All About: Bears

For our very first post of 2015, we are going to talk about the brilliant bears belonging to our bounteous collection. Each of these animal posts will show you a piece of illustration, manuscript or written archive, and a printed book from our large library of children's books.

Original artwork by Robert Ingpen of the Hundred Acre Wood, from the well known series Winnie the Pooh written by A.A. Milne.
Image © Robert Ingpen

Our very first bear is possibly the most famous bear in children's books - Winnie the Pooh. This illustration was created specifically for Seven Stories, displaying lots of the different elements of the Hundred Acre Wood. Pooh is shown in many different scenes around the wood, and all the other famous characters can also be seen - see if you can spot Eeyore, Piglet, Rabbit and Christopher Robin.

It was originally displayed in the From Toad Hall to Pooh Corner exhibition, shown from 2008-9 at Seven Stories in Newcastle. The exhibition featured some absolutely beautiful artwork from Ingpen's 2007 edition of Winnie the Pooh, amongst many other artwork for this series, and other treasures from Wind in the Willows.

The other exciting work held in our collection from this Australian illustrator is artwork created for the Francis Lincoln publication Over the Hills and Far Away, which was released in the UK in October 2014. This book showcases many illustrators, including Ingpen, who created artwork for the rhyme 'The Lion and the Unicorn'. We also hold a beautiful unpublished illustration for 'Humpty Dumpty', which will be on display in the upcoming exhibition Rhyme Around the World (opening July 2015).

Annotated typescript draft of We're Going on a Bear Hunt, by Michael Rosen, c. 1989.

This month's typescript contribution comes from the prodigious Michael Rosen, very well known to all young children from 1989 onwards - We're Going on a Bear Hunt. This is one of the most well known of children's tales, and has been chanted by many a parent, teacher and child for 25 years. Originally a traditional folk tale, Rosen says this is "just one other way" of telling the story. 

In these images you can see a typed version of the story, with plenty of Rosen's hand written scribbles and directions for how it should be performed. It has been heavily edited with tippex - a more definite method of obscuring the original text to uncover than the more traditional crossing out, we wonder what those alternatives could have been!

This typescript comes from the Michael Rosen Collection, which contains 19 different files of material for books for children, including the breathtaking Michael Rosen's Sad Book, another bear story The Bear in the Cave, amongst many others. Also present is a small amount of material from his books for adults, including This is Not My Nose, and some unpublished material. The archive was very kindly donated to Seven Stories by Rosen in the year our visitor centre opened to the public, 2005.

This material is currently on display in Berwick, until Sunday 18th January 2015, click here to find out more.

Can't You Sleep, Little Bear? by Martin Waddell, illustrated by Barbara Firth (Walker Books, this edition 1995)

One of the most recent acquisitions to the collection, this beautiful little pop-up version of Can't You Sleep Little Bear, is a lovely wintery example of a duo of bears in winter. Little bear just can't get to sleep, as he is scared of the dark, and it is up to Big Bear to help (even if he really wants to finish his very interesting book!).

This is an example of one of a huge variety of books in our specially purchased collection, which is developed by our Collections Officer to make sure we have copies of all of the books for which we hold any original material. This can often be quite a difficult task, as we really like to have good first edition copies. They are useful for many reasons, particularly when researchers are using the archive, and also for the archivist to correctly organise and identify everything when it first arrives!

We hold the archive of Martin Waddell, which is quite large and covers many of his picture books (over 50 of them!), as well as notebooks and diaries, and Waddell's work for various reading schemes published by a variety of illustrators. It is an interesting and varied collection, with plenty of detail to explore. The material relating to Can't You Sleep Little Bear runs to quite a lot, there is a draft typescript of the text, correspondence between Waddell and Firth, proofs of the illustrations and letters from the publisher, Walker. The file also contains drafts of two unpublished 'Little Bear' stories!

Just in case you were wondering - "Big Bear is the big bear, and Little Bear is the little bear."

If you'd like to find out more about the Seven Stories Collection, then 

email: collections@sevenstories.org.uk or phone: 0191 495 2707 or comment on this blog.

'Illustration and Inspiration' at the Granary Gallery, Berwick

Over the past few months, we have been working with the curator of the Granary Gallery in Berwick, on their new exhibition 'Illustration and Inspiration'. 

Opening to the public on Saturday 11 October, and running until Sunday 18th January 2015, the display celebrates the extraordinary wealth of acclaimed children’s book illustrators from Northumberland and the Scottish Borders and the artists who have inspired them.

