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| Hearsay: |
Petelit points to some back-story on my three-year-old son’s favourite bedtime book, Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel. We bought the book at Ninja K’s (she of large brood) insistence and have subsequently bought most of the others author Virginia Lee Burton was famous for. Now, here’s an old dame who saw the concept of rapid obsolescence coming down the pipe. Baby Ninja can virtually recite the books. Like Pete’s daughter, he’s heavily into Katy and the Big Snow right now, but Mike Mulligan has been a standout favourite over the last year.
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April 1st, 2006 at 9:28 pm
My kids (8&5) love those two. I remember them from when I was a kid.
Do you have Ferdinand the Bull?
April 1st, 2006 at 10:07 pm
We actually just got it from Kathryn as part of Baby Ninja’s third birthday package of books-we-have-to-have. It hasn’t really struck a chord with him yet. I think he’s kind of afraid of some of the grotesques. I love it though.
April 2nd, 2006 at 11:42 am
The illustrations are amazing displays of perspective. The story’s cute, and of course ends happily.
Another great illustrator you shoudd check out is Julie Vivas, she Aussie and has some great books with Mem Fox, the queen of Kiddie Lit in Oz.
April 3rd, 2006 at 10:03 pm
Mike Mulligan & Mary-Anne rule!
Of course, there’s an alternate reading in which MM&MA are not the hapless schlubs bypassed by a rapidly changing world that they appear to be: in this reading they are progenitors of the technological age, perpetrators of heinous environmental atrocities (who eventually, after spouting more pollution in one day than a hundred men could do in a week receive asylum in some rural backwater, away from the prying eyes of the Hague). After all, was it not Mike Mulligan and Mary-Anne (and some others) who flattened the mountains, straightened the valleys, dug the canals, etc.? Some innocents these, these reckless Futurists!