great reads... The Rain Puddle

The Rain Puddle, illustrated by Roger Duvoisin (Bodley Head 1965)

Where do I begin to tell you about this gorgeous book? The Rain Puddle has everything that the very best picture books should have...

Roger Duvoisin's illustrations are fabulous. I've looked at other books illustrated by him but they don't have that same mid-century style of line and flowing form and the stunning simplicity of composition. The middle picture (above) with the hen sitting in a sea of flat, mossy green is so beautiful I come back to it again and again, the depth of colour and that slight overlap in the printing are just wonderful. Every so often I'm tempted to take it out of the book and frame it for the children's bedroom wall but I can't bring myself to because the rest of the book is so good. It is well written and has a great little story, where typically for children's stories of that era, very little happens. The animals belive that a farmyard full of animals have fallen into a rain puddle but the illustrations show that really the animals are only seeing their own reflections.

The best picture books for pre-schoolers have this double ownership, the reader tells one story but the child can read more into the tale through the illustrations. There is also the pleasure of interesting words and sounds when you are reading out loud, The Rain Puddle is full of great animal sounds to make, "Awk, awk!" "Cut-a-cut!" "Gobble-obble-obble!"

The Rain Puddle is out of print now but if you can get hold of a second-hand copy then snap it up, I promise that you won't be disappointed. You can see more illustrations from The Rain Puddle at the Little Bird Flickrstream here...

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