"The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go.” (Dr. Seuss)

I'm not sure about you, but I remember quite vividly the books I read as a very young child. I remember reading The Tale of Peter Rabbit, The Cat in the Hat, Where the Wild Things are, The Very Hungry Caterpillar and all the rest of the books I borrowed from my school library from the age of 5. We had to read a book a week and having a very austere kindergarten teacher (such is my luck in life that I didn't get the other one who looked a lot like Patsy Biscoe and played the guitar!), we did what we were told.

I remember borrowing these books from our library (wasn't much of a library really. Just an average sized room with lots of books on shelves) and poring over the pages, trying my hardest not to make a mark or a dog ear, as though they were sacred. And they were to me. I quite simply adored them.

And when I think about it, of all the things that I have learned in this life, reading would have to be almost on top of my list, second only to singing (even though I know I'll never really learn how to sing). How wonderful it is to be able to pick up a book, read it from cover to cover and learn something new. About our world, about other worlds, about ourselves. How liberating to be able to escape from the mundane everyday and travel around our globe or go to places that no longer or never existed and absorb ourselves in them. Almost nothing on earth can compare to it.

So I thought I'd tell you a bit about a few of my and my children's favourite authors (there are many more but I think I'd bore you too much if I included more than these!), authors who opened up a whole new world for me as a child. And my children's favourite authors because I now read to them the exact same authors I read as a child. These are writers who know how to convey knowledge and intellect in the most charming and amusing ways. So much so that children don't even realise they're actually learning something during the process of reading.

I haven't put these authors in any particular order of preference as each of them is wonderful in their own unique and individual way.

Beatrix Potter

Beatrix Potter was a woman who, just like Jane Austen and many female authors before and after her, overcame all social obstacles to become a great writer and illustrator. Born into a privileged household, she grew up not being allowed to soil her petticoat and pinafore nor being permitted to develop herself intellectually. Alas for her mother, and most especially the maid, her thirst for knowledge and love of nature were far too strong and she just had to get out of the house and get herself soiled on one her many trips to the Scottish countryside. It was here and in the Lake District that her affection for nature grew from strength to strength.

And that affection is more than evident in her books. Even though there are a couple that take place indoors, by and large, Peter Rabbit, his cousin Benjamin Bunny, Mrs. Tiggy Winkle, Squirrel Nutkin, Jemima Puddleduck, Tom Kitten and all the rest of her marvellous animals have their adventures out of doors. And besides her magnificent watercolours of the animals and the landscape (many with her estate, Hill Top Farm, in the background. A lively place it was it seems because although she had no children she more than made up for them in having a large menagerie of animals), each tale has a hidden moral for children in it. And as the animals usually get up to some sort of mischief or other, more often than not, the message in each tale is TRY TO STAY OUT OF MISCHIEF! Which to a mother of two very boisterous boys is reason enough to read Ms. Potter time and time again to them. Just not sure whether the message gets through sometimes!

However, another more endearing message is that, although the animals do get into scrapes and mischief, they always manage to somehow get out of them intact. They are "children" after all. So even though I may raise my voice when the kids come home muddy or get a bit too rowdy for my comfort or steal apples from the neighbour's garden, at the end of the day, I do realise that they are just children and sometimes, a kid's gotta do what a kid's gotta do.

Eric Carle

“With many of my books I attempt to bridge the gap between the home and school. To me home represents, or should represent, warmth, security, toys, holding hands, being held. School is a strange and new place for a child. Will it be a happy place? There are new people, a teacher, classmates—will they be friendly?

I believe the passage from home to school is the second biggest trauma of childhood; the first is, of course, being born. Indeed, in both cases we leave a place of warmth and protection for one that is unknown. The unknown often brings fear with it. In my books I try to counteract this fear, to replace it with a positive message. I believe that children are naturally creative and eager to learn. I want to show them that learning is really both fascinating and fun.”

This quote from Eric Carle could have been spoken by any one of the three authors mentioned in this post. And that, to me, is the common thread that binds them together: they are positive, want to teach children something, but in a fascinating and fun way. And when it comes to learning, no one can beat Eric Carle. Want your child to learn the days of the week? There's "The Very Hungry Caterpillar". The seasons? There's "The Very Tiny Seed". Or how to tell the time? There's "The Bad-Tempered Ladybird".

Eric Carle was another author who had a passion for nature and always sought it for inspiration for his books - from the caterpillar who becomes a butterfly to the tiny seed floating on the wind to become a gigantic flower. Funnily enough, he began his career in an industry that was as far from nature as you could get - in advertising. Thankfully, the author Bill Martin jnr. saw an illustration he had done of a lobster for an advertisement and asked him to illustrate his upcoming children's book, "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, what can you see?". The rest, as they say, is history.

Besides his use of animals and nature to teach the child a certain subject matter, the illustrations themselves make the child want to turn the pages of his books time and time again. And believe me, I can vouch for that! All our Eric Carle books are falling apart after having been read over and over again for the past 10 or so years. Wiki says "Eric Carle’s art is distinctive and instantly recognizable. His art work is created in collage technique, using hand-painted papers, which he cuts and layers to form bright and colorful images." Here are some lovely pics from his books:



Theodor Seuss Geisel aka Theo LeSieg aka Dr. Seuss

Louis Armstrong once said "It don't mean a thing, if it ain't got that swing". Well, Dr. Seuss is one man who sure had that swing. All his children's books bar two are written in boppy rhythmic rhyme. We know them all by heart after having read them hundreds of times. To get a feel for him, just sing these lines to the "ABC song":

Big A, little a,
what begins with A?
Aunt Annie's alligator
A, A, A

or

Big N, little n,
what begins with those?
Nine new neckties
And a nightshirt and a nose

or our favourite

Big Z, little z,
what begins with z?
I do, I'm a zizzer zazzer zuzz
As you can plainly see

But I love the story of how his perennial favourite, "The Cat in the Hat", began its life:

An important development occurred that influenced much of Geisel's later work. In May 1954, Life magazine published a report on illiteracy among school children, which concluded that children were not learning to read because their books were boring. Accordingly, Geisel's publisher made up a list of 348 words he felt were important and asked Geisel to cut the list to 250 words and write a book using only those words. Nine months later, Geisel, using 236 of the words given to him, completed The Cat in the Hat. This book was a tour de force—it retained the drawing style, verse rhythms, and all the imaginative power of Geisel's earlier works, but because of its simplified vocabulary could be read by beginning readers.

And that's the thing - although he may not always have a moral at the end of the story, it's fun to have fun reading Dr. Seuss with imaginative characters like That Sam I Am or The Cat in the Hat or The Wump of Gump or The Grinch, you just have to know how.

But I have to say that my absolute favourite book of his is "The Lorax". There is no children's book that I have read so far that can bring environmental issues closer to children than this. I'm not sure if you know the story but it is basically about a boy who is told the story of how a creature called "The Onceler" damaged the environment by making "thneeds" ("because a thneed is a thing that everyone needs") and in the process chopped all the "truffula trees" and spilt "gluppity glupp and gloopity gloop" into the rivers. There's no bloody David Attenborough documentary that can bring the issue home to a kid like Dr. Seuss.

I'll leave you (as almost always!) with a song. It's from the film "Ms. Potter" about who else but - Beatrix Potter! And let's not forget what Saint Exupery said: "All grown-ups were once children — although few of them remember it."