A House in the Woods by Inga Moore

Two little pigs build their houses in the woods. Sadly, after a day of exploring, they return to find Bear has moved into one house and it is wrecked and Moose has moved into the other house and that one is wrecked too. This all means the two pigs and Bear and Moose have nowhere to live. Then Moose suggests they could work together and build one big and perfect house for all of them. Well yes they could attempt this project but really they need some experts 

"so Moose called the Beavers on the telephone ... "

The Beavers are happy to help but in exchange they want peanut butter sandwiches. This is agreed and so the construction begins. 

"and by tea time the roof was on. (The lunch and tea times were on different days of course. Beavers are fast, but not that fast.)"

The sweet happy ending and those six plates of peanut butter sandwiches make this a perfect book to read aloud to your preschool or Kindergarten group.

Betsy Bird says: Now I have read A House in the Woods by Inga Moore and I can already tell you that twenty or thirty or forty years from now a man or woman will be asked what their favorite picture book was as a child and they will describe the images here. Maybe they won’t remember the exact title. Maybe they’ll blank on the author’s name. But what they won’t forget is the feeling of perfect contentment and peace brought about through Moore’s combination of image and text. This is the picture book equivalent of a warm, soothing bubble bath.

When you open this book make sure you take time to linger over the end papers. And if uou read the review by Betsy Bird you will be alerted to look for some other tiny details. 

A House in the Woods is an old book and of course it is sadly now out of print but you might be lucky and find a copy in a library. A House in the Woods is a NSW Premier's Reading Challenge book K-2 [24439].

Companion books:

Waiting for Winter

A House for Wombats

Decades ago I saw my first book illustrated by Inga Moore and I fell in love with her art style.

The Vegetable Thieves

In my former libraries I had copies of Aktil's Big Swim and Aktil's Bicycle Ride. Other books illustrated by Inga Moore are:

Six Dinner Sid

Here is a full list of books illustrated and written by Inga Moore:

• Aktil's Big Swim (Oxford University Press, 1980)
• Aktil's Rescue (Oxford University Press, 1982)
• The Vegetable Thieves (Andersen Press Ltd, 1983; Viking Press, 1984, ISBN 9780670743803)
• A Big Day for Little Jack (1984)
• The Truffle Hunter (Andersen Press Ltd, 1985)
• Fifty Red Night-caps (Walker, 1988, ISBN 9780744517835)
• Rose and the Nightingale (London: Andersen Press, 1988)
• The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (Prentice Hall, 1989)
• Six-Dinner Sid (Simon & Schuster, 1990, ISBN 9780750003049)
• Oh, Little Jack (1992)
• The Little Apple Tree (1994)
• Six Dinner Sid: A Highland Adventure (2010)
• A House in the Woods (Candlewick Press, 2011)
• Captain Cat (Walker Books, 2012, ISBN 9781406337303)
• Moose's Book Bus (Candlewick Press, 2021)

You might also look for her editions of Wind in the Willows; The Secret Garden; Anne of Green Gables and The Reluctant Dragon. For a short time Inga Moore lived in Australia but she now lives in the UK. 

Six Dinner Sid by Inga Moore

Tuesday Treasure

Sid, the black cat lives on Aristotle Street. The people who live on this street don't talk to one another. This is lucky for Sid because it means he can enjoy six delicious meals each day but he does have to use six different identities. He is known as Scaramouche, Bob, Satan, Sally, Sooty and Schwartz. Life is good for Sid until the day he catches a cold which turns in to a cough. Each family takes him to the vet - that's six vet visits and six doses of medicine. Luckily the vet becomes suspicious. He checks the records and discovers there are six cats living on Aristotle Street all with a bad cough.

The people from Aristotle Street gather together. "When they discovered what he had been up to, Sid's owners were furious. They said he had no business eating so many dinners."  Every one agrees Sid will only have one meal each day but this does not suit Sid. He moves on to Pythagoras Place where again there are six houses and hopefully six dinners but unlike Aristotle Street, the people who live in Pythagoras Place do talk to one another. Can Sid still enjoy his six dinners?

