Things I love: Shirley Hughes's Books

The kids are on an Alfie and Annie Rose kick and I don't mind because Shirley Hughes is one of my favorite authors to read aloud. I know a picture book is a favorite when 1) I don't mind reading it multiple times a week day and 2) if for some reason we lost our copy, it would immediately go on a re-buy list. Both of these are true for everything I have read by Shirley Hughes so far. And this isn't a criteria but Norah's nickname (Norah-bora doo-la) comes from one of these stories and a book becoming part of your family culture is always a good sign too.

I feel like she is underappreciated here in the US. I could just be projecting be because, despite by love of children's literature, I hadn't even heard of any of her works except Dogger until a few years ago. I hope that's the case because her books deserve to be well know and I'm sure well known will lead to well loved.

Dogger is the one I had heard about and it is really good. It's been a favorite for several years now. Jonah has told me he loves his baby cow like Dave loves dogger. Any child that loves his stuffed animals will appreciate  Dave's strong feelings for his. I also love how this story depicts siblings.

But we really really love Alfie and Annie Rose. We have three different Alfie and Annie Rose Compilation books and they all get read regularly.

The stories are sweet and simple but fun. They are filled with the types of things your regular preschooler might be dealing with - worrying about going to birthday parties without your mom, buying new rain boots, going for a walk and seeing some sheep and the excitement of a pipe leaking! She does an amazing job at capturing a small child's world.

And the illustrations - lovely. They are full of little details like messy floors covered in toys or untied shoelace ( and of course, Craig's favorite, the dalek!)

We own all of the ones pictured above, although our version of Alfie's treasury is slightly different. Ousr is a hardcover with only four stories so we still need to purchase the last three separately but of the ones I showed, none of the stories should be repeats. It was a little unclear when I bought mine if that would be the case. Once we have those three, we'll start on her other stories. I'm pretty sure they will be just as good.