Today we are highlighting our popular children’s book, ‘The Snippets’. This original vintage picture book has full page watercolour illustrations throughout. Additionally, there are monochrome vignettes on each page of text. The book has a gloss-laminated soft cover, with thirty-six pages (210mm x 210mm).
Sewing The Snippets
When the author/illustrator made some tiny dolls for her grandchildren, she decided to write a story about their adventures. In the book, a little girl named Marianne sews “a whole family of tiny dolls”, one rainy day. “They had little bead noses, and arms and legs made from pipe cleaners”. The author/illustrator has included plenty of authentic details showing how the dolls were made. And the actual sewing basket where the Snippets live is painted in real life detail.
Meeting the Characters
Characterisation is a key part of this lovely story. There are seven Snippet dolls in the family – “Father, Mother, Grandpa and Grandma, twins Sally and Sam, and Baby Bunting”. Father is tall and good at climbing, while Mother wears her apron and looks after Baby Bunting. Grandpa has very little hair, but his moustache is rather magnificent, and he wears glasses. Grandma has a pretty dress, a pearl necklace and a smart handbag. The twins, Sally and Sam, are dressed for adventure, Sam in red dungarees and Sally in a yellow frock, while little Baby Bunting looks adorable in pink frills and a lace bonnet. While she sleeps soundly on her grandmother’s knee, both Grandpa and Grandma sleep too!
Meanwhile, the younger members of the family set off to find adventure in the big world beyond their sewing basket home. There is a delightful illustration which shows the inside of the sewing basket from a Snippets’ eye view. The miniature dolls climb on cotton reels to reach the lid of the basket. They are brave but also cautious: Father has a coil of thread, and they are all tied together like explorers on a mountain.
Making Friends on the Way
‘The Snippets’ is full of different characters. As well as Marianne and her mother, who set the scene at the beginning, there are interesting new friends to meet on every page. The beautiful china Lavender Lady has lost her pet dog, Trinket. And when Father offers to search for him, the twins are not going to be left behind!
The intrepid trio hunt around Marianne’s bedroom, looking for Trinket. They encounter a dolls’ house full of toys, a roundabout man, a family of mice from the attic, and a knitted blue bear. Everyone helps to point the way and children love to follow the clues in this charming story. And, of course, a happy ending is never in doubt!
Published by LRM Books and printed in the UK. Available from Goldcrest Gallery.