Se7en Vintage Picture Books We Are Loving Right Now…

There are so many High tech books on the market right now and hundreds of classic book apps… but just lately we haven’t even been getting to the library. We have been enjoying books from the past off our own bookcase. Books that I loved as a child. My parents were very good at choosing books that you simply believed you had stepped into!!! The thing I love about Vintage books, apart from the endless classic illustrations, is the words… words just weren’t “Simpled Down” for small children at all… The stories had lots of words, a lot more words than picture books of today have. Many of these books are stuck in my brain for life, the rhythm and the swing of the words permanently embedded in fond memories!!!

Naturally I grew up on Richard Scarry’s, The Berenstein Bear’s and Dr Seuss but I thought I would show you some books that are lying beside the bed right now.

  1. Little Richard is a rabbit, and it never occurred to me that he wasn’t a regular kid!!! His parents were so cool, his mum baked cookies with him and his Dad sent him out tracking on a muddy day. His mum tells him to bring a surprise home for lunch and he discovers a new friend. His new friend was a porcupine and then went on a hike in “the wilds” together – I tell you so many backpacks and little hikes inspired around the house because of this book. Just a regular little guy and an author clever enough to make his regular life seem intriguing!!!
  2. Anything by Marcel Marlier is wonderful, the illustrations are so real that you can hear the leaves underfoot. Sofie goes on lots of adventures: to the seaside, to the woods and so on… and she does all sorts of regular kid things and really you just want to do the same as she did – go and ride a bike, take a nature walk and so on. These books are just lovely through and through. Unputdownable, must read again. The children in the books finitely become firm friends with the reader and you want to know what happened to them long after the ooh has finished telling the story.

  3. Jennifer’s Walk is the story of a little girl, whose mum sends her on a walk down the garden and over a field as far as the woods. All along the way she meets animal friends… meets and greets down to the river and back again. Home to mum. It is the sweetest story and I quite believed I was that little girl walking through the long grass and past the horses and over the wall… I especially loved the map inside the cover and have spent years of my life tracing the little girl’s route.
  4. Jeanne Marie is a little girl living in the French Countryside, she has a little sheep called Patapon, and her best friend is Jean-Pierre… this is a series of sweet books just wandering through the year in the life of Jeanne Marie!!! I love the sprinkling of French words in the stories, I love the illustrations – these books spin me right back into my childhood…
  5. The whole series of Little Tim books by Edward Ardizzone books literally transported me away, I loved these books so totally. I often went to sleep dreaming of heading off to sea and it isn’t surprising that we live in a place where we can literally hop down to the beach – all we need is a lighthouse and a couple of boats and we would be right there.
  6. I loved the story of Ferdinand, a bull that loved flowers and mistakenly sat on on a bee just as the bull-fight selectors were choosing their next champion and who was absolutely useless in the ring, he just merrily sat and smelt the flowers in all the ladies hats!!! A delightful story and it was my celebrity chef’s favorite book for years.

  7. My parents were great at finding books from places all over the world, no wonder I love traveling. There are many places that I have wanted to visit as an adult that have been inspired by a childhood book. And Peter Spier is such a wonderfully detailed illustrations. I have always wanted to visit a Dutch market because of the adventure this cow has in it.
  8. And the Se7en + 1th:

  9. Miss Jaster shares her garden with a teeny tiny hedgehog. On the inside cover there is a lay-out map of the garden which allows the reader to plot and plan where about in the garden the action was taking place. I am beginning to see that it was very often a map or a plotted path through a picture that appealed to me!!!

That’s us, we would love to know what your favorite childhood books were or what books you have lying beside your bed right now.

9 Replies to “Se7en Vintage Picture Books We Are Loving Right Now…”

  1. ohhhhh how I adore VINTAGE picture books. The images are so rich and wondeful. Our fave is richard scary’s really early work. We just read some at nap time! I have TONS of these kind of books because my dad is an antique/art dealer— I wish we were close enough that I could share my collection with you. THANKS for sharing!

  2. One of the Milly Molly Mandy books (my mother’s, published in something like 1935), had a map of the village. Loved it. I spent most of my childhood perfecting the miniature garden, al la Milly Molly Mandy, but then would turn it into a village with a map. Could never get my kids excited by it like I was 🙁

  3. Thanks for sharing this super list. I have become such a fan of vintage books since blogging – it’s like a whole new world that I hadn’t considered before!

    We actually have “The cow who fell in the canal” and Little One loves it!

  4. KM I read your comment and think that actually we really should be neighbors!!! Just today we read Richard Scarry’s Teeny Tiny Tales!!! Hope you have such a fun weekend!!! Lots of love!!!

  5. Oh Sharelle, I had a Milly Molly Mandy like that too!!! With the village map – loved it!! Hope you have a fun weekend!!!

  6. Hi Love and Lollipops… Oh Isn’t that Cow in the Canal just brilliant!!! Hope you all had a fun, fun weekend!!!

  7. Oh how I adore vintage books too!! So much so that I get afraid of my girls ruining them, but I know I should just embrace it and let them read away! I just can’t wait for them to be reading Enid Blyton’s Faraway Tree and The Magic Wishing Chair series. So wonderful!

  8. Hi Anna, Oh we love and adore Enid Blyton – we have a whole shelf of them from my childhood. Definitely our vintage books are loved to bits but you will be surprised lots of those books are put together a whole lot better than modern ones – actual stick binding instead of a splat of glue!!! These books aren’t vintage for nothing!!! Have a good week… love following your blog!!!

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