Wombat goes walk about to the Seven Stories Collection

For #archiveanimals Wombat decided to take a break from the Michael Morpurgo exhibition: 

Our Wombat lives in our Visitors Centre in Ouseburn, Newcastle

One day Wombat woke up and thought, 

‘I think I’ll go to the Collections today. I’ve been in this Gallery for a few months and I have seen all sorts of things. I’ve been picked up by many children and cuddled, I’ve been drawn and I have had stories written about me, I have wondered around and looked at a lot of pictures and a lot of beautiful words, but where did I come from?’ 

Wombat loves exploring, so with one of the Seven Stories Story Catchers as his guide (because Wombats don’t know how to use metros) he set off to find out where he came from and what he could learn from the archive that is the heart of Seven Stories, his new home.

‘Why am I a wombat and not a kangaroo?’

Wombat knows that Michael Morpurgo did alot of research to create him - some of it is included in the exhibition and some, like the draft and print outs below, are in the Seven Stories collection.  

In our Michael Morpurgo exhibition we hold draft and research material for 'Wombat goes Walkabout' (Collins, 1995). Photography © Seven Stories – The National Centre for Children’s Books

But wombat wanted to meet the other animals of Seven Stories – who are they and what can they do?

Wombat sat on the Story Catchers lap as they trundled along on the metro. She lifted him up to look out of the window and he saw the great expanse of river below. They travelled over the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge from Newcastle to Felling and walked the short little walk from the station to Design Works, where the collection lives. Wombat had seen all of the amazing pieces of artwork in the galleries and the old, coffee stained pages that have been written on by authors with scribbly blotchy pens and knew that the collections would be filled to the ceiling with so many of these. 

You can find out what we have in our store via the online catalogue, highlights page and alphabetical list of people 

However, he did not expect to see so many books too; thousands and thousands and thousands of books given to the collection by authors and publishers and illustrators over many years.

To little Wombat the shelves were so big and so long and seem to stretch on forever. He didn’t know where to start! But then his Story Catcher guide suddenly remembered an old friend she really wanted to see again; someone who had been in Seven Stories before she started working there and who had led her around the building many times. So they went to visit the Cat that once lived at Seven Stories. 

His name is Browser and the man who drew him is called Satoshi Kitamura.

Meeting the Cat

Original artwork by Satoshi Kitamura depicting the character Browser the cat.  Browser was designed for Seven Stories by Kitamura to appear on signage in Seven Stories' visitor centre, as a familiar mascot to guide visitors through the building.  The series includes artwork relating to Kitamura's original commission in 2004; a second commission for new signage in 2008; and a third commission relating to a website redesign in 2010. Photography © Seven Stories – The National Centre for Children’s Books

‘Hello. I am Wombat and I think a lot and dig a lot and explore a lot. Who are you and what can you do?’

‘Hello. I am Browser the cat. 

Black and white, pen and ink line drawings by Satoshi Kitamura depicting Browser the cat as a storyteller, in various poses.  The drawings were all inserted into an envelope, labelled in Kitamura's hand 'storyteller'.   SS/SK/01/07 Photography © Seven Stories – The National Centre for Children’s Books

I can do lots of things. I used to guide children and parents around Seven Stories. I liked tearing tissue paper with my claws to make collage crafts in the creation station and I liked dressing up in the Artist’s Attic under all of the flying books. I liked drawing and telling stories and eating in the café. 

Black and white, pen and ink line drawings by Satoshi Kitamura depicting Browser the cat as an illustrator, in various poses.  The drawings were all inserted into an envelope, labelled in Kitamura's hand 'illustrator'. SS/SK/01/06 Photography © Seven Stories – The National Centre for Children’s Books

But that was when I was young. Now I’m old and I prefer to snooze in my box and read all of the stories on all of the shelves. There are enough in here to read for many lifetimes.’

‘That sounds nice.’ Said Wombat, ‘But did you know the Creation Station is now the Studio and the Attic has been transformed into Diagon Alley?’

