Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘animals’

is a cute book in the vein of the Brambley Hedge books. The main difference between the two series is that the Foxwood books include different types of animals living in the community instead of the all mice residents of Brambley Hedge.

foxwood treasure cover

The Foxwood titles were released as small individual titles and then later as two big collections of stories. This is one of the smaller books. I picked it up because I love little anthromorphic animals, what a shocker. The illustrations are really cute and I love the style. Also all the different little animals.

foxwood treasure 1

Like these hedgehogs at the beginning of Treasure. That stone stove is incredible. Take a look at momma hedgehogs prickles sticking through her hat — how precious is that?

foxwood treasure 2

This series definitely came after the Brambley books; proof of that is clearly shown in the jars of jam that are so ubiquitous in the “mouse books”. That aside, the Foxwood books have their own charm and the stories are fun and interesting. The settings are adorable.

Foxwood Treasure starts with Willy the hedgehog being bored and going to visit his grandpa. He and his friends Rue Rabbit and Harvey Mouse are with Grandpa when they find out that the villagers are trying to raise funds to build a village hall. They decide they should do something to help raise money.

foxwood treasure 3

So they go to the library to learn how villagers have made money in the past. I love this library picture! Look at all those little drawers at the base of the shelves. Look at that post and beam construction. A big table to read books at; Wow! If I had a space like this to keep my books in I’d be in heaven.

Anyway back to our story. The kids learn that one of the most successful villagers of the past had an inn where he sold a special lemonade made from his secret recipe.

foxwood treasure 4

So off they go to find and search the (now defunct) old inn. After some adventures, they discover the location of Fox Hall (it was hidden and secret), find the recipe and give it to the village as a whole.

foxwood treasure 5

So they have a party at the newly re-opened Old Fox Inn.

So if you like little animals wearing clothes who live in their own village and are all friends and love to eat, drink and be merry; you should check out this lovely little series of stories/books about the denizens of Foxwood.

 

Read Full Post »

miss-suzy-cover

Miss Suzy by Miriam Young, pictures by Arnold Lobel, 1964.

Miss Suzy is a book that makes me feel all warm and safe. So I decided that today is the day to share it with all of you. It is Ucky outside! The story is about a lady squirrel who lives in a lovely tree house and gets chased out by a nasty squirrel gang. Then she ends up spending the winter in the attic of a house living in an old doll house. She befriends a group of toy soldiers who, in the spring, chase the squirrel gang out of her house. And they all live happily ever after.

miss-suzy-endpapers

It has printed endpapers, which (as I have said before) I just love.

miss-suzy-tree-house

Here she is in her house in the tree. It is a most charming house in a lush full autumnal-ish tree. It’s golden and inviting. I think that Miss Suzy’s house would make a spectacular doll house even though just the thought of creating at least the top part of the tree with the house is an extremely daunting prospect. Still, it would make an awesome doll house so it would be worth all the work.

Has anybody made this house? Does anybody want to besides me?

miss-suzy-cooking

Here she is cooking and cleaning. Her furnishings are minimal and made of the sorts of things a squirrel might find lying around outdoors. Note that the firefly lamps contain real live fireflies, I’m assuming she swaps them out every day or so that she isn’t keeping them caged until they die. She is after all, a kindly squirrel lady.

miss-suzy-in-her-house

Miss Suzy tucked up warm and cosy in her bed. Don’t you just want to climb in there and go to sleep?

miss-suzy-and-the-soldiers

This is the doll house where she lives for the winter. She found the group of toy soldiers while exploring the attic for things she could use. They had been waiting a long time for someone to find them and play with them. So it worked out well for all of them and they spent the long winter together.

I love the illustrations in this book. The full color images are jewel-like and the limited color images balance the color pictures so that you don’t overload on color and become desensitized to it. By combining both types of pictures the book ends up being more than the sum of it’s parts.

I hope that you have enjoyed Miss Suzy, and remember if you want your own copy it turns up on Ebay and Amazon Marketplace regularly at reasonable prices. (No, I don’t get a cut — I just like to see good books find their people.)

Read Full Post »

As promised, I tracked down the follow-up book by A Coney Tale author Paul Ratz de Tagyos. Yup, it’s time for Showdown at Lonesome Pellet.

showdown-cover

An old timey western with coneys (rabbits). What could be better?

This book is sillier and funnier than the first one and little kiddies are gonna giggle a lot when you read it to them. OK, the big kiddies too!

showdown-town

First off it’s about these coneys who live in a dusty old west town named, yes you guessed it, Lonesome Pellet. Established in the Pellet Rush days it’s now just a quiet little town. Except for the Pointy Brothers.

showdown-feed-store

As with A Coney Tale a great deal of the charm and humor of this book is in the illustrations. Check out the names of the products at the feed store, my favorite: “We carry Rolinda Moss”. I just love the charges on the wanted posters: Feed Theft, Littering, Smoking, Pushing Coneys, Saying Bad Words, and Being Bad.

showdown-hotel

But then a stranger does appear . . . wearing an entirely peculiar hat. A Radish Hat. Will he save the bullied residents of Lonesome Pellet? How?

