5. The illustrator Helen Oxenbury
The eternal, Saki-esque nature of childhood
Most people, I would wager, recognise the illustrator Helen Oxenbury from her pictures in Michael Rosen’s We’re Going on A Bear Hunt. I wonder how many recall the little books she published in the early 1980s, in a series called “Early Picture Books.”
Each one is based around a familiar moment in a child’s life: first day at nursery; a drive; a birthday party; visiting grandparents. They are at once immensely simple, and yet, however many times you read them, you notice more and more details. There is an energy to her drawings which conveys the passions and pains of childhood more than most illustrators.
Her observation is pin-point. And what also strikes me about these books - conceived and published when I was a baby - is that their landscape is instantly recognisable to children, even today, across the decades. Everything is the same: balloons at children’s parties; the pegs labelled with ladybirds and trains in the nursery; the laddered tights in the ballet class. (I wondered, even, if essentially fashion and children’s lives had entered a period of blessed stasis: the characters in her books would not look out of place today.)
In The Drive, a little boy is taken by his parents for a ride in their car. The boy sticks his tongue out at vehicles going by; with grim inevitability, he’s sick when he eats too much ice cream at the service station(having been told not to, of course); he needs the loo, and they must stop by the motorway side, on a horrible piece of littered wasteland, in the rain. As an adult, you wince in the gleeful Epicurean manner, as when Lucretius talks of watching a ship in a storm at sea, whilst knowing that you are safe on land.
The car, of course, breaks down, and they are towed home; and when they return, the father finds he’s lost his house keys. (One of Oxenbury’s subtle touches shows us that the dog has them in his mouth. The dog’s expression is similar to an ancient image of a dog which has knocked over a vase: rueful and mischievous). The whole day sounds tragic, doesn’t it? And yet, after all those mishaps, the little boy eagerly tells his friends how much fun they had: exactly like what a child would do. Children, when hearing the story, yelp with delight at the increasing misfortunes; adults smile in semi-weary recognition; and most importantly, as with all good children’s books, the characters do arrive safely back home - even if they can’t, as yet, get in.
These little books show a whole gamut of complex characters and emotions: spoilt children; misbehaving children; children not wanting to eat their supper; exhausted parents. My particular favourite is The Visitor. A harrassed mother changes into better clothes, telling her daughter she must behave. The visitor, a Mr Thorpney, arrives: he is absolutely the epitome of a boring, office-bound adult, his dark suit in stark constrast to the light clothes of the little girl. He has a red nose, presumably from sinking too many pints; he is allergic to cats. We are not told what the purpose of his visit is (no child would understand: it’s clearly something to do with tax or accounts). The little girl, told to play by herself, gradually causes more and more chaos until the boring old adult is routed. Victory! In Eating Out, a child hiding under a restaurant table accidentally trips up a waiter, spilling spaghetti all over another diner and her two impeccably behaved grandchildren. The waiter gets the blame, of course. There is something a little of the Saki-esque here, of the child as agent - knowingly or not - of mischief, except, of course, without the bitterness and the feyness. Oxenbury gives children power and agency: but she’s also very much aware of the need for a guiding, warm adult. Even if that adult, more often than not, is in need of a stiff gin and tonic.
It is a great shame that these little, perfect books are not in print. They are joyful, and yet at the same time entirely aware that life contains troubles too. That is exactly the kind of mixture that a children’s book should have.
There is an exhibition of her illustrations on at the moment at Burgh House: I hope it will bring more people to her work. And maybe even get those little early books back into print.
BOOK NEWS
For World Book Day Week, I visited two schools. The first was Windlesham Prep, in Sussex. It was wonderful to take the train down on a frosty morning, through the familiar Sussex fields. The school is not too far from where I grew up and went to school - and Windlesham always beat us at cricket. I got the children writing quests, and read to them from The Arrow of Apollo.
The second was Abbots Hill, a girls’ school on top of a - you guessed it - hill in Hemel Hampstead. I got the girls writing mini-playlets based on Greek myth - there were plenty of good ideas. I particularly enjoyed the use of a girl dressed in a yellow overcoat to portray the sun in the Icarus myth.
