kids books

I was sad to read last week that Kilmeny Niland had died. As a kid, I had quite a few books illustrated by her and her twin sister Deborah*, most memorably Tell me a Tale, Haunts and Taunts, and Pancakes and Painted Eggs. These books were quite thick and full of a variety of stories, factual articles about traditions around the world, songs and poems, all with imaginative illustrations.

Some kids books stay in your mind all your life. Here are some of my favourite books from childhood that I still have (click to embiggen the pictures).





1,2,3: this was actually my brother’s book, but I always loved and still love the graphic design by Brian Wildsmith. The simplicity and the rich colours are beautiful.





Alison and the Bear: obviously I liked this one because it was about me! Or if not me, another little girl called Alison, who, despite everyone saying she can’t do it, goes out and captures a bear, using only peanut butter sandwiches. It has wonderful simple crayon-y illustrations that are very effective despite being mostly back and white. I only recently noticed that on the back, it notes that “This is a non-sexist children’s book, published by the Women's Movement Children's Literature Co-Operative”. Strange to think there was a time when an effort had to be made (though maybe with princess culture reasserting itself, it’s time for another round).







The Cock with the Golden Comb: this was one of four books that I had which were published in the USSR. They were about A4 sized and printed on cheap paper with no covers, and the back page was all in Russian. I have no idea how we got them. The writing was a bit stilted and had the quality of being a literal rather than literary translation. But as you can see, the illustrations were fantastic. The Cock with the Golden Comb one is a retelling of a singing rooster that is able to produce cakes and bread from a magical hand mill, and thereby brings good fortune and plenty to eat to a young brother and sister, and saves them from the wicked tsar.



Another of these Soviet books was Life with Granny Kandiki : traditional stories from the far north of Russia, about talking bears, ravens that rescued babies, and why arctic hares have black tips on their ears, amongst other things.




My favourite of the Soviet books was The Brave Ant. Unfortunately I’ve lost this one, it had the grooviest illustrations of them all (think lots of green and tan and lime-yellow, and big loopy-psychedelic pictures of stylised ants). It was also the most propaganda-esque – it was all about the virtues of collectivism and how the ants working together managed to save the ant colony from being washed away by a flood. The ants called each other Comrade.


The Triumph of Jessie and Laura: this was given to my mum for her 10th birthday. It’s one of many in the genre of ‘plucky orphan girl dreams of being ballerina, suffers many setbacks, fate intervenes and makes her A Star!” That genre seems to have completely died – maybe ballet’s not such a popular vehicle for stardom in the age of Australia Idol? Or perhaps orphans aren’t as cool as they used to be? From memory, Jessie was the dancer and Laura wanted to be a writer. Laura also had consumption so spent a lot of time lying about coughing and bravely sacrificing her writerly earnings for ballet shoes instead of spending them on medicine. There was also some sort of wicked uncle and a kindly old anonymous gentleman who married Laura at the end. In fact, this is why the Non-Sexist Children's book was invented.

What were your favourite books as a kid?

*Australian literary trivia #7692: Deborah and Kilmeny Niland are the daughters of writers Ruth Park (The Harp in the South) and D’Arcy Niland (The Shiralee).