John Goodall Vintage Picture Books
Beautiful Wordless Books for Children
Children need to learn to love story. John Goodall's picture books are an excellent way to introduce young children to the delights of stories without words.
Discuss picture books and the consensus would be that picture books are books with words and pictures, such as Beatrix Potter’s books. A common definition for picture books would be books with a relatively high ratio of pictures to text. However, to the delight of the most visual of people, children, there are also picture books with no words yet the books have a clear and decisive plot. John Goodall published many books of that kind. However, finding any biographical information about John Goodall or even a good bibliography of his books on the internet is nearly impossible. One thing it is easy to find out about Goodall is that many people love his book.
Popular Author
Search for a Goodall book and read the reviews and you discover multitudes of reviews that run in one of two themes. Something like this “I had this Goodall book when I was a child and I loved it. I want to introduce my children to his books.” or “We got this Goodall book and my children love it. The illustrations are beautiful and the stories are funny.”
Illustrative Style
Goodall’s illustrations are done in highly detailed watercolor, they are realistic yet slightly dreamy. Many of Goodall’s books feature a split page format that moves the story through each scene. John Goodall illustrated books by other authors. He also created his own historical picture books and picture storybooks.
Historical Picture Books
Among his historical picture books are The Story of a Farm and The Story of a Castle. The Story of a Farm presents a visual history of the development of farm life in an English settlement starting in the early Middle Ages when we see pictured a group of swineherds scoping out a meadow. The book progresses through the subsequent pages that show how the farm changes throughout the years and ends on an overview of a prosperous farm of today with old buildings and modern machinery.
The Story of a Castle presents the history of castles. Beginning with Norman’s who build a castle in the 1170’s through the hundreds of years of transformation to the present age where it is a museum and tourist attraction. We see the selection of the site and the construction of the castle. We see the variety of lives lived in a castle from soldier to cook, from gardener to nobility. We see a castle in times of prosperity and celebration and times of war and scarcity. Each era of the castle’s life is beautifully illustrated with great detail.
Picture Story Books
Many if not most of Goodall’s storybooks are illustrated with mice or other small rodents as the actors. From his original and creative Naughty Nancy and Shrewbettina’s Birthday to his stereotypical Creepy Castle and his delightful rendition of Little Red Riding Hood. The stories are beautifully illustrated gems. The stories mentioned here are all illustrated in his split page format.
For example, in Naughty Nancy, we follow Nancy, a small mouse, who is a flower girl at a wedding. In one scene, we see her watching as a canopy is hammered up and the red carpet is rolled down the aisle. Turn the half page and the scene changes and we see Nancy rolling up the carpet as it is laid out.
In Shrewbettina’s Birthday, we see Shrewbettina being presented a thief who stole her purse while in the distance we see the approaching cop. Turn the half page and the scene changes and we see Shrewbettina’s hero hand her the purse while politely doffing his cap while in the background we see the thief being hauled away by the cop.
In Conclusion
Children love these books. The illustrations are beautiful, the detail fascinating, and the stories fun. What children like best is the freedom to create their own story as they go. For children to want to read, they have to love story and have a sense of story and John Goodall’s books are an excellent way to introduce your children to the delight of story without the stress and pressure of text.