‘No I didn’t.’ Said Browser thoughtfully, ‘I wondered how much would change without me. I would like to visit again one day.’

‘I’m sure you will. I live there now, but one day I’ll come to live here with you. We can share lots of stories then.’

‘I would like that.’

In the second comission of artwork there are eight pieces of colour artwork by Satoshi Kitamura featuring Browser the cat, executed in pen and ink and watercolour.  This piece shows Browser reading in the winged chair SS/SK/02/02 Photography © Seven Stories – The National Centre for Children’s Books

Meeting the Bears

Wombat walked and walked, and everywhere he looked he saw something more interesting than the last. Then he heard someone saying 

‘We’re going on a bear hunt. We’re going to catch a big one. What a beautiful day! We’re not scared.’ 

The Exhibition team were hunting for everything they could find about bears! And Wombat soon learned that it was because there will be a bear exhibition arriving at Seven Stories in February. They were all looking in one particular box marked Martin Waddell so wombat nudged his Story Catchers foot and she lifted him up to get a closer look at the box. Inside there were two very smiley bears and Wombat went over to the smallest one to investigate.

We have material in the Collection by author Martin Waddell and illustrator Babara Firth for 'Can't you Sleep Little Bear' (Walker, 1988). Seven Stories recently acquired a full suite of final artwork for this iconic book and develop work by Barbara Firth.  Photograph © Seven Stories – The National Centre for Children’s Books

‘Hello. I am Wombat. Who are you and what can you do?’

‘Hello! I’m little bear and I can do a lot of things I think, like bounce around and play, but what I can’t do is sleep because I am too excited! Soon we will be in Seven Stories and we can meet loads of little boys and girls!’

‘Ah.’ Wombat said, ‘I can show you around. I know that place very well.’

Wombat looked at finished artwork from the bears story and typescripts and sketches and preliminary artwork and rough work. It was all very beautiful and Wombat felt that it helped him get to know little bear very well as he could see all the ideas that went into creating him. He waved goodbye to little bear and big bear and together they walked off into the watercolour night to look at a beautiful huge moon. He looked forward to seeing them again.

Meeting the Tiger

Next Wombat went to visit one of his favourite stories. A story that had been around for quite a long time and that his Story Catcher friend had grown up with. So they hunted out the box marked Judith Kerr.

We hold finished artwork and a small amount of preparatory material relating to 'The Tiger Who Came to Tea', written and illustrated by Judith Kerr and first published in 1968. This image shows final artwork obscured by the original overlay JK/03/01/02  Artwork © Judith Kerr Photograph © Seven Stories – The National Centre for Children’s Books

Inside was a grinning tiger. There were all sorts of things in this box. Judith Kerr had spent time observing real tigers to draw her sketches so there were lots of tigers that were certainly not grinning. But Wombat was keen to meet the Tiger of his favourite story, so with white gloves on, they carefully took him out of the box.

‘Hello. I am Wombat. Who are you and what can you do?’

‘I am Tiger. I can eat a lot. I used to live in Seven Stories too, but I ate all the sandwiches in the café and all the soup from the kitchen and drank all the sweet drinks until there was nothing for all of the customers to eat or drink. And then I went on tour across the country and met loads of new people.  I got to see Judith too, she was the lady who created me. When I finished visiting different Museums and Galleries they thought it best that I come to live here. There are still lots of biscuits and tea here, but at least I’m not eating food made for the visitors.’

‘That sounds like they made a wise decision. They now make white hot chocolates and Seven Stories…’ said Wombat, and his eyes glazed over as he remembered how sweet they were.

Our Judith Kerr exhibition included a large model tiger ready for tea. The exhibition finished touring earlier in 2016. You can see more items from the Judith Kerr highlight page. Photograph © Seven Stories – The National Centre for Children’s Books

‘Oh really?’ said the Tiger, trying to imagine them. ‘Hmmm. I might have to visit Seven Stories again some time.’

