Once upon a time…

I cried when I tore the cover of my favourite childhood storybook. It was the first book I’d been given as a “big girl” – a compendium of fabulous stories by Ruth Ainsworth, with gorgeous illustrations by Shirley Hughes. It included a wealth of short stories that really appealed to my imagination, and I read it from cover to cover many times over the years.

I cried again as an adult, when I found I’d lost the book, and again a few months later, when my lovely cousin replaced it with a copy he’d found online. And guess what? I cried again when I first read it to my little ones! I do love that book.