WHERE MY WELLIES TAKE ME

With a keen and sensitive eye, a young English girl explores the Devon countryside.

A scrapbook is the perfect design element for the tale, as Pippa, on a visit to her aunt, shares her favorite pastimes: walking, horseback riding and poetry. Her first-person narration is on notebook paper in cursive writing, while the poetry selections are in old-fashioned Times New Roman. These range from traditional rhymes to a medley of English-language poets writing about cows, lambs and meadow mice, among other topics. Ted Hughes, William Butler Yeats, Rudyard Kipling, Walter de la Mare and John Tams, who wrote the songs for the stage production of War Horse, are among the poets represented. A festive and traditional May Day celebration concludes the day’s activities for Pippa. Gill’s mixed-media artwork features delicately nuanced paintings and sketches of local animals, trees and flowers, allowing readers to see them in close-up detail through Pippa’s eyes, along with the old churches, villages and fields that she slowly passes. Occasional flaps, gatefolds and transparent pages enhance the striking presentation. This is a first collaboration for the former English children’s laureate and his wife; all royalties benefit their charity, Farms for City Children.

“And all shall behold the seasons unfold” in this beautiful volume celebrating nature and verse in its most splendid quietude.