Meeting the Wolf

Then wombat thought about all of the books on all of the shelves in the collections. 

‘These are so wonderful, but most people can read these books in shops everywhere. Why are these more special than the ones I can buy in the shop?’

This is a section of Robert Westall book collection which includes a number of translated editions.  Our book collections are often donated alongside collections but we also hold ex-library and standalone collections.

‘Well’ said the Collections Officer called Paula, ‘These books span hundreds of years. The oldest book in this collection is from 1770. We also house different versions of a lot of children’s books. You can see how the artwork on the covers change as time goes by and styles alter as different art forms become popular. You can also find books signed and collected by authors and publishers, books that were given as gifts from one illustrator to another which reveals friendships and connections across the literature world. You can find books you love in different languages and find out how important British Children’s Literature is to countries around the world. Context connects these books in a very magical way which makes this collection very important'

Then Wombat heard a snarl coming from a box.

‘Oh yes..’ Said Paula quietly, ‘And some books in here you would never find in a book shop.’

Paula pulled the box carefully from the shelf and opened it, lifting sheets of protective paper to reveal a very small, very delicate looking, hand-made book. The cover was made of soft black velvet-y material. There was no title. No writing on the spine. It all looked very ominous.

They heard another muffled growl coming from within the pages. So together they opened the book and looked inside. It was a story about Polly and the hungry wolf by Catherine Storr, but the pages were all written in pen and Wombat could see where illustrations had been rubbed out and drawn over. After a few pages, they happened upon the Wolf.

Our Catherine Storr collections includes handmade books and dummy books like this one about Clever Polly and the wolf. If you are interested in learning more about Catherine Storr you can explore the The Catherine Storr Experience.  CS/02/02 Photograph © Seven Stories – The National Centre for Children’s Books

‘Hello. Who are you and what can you do…’ Wombat asked, keeping his distance.

‘Well, hello. I am The Hungry Wolf, and I can gobble you up!’ Said the tiny little wolf from the tiny little book. He certainly did look mean and scary, but he was also smaller than Wombat’s paw.

‘He can’t really hurt you.’ said Paula ‘This is what we call a Dummy Book. Writers and Illustrators make these little books to know how the words and the pictures will look on the page when the finished book is put together. Many authors such as Judy Brook, Helen Craig and Katherine Holabird create dummy books and we have lots of them in our collection. You would never find these in a bookshop.’

Wombat was very curious. He looked at the Wolf’s angry little eyes and thought it’s a very good thing he didn’t live at Seven Stories. 

‘Thank you for showing me these.’ He said. ‘But I think we should put him away now.’

Time to go Home

Wombat let out a rather large yawn and then found himself being scooped up by his Story Catcher guide. ‘Time to head home I think’ she said. Wombat nodded. He had met a lot of interesting characters on his journey and felt that he had learned a lot. He had a lot to think about now, and a lot to tell the other animals in his gallery when he got home.

‘Yes. Wombats do like to sleep a lot, and I think it is time for me to do just that. But I am looking forward to our next adventure!’

- Charlotte Brumby, Story Catcher (and Wombat). 

You can find Wombat in our Michael Morpurgo exhibition

#HairyArchive Bears

It is #ExploreArchives week and to help explore#archiveanimals our KTP Associate Dr Jessica Medhurst discusses bears at Seven Stories and bears in children's books. 

In February 2017 Seven Stories will be opening a new exhibition all about bears in children’s books, which means the exhibitions team is hard at work at the moment reading books about bears, choosing items from the archive to go in it and speaking to authors and illustrators about their work on bears.

For my part I’ve been doing a bit of digging into the history of bears in literature and culture more widely, including the Aesop’s fable ‘The Travellers and the Bear’ (moral: be careful who you hit the road with), cartoon bears (Rupert, Biffo and Yogi), Shakespeare’s famous stage direction ‘Exit, pursued by bear’, and family favourites such as Winnie the Pooh (1926, Methuen) and Paddington Bear (Collins, 1958).

