Brambly
Hedge Nature Coloring Book. By Jill
Barklem. HarperCollins. $10.99.
The world, it seems, gets more complex all the time – and more
overwhelming. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to retreat, however briefly, to a
simpler era, a more-accommodating one, a time when problems were small and
easily solved and an overriding sense of community rather than oppositional
groupthink was the norm?
Whether any such time and place existed and whether, if it did, it was
really idyllic, is beside the point when it comes to gentle nostalgia. And
gentle nostalgia is exactly what the Brambly Hedge books by Jill Barklem
(1951-2017) offered from their first appearance (1980) through their last
(1994) – and continue to offer today through ongoing spinoffs such as the Brambly Hedge Nature Coloring Book.
One particularly lovely thing about kids-or-adults coloring books like
this one is that they are participatory. In addition to text taken from
Barklem’s books about a colony of mice living in a hedgerow in the British
countryside – and encountering and solving various difficulties even smaller
than the mice themselves – the Brambly
Hedge Nature Coloring Book shows some of Barklem’s charming illustrations
in black and white and invites readers/artists to become part of the world of
the hedgerow by coloring the pictures in accordance with their own thoughts and
desires. This can be an exceptionally relaxing activity, carrying with it no
particular artistic demands – in fact, the illustrations are lovely without any
coloring at all, so this book can be enjoyed simply for its fantasy setting and
gentleness. The actual coloring can, of course, be done anytime and at the whim
of the reader/artist, providing a sense of control that all too often seems to
be missing in our real-world hustle and bustle and technology-permeated lives.
The Brambly Hedge books were throwbacks from the start, reflections of
the same kind of magical thinking and fairy-tale imagination found in A.A.
Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh stories and other predecessors of Barklem’s
pleasantries. Even the names of Barklem’s mice revivify old-fashioned character
naming: Primrose Woodmouse, Teasel Toadflax, Poppy Eyebright, Mrs Crustybread
and others. The anthropomorphic clothing and facial expressions of the
characters also reflect earlier stories, such as those of Beatrix Potter. But
Barklem put her own stamp on the gentle-animal-fantasy genre through her
portrayal of the quotidian concerns of a thoroughly engaging group going
through the small ups and equally small downs of everyday existence in a way
that draws attention to the small pleasures that we humans tend to take
altogether too much for granted. “Mrs Apple sniffed the sweet air and went down
to the kitchen to make a pot of elderflower tea,” writes Barklem, and the words
transport readers to a place of simple joys that seem somehow just out of our
grasp in the hectic modern world. The chance to color this “very kindly mouse”
and the pretty tea tray she is carrying is an opportunity to participate, if
only briefly, in a time and place that seem all the more valuable because of
their nonexistence.
Every scene in the Brambly Hedge
Nature Coloring Book is worth a bit of time to enjoy, taking in the few accompanying
words and focusing on the illustrations even before finding ways to colorize
them (or choose not to). One full page shows a picnic, with several “nettlestem
cloths” spread on the ground (ants are not an issue here), two adult mice
napping peacefully beneath flower stalks while young mice chase each other in
the background. Another illustration, sprawling across two pages, offers a
more-detailed look at picnic preparations: hampers of foods of all sorts (the
coloring possibilities are endless) being arranged, opened and looked into by
mice in clothing of all types and styles. One entire sequence within the Brambly Hedge Nature Coloring Book is
about the wedding of Miss Poppy Enbright and Mr Dusty Dogwood, and there are
pictures galore featuring the fields and flowers and foods that become part of
the ceremony, in which the two are united “in the name of the flowers and the
fields, the stars in the sky, and the streams that flow down to the sea” before
the newlyweds are shown about to enter their home in “the primrose woods…the
perfect place for a honeymoon.” Perfection is omnipresent here.
It is important to realize that the small scale of Brambly Hedge life does not come without difficulties – but that those too are small-scale. Even the occasional rainstorm here is suitably mild: one delightful page shows various mice scurrying about carrying their babies as raindrops fall, gently, everywhere on the scene. And when it comes to a day that is “just right for an adventure,” that turns out to involve a boat ride to the seashore, a day of dominoes indoors and sand-palace building outdoors, and an eventual meal where the biggest issue is the reluctance of one child to eat “marsh samphire” (sea asparagus). The Brambly Hedge Nature Coloring Book, like other coloring books in this lovely series – and like Barklem’s original stories – is equally suitable for children and adults, for colorists and for those who are content simply to enjoy the black-and-white renditions of idealized life in a time and place that never were but that still tap into the inexhaustible reservoir of nostalgia that we begin to fill early in life and continue to accumulate as times marches inexorably onward.
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