Well our stranger, being polite as a proper coney should, visits the sheriff and introduces himself. His name is Saladin and his card has his motto “Have Fur — Will Travel”. Why am I not showing you this? Because this post is image heavy enough already.

showdown-saloon

So let’s go right to the heart of any old west town: the saloon. In this case the Bunny Hop Saloon where our hero Saladin (sans hat) is having a carrot juice at the bar. Again, for me it’s in the details: the newspaper headline says “Archeologists Claim Discovery of Giant Carrot in Old Flanders” and “Feed Poisoning — We Thought They Were Raisins!”. The signage, the carrot tops littering the floor, the card players, the dumpy little stove, even the pink dressed floozie coney are all a delight to me.

showdown-saloon-bar

My favorite bar detail is the carrot juice dispenser. Anyone who’s ever had a cage-living pet has seen this bottle many times. How priceless to put it behind the bar among the bottles and barrels.

showdown-trap

So to reestablish peace, Saladin and the towns folk trap the Pointy Brothers and send them off on the noon train to face justice and jail time.

showdown-sunset

And as in all good westerns our intrepid hero walks off into the sunset.

All and all I’m really glad I tracked down and acquired this book for my collection. Amazon has a number of used copies for reasonable prices so if you liked this you can easily get your own copy.

As my book is signed “See y’all on the ol’ bunny trail”.

Read Full Post »

This is an image heavy post for which I give no apology; this book has so many great pictures that it was hard not to include even more.

coneytale1

A Coney Tale combines two of my favorite things: Bunnies and 17th century Flanders.

coneytale2

Peaceful walks in the country.

coneytale3

Playing in the park. Have you noticed that coneys love to play ball?

coneytale4

Practicing archery with your Dad and making a momentous discovery concerning that gianormous tree. Holbun the Younger seems a bit anxious about archery.

coneytale5

Sharing the discovery with the community councillors. No coney needs to be asked twice to eat something. Coneys are widely renown for their eating proclivities. I just love that flemish council room decor. Can you spot the Old Master painting in this scene?

coneytale6

Mining for carrot, complete with engineering diagram. Not only is this book silly, it teaches a thing or two about real life Flanders. OK so it teaches them in a very silly way but I think that makes for a better story.

coneytale7

Everyone gathers for the pulling up of the giant carrot.

coneytale8

Away it goes . . . skyward. My favorite part of this picture is the coney on the left clutching his face (reminds me of The Scream by Edvard Munch).

coneytale9

Wow, that’s one big carrot! The coneys stand in awe, for a few minutes anyway. Then they mow down on the biggest feast they’ve ever seen.

I just love this line: No coneys were hurt, as they are generally a rather bouncy group.

coneytale10

The story ends with a grand ceremony in the remodeled park where the Holbun family is honored for their delicious discovery.

This book is out-of-print but plenty of copies are still available on the internet for reasonable prices. So if you’ve enjoyed this post you can certainly lay your hands on a copy for you and any little coney loving children you might want to share it with.

The author also wrote another coney book called Showdown at Lonesome Pellet, which I’m certainly going to be checking out.

Read Full Post »

Oops! Sorry about that.

Well, not really as I had a very grand time indeed chatting the afternoon away talking with my bestest buddy Arlene. Hopefully you can all understand that sometimes you just need to talk about art and life and books and what a mess your workspace is and how you are just going to have to buckle down and clean it up. My workspace that is, Arlene has already made progress on hers.

So here’s a little artistic cat picture to cheer your day.

cat painting at easel

It’s a quite grey day here so I wanted to post something colorful and bright. So there.

Read Full Post »

stand back sneeze cover

This book seemed like an appropriate choice for today. Don’t know about the rest of you but I’ve been sneezing up a storm ever since the green things started growing. I’ve heard all the science; the spring arriving late made the plants and trees all go overboard to catch up, but that doesn’t exactly make the sneezing stop. Or even slow down a bit, I mean, seriously!

stand back sneeze 1

So I’m guessing that I’m not the only one who can sort of identify with the poor old elephant. And empathize with everyone else who has to live through the onslaught.

stand back sneeze 2

like these monkeys,

stand back sneeze 3

and the panicked parrot,

and check out the way elly is strangling that little tree trying to suppress his sneeze.

stand back sneeze 4

and the scaredy-bear.

Hope you all got a chuckle out of this vintage children’s book

Read Full Post »

It seems like forever since it was warm here. But the violets have popped up and while it will take a few days of bright sun for them to go purple — it’s officially Spring. Yay!

frog ice cream stand

Please enjoy these happy little creatures celebrating the return of pleasant weather.