Original artwork by Robert Ingpen of the Hundred Acre Wood, from the well known series Winnie the Pooh written by A.A. Milne.  Photograph © Seven Stories, The National Centre for Children's Books

The association between bears and childhood seems to be an obvious one, perhaps in part because so many of us had (or have) teddy bears of our own.  But how did we come to turn this ferocious animal into a cuddly toy that’s our bedtime protector from bad dreams and the dark?  And what other kinds of bears do we find in children’s books?

Teddy bears began their history outside of books as an early twentieth-century phenomenon and were developed simultaneously, in about 1905, in both America (by the Michtom family, named after Teddy Roosevelt) and Germany (by the Steiff company who had been making increasingly elaborate animal-shaped pin cushions for a couple of years).  They entered into wider culture quite quickly: within 2 years the instrumental version of ‘The Teddy Bear’s Picnic’ was composed (in 1907 – the lyrics were added in 1932) and in 1926 Winnie-the-Pooh was published, cementing the place of the cuddly bear in children’s books.

Teddy bears are now a common attachment toy in the UK but what do you do when it’s a bear that needs comforting, rather than a child?  That’s the problem addressed in Martin Waddell and Barbara Firth’s Can’t You Sleep Little Bear? (1988, Walker).  In a bit of a role reversal, Firth’s illustrations of Little Bear’s attachment toys look rather human, although it takes much more than a couple of toys to get him to sleep.

Original artwork by Barbara Firth for 'Can't You Sleep Little Bear' (Walker, 1989), written by Martin Waddell.  Photograph © Seven Stories, The National Centre for Children's Books

The bears in Can’t You Sleep Little Bear? live in a cave but are very domesticated (they have furniture and Big Bear is trying – desperately – to finish his book) but not all bears in books are safe and cuddly.

Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury’s We’re Going on a Bear Hunt (1989, Walker), which is based on an American folk song, doesn’t involve guns or traps but the bear at the end scares the family enough that they run home and hide in bed.  As you can see from this draft, the text is quite simple but it’s what’s not being said that tells us more.  

Michael Rosen's annotated typescript draft of Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury’s We’re Going on a Bear Hunt (1989, Walker). Photograph © Seven Stories, The National Centre for Children's Books

Michael’s scribbled directions come out in Helen’s illustrations and also his magnificent performances, like this one.

Of course, sometimes the humans in the book deserve what’s coming to them, such as in the fairy tale Goldilocks and the Three Bears.  I was surprised to learn that neither the Grimm brothers nor Hans Christian Anderson recorded this story – the earliest known version is by the Poet Laureate Robert Southey from 1837 (pp318-326 here, with fabulous fonts for each of the bears), although it’s very likely that it will have been told – and perhaps even published – before then.  

Ladybird Edition of Goldilocks and the Three Bears (c. 1972)

Like all fairy tales it’s been retold ever since, with authors changing Southey’s old lady Silver-Hair to a young girl Goldilocks by the end of the nineteenth century.  The fairytale has had the Ladybird book treatment more than once, such as the 1972 version above, and  Harold Jones illustrated Kathleen Lines’ Jack and the Beanstalk, A Book of Nursery Stories (OUP, 1960), as you can see in the dummy book below. As in Can’t You Sleep Little Bear the bear family here are a bit like hairy humans – in fact they’re perhaps better at being human than the thieving Goldilocks.

Original dummy book artwork by Harold Jones for his 'Jack and The Bean Stalk' (

Oxford University Press, 1960) edited by Kathleen Lines. Photograph © Seven Stories, The National Centre for Children's Books

The relationship between bears and humans in children’s books is by no means straightforward, something the exhibition’s curators are getting their (human) teeth into.  Sometimes the bears are ferocious, as in Little House in the Big Woods, sometimes they’re cozy toys, as in Winnie-the-Pooh, and sometimes they’re a mixture of wild and protector, as is the case with Philip Pullman’s Iorek Brynison in the His Dark Materials books.

