Around the World with You: Kate Maryon

It's amazing how our blog journey Around the World has a way of bringing us to a place close to home - to a place made all the more beautiful by someone's personal story.  The inspiring Children's Author Kate Maryon tells us of this place that has a deep emotional resonance for her.

My favourite place in the world is Heaven's Gate on the Longleat Estate in Wiltshire. I discovered it in 1996 when, three days after my mum died, I packed my car and left my life in London behind. I took my two children (then aged 8+6) a bag of clothes, three bicycles and a copy of Pippi Longstocking, and rented a house in Horningsham where I spent the next 9 months grieving. After a month my sister and her three kids joined us and we all lived together for a while. Most mornings, after dropping our kids at school, my sister and I would walk through the incredible woods surrounding us and sit on one of the benches at Heaven's Gate to cry. We cried out our traumatic childhoods, our broken marriages, our lost dreams and the death of our lovely mum. The view at Heaven's Gate is so amazing, almost magical, borderline biblical in it's sweeping beauty that, like a balm, it somehow soothed our inner turmoils. It offered us space to breathe, to feel ourselves as more than the painful drama of our lives. And from that special place we learned, baby step by baby step, to live again.
Now it's a place I go if I'm feeling happy or sad. It offers the most amazing sunsets. It reminds of how wonderful it is to be alive.

Thank you Kate for sharing your place and your incredible story xx

*************

From such an experience must be born more stories - stories that need to be told -  and it is very exciting to discover Kate's books.

Kate Maryon writes books that take the reader on a journey, 'on a kind of exploration, so they end up wondering... What would my life be like if this thing happened to me?
 
Kate's books with titles such as 'A Sea of Stars' and 'A Million Angels' are real life stories with topical issues. They are aimed at girls aged 8-12 - that time of significant experience and questioning, when life can throw difficult things at you, as the path to adulthood can be fraught.  Yet there is still magic to hold on to.
Kate expresses it so beautifully:
I want kids to know that they are a gift waiting to be unwrapped by life, that they have talents and possibilities beyond their wildest dreams. I get them to promise that however difficult life gets they'll never give up on their dreams and that the only thing in life worth anything is Love. I hope to inspire them to follow their truth and live their bliss.

Here is where you will find Kate, for those of you who wish to connect, share a story, find her books and spread some love - as that's what it's all about!

www.katemaryon.co.uk

http://www.facebook.com/katemaryonbooks

https://twitter.com/KateFJMaryon

---

Where's your favourite place? 

Perhaps it's granny's garden, your local park, a far-flung island, a museum, or cafe. Perhaps it's a building in your city, a shop window, a shady spot under a tree.

Whatever, wherever your favourite place is we want to share it.

Here's how to get involved:

•    Send us a picture of your favourite place  - or we can source one for you as we have above.
•    Tell us where it is. If you'd like to tell us why even better.
•    Email it to : info@sistersguild.com

We will share each one, each week, here on our blog and we will create an interactive global map of all the places we receive, building a community of people and places and making our global neighbourhood that little bit closer.

So, put your place upon the map and shout a big 'Hello'

Imagine all the people all the places we could know

The Art of Living: Brian Wildsmith

Pelican, Brian Wildsmith at Illustration Cupboard

I'm thrilled to have recently received a card from Illustration Cupboard (a place I shared with you here) for the Brian Wildsmith exhibition.  He is one of the most memorable and most favourite artists from my childhood (peek at Granny's Bookcase). It's been a pleasure to share with my boys some of my well-loved Brian Wildsmith illustrated tales.  And now...his work is on show.

The Blue Bird, Front Cover - Brian Wildsmith at Illustration Cupboard

Illustration Cupboard will showcase some original paintings and black ink graphic artwork too, some of which are so wild and detailed.  It sees the first showing of Brian Wildsmith's costume designs for The Blue Bird.  So exciting...A special trip to London is in order.

July 11th - Aug 4th at Illustration Cupboard

---

This is part of 'The Art of Living' collection. We also have other stories and features including our 'Monday Makery', 'I Spy' and our weekly 'Wednesday Woo'. Check out our Summer Fun too with 100 ideas for fun games and play this summer. If you want to see our latest loves take a look here.

Want to take a look behind the scenes of Sisters Guild? Our A-Z is here where we share a sentimental journey through family life.

If you'd like to receive our weekly newsletter to receive offers and news and find out the about our new collections sign up below.

sistersguild.com

Happy Valentines Day

My Valentine's evening has consisted of eating a big heart shaped chocolate brownie with my 4 year old son and reading 2 of our favourite bedtime stories: Penguin and Lost & Found.  Both stories happen to be about the friendship between a boy and a penguin, and have the perfect combination of humour and heart-warmingness!

