Tasha Tudor's Psalm 40

Let all those that seek thee,

rejoice and be glad in thee:

Let such as love thy salvation

say continually, The Lord be magnified. 

                                              --Psalm 40

When the winter winds are cold by Tasha Tudor

When the winter winds are cold,

And the sheep are in their fold;

For my cozy home, and love, 

Thank you, Father God, above.

Tasha Tudor, sheep, striped stocking caps, hay..... oh how I love this picture!

Tasha Tudor--First Book of Prayers

I love Tasha Tudor! She has these tiny little books. And they are triple-y adorable because they are so tiny and the pictures are outrageously cute when they are this tiny and the illustrations for these prayers/psalms/poems are all so adorably nature-y. 

The Lord is my light and my salvation:

whom shall I fear? 

The Lord is the strength of my life; 

of whom shall I be afraid? 

Lord, teach me to love Thy children

everywhere, because 

Thou art their father and mine. 

                                              Amen.

Fruits of the Spirit

Day and Night by Bishop Heber and Tasha Tudor

God that madest earth and heaven, 

Darkness and light;

Who the day for toil has given

For rest the night;

May thine Angel-guards defend us,

Slumber sweet they mercy send us,

Holy dreams and hopes attend us,

This livelong night. 

                                                      --Bishop Heber

If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams by Thoreau and Tasha Tudor

If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams,

and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined,

he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.

                                                               --Henry David Thoreau

                                           Walden

First Graces by Tasha Tudor and A Small Child's Book of Prayers by Cyndy Szekeres

I feel like I should show you the other two books because they were adorable as well. But it will be quick. 

Tasha Tudor is one of my favorite of favorite illustrators. All those soft watercolors and sweet faces and nature. 

Tasha Tudor in miniature is about as cute as you can get. 

There is even a grace for school.  

This picture.....! 

Cyndy Szekeres has some of the cutest little animals. (And also a difficult to spell name. I always mix it up.)

Two mice dining on a single strawberry with flower still attached? Too cute! 

Why he or she is sitting on a stool outside while ready for bed I don't know, but I suppose with kids, all things are possible. Maybe while he is seeing the moon, his mother is hooting and hollering "Where on earth are you?!" But then, could a mother hoot and holler at a little puppy/coyote as cute as this. 

The happiness of life by Coleridge and Tasha Tudor

The happiness of life is made up of minute 

fractions--the little soon forgotten charities

of a kiss or smile, a kind look, a heartfelt 

compliment, and the countless infinetesimals

of pleasurable and genial feeling. 

                                                                          --Samuel Taylor Coleridge

                                                                 The Improvisatore

From Tasha Tudor's Springs of Joy

All Good Gifts by Jane Montgomery Campbell and Tasha Tudor

All good gifts around us

Are sent from Heaven above,

Then thank the Lord, O thank the Lord,

For all His love. 

                                                         --Jane Montgomery Campbell

Daffodils, spring breezes, corgies, babies with big sisters, birds.... This picture is delightful! 

May spring blow all your cobwebs out! 

Take Joy by Giovanni and Tasha Tudor

The gloom of the world is but a shadow;

behind it, yet within our reach, is joy. 

Take joy.

                              --Fra Giovanni

                                                       Tasha Tudor's Springs of Joy 

He prayeth best, who loveth best Coleridge & Tasha Tudor

He prayeth best, who loveth best

All things both great and small;

For the dear God who loveth us, 

He made and loveth all. 

                                                                    --Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Winter in the Unknown Eros by Coventry Patmore and Tasha Tudor

I, singularly moved

To love the lovely that are not beloved,

Of all the seasons, most

Love Winter, and to trace

The sense of the Trophonian pallor in her face.

It is not death, but plentitude of peace;

And the dim cloud that does the world enfold

Hath less the characters of dark and cold

Than warmth and light asleep,

And corespondent breathing seems to keep 

With the infant harvest, breathing soft below

Its eider coverlet of snow.

                                                                        --Coventry Patmore

                                                                               Winter in the Unkown Eros

Oh! Plentitude of peace.... I love that line. 

At Christmas I no more desire a rose by William Shakespeare & Illus by Tasha Tudor

At Christmas I no more desire a rose

Then wish a snow in May's newfangled mirth.

                                 --William Shakespear

                                        Love's Labour's Lost

A World in a Grain of Sand by William Blake and Tasha Tudor

To see a world in a grain of sand

And heaven in a wildflower,

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand

And Eternity in an hour.

                                     --William Blake

There is a Garrison Keillor Lake Wobegone story I was listening to a few weeks ago about a boy who was bored, bored, bored in the summer. Eventually he went out and flopped on the grass where he noticed the ants. He lay there, wondering and constructing an entire world for them in his mind until a friend came along and asked him what in the world he was doing ("Nothing!") and would he like to go swimming?

To see a world in a grain of sand or a world for ants, there is a certain level of boredom necessary. At least for most people. Geologists might get a kick out of it, but the rest of us poor saps aren't having it. But when I am bored.... I'll look at anything. Boredom is so underrated. It seems like I have read so many articles about boredom being good for kids this year. In honor of these articles, we decided to give the kids a screen free summer. Well mostly screen free. When there are 12 cousins running around at Grandma and Grandpa's and fights descend in the late afternoon, letting them play some computer games does save other people's sanity. But for the most part, it has gone pretty well. It helps that we have been living in our new place a lot of the summer. I have this idea that habits are largely dependent on surroundings. I spend a good bit of time on the computer at home, but when I am at my sister's house for a week, I feel no urgency to get on her computer to see what is happening in the world. So maybe a different house has helped. 

