Our Favourite Childrens Books: The High Street – by Alice Melvin

The High Street is an utterly charming children’s picture book that I found in the bookshop at my local hospital. The Alfred Hospital in Melbourne has this tiny little bookshop which for the most part, is full of medical tombs, but has a smaller section devoted to ‘other’ books. The sections for the general population are very small, most being only one shelf worth, but they do cover a few topics despite the size. There’s naturally a large number of books dealing with certain illnesses, and quite a few self help titles, then a few biographies and quite a good range of penguin classics, but tucked in among all of that, is a range of children’s books.

It's one of those funny book shops where you find things you’ve never seen anywhere else, and being a very experienced purveyor of book stores in general, I know this to be particularly true for children’s books. Many of the books we own that we love, those with a certain charm about them, are ones I’ve not only found in the hospital bookshop, but which I’ve never seen anywhere else other than Amazon. For this reason I often find myself justifying books that I can’t actually afford...though, to be honest, as I’ve mentioned before, it doesn’t take much for me to justify buying books over food or...um..rent!

The High Street is one such book that I absolutely had to buy when I came across it on my way to an appointment one day at the hospital. It’s the story of Sally who is in the High Street to collect a list of items. A highlight of this story as mentioned in the past posts about our favourite picture books is the beautiful rhyming verse. Not only does the story rhyme in this case, but it's also very well written.

The High Street by Alice Melvin

In addition to the story there are of course, the illustrations to consider and as you’ll note from the nice metallic stamp on the front cover in the photo, The High Street won Book Trust’s Best New Illustrators award and it really is deserving of the prize. I should also make a special mention of the quality of The High Street.

I think children’s books are one particular genre where you can really tell the difference in the quality. Perhaps it's simply a matter of the pages, I’m not sure. Some are considerably thinner, and I’m sure this comes down to cost however some are just of a higher quality in their actual materials, and this is one of those books. It has a dust jacket for a start, but aside from that, the pages are of a lovely weighty quality. I don’t know why but this is just one of those aesthetics which appeal to me.

The illustration has that sort of simple but detailed theme about it. Each page shows a picture of the front of the shop and then opens out to a 3 paneled page which shows the inside in beautifully designed images. We particularly enjoy exploring these pages because of all the beauty there is to find in them.

The story also provides some of those added bonuses that I love in our reading. Each shop is located at a sequential number in the street so for those on the younger side, this is a great addition to learning to count to 10 without actually realising they are doing it.

In each illustration which shows the front of the shop as Sally makes her way toward it, the number of the shop is featured somewhere, as it is also in the text, so this game of where is the shop numbers is one that my son and I also delighted in. Much more so than we do when we are actually looking for the number of a shop or house in real life. The lack of disgruntled drivers honking their horns at you really brings up the quality of a reading experience in my opinion.

Some of the stores that Sally goes to are pretty straight forward, common establishments, a bakery and a greengrocers for instance, but then there are the less common stores like Mrs Millard’s music shop and Ms Yoshiko’s antiques shop where any number of very interesting items are hidden in the beautiful artwork. These have led to some interesting discussions and in some cases, new interests in our house. What exactly a ‘tin Kazoo’ is was one such conversation, which further led to my son discussing a tin kazoo with other people and him ending up being given one as a gift. Gee-wiz was I THRILLED when that happened.

There is a small spoiler in this next bit so if you are really hanging on the anticipation of what is going to happen in this cliffhanger of a story, please skip this paragraph and go on to the next one. The last item on Sally's list is a yellow rose, but when she enters the florist at number 10, there are no yellow roses and Sally leaves empty handed. She then walks through the public garden on her way home and comes across a wall of climbing yellow roses. One of the things I really love about this part of the story is that Sally doesn't then pick a yellow rose and go on her merry way. She continues on without a yellow rose, 'but with memories of loads', and as far as subtle ideas and lessons for kids to think about, this one is a great example. As the mother of a nearly six year old bull at the gate boy who has a tendency for acting before thinking, I say at least once on each foray out into the world, something along the lines of, 'don't pick that flower', or 'leave that tree alone', or 'take all those rocks out of your pocket and put them back where you found them please' along with other statements that involve other peoples letter boxes, sticks, bottle caps and bugs. The idea that Sally couldn't get the thing that she wanted and then had the opportunity to pick one in a public garden but didn't and went without, is actually a golden lesson for kids to learn and the more ways they can be subjected to this idea, the better.

All in all this one of our favourite children's picture books, obviously since this series of posts is about our favourite children’s books, and I highly recommend you seek it out and make it part of your own collection or turn it into a gift for someone else to add to their library.