 

All these bears and more will be explored in the ‘Bears!’ exhibition; in the meantime, we want to know who your favourite book bears are.  Do you agree with this Top Ten or is Hugless Douglas a family fave? 

A 1922 Edition of  Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book (Macmillan and co)

What about Baloo, Albert Bear or John Betjeman’s faithful friend Archibald?  You can leave your recommendations in the comments below.

All About: Horses

For the very last in our All About Animal series, this festive month we are going to explore the horses that appear in the Seven Stories Collection. After you have read this post, why not click on the tab at the bottom to bring up all the other posts from this year long series. Just a tease - next year we will be exploring the terrific territory of transport!

We hold material for some very famous literary horses, as you will see below when we take a look at an item from the archive, an artwork, and a book from the store.

Line and colour illustrations by Charlotte Hough for the cover of Black Beauty, written by Anna Sewell (Puffin Books, 1954)

One of the best selling books of all time, and arguably the most well known book told from the perspective of a horse, Black Beauty was originally written, not as a children's book, but as a treatise on the need for better treatment of horses in Victorian England. It was the author, Anna Sewell's only book, and she died before knowing quite how popular the book would become.

The illustrations for the very first Puffin edition, chosen by editor Eleanor Graham and published in 1954, were created by Charlotte Hough. The two black and white, pen and ink line drawings shown in the image above would have been used by the printer to reproduce the black lines for the cover of the book. The colour elements of the cover would have been created separately, using the colour sketch, also shown in the images alternating above. The different elements would have then been merged together in the final printing.

The collection holds the complete suite of finished artwork, the cover, as shown above, as well as 18 black and white internal illustrations. The rest of the Charlotte Hough Collection consists of original artwork for 13 published titles for children, including complete suites of illustrations for the Puffin edition of Five Proud Riders, written by Ann Stafford. The collection also includes a hand-made dummy for an apparently unpublished picture book. The whole collection was donated in 2009, by two of Hough's children, Alexandra Hough and the novelist Deborah Moggach, following Hough's passing in 2008.

Black Beauty's Family, (Hodder and Stoughton, 1978)

Following on from this month’s featured illustrations for Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty, this month’s printed book is Black Beauty’s Family, written by Josephine, Diana and Christine Pullein-Thompson.

This book was published in 1978 and is the second of three volumes of historical stories by the most famous ‘pony story’ writing dynasty of all time, the Pullein-Thompson family, which follow ‘in the hoofprints’ of Black Beauty. Told from the horse's point of view, these stories tell of the lives of a number of Black Beauty's relatives. This particular volume includes 3 short stories, one by each of the sisters: Nightshade by Josephine, Black Romany by Diana, and Blossom by Christine Pullein-Thompson.

This copy of Black Beauty’s Family is to be found in the ‘Warwickshire Libraries Award Winning children's books’ Collection, which was donated to Seven Stories in 1997. This collection is made up of 260 books published between 1936 and 1996, predominantly past winners of the Carnegie and Kate Greenaway medals. This book won neither of these awards, although Josephine Pullein-Thompson was awarded the Golden PEN (Poets, Essayists and Novelists) Award in 2007 for "a Lifetime's Distinguished Service to Literature” and was appointed MBE in 1984. We haven't yet been able to ascertain which award Black Beauty’s Family might have won - if any - and thus why it appears in this ‘Award Winning’ collection! Can you help?

We hold a couple of other ‘prize winning’ book collections which you might like to find out more about: Vera Coleman’s ‘Modern Picture Book Collection: award winners and their books’; and our own collection of Carnegie and Kate Greenaway medal shortlisted titles 2006-date. If you want to find out more about Seven Stories shadowing of the awards, and our holdings of Carnegie and Kate Greenaway medal winners, click here. 

Manuscript for The Little Wooden Horse, by Ursula Moray Williams, (G.G. Harrap & Co., 1937), shown alongside a 1959 Puffin edition of the book.

