A First Picture Book of Nursery Rhymes

The illustrations, all important in a Nursery Rhyme book, are very stylised here, very cool, very restrained; soft brick pinks, yellow and duck egg blue predominate. The characters are dressed variously in 18th- and 19th-century styles, the stiffness of Harbour's figures echoing the formality of style. Pattern and symmetry abound - Polly and Sukey swoop in from either side of a roundel to attend to the kettle; 'Six little mice' sit down to spin in an exquisitely decorated Victorian dolls' house; the King and Queen of Hearts preside over tea in a stage-set of a palace. There is much to delight here; the pictures reflect the origins of some of our best-known rhymes thus giving a timeless quality to images that might not seen immediately appealing to the contemporary child.