ENDURING FAVOURITES

By Angela Buckingham

There is a difference between the books we love and the books that we love and love and love until the binding breaks, the pages curl and the pictures fade. For me the book from childhood that was loved more than all others, for years and years was “A Book of Fairy Tales”.

This is a book I could climb into and spend hours looking at the elaborate clothing of the children, adoring the animals so perfectly depicted and of course dreaming of the adventures.

The stories are classic fairy tales stripped of their original darkness and gore, with simple plots, graceful princesses and very wicked witches. But what made the book so special were the pictures. It is beautifully detailed and exquisitely drawn. It was illustrated by the brilliant, English twins, Janet and Anne Grahame Johnstone. The sisters worked together on each artwork, passing them back and forth, one sister working on hands and faces, the other on the clothing or the animals. The detailed, exacting and careful work of the illustrators is embedded in each page. And maybe it is this evident care in their work that was the magic that enchanted me as a child.