Now on to this month's Doll Book of the Month Club entry. This month we're looking at a series of books, referred to as 'Old Bear and Friends'. The books are written and illustrated by Jane Hissey.
The characters are all toys, and are based on actual toys that belong to Jane Hissey.
The books concern the toys and their adventures. The stories are sweet and old fashioned.
The toys in the stories are old fashioned too. They are simple stuffed toys. There are no plastic or electronic toys.
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| 'Sailor' is obviously a Nora Wellings doll. |
All my kids, especially Fuzzy, loved the books and the TV show. I loved them because they are so sweet and cozy, and the illustrations are beautiful artistically and subject-wise.
Like some of the best doll stories, or, in this case, 'toy stories', (That's sort of a joke.), the toys seem to live alone in the house without humans, although the humans are mentioned. (Case in point, the children mentioned in the seventh picture above. The humans are never seen, not even the ankles, like in old Tom and Jerry cartoons. The toys live in a world populated only by toys.
They go on adventures, like picnics, all by themselves. They use the things they find in the house to make the things they need. The imagination of the toys making a dragon mask and costume, a cave from a blanket, parachutes from handkerchiefs, or building a boat from a picnic basket, is something kids could take a tip from.
We first became aware of the Old Bear books years ago when a relative in England sent Emma a book and tape set of "Little Bear's Trousers". We got more of the Old Bear books.
We also discovered that Old Bear had been a BAFTA award winning TV series in England. The tapes were available here, and the series was just as wonderful as the books. You can see an episode of the series HERE. There's also a lovely Christmas special you can see HERE.
The beautiful warm illustrations for the Old Bear books were done in coloured pencil. Jane Hissey has had an exhibition of the original illustrations. You can visit Jane's website and learn more about her books HERE.
In an interview you can watch HERE, Jane Hissey explains why she has shortened more recent editions of some of the stories. I don't think I agree with her reasoning: that parents have less time to read to their children now, and the shorter stories mean they can read more stories to their kids in the time they have. I think it may just mean parents can read a story to their kids more quickly and then quit.
When the kids were little we read all the time. I started reading to Emma when she was just a baby. When we were reading the Harry Potter books we were so eager to see what was going to happen that we read very late into the night. Fuzz was 5 that summer. He was always a grouchy kid. He got bored when we read a long time, and would climb down off my bed, dragging his pillow after him, and head for his room. "Where are you going Fuzz? Don't you want to hear the book?" "I'm going to bed." I also discovered something else that summer. Ivy was a baby, and for the entire first year of her life, she barely slept. She never learned to latch on properly when she nursed, and apart from causing me immense pain, she also sucked in a lot of air. She was up all night every night, with colic. Try as I might, I could not get her to latch on the right way. I was a zombie that year. But we still read, as I said, very late into the night. I did most of the reading, with Ken reading the rest of the time. There were several times when I fell asleep while I was reading. You might think the others would notice . They didn't really, because I fell asleep...but I kept reading. I did it several times, and only woke up when I came to the end of the chapter. Everybody else knew what happened in the book, but I couldn't remember a thing I had read while I was asleep. I had to re-read what I had read to them, the next day while Ivy nursed.
I'll see you again in a few days, to show you my latest Goodwill finds.
Very cozy stories.
ReplyDeleteReading while you were sleeping? Amazing. I have read while thinking about other things, and har to reread. But when I sleep, my eyes are closed.
My mom used to fall asleep reading to us sometimes, but we always knew because she would start talking nonsense!
ReplyDeleteI remember the Old Bear books and VHS tapes, I loved them when I was a kid and always pretended my dolls and stuffies were friends with Old Bear, Bramwell Brown, Little Bear, Zebra and the others.
ReplyDeleteI have never heard of these books. I wish I had known about them when T was little.
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