Henrietta Rose-Innes’s formative reading experiences
A long time ago – and yet perhaps it wasn’t such a very long time ago – but in an age before Shark’s Egg and The Rock Alphabet, and long before she ever dreamed she’d win the Caine Prize, Henrietta Rose-Innes had little hands and this is what she read …
Henrietta’s earliest memory of books and reading:
My mother read to us every night – picture books and also poetry. She had interesting tastes. She sang us The Destruction of Sennaccherib as a lullabye, and also Tyger Tyger Burning Bright … all terribly exciting (and perhaps counterproductive, as lullabyes). We got read all the English classics – Wind in the Willows, Winnie the Pooh, Peter Rabbit, Alice in Wonderland. And especially comic books: Tintin, Asterix and Lucky Luke were the big three. I remember trying to decipher those books on my own, making up stories to match the frames. My mother taught me to read as well. We had a series of strange readers, in lurid colours and containing rather peculiar stories. There was one I remember vividly which involved little red demons invading some poor peasant household, putting the little old lady and the little old man in a sack and poking them with little red fingers, and – I’m not making this up – cutting their dog in half! Now that’s one illustration that’s branded into my brain. Where did she get those books from?! They were great. It seems there were no saccharine children’s books in our house, or if there were I don’t remember them at all. The ones that stuck with me were the ones that stirred me up. I believe that children have a great capacity for pretty complex emotions – wonder, dread, melancholy, exhilaration – and I don’t think it does them any harm to be mystified and even a little terrified by what happens within the sanctuary of a book.
Herietta’s picture books:
So many come to mind. I loved the Moomintroll Books - little creatures having adventures in a wild and magical northern land. My mother introduced us to the black humour of illustrator Edward Gorey years before he became widely popular. There was one, called The Shrinking of Treehorn, about a child who doesn’t grow any bigger, and his parents don’t notice … Oh, and Ant and Bee! Entomologically correct insect buddies in little hats, having cryptic adventures in a surreal, touchingly blank universe. I also really liked the Richard Scarry books, with those manic, exotically American scenes, full of vehicles and machines and animals being busy, busy, busy. I was fascinated by the few hints of 70s culture that accidentally infiltrated our house – does anyone remember the Barbapapa books, with that extended family of amorphous, collectively-living lovechild blobs? Oh and of course the debonair Babar the Elephant … Doctor Doolitle, with stylish 20s illustrations … a good dose of scary 19th-century cautionary tales in Struwwelpeter … the more you think about it the more you remember.
Henrietta, as an adult, reading with children:
I don’t read to a lot of children, not having many handy; but I do now have a superb nephew who is very into books. I’ve had to put away my pride and be prepared to do silly voices. We’re enjoying introducing him to all our old favourites, and his enthusiasm is a good reminder of the potent, undying allure of books.
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A Moomin Note:
“A Moomintroll is small and shy and fat, and has a Moominpappa and a Moominmamma. Moomins live in the forests of Finland. They like sunshine and sleep right through the winter. The snow falls and falls and falls where they live, until their houses look like great snowballs. But when spring comes, up they jump….” – Kaye Webb, editor of Puffin Books 1974.
‘Jansson’s Moomin books, originally written in Swedish, have been translated into 33 languages. After the Kalevala and books by Mika Waltari, they are the most widely translated works of Finnish literature. There is a Moomin Museum and a Moomin theme park named Moomin World in Naantali.’
(Quoted from Wikipedia)
Babar and History…
According to Wikipedia:
The books are written in a charming and appealing style with an attention to detail which captivates both children and adults. Underneath they could be seen as a justification for colonialism, with the benefits of French civilisation being visited on the rustic African elephant kingdom. Some writers, notably Herbert R. Kohl and Vivian Paley have argued that, although superficially delightful, the stories are politically and morally offensive. Others argue that the French civilisation described in the early books had already been destroyed by the Great War and the books were originally an exercise in nostalgia for pre 1914 France. Ariel Dorfman’s The Empire’s Old Clothes is another highly critical view, in which he concludes, “In imagining the independence of the land of the elephants, Jean de Brunhoff anticipates, more than a decade before history forced Europe to put it into practice, the theory of neocolonialism.”
Aims of The Little Hands Trust
• To support initiatives that promote reading for enjoyment.
• To mentor African literary artists, including writers, illustrators and editors, to produce creative, suitable and appropriate children’s storybooks for children of various ages with a focus on early childhood (ages 0 to 9 years).
• To collaborate with African publishers to increase and sustain publication of children’s books in African languages. To initiate and support translations of stories between African languages, from African languages to ex-colonial languages and from ex-colonial languages to African languages.
• To help to orientate and educate adults in the importance and significance of reading to and with children.
