I was watching the bedtime story on CBeebies with the Little Monkey last week, and was pleasantly surprised that it was read by Floella Benjamin. She looked pretty much exactly how I remember; she’s barely aged a day since Play School in the eighties. I was pleased because I rather like it when happy memories of my childhood become those of my child. Although, I don’t really have particular memories of Baroness Benjamin, it’s more that she represents a nostalgic miasma of stories and windows, Humpties and Jemimas.
More specific memories arise from the Usborne books illustrated by Stephen Cartwright; they’re the ones with a little duck peeping out from somewhere on every page. The Little Monkey is particularly taken with the ‘Going to a Party’ story in his Little Book of First Experiences, because it includes a ghost. He loves ghosts at the minute. Having to read the same books over and over again can be tiresome, but the detail in the Cartwright illustrations staves off boredom; there’s a lovely one with a mother at the end of a day, having taken 3 children to the doctor, sitting in a chair having a cup of tea, looking shattered as the children play around her feet. Plus, there’s the duck to spot, which remains fun, 30+ years after I was first doing it…
Leave a Reply