Full of love...

'Everything' Penguin, Polly Dunbar

When all hope seemed gone, the two friends finally found each other. Lost and Found, Oliver Jeffers

The Art of Living: Granny's Bookcase

We are currently staying at Granny's house and spending time rediscovering the bookshelf.  It's amazing to share my childhood books with my son and to journey back to a time when I would sit for hours and ponder over the pictures.  Looking at them again takes me right back as I recall the emotions they evoked and the dreams they inspired.

As children we were always given books as gifts, for which I am so grateful. We also visited the library regularly and we would buy books in the library sales as well as charity shops - something I still do now.  Some of these books still have the library stamp and '25p' felt-tipped on them, along with our own scribbles, grubby marks and food stains, which make them all the more precious relics of the past.

The Hare and the Tortoise based on a fable by La Fontaine, illustrated by Brian Wildsmith, 1966

Brian Wildsmith is one of my favourite Children's Illustrators. He uses pencil chalk, pastel, watercolour and ink to create the most vivid pictures full of nature and movement.  The details of the animals, the meadow grasses and flowers are so beautiful and full of warmth and wonder.  This one has become Gabe's new favourite, for the story as well as the pictures.

The Lazy Bear, Brian Wildsmith, 1973

The Lazy Bear is a great story about friendship with animals drawn in such detail, and a landscape so colourful it stays etched in your mind.

Teddybears 1 to 10 by Susanna Gretz, 1969

This Teddybears book is so memorable mainly because as a child I was quite concerned for the bears as they spun round the washing machine and were pegged out to dry!

Thumbelina, based on the story by Hans Christian Anderson, Illustrated by Elsa Beskow, 1979

 Thumbelina is one of the Hans Christian Anderson stories of which I am most fond, due to having this book read to me from a young age.  I was fascinated by how the tiny girl saved a birds life and who in turn saves her!  The images are so delicate and nostalgic.

The Ships Cat by Alan Aldridge and Richard Adams, 1977

The pictures in The Ships Cat are so vivid in my memory but I couldn't tell you what the story is about.  Reading it now it is quite an unusual story written in verse, it feels more like a grown-up book than a childs.  My own 3 year old is now fascinated by the pictures as I was.  The one that I remember filling me with terror as a child was the one above of the cat chained up in the dungeon - quite macabre!

The Butterfly Ball and the Grasshopper's Feast by Alan Aldridge and William Plomer, 1973

The Butterfly Ball is another book that I remember clearly as I was completely beguiled by the imagery.  The amazing creature creations are the stuff of dreams, they would make a fantastic animation. As a child I studied all the detail of the elaborate clothing and acessories the creatures wore, and the scenes full of wonder. Apparently the book won the Whitbread Children's Book of the Year award on its release in 1973 - it surely is a classic of the 70's. 

Cannonball Simp by John Birmingham, 1966

John Birmingham is another of my favourite childrens illustrators and I'm always on the lookout for his books for Gabe.  Cannonball Simp is about an ugly little dog who is abandoned.  There's a picture of the abandoned dog that I remember making me feel quite sad - and it still does!  But then the dog finds a friend, a circus clown who is equally lonely.  Together they make an impressive team.  One of the pictures that I loved - so much so that I coloured it all in - is the one above of the party.  It was probably the big cake that appealed!

Joseph's Yard by Charles Keeping, 1969

These two books by Charles Keeping were ones that appealed to me as a curious and thoughtful child.  Maybe because the stories scared me a little.  Joseph's Yard is about destroying something you love and I remember feeling the anguish of the boy.  The images are very powerful with scrawls of ink and colour washes - they are full of all the elements and express so well the emotions of the story.

Wasteground Circus by Charles Keeping, 1975

The Wasteground Circus is about how a desolate urban landscape is taken over by a circus and how the boys discover so much life and colour.  The book used to fill me with fear and fascination maybe as it was set in the city and it was about 2 boys who looked quite cool!  As you turn each page a rainbow of colour evolves until the boys return to their black and white landscape.

Do any of you remember these books from your childhood? What are the books with stories or imagery that have lingered in your mind?  And do you still have copies of them?  Do share them with us here.

---

This is part of the Art of Living series of posts that bring you all the things we are passionate about and the things we discover in our lives as mamas.

In our Wednesday Woo blog post series we present a selection of things from the Sisters Guild Boutique.

We also have a Monday Makery with ideas for things to make yourself.

And for a glimpse behind the scenes of Sisters Guild we have the A-Z of Sisters Guild here 

www.sistersguild.co.uk