own, as for me it's synonymous with bedtime and so synonymous with this phase of raising young children that I'm currently in.
This sweet little rhyme is about a 3-4 year old girl and her podgy toddler brother observing their surrounding and finding lots of opposites in the world. Bath water might be hot but 'sea water is cold' for example. Each binary idea carries its own illustration, packed full of warmth and feeling and family life. The cadences of the rhyme are particularly moving as they rise up and down, up and down like a soft lullaby. So catchy is the beat of this poem, we seem to have committed it to memory (unintentionally, though I do read it a lot): on approaching traffic lights one of the children will always recite 'It's fun to run very fast, or to be slow. The red light says 'stop', And the green light says go!' Feel free to cringe at the geekiness, but this book is just so innocent, so kind-hearted and dreamy, its hard not to be swept away with it. I also like that this book captures the early 1980s as generation so nicely, with the clothes, household items, the bathroom unit, the bedstead.
This is a real 'join-in' bedtime rhyme, with quiet moments and louder moments, quite literally. It's perfectly short, and definitely showcases Shirley Hughes work at its very best.
