Book Sharing Monday - Spring

This week on Book Sharing Monday, I am in seasonal mode.  What To Look For In Spring, is a Ladybird Nature book, first published in 1961 and is written by E.L Grant Watson, illustrated by C F Tunnicliffe. The book takes you on a journey through the British countryside from the end of February until the end of May The illustrations are beautiful and it is amazing the detail that can be picked out.  The delightful prose is just as wonderful and, reading it,  one is transported back to a more sedate and courteous time.  The proper use of the English language, for me,  is such a joy to read and so enhanced the enjoyment of this book.

The moorhen builds her nest of reeds and sticks, which she piles one on top of the other, on a mud bank or amid clumps of reeds.  She makes it high enough to allow for the possible rise of the pond or lake.  Almost before she has finished it the green spearheads of rushes begin to pierce through the nest in search of light and air.  The moorhen lines her nest with feathers, and will lay as many as fourteen large eggs, in which the chicks do much of their development before they hatch. As soon as they are hatched they are able to swim and feed.  As a rule, their mother brings them up the hard way, and five chicks are lucky to survive from a clutch of fourteen.  The willow saplings are breaking into leaf, and the sycamore leaves are escaping from the bracts that have guarded them through the winter.

I've not done any bookshelf sharing for a while, so as we are sharing a Ladybird book this week, I thought I would show you my Ladybird shelf.   These were such great books when I was growing up - fifty pages of wonder for a very small sum.  The price on this one is 2/6 net!  Any birthday or Christmas money I had was usually spent on adding to my collection.  You could buy ladybird books on any subject under the sun, so most of my school project work was shamelessly plagiarised from the relevant ladybird book.  Many of my favourites were the beautifully illustrated fairy tales series 606d  Some of my original collection has disappeared over the years, but I still have quite a few. They are still available and as my family has grown, so has my stash of these great wee books. My cousin had the full set up to 1979 - he attained his Boy Scout collectors badge on the strength of his ladybird collection.  Unlike mine, where you will note torn spines creased covers and some coloured in bits (well, Cinderella's wedding dress just should have been yellow!) his are all pristine, and I fully expect to see them on the Antiques Roadshow sometime.
There are lots more interesting book shares at Alex's blog - Canadian Home Learning.  Please drop by and see what's there.