Can't resist a book bag

Sam at my  local bookshop Books & Ink knows how to get me through the door. Every so often she'll offer free book bags with any purchase over £10 and, every time, I obediently trot down there to buy a book or two. This is what I got today ...

First of all, that all-important book bag. It's decorated with an illustration from Judith Kerr's classic picture book 'The Tiger Who Came to Tea' which was published 50 years ago. Many will know Judith Kerr from her wonderful Mog books (my favourite is 'Mog and Bunny') but she also wrote a series of books based on her wartime experiences as a refugee from Nazi Germany. The first of these is called 'When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit' ... and it's just struck me that maybe the pink bunny in the Mog book was inspired by her lost toy. 

Anyway, the book I bought today is one I saw earlier in the week when I was buying presents and resisted the temptation to add to my pile. So, my resistance crumbled today and I bought it.

Frances Mountford is an artist who has written several beautifully illustrated books about the countryside; this is her first book. The whole thing is a work of art - text and pictures. Here's the title page ...

She takes the modest farm in Surrey where she lives and traces its history over four hundred years and the dozen or so families who have lived in it from the 16th Century to the present day. Here are just a couple of pages; the whole book is like this ...

A Quaker Wedding, 1719

World War One

I love this sort of book that combines art with social history. I bought her second book 'Heartbreak Farm' a few days ago for my Dad and now I want that one too. It's not illustrated throughout but is still lovely. It tells the story of her family farming in the twentieth century. I believe she's written other books, if anyone knows of any please let me know.