Did you catch my magical post over at Little Gatherer last week? We had lots of fun with some of our favourite brands, Miniwilla, Gardner and The Gang, Nor-folk and LeggyBuddy.
See the rest of the post here at Little Gatherer.
Poster by Miniwlla, clothes from Gardner and The Gang, Nor-folk t-shirt, Artoyz from Four Monkeys , gumball machine from Abacus Kids and LeggyBuddy toy.
Too early? Some books for halloween reading…
BabyLit Dracula, Jennifer Adams
Ghosts, Marc Boutavant, Sonia Goldie
Vunce Upon A Time, J. Otto Seibold
Meg and Mog,Helen Nicoll, Jan Pienkowski
The Haunted House, Kazuno Kohara
Berenstain Bears Trick or Treat, Stan and Jan Berenstain
If you like those ever so cute illustrations by Mabel Lucy Attwell then you may well like the children’s book illustrations by Mollie Clarke. She used to write ‘learning to read’ books for school children in the 1950’s and she illustrated them herself.
She did a set of books about Sally and her day at school, and another set about Andrew. The great thing about young children’s books is that they show you so much about what life was really like in those days. For young children everything is new so their books usually show what was familiar to them, and this is what makes the illustrations so charming. These were the days when girls were brought up as girls, staying at home and being domestic, whereas the boys in the books were a lot more active and interested in cars and planes and making things on their work bench. Here is a selection of some of those pictures.
This is Sally, dressed up as the Fairy Queen.
Andrew is dressed up as a cowboy.
Domestic duties! Never too young to learn.
Sally needed to learn these words.
Sally has her lunch.
Andrew’s school-bag. A dentist’s nightmare.
Look at those navy knickers.
Andrew with his teddy.
Sally takes dolly for a walk.
Scarecrow
Mollie Clarke does cute animals too.
On a scooter
The Martine series of books is the French equivalent of the English Topsy and Tim, written at the same time and aimed at slightly older children. We enter a world of French sophistication that is totally different to that of the homespun Topsy and Tim and much more adult.
The early sixties were a time when little girls started wearing dresses with extremely short skirts, and if the illustrations by Marcel Marlier are anything to go by, these little girls possess an obvious degree of Gallic charm. “Thank heavens for little girls, they grow up in the most delightful way”, and all that.
Martine’s parents are wealthy and their world is very modern for the era, they only go to the best shops, eat the best food and travel to places like New York to visit friends. Martine herself is very attractive and all her friends, both boys and girls are exceptionally pretty, and all the animals have smiles on their faces and romp about in a charming fashion. Martine has a pet dog, Patapouf, who gets into all kinds of mischief, so much so that he has a whole series of books to himself.
The books in the Martine series, written by Gilbert Delahaye and illustrated by Marcel Marlier, are interesting examples of 1960’s chic, and hopefully I have given you a flavour of that in the pictures below:
Here’s Martine.
Martine and family at the check-in desk
Marine enjoys lobster for lunch in First Class
Martine at the fair
Martine enjoys an ice cream
Martine does the housework. Note rug (endangered species?) and 1960s rubber plant
Martine does the washing up
Martine’s family in their imported Chevrolet Corvette, standing sans seat belts. No health and safety in those days.
Martine camping
Martine and mother shell petis pois with elegance
Martine at the supermarket
Martine at the department store
Martine’s friend on the beach