Wednesday 24 February 2010

The BEST children's books ever!



This is a family of Barba-creatures. The big and pink one is Barbapapa and the black one is Barbamama. Above the Barbaparents watch their kids been born after they had planted them in the ground earlier. Barbabooks are created by French guys Annette Tison and Talus Taylor. They were defianetly among the best things of my childhood. These colourfull lumps of creatures can change their shape to anything, like you can see from the picture below.

As a kid I was obsessed with witches. I wanted to be one. My ultimate hero was Mimosa the young witch created by one of my favourite illustrators and authors Camilla Mickwitz. This Finnish artist also made some of the most memorable animations of my childhood. As all the best books I know, don't really exsist in England I asked my poor mum to scan some of the pictures from them and send them to me. So below are ome good bits from Mimosa books.




This bathing beauty is the wild child Mimosa her self


Here all the adult witches celebrate with Mimosa.


These guys are not witches but wizards, obviously.

And finally, probably the best illustrator I know, Mauri Kunnas. Me and my sister have almost all of his books and there are plenty of them. This Finnish guy doesn't tell fairytales but makes very detailed informational books but his characters are animals instead of humans. His earliest and maybe most famous books tell how people lived in Finland over 100 years ago. The twist is that the family of characters are all dogs. These books made me very interested in history. My favourite one of his books must be The Big Space Book which happens in the future but all the facts about our universe are true. Needles to say that it made me super interested in everything to do with solar system etc. Mum couldn't find that book though. I think my sis must have taken it. So below are few pages from a book that tells what happens during the night! Brilliant. These books are defianetly the most influential children's books in Finland. All the kids of my generation and generations after me love them!



3 comments:

Kirppu said...

Mulla on suuri avaruuskirja!!! Jos saisin mun skannerin toimii, voisin postaa sulle kuvia siitä.. Mun mielestä sulta puuttuu kyl pari ihan tärkeintä kirjaa.. Pellervo Panda ja se huvipuistokirja ainaki.

ipe said...

Pellervo Panda! Se on paras ikinä!!!! Miten mä oon voinu unohtaa sen!

Jokke said...

Nykykirjoista parhaat on Tatu ja Patu, ehdottomasti! Niitä kuvia voi vain ihastella.

Toi metroläpyskä olisi tarpeellinen... nukuttaa.