I am not sure that boredom definitely translates into the embodiment of this quote, but I do hope my kids find a little bit of wonder and absorption in their wanders and rambles this summer.  

Just maybe they will find a world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wildflower. 

Happy weekend!

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett illus by Tasha Tudor

As you know, from this post and this post, I love Tasha Tudor. I think she is the bees knees. Although there are probably 50 bazillion different versions and editions of The Secret Garden out there (apparently one of the mostly widely known secrets in the world) this is the one to have on your bookshelf. It is the definitive The Secret Garden. Just ask me. 

This particular copy is my mothers. I crept into her house when she was at work this week and pinched it off the bookshelf. (Stealing books is okay, if you really love the book, right?!) I remember Mom bringing this book home when I was little. It was an important book. We already had several other Tasha Tudor versions of this book, but they were paperback and lacked the full page illustrations. This one was a hardcover, full color edition. In a house where books were everywhere by the thousand, this book stood out. Books were our constant companions. We carried them everywhere, brought them to school, read them outside, left them in bookbags, purses, and the cars. Mom and Dad were mostly okay with that. I say mostly, because Dad couldn't help wincing now and then about where we left our books and how we left our books. Use a bookmark! Do you want to break the spine?! and Why can't you put it back where it belongs? where words we heard once or twice during in our childhood. But there were some books we treated extra carefully. And this was one of them.

   

In my little kid brain, I realized Tasha Tudor must be some important. 

And she is. This is a magical, delicate, and delightful book. We all know the story is marvelous, but these pictures compliment the story and make it sing.  

Little bird nests in the ivy! 

Oh how much I adore this book! Just looking through it again and taking pictures of it makes me want to read it and get lost in Mary's world for the umpteenth time. As a kid, I couldn't imagine anything nicer than having your very own, walled in, abandoned garden that you could save through hard work and a little bit of know how. 

Mary Lennox when she was an orphan in India and "Mary, Mary quite contrary."

Driving back to Craven Hall with Mrs. Medlock after arriving in Yorkshire.

Martha, the chambermaid. Isn't she just the embodiment of the cheerful, hard working Martha? 

(Yes, yes she is.) 

Mary being bored in a house with no other children. Except... what is that cry?

Hearing Colin fuss--"Its the wind wuthering around the house" insists Martha.

The key! Oh the excitement! 

Ohhhh.... Stepping into the garden for the first time. The unimaginable delight!

Dickon. We all love Dickon. What a marvelous fellow!

Dickon charming the animals.

This is one of my favorite phrases in the book. Sometimes phrases get in my head and I repeat them for several days. Like a song, only without music. This phrase gets in my head every time I read it. It is phrased so... old worldly-ish. So stilted and overly proper. And I love it. 

She discovers Colin, her very own cousin.

Getting to know each other without the interference of adults. 

Spring in the secret garden!!

I want a pet fox. And crocuses. (Mine decided not to come up this year.) 

Dickon bringing his animals to entertain the imperious Colin.

Taking Colin out for a ride in the gardens. 

Good old Ben!

The healing properties of garden work.

The nefarious Dr. Craven with his ulterior motives. 

Colin, finally standing!! On his own!!

And finally, Mr. Craven comes home to discover his boy, whole and walking! 

Oh, how marvelous gardens, particularly walled-in, secret gardens are! 

Happy sigh!

Have a lovely Thursday, my friends!

1 in One by Tasha Tudor

Daffodils and Tasha Tudor in the evening light. Happy sigh!

Somehow, I am not a talented enough photographer to make this seemingly fool-proof combination look as spectacular as it should have. Annoyed sigh. 

Tasha Tudor is not a slacker. Her title pages are as elaborate as her story pages. 

My book is from Mineola, TX apparently. I love buying books from Betterworldbooks. They are almost always ex-library books, so fit very cosily into our library book sale books and they come from all over America and Canada. It makes me feel very well traveled. 

(Heaven help us if we ever loose an actual, needs-to-be-returned library book. It looks like all the rest of them.) 

Sweet bird and roses!

Ducks and daffodils!

Fiddleheaded ferns and wee violets

I love her floral borders. Just like in A is for Annabelle, Tudor has made an exquisite book out of a fairly mundane subject matter. 

I don't think there is anything more charmingly springy and old fashioned than girls dancing in a ring with baskets of flowers and floral wreathes on their head.

A mouse! With a fiddle head fern fiddle! Teaching 12 little birds to sing! 

Squeak! I can hardly bear the charmingness. 

As a little girl, I was always sure that figuring out how to make fresh flower wreaths would open any and every door to me in life. It seemed terribly important. 

Despite a college degree, I am still clueless about fresh flower head wreaths. Higher education in America has failed yet again. 

I wish Tasha Tudor could color this for me. But I love it in black and white. 

Sibling or cousins loving each other while stargazing. I love the imaginary world Tasha Tudor inhabited. 

Ha! I love my siblings, but I am pretty sure my little brothers would never have sat still to let me cuddle them and point out constellations. Imagining I actually sat still long enough to learn constellations.

Must learn constellations.

Seriously, Tasha Tudor is teaching me all the life skills I lack. 

I wish I was the kind of person who could look at this picture and not think "Oh Jane, why did you have to get the paint on the floor?" 

Tasha Tudor had her priorities straight. Who cares about a little paint here and there if kids are being artistic?

(Me. I care. A little. Sorry.)

Oh geese. Somehow, geese always seem much more connected to fall than spring. I think they fly higher in the spring, hurrying to get to those nesting/molting places. In the fall, they are all curiosity and lackadaisical. 

Aren't you happier after all that? It is impossible for me to read a Tasha Tudor and not feel happier for it.