This small wooden toy represents one of the oldest books represented in the Seven Stories archive, as our collecting period runs from the 1930s to the present day. It is also one of the earlier pieces donated, given to us by the creator, Ursula John (nee Moray Williams), in July 2005, just before Seven Stories opened its doors as a visitor centre.

This amazingly legible manuscript follows through the whole story, and is complemented in the archive by the later typescript, a further version of the story which was sent to the publisher. The manuscript does contain occasional notations and crossings out, but, as seen above, these are relatively few. The story follows the little wooden horse on many adventures - gathering pirate treasure, working in a coal mine, walking a tightrope in the circus, and other such adventures you can imagine a toy might have! Throughout the book, the little horse longs to return to his maker, Uncle Peder, whom he wished never to leave.

The Ursula Moray Williams Collection represents her long career, from the 1930s to the 1990s.  It contains manuscripts, typescripts and related draft material for 36 of her published works, as well as original artwork relating to nine of her published books (including Gobbolino the Witches Cat, and unpublished sketches for The Further Adventures of Gobbolino and the Little Wooden Horse). The archive also contains personal and professional correspondence spanning Williams' career as a children's author, including correspondence from family and friends, fans, schoolchildren, publishing houses, professional organisations, literary agents, other children's authors, illustrators, and others active in the field of children's literature; and a small quantity of personal papers which includes royalty statements, press cuttings and reviews, notes for articles and talks, and book jackets.

That is it for this year, if you have you missed any of our All About Animal blog posts, click here to find them all together for your reading pleasure!

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.

All About: Mice

The Seven Stories Collection holds the entire archive of one particularly famous mouse, Angelina Ballerina. However, we have written so much about Angelina recently, we thought it would be nice to explore some of the many other mice we have in the store (purely literary mice, no real ones!). If you are feeling inspired to explore more Seven Stories mice, click here to see all our Angelina posts.

Draft material by Martin Waddell for The Great Green Mouse Disaster, illustrated by Phillipe Dupasquier (Andersen Press, 1981)

November's first mouse, or hoard of mice, is the fantastically imaginative book by Martin Waddell and Phillipe Dupasquier. The book is virtually wordless, and as each page unfolds, the viewer is presented with a cross section of a hotel. Turn the page again and the action has moved on slightly, as you follow the progress of the rampaging hoard of green mice scattering throughout the hotel, causing chaos!

The archival material we hold runs to one, reasonably large, A4 file, full of Waddell's plans and notes for how the book should work. It being a particularly unusual book, I was very curious to work out how someone would go about planning it. It turns out that Waddell had some fairly concrete ideas about how he would like the book to look, and created a detailed 'story' for each characters progression on each page. The book is full of some brilliant detail, and it would take anyone a very long time to really find every different element. At the end of the book, there is even a list of things that Waddell thinks the reader might not have noticed!

Below is a sample of 'Story 4 The Mouseman', who is responsible for all this calamity:

'He is in the pursuit of the Mice and the Cat. In the cover illustration he will scoop up a milk bottle and this should be about his person as he runs. In 1 he is in the dining room, level 3, catching a glass of wine in mid air as it tumbled of the tray of the shocked waiter, who has been knocked aside by the jumping cat and cascading mice. Has has scooped a chicken from the table in passing, and is clambering over it - the table, not the chicken - to the stairs from 3 to 5.'

The Martin Waddell Collection, kindly donated by the author in 2008, consists of drafts and pre-publication material for 53 picture books and 63 educational books, including those published under the pseudonym Catherine Sefton. Several of the picture books have artwork represented elsewhere in the collection, such as Can't You Sleep Little Bear, illustrated by Barbara Firth, Tiny's Big Adventure, illustrated by John Lawrence and The Pig in the Pond, illustrated by Jill Barton. The collection also includes a series of notebooks and appointment diaries, and a series of printed books written by Waddell. 