In 1990 I showed Six Dinner Sid with a Kindergarten teacher. From then on, for over 30 years, various Kindergarten teachers continued to share this wonderful book with their students along with Scallywag which makes an excellent companion or comparison text.

There is a second story about Sid.

Inga Moore was born in the UK but lived in Australia as a child. She is the illustrator of several classic stories such as The Secret Garden and The Wind in the Willows.  She is also the illustrator of a book I really love - The Vegetable Thieves. Six Dinner Sid won the Nestle Smarties Prize in 1990. Her two earliest books - Aktil's Big Swim and Aktil's Bicycle Ride are on my Tuesday treasure list. I am still hoping to come across copies of these so I can share them here.

Gardens and Gardening some books to explore

If you have a garden and a library 

you have everything you need.

I will confess I do not have a garden but I do love books about gardens especially picture books for young readers and simple non fiction. My fascination is probably linked with the classic book The Secret Garden. The edition above is illustrated by Inga Moore.  I also was lucky last year to participate in a garden tour in England and my visit to the High Line in New York city is also an experience I treasure.

There are so many topics to explore when you focus on gardens and gardening - seeds, trees, flowers, spring, sustainability, gardens in impossible places (The curious Garden by Peter Brown), magical plants (The Lollipop Tree) and more.  This topic came to mind this week when I spied We are the Gardeners in a bookshop, I purchased Jasper's Beanstalk in a book reminder store and I borrowed Jody's Beans from a school library because it is one of my Tuesday Treasure titles. 

Here are a few garden related books which I especially like. I could have listed many more. If I have added a colour title you can click the link to read more. You might find these in a school or public library. Some are quite old and of course sadly out of print and one or two here are very new such as the wonderful One Tree illustrated by Bruce Whatley.

Ice Flowers

Take a look at this blog post by Children's Books Daily for more titles to explore on this topic. I wish you happy gardening and reading!

The Vegetable Thieves by Inga Moore

First off I do need to give a little warning here.  You probably won't find a copy of The Vegetable Thieves.  It is long out of print and unlikely to be held in a public library or even a school library.  All of this makes me sad but I do want to share this book with you.

One of the wonders of the Internet is book shopping and especially second hand book shopping. From time to time I have thought about The Vegetable Thieves (1983) which I first read and enjoyed in 1985. I decided to see if I could find a copy somewhere in the world.  Tonight my copy (in mint condition) arrived.  It even smells good.

Inga Moore was born in England, lived in Australia and then moved back to England.  A very popular book in our school library is Six Dinner Sid by Inga Moore and I still read two of her earliest books occasionally - Aktil's big Swim and Aktil's bicycle ride.  I also really love The truffle hunter. More recently Inga Moore has illustrated Wind in the Willows and The Secret Garden.

Des and Letty work very hard in their market garden.  It is successful but the personal price is high.  Every night they collapse exhausted - there isn't even time for a stroll home after the movies.

"Then one night, thieves came.  ... By the end of the week they'd taken two cauliflowers, six swedes, a string of onions, a sack of potatoes, leeks, parsley and a very large savoy cabbage."

Can you guess the recipe?  Can you imagine the identity of these thieves.  I do think you will get a surprise and since you probably won't be able to find this book I will tell you.  Des and Letty try to keep watch but after another hard day they fall asleep.  When they wake up they see a trail of empty broad bean pods.  They follow the trail and discover a group of mice eating broad beans, "done up nicely in leek and parsley sauce!"

Des and Letty are outraged.  They burst in with their sticks raised.  Only to discover the thieves are actually children.  They have no parents and their uncle has run off to join the circus.  The children's money has run out so they have been pinching things.

Letty makes a plan.  Rona, Reggie, Ronnie, Sid and Rita come to the market garden the next day after school.  They help with all the garden chores and Letty cooks a lovely dinner of pumpkin pie, bean hotpot and (I love the sound of this) steamed strawberry pudding.  The four little mice go home but the next day they turn up again on the doorstep with all their belongings.  The final illustration shows the whole group enjoying an evening game of shuttlecock - just charming.