Book Sharing Monday

What a cool thing to do. Sharing a favourite Children's book each Monday. Now the task for me will be to keep it up! Or actually maybe it might be narrowing down my choice..... because in fact today I have picked two! I am bad. I know it. I have a serious book addiction - buying and reading children's books like there is no tomorrow. Which there may not be! Who knows! So I indulge in this very delicious pleasure since it hurts no one and feels positively virtuous; I like to think even the bank manager must smile when people offer up their apologies for going over their overdraft limit on account of so many lovely children's books beckoning and calling - why Mr Bank Manager! If you had only seen the illustrations! Exactly.... yes you see why I just had to own it... and so on.

These two books I read often because as a child they were mine and I liked them a lot. This means my kids like them too. It's always that way :) In fact I have a serious addiction on ebay with these original Ladybird books. The pictures are so evocative and detailed and dreamy and the stories are not cutesy pie. They have foxes being thrown down wells and drowning and animals going hungry because they didn't help in the making of the food. But bleakness and blackness are a good part of stories, they balance that sugar and sweetness and happiness. I am sure you will see more of theses Well Loved Tales in this section of my blog.



The Little Red Hen
-and the grains of wheat

One day the little red hen found some grains of wheat. She took them to the other animals in the farmyard. 'Who will help me to plant these grains of wheat?' asked the little red hen?



The answer is no one. But through the laziness of the other animals and the industriousness of the little red hen the making of a loaf of bread is shown, from sowing the grains, milling into flour and making dough.




A lesson in grain to table and a gleeful story-ending when the lazy animals go hungry and the virtuous, hard working, get to eat - what a moral :lol (although I have to say that Isaac always adds that he is sure the hen must have given them one little slice to share......)

Mrs Honey's Hat



Mrs Honey had a hat. A ridiculous hat. But she seemed to like it. As this story progresses it becomes clear that her ridiculous hat is about turn just plain ugly. And it does, from fake fruit and a jingle bell to birds eggs, cobwebs and a fish bones. Both negligence and short sightedness prevented Mrs Honey from noticing that her hat was changing. At the end of each page something is taken from the hat and something else deposited in it's place. But Mrs Honey didn't notice. Said in a whisper and in tone of incredulousness.




This book was one of my favourite as a child. I REALLY liked it. I have no idea why. But I probably demanded that it was read to me a million odd times. Probably the same reason as I like it now - the fact that Mrs Honey is a crazy old lady wearing a crazy stinky hat and has no idea.