Artwork by Emily Gravett for Little Mouse's Big Book of Fears, (Macmillan, 2007), inlaid with picture of title page of the Seven Stories copy of the book. Artwork © Emily Gravett, 2007

This artwork is an example of a much smaller collection than the one mentioned above, as it consists of just this one piece of artwork! These mice are final pieces of artwork used in the end papers, and  the 'Phagophobia (Fear of being eaten)' page. Another incredibly imaginative mouse led tale, this follows our hero, Little Mouse, on his journey through a book exploring all his different fears - entomophobia, clinophobia, acrophobia - amongst others. The pages are covered in little mouse 'nibble' marks, with several fold out pages of additional sumptuous detail, such as the 'Visitor's Map of the ISLE OF FRIGHTS'.

This collection may only contain one piece of artwork, executed in pencil, acrylic, and watercolour, but there is also an additional mouse illustration on the reverse of the card. The wider Seven Stories Collection actually does contain other work by Emily Gravett, also, by strange coincidence, of mice. Gravett kindly donated the piece above, and also her preliminary artwork, final pieces and prints of the final work for 'A was an apple pie' in Elizabeth Hammill's Over the Hills and Far Away. Some of this work is currently on display in Rhyme Around the World, at Seven Stories in Newcastle.

A Counting Book by Helen Craig, published by Aurum Press Ltd. c.1980

This month’s printed book featuring mice is A Counting Book by Helen Craig. Of course this tiny little mouse-filled book is by the illustrator of that other famous mouse Angelina Ballerina – oops!  We weren’t meant to mention her this month but this is too good an opportunity to showcase a less familiar book by Helen Craig, and one which was published before Angelina burst into the world in 1983.

This printed book comes from Pat Garrett’s Counting Book collection and is one of the smallest books in our collection, measuring just 5.5 cm square.  It comes in its own little slipcase which physically constrains the long concertina of pages.  Each double-page spread features colour illustrations of mice amusingly constructing the numbers 0 to10 out of a variety of handy objects including balloons, string, flowers, bubbles, and (as in the photo) a jigsaw puzzle ‘7’ which looks suspiciously like it’s made from pieces of cheese! The final 3 double spreads somehow accommodates 100 tiny mice!

Pat Garrett kindly donated her Counting Book collection to Seven Stories in 2006.  It consists of over 640 counting and number related books, mostly published between 1960 and 2000. Whilst this collection is made up mainly of picture books, it also includes books in a variety of formats such as board books, rag books, pop-up books, activity books, as well as three 19th Century mathematics text books and even friezes, an advent calendar, and plastic counting blocks.

To find out about Pat Garrett’s Alphabet book collection, check out our ‘Bird’ blog in May earlier this year by clicking here.

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.

All About: Lions

This month our feature animal is the majestic lion. An ever popular animal in children's literature, especially for younger readers who may enjoy 'roaring' along with the pictures! This month again we will take a look at an illustration, archival item and a book to explore three very different elements of our collection.

Illustration by Robert Ingpen for 'The Lion and the Unicorn', Over the Hills and Far Away, collected by Elizabeth Hammill (Francis Lincoln, 2014)

Our first example this month is this beautiful work from the Australian illustrator Robert Ingpen. Currently on display in our Rhyme Around the World exhibition (click here to find out more and how to visit), this artwork is executed in graphite pencil, acrylic paint and pastel. It is just one of the many different contributions from 77 different illustrators, collected together by co-founder of Seven Stories, Elizabeth Hammill. 

Elizabeth chose nursery rhymes from around the English speaking world, and presented them together in one volume, with fantastic, newly commissioned illustrations. This particular artwork was one of two submitted by Ingpen, and is the one that was used in the final book. The other work, for 'Humpy Dumpty' unfortunately didn't fit within the book's structure, as there was a limit of maximum one double spread per illustrator. If you look very closely, you can also see that Ingpen has included Hammill's name in the illustration - 'Hammill's Breads and Cakes'.

