New children’s book exhibitions: a review feature


 A Drink of Water which came out in 1960. (It may have been preceded that year by Come Here till I Tell You, humorous texts by Patrick Campbell  Spectator.) John, who was a friend  have something to offer a publisher and Faber took a chance on this           colour separations.


The stories, which were invented or adapted animal fables were succinct and good for reading aloud, with some delectable phrasing:


‘“Fmoo, fmoo!” [roared the bear] at the top of his voice, which is, as you know, bear singing’.


‘[The crane] didn’t invite the heron to sit down with her as there wasn’t enough room for all the legs...’


and the drawings, which also included some black and white vignettes in the text, made a perfect match. It was worthy start to the wonders that would follow.


As is the way of things however, A Drink of Water became lost from view and is now a rare book. The partnership though continued (Yeoman’s little story of The Boy who Sprouted Antlers later) and now, forty-seven years later, the Yeoman/Blake collaborations have achieved a total of some 29 titles. There may not be any magic in those numbers but you don’t need round numbers or anniversaries as an excuse for celebrating so fruitful a partnership and this year it has been  & Hudson (a newish name for children’s book publishing) together with a brilliant addition to the canon as a special birthday present to Klaus Flugge and his Andersen Press.


This is All the Year Round whose joyous contents are made plain on the cover: ‘Every month in rhyme, from spring to wintertime’ below the  laden girl. Nothing could be simpler. Each month arrives on a recto with an  as you turn the leaf to the verso:-


August I found a super bathing-place, concealed among the trees.  I use it most in August (there’s just me and several sheep) The water’s warm and tempting... …


...But it’s only ankle-deep.


And of course, every event is garnished with the parade of Blakean characters, all of whom I am sure we have met before, in equally frantic circumstances, colourful in their garb and bounding with energy. It would be a spoiler to give away the wonderful ending contrived for December.





House of Illustration has mounted a small exhibition of select artwork from nine of  of A Drink of Water, and a lone, lorn paperback copy of The Boy who Sprouted Antlers. There are mostly four representative pictures from each selected book, some grouped within a single frame and all either in pen and ink or pen and watercolour on watercolour paper. It makes for a cheering but extremely puzzling display.


It may sound a tad obvious, but the art of illustration (which the House is founded to celebrate) presupposes the linking of graphic work to some functional purpose: a cartoon joke, an advertising slogan, a poem, or a told story. The latter purpose is particularly relevant in this case for the whole show is predicated on the long collaboration between a single            of the background to the books of either) is confronted with is a set of images almost entirely unmoored from their fellows or from the authorial contents of the books which they are designed to accompany.


I have compiled what is a near enough complete list of the collaborative work (follow the link) and this will indicate the versatility of John Yeoman’s inventive gifts which are sadly neither fully represented nor explained in the pictures on the walls. The illustrations from Sixes and Sevens which are shown with the typographic text pasted on ready for the printer at least give a clue that this is a jovial counting book but viewers must   that knowing the stories would give, ought not the customers be told that John Yeoman contrived a rhymed text for The Foskett Family Circus  Is it not of interest that the two pictures from The Heron and the Crane,  in A Drink of Water (I have not been able to check if the text was in  confused titling of  (1975) from which all the watercolours are taken, one of which was dropped from the Macmilllan edition of 1991 which was retitled The World’s Laziest Duck and introduced two new pictures including that from which the new volume took its title (not in the exhibition).


l to r: John Yeoman, Klaus Flugge and Quentin Blake 20 Books for Keeps No.227 November 2017


The Improbable Records is, for me, one of the great books of the partnership and I was sorry that several others, such as The Wild Washerwomen     Do-It-Yourself House that Jack Built (1994) were not present to add their visual delights to the     with John Yeoman’s vital texts. The show runs at the House till 4th March 2018 after which it is planned to move to larger venues with  possibly distracting notices, it would be lovely to know that some sort of hand-list could accompany it so that this great partnership was more fully celebrated.


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