When We Went to the Park

Cecile Ghosh was a librarian living in Rigaud, Quebec.

These are the first three of six titles in Hughes’s Nursery Collection. The series is about a little girl, her baby brother, her loving parents and grandfather, her sometimes chaotic household, and her cats and dog.

Each book develops a different concept. In Bathwater’s Hot, a book about opposites, the little girl enjoys a hot bath and a dip with mother in cold seawater. Opposites are illustrated on every page, as mother and child, and sometimes father, run through the day’s activities.

Again, the same concept is applied to Noisy, where activities pertaining to noises are illustrated. The short sentences have a musical rhythm and the illustrations are colourful and enchanting. Children listen to the splashing, splishing of falling rain, a purring cat, a crooning baby.

In When We Went to the Park, Grandpa takes his little granddaughter for a visit to the park, which turns into a counting game. The book communicates a joie de vivre as patient Grandpa and the little one count everything that crosses their path, from one lone cat to ten flying birds, before they head home for supper.

The books, in hardcover and beautifully illustrated, are delightful.