I love this book, maybe because I love the work of Jeannie Baker. Haven't been able to get Grace interested yet, but probably she'll come around one day. This one's from the library so it won't have the long lying around time that seems to have worked with other books I'd like her to let me read to her.
I like how the grandmother seems conventionally grandmotherly, she looks grandmotherly (in a dishevelled kind of way), she sews, knits and dotes on her grandaughter. Together they walk through the garden, hand in hand and the girl visits the statues that grandmother says she carved long ago lurking in the gorgeously overgrown garden. I like a grandmother with a past, I do.
The girl helps her grandmother collect the washing from the line, along with some lavender. You get the sense that domesticity is carried out on a pleasantly minimal level. Sufficent to be comfortable and charming, not so much as to be onerous. I could live a life like that. One day. Maybe.
That's the same girl who 'helps' her grandfather in his secondhand goods shop - I recognise the jumper and skirt! I forget the title of that book but it's gorgeous as her others are.
ReplyDeleteDid you know Jeannie Baker knits the teeny tiny jumpers her characters wear? I love that.
I love the artwork in that book. And the teeny tiny jumpers, how fabulous. I, too, find the gentleness of the domestic scene comforting.
ReplyDeleteAh. Her books are wonderous. I like that idea of domesticity.
ReplyDeletep.s. Funny our kids are finally toilet training at the same time!