giveaway...big prizes...free stuff...read all about it!

Those wonderful folks at The Green Parent are holding a Little Bird giveaway, all you need to do is send them an email with your name and address to the email address below to win yourself a gorgeous (if I do say so myself!) Little Bird tee shirt...

Let's Go Fly

"Little Bird is a small, family run business that creates beautiful organic cotton tees for nature loving children. Joanna Howell, founder explains, "We have designed a range of tee shirts for playing not posing, to respect the fact that children need to hide in dens and climb trees. By choosing 100% organic, fair trade cotton our customers can help ensure the social and physical well-being of the cotton farmers and their families. The inks used to print our designs are water-based and organic." See littlebirdbypost.co.uk
for info. We have five of these gorgeous tees to give away. For your chance to win, email us your name and address to competitions@thegreenparent.co.uk."

Best of luck x

(September) Competition Update...
We have five lucky, lucky winners, Margaret Rae, Carly Green, Gary Hargreaves, Michelle Bruce and Louise Maryon-Inwood, your Little Bird tees are in the way!

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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ooo yes please mr... gorgeous things of wonder from around the web no.1

I've decided to start a new section to the blog called "ooo yes please mr..." featuring things of wonder from around the internet.

So now I am duty bound to spend hours hopping around etsy, flickr and the bloglines in the name of research for Little Bird Twitterings. (And maybe Mr Howell will be inspired too! It's my birthday soon Mr, remember postage can take a little while)

Today from Etsy, I give you...

Bubbly Gum Poster by Anti Graphic


Liquorice Allsorts & Dolly Mixtures by British Cream Tea

and from Arthur's Circus... this dog night light

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and the shortlisted winners are...

Maria Nillson

The wait is over, Waterstones have finally announced their shortlist for the Picture This competition to illustrate Julia Donaldson's new book "Freddie and the Fairy". My personal favourite is Maria Nillson's, I love the seventies look of the characters and the odd otherworldliness of the setting, my fingers are crossed for you Maria!

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