Tuesday, November 11, 2008

The Friendly Book

The Friendly Book
Margaret Wise Brown, Garth Williams ~ Golden Books, 1954

I seriously doubt I will ever meet the day when I've read all the titles by this dynamic duo. These two authors alone give me such great hope every time I walk into a used book shop or lean over to root through a wire rack full of Golden Books.... what new treat will I discover today. Her with her slightly eccentric rhyming, and him with his fussy lines and wistful rabbits. Since I am spreading the love here, it is only right that this book is all about spreading the love, anywhere and everywhere...

I LIKE STARS
Yellow stars
Green stars
Red stars
Blue stars
I like stars
Far stars
Quiet stars
Bright stars
Light stars
I like stars
A star that is shooting across the dark sky
A star that is shining right straight in your eye
I like stars.


Trains, cars, snow, dogs, boats, whistles, people.... there is room to love everything here on these pages. Such a happy book for a happy time, my friends. My son still is the snuggle king, but this book just reinforces the importance of enjoying your kiddos while you can before they get all grownup and cynical, darn it.

Also by:
Wait Til the Moon is Full
Do You Know What I'll Do?
The Sky Was BlueThe Rabbit's Wedding
The Quiet Noisy Book
On Christmas Eve
Christmas in the Barn
The Dead Bird
Little Chicken
The Little Island
Amigo

8 comments:

  1. We LOVE this one! My grandma picked it up for us at a yard sale, and my three-year-old has loved it for a long time. I posted about Margaret Wise Brown on his blog a few months ago: http://littlejonathan.blogspot.com/2008/05/margaret-wise-brown.html
    Thanks so much for all the great ideas!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Right on with everything you said here! I just discovered this little poem in a Golden Books (treasury?)compendium of some MWB books and absolutely love it. I'll have to look for the complete Friendly Book. As you, I am always finding new things by her--she was so prolific! I am so curious about the dead bird. Our dog is 15 1/2 and I think I'll need it soon...

    ReplyDelete
  3. We just picked up The Noisy Book from the library (also be MWB) and I loved it.. it's from 1939 and looks more modern than most of the books on the shelves!

    ReplyDelete
  4. I suspect that this is a forlorn hope, but if anyone might know the answer it might be folk who are familiar with the Friendly Book.

    When I was a child my sister and I had both the Friendly Book, and another book that had similar illustrations. I cannot for the life of me remember the name of the latter book, but two of its pages are fixed in my mind forever...

    ...It showed a scene even more crowded with detail than those in the Friendly Book, but with many similar themes - boats on a bay, planes (and a balloon!) in the sky, people doing a hundred different things. I particularly remember that one of the trees on the side of one of the hills had a little door and windows in the trunk, and that the top the hill was covered with snow and skiers, the former of which merged with grass about halfway down.

    The sky was night in one corner, and merged with day which covered most of the 2 page spread.

    We used to spend hours poring over the exquisite detail, and I would love to find a copy of the book now for my own young children.

    Does anyone have any idea what the name of my unidentifed book might be?

    The Twins' Dad.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I have a terrible habit of not recalling books when I should. "If it had been a snake..." Post this description on whatsthatbook.com. They always find the answer! Good luck and let us know.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Thanks for the tip scribbler, very much appreciated!

    The Twins' Dad.

    ReplyDelete
  7. The Sailor Dog?

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garth_Williams

    ReplyDelete
  8. The Twins Dad, I'm pretty sure I'm searching for the very same book -- did you find it???

    ReplyDelete