Read Full Post »

Continuing with the theme of raather strange little animals here’s a new e-book that becomes available tomorrow:

Walter Potters curious world of taxidermy book cover

I can’t remember when I first saw an image of Walter Potter’s work; it was certainly yonks ago. I can remember really, really liking his tableaus from that very first moment.

Being self-taught in taxidermy all his creatures are somewhat wonky, which just makes them fit in better to the sort of demented, twisted little settings in which he displayed them. Love it!

Buy it here.

Watch a video about it here (James Gurney’s blog — Thanks James!).

And do not neglect to do a google search — especially images — of Walter Potter. It is totally worth it. Warning: you may end up spending waaaaay more time doing this than you initially intended to.

Technical note: No, I have not got a Kindle yet. Or a nook, or an iPad or even a bloody smartphone. However I did finally succumb to downloading the free kindle reader app from Amazon for my desktop computer. Yes, it was decision entirely driven by my need to have this particular book.

Therefore: Love of wonky demented little animals = a need that justifies upgrading technology.

Read Full Post »

Here’s another old friend come home at last, this time courtesy of the local library’s used book sale.

Well, a relative of an old friend as my childhood copy was in English. Spanish, English, any way you slice it this is a fantastic cook book with illustrations that scream “it’s the 60s!”. I loved this book, most probably and literally to death as it disappeared somewhere in the distant past. No matter; the crazy dog and cat team are back to cook all my old favorites.

Like Egg in a Nest.

Twice Baked Cheesy Potato.

Sausage Rolls.

and for a magnificent grand finale: Baked Alaska. I think I actually made this once and it was like a magic trick — the meringue got toasty golden brown and the ice cream didn’t melt!

I apologize for the wonky scans; this is a rather large book and it didn’t quite fit in the scanner (bit of a struggle actually). Still, you can get a very definite idea of how it looks and why I am everlastingly thankful to have this treasure (or variation thereof) back in my hot little hands.

Happy Turkey Day Everybody!

Read Full Post »

oddfellows book cover

Yes, I finally got around to getting my very own copy of this entirely charming book. That’s right: Entirely Charming.

It’s a story (or stories) about orphans and their adventures that made me feel all together safe and cosy and warm. I’m talking “peanut butter and honey sandwich” cosy, “wrapped up in a quilt on the couch while a storm rages outside” safe and warm.

I want to go to cryptozoology class with Professor Silas. I want to ride on a bear at a picnic. I want to hang out and do homework with a hedgehog student who’s always hungry. I want to live in a place that has bear-drawn carriages.

bear-drawn carriage

When I was a little girl I had several favorite books that were illustrated by Tasha Tudor. The softness of her pencil drawings resonated with the stories and made them more real. Emily’s drawings echo that feeling.

delia

This is a book of perfect innocence.

It’s also a book of eclectic curriculums, unusual people (including an onion headed boy), rabbit shaped pancakes, honey and, oh yes, dearies . . . bears.

It has become apparent that I share more than a few common interests with Emily Martin. Her blog Inside a Black Apple is delightful and I’ve been reading it for rather a long while. She has a terribly good eye for things both vintage and modern that have a certain sensibility; a let’s get comfortable, enjoy a nice cup of tea and talk about lovely fun things sensibility. Well, lovely fun things that are just the teensiest bit off center, perhaps just an itty bit bent. Which likely explains why I keep doing blog posts about her (here and here).

She has a new website just for Oddfellow’s Orphanage which you can read about here. To celebrate, Emily has made a new paper doll and is giving it away free at the Oddfellows website (it’s in the Diversions section). Just like last time; personal use only please.

Read Full Post »

Here’s a little Thanksgiving present for everyone who’s never heard of Mouseland.

Oh yes, the massively talented and always sure to cheer up my day, Mouseland. If you can stay grumpy after looking at her images, seek medical attention.

Read Full Post »

Evelyn Gathings Rocks!

I’m extremely fond of her particular approach to the art of the paper doll. She seems to specialize in animals which just makes me like them even more.

But the real reason I’m blogging about this paper doll set now is that the little baby sister doll reminds me so very, very much of the fire-setting cat in my last post (yes, the baked apple cat). Seriously, check out that little face. That little “I’m mayhem, go ahead turn your back on me” face. This is a face I’d love to see on a Connie Smith doll.

The costumes in this set are very fine; though they look more Edwardian than Victorian to my eye. Yeah, I’m one of those historical detail people to whom the distinction Victorian/Edwardian makes a difference. Overall the colors and details throughout the set are fantastic as are the plethora of accessories.

I especially love the commentary on the costume pages. It’s borderline snarky while retaining a warm sweet surface layer. Click to enlarge the images, read it for yourself. Enjoy!

 

Read Full Post »

Older Posts »