How the Heather Looks : A Joyous Journey to the British Sources of Children's Books

A feast for any lover of English children's books. -Christian Herald

Over sixty years ago, Joan Bodger, her husband, and their two children traveled to the UK for the adventure of a lifetime. There, they sought to discover the lands they knew from their beloved children’s books. Come along and see for yourself the people and places behind the stories we love.

In Edinburgh, they stand outside the childhood home of Robert Louis Stevenson. They discover the countryside that inspired Caldecott's illustrations in Whitworth. In the Lake District, the farm where Jemima Puddle-duck laid her eggs. And in Winnie the Pooh Country Mrs. Milne herself shows the way to “that enchanted place on the top of the Forest [where] a little boy and his Bear will always be playing.” Join their adventures, from sleeping in a wagon to “messing about” in boats on the Thames. While not all their quests end in victory, like any marvelous story, how they get there is what matters.

While we can’t all make the journey ourselves, we can let Joan Bodger take us along. As Emily Dickinson says, even if we “have never seen a moor”, we can still imagine “how the heather looks.”

How the Heather Looks has been called ‘the book most often stolen by retiring children’s librarians”. This new edition features the stunning art by Mark Lang, and the authors’ afterword, written thirty years after the book was first released.