At my favourite thrift store I recently found a treasure trove of great children's books both modern and vintage, Including Gyo Fujikawa's "Oh, What a Busy Day!" which is a big, treasury-style hardcover book with some of the sweetest illustrations and a lovely poetic writing style.
Fujikawa is one of my most loved illustrators for children and I remember many of the images from when I was a wee one. I don't remember which book or books I owned or got from the library, but all the pictures seem so familiar to me.
Fujikawa's work always depicts children of many races, which is pretty rare in vintage books.
David and I both love books, so the small person is already amassing quite a library. I love vintage books, but in so many of them the children are only blue-eyed and blonde haired. Even as a brown eyed and dark haired youngster I noticed that very few of the pictures ever looked like me, and I want to make sure that our child is surrounded by lots of positive depictions of children of all kinds. We live in a really multicultural city and I think that should be reflected in the books we read. I have a few other Fujikawa books and I'm always on the lookout for more.
Snuggling and reading with the small person is high on my list of things I'm looking forward to.