Little Gems

Weeding the shelves is sometimes like a treasure hunt.  Within the dusty covers of long neglected books, little gems can be found.

I pulled this book titled Come Away From the Water, Shirley, by John Burningham (1977) because it hadn't been checked out in a decade.

The title and the accompanying picture looked rather ominous to me and I wondered what this book could be about.  The picture makes me think some dark tragedy is about to occur but it turns out not to be the case.  A young girl with an active imagination plays at the beach while her parents lounge on the shore, lazily barking orders at her.

I came across one illustration that hit a little too close to home though.

Father sleeps under his newspaper while mother knits and drinks (presumably) coffee from a thermos.  The only thing that separates this picture from Mr. Richards and I is father's pipe parked on the ground next to him.