The exhibition includes works by Vanessa Cabban, Olivia Gill, Brita Granstrom & Mick Manning, Cara Lockhart Smith, Helen Stephens and Gerry Turley. Each of the illustrators have also selected work from the Seven Stories collection by illustrators who have inspired them or had an impact on their creative practice.

Artwork on loan includes work from the archives of some of our most prestigious illustrators, and it has been an interesting exercise looking at our collections through the eyes of practising illustrators, to see what and how certain artists have inspired them over their career.

Lindsey, the Seven Stories conservator, putting the final touches to one of the display mounts.

So as not to ruin the visit to the exhibition, I'll not say who chose what, but these are the artists whose artwork was chosen from our collections:

• Edward Ardizzone - artwork for 'The Little Train' by Grahame Greene
• George Him - artwork for 'The Giant Alexander' series by Frank Hermann
• Angela Barrett - artwork and sketchbook for 'The Snow Queen' by Hans Christian Anderson
• Tove Jansson - a letter with picture of 'Little My', written to her publisher Kaye Webb
• John Lawrence - artwork for 'Tiny's Big Adventure' by Martin Waddell
• Michael Rosen - preparatory notes for 'We're Going on a Bear Hunt'
  
  
  

  

  Artwork by John Lawrence for 'Tiny's Big Adventure' by Martin Waddell. These two pieces on display offer the opportunity to try and match up the images - the mice in the left picture should fill the voids in the right!

  

  Stunning artwork for 'The Snow Queen' by Angela Barrett, on display are a finished original piece of artwork, a first edition copy of the book, and Angela's fantastic sketchbook.

To find out more about visiting the exhibition, click here and to find out more about the Berwick Literature Festival click here.

If you want to find out more about this collection, or about any other of our archives then 
email: collections@sevenstories.org.uk
phone: 01914952707 
visit: http://www.sevenstories.org.uk/collection 

Good Ideas with Michael Rosen

Yesterday evening we were incredibly happy to host an event with the wonderful Michael Rosen. Michael has just published a new book on "how to be your child's (and your own) best teacher", filled with fascinating ideas and examples on how to engage with your child, filling their life with creativity and enthusiasm.

His talk was as witty and thought provoking as ever, and an absolute delight to listen to. Answering lots of questions after his talk eloquently and with some brilliant examples of how to keep the spirit of enquiry with you and your child. His thoughts on the British education system were, as always, deep cutting and insightful, and has definitely provoked a lot of conversation and thought in the Seven Stories office this morning.

The event, which very quickly sold out, was hosted in the Seven Stories attic. All those lucky people who managed to get a ticket also walked away with a signed edition of the new book too!

Seven Stories are very happy to hold many of Michael's papers in the archive, which give a little insight in to his creative process. The image below shows just one example of what we have in store, the beginning of a poem for the book 'The Hypnotiser' (1998), written on the back of an envelope. It is a perfect example of Michael's ethos, that the urge to write doesn't come at one single point, when you are set up with pen and notebook, but can and will strike at any time.

If you want to find out more about this collection, or about any other of our archives then 
email: collections@sevenstories.org.uk
phone: 01914952707 
visit: http://www.sevenstories.org.uk/collection

Visitors to the Collection

Over the years, we have had quite a few fantastic and famous faces visiting our Collection store.

Here are a few images of some of comments from the lovely authors, illustrators and editors that have visited, and even a few illustrations too!

Above we have comments from a few illustrators, including Catherine Rayner and Emily Gravett, the little mouse is apt as we have some of the artwork for her book 'Little Mouse's Big Book of Fears' in the Collection. Also the author Gillian McClure, and Roger and Gill Wright, who donated the archive of Elinor Lyon.

Here we have some 'wonderful' comments from some more illustrators, including Ed Vere, Ian Beck and Anthony Browne, who has kindly provided us with a shape to transform! The comment below the cheeky monkey by Anthony Browne is from another ex-Children's Laureate, the poet Michael Rosen.

At the top of the page, we have a lovely little picture of the Incredible Book Eating Boy himself, drawn for us when Oliver Jeffers visited in 2009.

Some more fantastic comments, and a lovely little illustration from Lauren Child, whose exhibition we hosted in 2009/10. There is also a fantastic comment from John Burningham, beloved illustrator, who we also worked with for an exhibition in 2010.

One of our favourite comments from Colin McNaughton, although we won't be working any less any time soon!

A list of some of the names that visited in 2011, including Imogen and Sophie Smallwood, daughter and granddaughter of Enid Blyton, as well as a cheeky 'Lost Thing' from the very brilliant Shaun Tan.

And the final page, with our most recent comments from two very lovely new illustrators who have been filmed as part of our Picturebooks in Progress project - Yasmeen Ismail and Levi Pinfold.