The illustration is for the very well known English rhyme 'The Lion and the Unicorn'.

The lion and the unicorn

Were fighting for the crown;

The lion beat the unicorn

All round about the town.

Some gave them white bread,

And some gave them brown;

Some gave them plum cake

And drummed them out of town.

The first written record of the rhyme is in 1709, shortly after the Act of Union between the English and Scottish parliaments and the formation of 'Great Britain'. It is possible that the rhyme refers to fights between the lion (England) and the unicorn (Scotland) - the royal coat of arms having been amalgamated earlier in the seventeenth century to show both beasts after the crowning of the Scottish King James I as King of England.

To buy a copy of this book, with all proceeds going towards supporting Seven Stories, National Centre for Children's Books, click here.

Typescript for The Prince Who Walked with Lions by Elizabeth Laird, (Macmillan, 2012)

This month's example of archival material is taken from Elizabeth Laird's The Prince Who Walked with Lions. The story takes place in a location Laird has often returned to in her work, Abyssinia - modern day Ethiopia, having lived, worked and travelled there extensively. It is based on the true story of the young prince Alamayu, whose father has been murdered by the British Army. Set in 1868, during the Abyssinia Campaign, Alamayu is taken by the British back to England, and sent to boarding school there. 

The section shown in the image above is taken from the printed typescript, the archive also holds an earlier hand written manuscript, written predominantly on the back of printed correspondence, research and typescripts for other books. In the pictured section, close to the end of the book, Alamayu has a very moving meeting with a caged lion, part of a travelling 'menagerie' that has come by his school, and he feels a strong connection to this symbol of his home.

'His smell took hold in my nostrils. I breathed in deeply that rich, long-forgotten mustiness of lion.'

Extract from The Prince Who Walked with Lions

The Elizabeth Laird Collection, donated by the author in 2012, consists of draft material and correspondence relating to 25 of her published novels for children, including the Carnegie nominated Secret Friends, Jake's Tower, The Garbage King and Crusade. There are also re-tellings of traditional stories and anthologies edited by Laird, material relating to the British Council project collecting traditional stories in Ethiopia and a small quantity of personal papers. 

To find out more about Laird's work in Ethiopia, or to explore The Ethiopian Story Collecting Project set up by the Ethiopian Ministry of Education and the British Council, click here and here.

This month’s featured books are copies of Disney’s The Lion King in a variety of editions, which were all published by Ladybird Books to tie-in with the American animated musical film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation, and released by Walt Disney Pictures on June 15, 1994.

The Lion King is the story of Simba, a young lion who is to succeed his father, Mufasa, as king.  However, after Simba's uncle Scar murders Mufasa, Simba is manipulated into thinking he was responsible and flees into exile in shame and despair. Throughout his childhood, Simba is given some valuable perspective by his friends, and his shaman, Rafiki, and once he’s grown-up he returns to challenge Scar to end his tyranny.

The film has led to many derived works, including a Broadway adaptation, a sequel The Lion King II: Simba's Pride (in 1998) and of course, a whole host of film tie-in books, as above! These illustrate the brilliance of Ladybird books in producing multiple formats of the same title, aimed at a variety of audiences in terms of reading ability (length of text, quantity of illustrations, and level of activity) and at a range of affordable prices for different pockets. There is a film tie-in book for everyone!

These six books are from our Ladybird Books Collection. This collection was donated to Seven Stories after the publisher Pearson decided to fully merge Ladybird into its Penguin Books subsidiary, and the Ladybird offices and printing factory in Loughborough were closed. This happened in 1998, and much of the company's archive of historic artwork was also transferred to public collections at the same time.

Our Ladybird collection consists of over 2,000 books and includes more than 1,500 books in the traditional Ladybird format, more than 200 ‘Disney’ related books, and about 250 items in a variety of other formats including: bath, cloth and board books; activity, sticker, and colouring books; cassette tape and book packs; and even friezes.

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.