Friday 13 January 2012

Children's books you would like to live in

One of my favourite things about having started a blog, is the comments that other people make about the posts. It's nice to find things in common with people, or books in common with them, and share little anecdotes, or get recommendations. After yesterday's post a friend recommended The High Street by Alice Melvin, which looks absolutely beautiful. Apparently her daughter said that she would like to live in the book, and my friend agreed.

I so totally knows what she means. Personally, I have always wanted to live in the house where the little girl lives in The Tiger Who Came to Tea. Not only is it a house where fierce, carniverous beasts only eat the food in your house, rather than you, but everything just looks so homely and comforting. And I really, REALLY want to go with the family to the cafe for supper (I love that word. A friend at uni used to say "let's go out for supper", and it always sounded so much more enticing than dinner).

Failing that I would live in one of Raymond Brigg's 1930's semis, especially the ones in Father Christmas, or in The Fat Controller's house in Thomas's Really Useful Word Book. That's a beautiful place, with a nice big bit of garden for entertaining, and a large hallway where there would be plenty of room for my clavinova. Yes, I plan where my furniture would go in pictures of fictional houses in children's books. I gave up trying to be normal about a decade ago, and have been much happier since then.

C, apparently, would like to live in either the flat in Party in the Sky by Alison Catley, or the UFO in You Choose by Nick Sharratt, a book which actually has a whole page where you get to think long and hard about which house you like best. My kind of book. A is at a sleepover (my BABY!), so I can't ask her this evening, but will do so at some point. I imagine the answer will be in one of the Jacqueline Wilson heroine's houses, and she claims that their lives are "much more interesting" than hers. Bah. To be honest, I am not sure I want my life to be interesting in a Jacqueline-Wilson-esque way, because that would involve me either being dead, alcoholic, manic-depressive, heavily tattooed, or possibly all of those things. I'll stick with imagining how my leather sofa would look in the Fat Controller's living room, thanks very much.

2 comments:

  1. I want to live in Winnie The Witch's world. Or anything drawn by Korky Paul, actually. So much detail and loads of fun.

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  2. Now see, I think I would find that a little scary. But hey, wouldn't the world be boring if we all wanted to live in the same world that came from the pen of a book artist!

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