A first for Lucan last week, he had mail! Not mail via me or James but his very own letter addressed to him. This caused untold excitement, and we nearly lost the contents of the envelope in his haste to get it open. After a bit of a battle to get the contents out (and out of Lucan’s hands) we were faced with another first, his very first party invitation. The excitement grew with the picture on the front being a Gruffalo and with a quick email the party was booked.
Next, as a parent, came the big decision of what to give. Being a teacher I like to give presents with a mildly educational theme (sorry), and for this particular birthday-boy, who is exceptionally clever, I thought a lovely picture book that could be shared at bedtime would be appreciated. As I started to trawl through the front and back covers of the multiple beautiful pictures books something struck me. Not a single one was printed in the UK! Now we have said already that what we do well, toy wise, in the UK is cardboard. We are great at puzzles and board games and all things printed so why are there no printers creating children’s books?
I did however strike lucky with a family favourite, Dick King-Smith’s Jungle Jingles. This to my relief was printed in the UK, and not just that but up the road in Croydon. So now we have a present and the same shop gave be a super selection of British printed cards so that was sorted too.
I can’t see why the UK is not printing more children’s books, we have the facility and the technology, so come on UK printers and publishers we mums want to buy British books from our great British authors!
– Emily
What about Mabecron Books? Based in Plymouth and mainly print books about Devon and Cornwall. They do the Soggy Bear books and the Mousehole Mice books. You would need to check they tick all of your Britishness boxes.
Thanks for letting us know about these. We will check them out.
There are some marvellous children’s books around. Please check out the entire ‘Muddy Waters’ series of 10 or more books. These are based on a Thomas tank engine-type basis but using canal boats and depicting the history and heritage of our canals network. They are beautifully illustrated and are really interesting, too. They are published by Windlass Publishing Ltd and are printed in Oxfordshire.
The other series well worth looking at is ‘Oscar’ written by Caroline Green. There are two books in the series so far and are available via her own website and other stores (www.carolinehgreen.com). The books are printed in Cheltenham. We will be stocking them in our shop in Stow-on-the-Wold, Pug on the Square, between 22nd July and 11th August and Caroline will be coming in for some book-signing sessions, too! Happy reading.