My Best Book of Nursery Rhymes (1985, Award Publications, illus. Anne Grahame Johnstone)

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Two children sit on a tree stump, reading a book. Cover of My Best Book of Nursery Rhymes, illustrated by Anne Grahame Johnstone and published by Award Publications in 1985.
My Best Book of Nursery Rhymes
Illustrated by Anne Grahame Johnstone
© 1985 Valerie Anne Ltd
Published by Award Publications Limited
This edition reprinted 2002

This small board book of nursery rhymes published by Award Publications is one of the many books Anne Grahame Johnstone illustrated on her own in the 1980s following the untimely death of her sister, Janet, in 1979. It has a companion book, My First Book of Nursery Rhymes, published in the same year (1985).

Two children sit in a tree, reading a book. Cover of My First Book of Nursery Rhymes, illustrated by Anne Grahame Johnstone and published by Award Publications in 1985
Photo credit: ebay

It features only five nursery rhymes, each told on one side of a two page spread, while the other side features an illustration. The pages are strikingly white, with the illustrations in blue- washed circles. The cover features two children sitting on a tree stump, reading, the youngest clearly an elf, if the ears are anything to go by. The typeface appears to be hand drawn, as part of the illustration. The back cover features a candle, with smoky typeface spelling out 'Good Night'.

All of the illustrations I have seen before, in earlier works. 'Baa, Baa, Black Sheep' and 'The North Wind Doth Blow' both appear in Nursery Rhyme Treasury (1970, Young World Productions), and again in My Best Book of Rhymes (1984, Award) and 'Tom, Tom, the Piper's Son' and 'Hickory Dickory Dock' also appear in that (1984) collection. The 'Little Bo-peep' of My Best Book of Nursery Rhymes is not the Little Bo-peep of My Best Book of Rhymes, but she does appear in the endpapers of that book (although in different coloured clothes) so likely comes from an earlier collection as well.

My favourite illustrations of this short collection are 'Tom, Tom, the Piper's son', a figure in red tartan (or is it plaid?) fleeing town with a squealing piglet under one arm, and 'The North Wind Doth Blow', which shows us small, warmly dressed children standing in the snow, dropping crumbs for a robin.

Two small children in period clothing stand in a snowy landscape, dropping crumbs for a robin. Illustration for nursery rhyme, 'The North Wind Doth Blow', from My Best Book of Nursery Rhymes, illustrated by Anne Grahame Johnstone and published by Award Publications in 1985.

A very small collection, without anything new – probably only for the hardcore collectors.

My Best Book of Nursery Rhymes (1985) – Contents

  • Tom, Tom, the Piper's son
  • Baa, Baa, Black Sheep
  • Hickory Dickory Dock
  • The North Wind Doth Blow
  • Little Bo-Peep


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