happy new year!

We, of course, were in bed and asleep way before any fireworks. These ones are from a 1961 publication, The Dragon Who Liked to Spit Fire by Judy Varga. Awesome illustrations, entirely in black and white, purple and orange.

parents and their young

I bought this card matching game for baby bear at Goodwill the other day. I thought that the pictures were kind of cute and naming animals is a popular pastime around here and eventually we will be able to use it to play memory games.

But then I decided that actually, it really pisses me off. Not the cards so much but the name - why on earth does it have to be mothers and their babies? Granted, the cow has an udder so that's a mummy cow and her calf but otherwise - the cat, the dog, the elephant? - they could all be a daddy with his young. I suppose that the concept reflects the fact that children do spend more time with their mothers but it also promulgates a social value that mothers and children belong together and fathers are elsewhere. This notion not only robs mothers of the opportunity to be somewhere else (like work) but it also robs fathers of the opportunity to be with their children.

I'd be the first to acknowledge the 'special bond' between mother and child but I'd also be the first to question whether its special status just reflects social norms or whether there is actually a qualitative difference with the bond between father and child. Having never been a father it is impossible for me, or anyone else I think, to say.

Everywhere, including in the crafting world, I see and hear rampant gender bias - "It's a great first sewing project for a little girl". Rubbish, it's a great sewing project for a child, any child. At a shopping centre last week I heard a young girl tell her mother that she wanted a certain Lego set for Christmas. "No no, you can't. That's not a girl's toy", the mother replied. !!!. Yeah, and engineering and architecture and anything else requiring spatial abilities and creativity are not women's professions.

We are making every effort to raise baby bear with a wide variety of toys, books and activities. Yes, she has a doll house but she also has a great train set which she just loves. And she'll sit for a good half hour on her own playing Lego, totally engrossed.

So anyway, in our house it is only a mummy animal where physiology dictates; all the others are an even mix of mummies and daddies. One might think that a small child wouldn't be worried by the udder but yes, correct physiology does matter. Don't even get me started on the correct usage of vulva and vagina.

prince dande lion

What a long week's worth of children's book illustrations! Thank you again Pip for the inspiration.

Being an blog from Australia, I wanted to include May Gibbs who is best known for her books about the gumnut babies, Snugglepot and Cuddlepie. Here are some images though from my 1953 copy of the lesser known Prince Dande Lion. See the big bad banksia men in the second of the line drawings?

Gorgeous illustrations, classic Australiana.

the juniper tree

I've always known that fairy tales were grim(m) - children in ovens, girls in towers, wicked stepmothers - but they are even more so when illustrated by Maurice Sendak. Installment six in my week's worth of children's book illustrations - The Juniper Tree and Other Tales from Grimm, a queer book, yes queer in the old-fashioned sense of strange or odd.

Sendak is probably best known for his picture-story books Where the Wild Things Are (like) and In the Night Kitchen (dislike). I find these illustrations unsettling.

moomin, mymble and little my

My week's worth of vintage children's book illustrations continues (after Pip's example) with Tove Jansson's The Book about Moomin, Mymble and Little My from 1952.

I read this the other night to baby bear - the story was too long and complicated but wow, at 18 months she was fascinated by the pictures, remembered the book and wanted it the next night as well. Perhaps it was the cutouts on each page so you can peek forward to the next illustration and once you've turned the page look back towards the previous (and even the one before that in places). Very graphic, strong lines and planes of colour - a wonderful book. I bought it in Finland in 1999 as a present for myself.

bunnikin's picnic party

"... is a descriptive verse story about Bunnikin and his brothers and sisters spending a happy day in the woods. Time is forgotten until baby bunny wanders away; but all ends well and the weary little troop wends its way home in the fading light."

Hmm, I'm fading too - it's after 11:00pm and time for bed. These illustrations are by A. J. Macgregor and I don't have a date for the book but it cost 2'6 so I think that it's safe to say that it's pre-1980.

This is the fourth of my week's worth of vintage children's book illustrations. I've got two more lined up - sigh - perhaps it will be a short week.

allumette

Alas, I think that Pip's week of vintage children's book illustration is over. I still have some more pictures to show though, so perhaps I'll make it a week's worth of vintage children's book illustrations spread out over however long it takes me ...

As a child, I really liked this book, Allumette (ISBN 0590078453) by Tommy Ungerer from 1974, but now that I look at it again the illustrations actually appear to be quite gruesome.

jip en janneke

These 1964 illustrations are taken from the book Oe! Een koe! (ISBN 904510219-6) which translates as Ooh! A cow! (but I think that Wow! A cow! retains the spirit of the original title). The author is Annie M. G. Schmidt and the illustrations are by Fiep Westendorp.

Jip and Janneke (the boy and girl respectively) are two little scallywags and a Dutch children's classic.

the black pencil

"The Black Pencil was long and slim and new. He was owned by a schoolchild with whom he learnt to write and draw pictures. Then he had many jobs until eventually he 'grew' too short and was put away in a drawer.

There he met a blue pencil and a yellow pencil and together they had an amazing adventure."

The Black Pencil by Marcello Minale, 1968.

It's the Week of Vintage Children's Book Illustration over at Meet me at Mikes.