Small Rain

A favorite childhood book was Small Rain, by Jesse Orton Jones and her sister Elizabeth Orton Jones (Viking Press, 1943).   I loved the image on the cover.

Look closely at that image.  The same drawing is reproduced inside, without the strong color:

What book are the children reading? What image is on its cover?

And, what about those tiny children on that smaller book?

And, the ones on the tiny-tiny book they are holding? I was fascinated, thinking about how far this series might go...



I savored the pictures in this book as my mother read the accompanying verses. Here's a page with special meaning for me:

  [Click image to enlarge]

Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands...

I loved looking at these children, with such joy on their faces as they played and sang together.  I especially liked the girl with the drum, and the one with the tambourine.

Sandy with tambourine, July 29, 2017

Who knew that I would later (decades later) become a drummer, and in my 70's play tambourine, too!  For instance, I just played with twelve other musicians at a "Free as You Want To Be" festival in Greenfield, MA; we definitely made a joyful noise.

Back to the book...
I want to share a few other images. Here's a very calm, quiet one from the front of the book:

Here's a closeup of one part of a page, with girls picking spring flowers.

Note the bunnies hidden along the bottom border. Throughout the book there are details like this to discover if you look carefully.

As a child I especially liked the way some pictures "escaped" beyond the picture frame. A good example is the schoolyard scene:

 Note the boys hanging on the picture frame!

Last month I mentioned this book in a blog entry (see previous post below).  It introduced me, at a very young age, to endearing images of children – white, Black, Asian – playing happily together. Our town of Danvers lacked such diversity in my childhood. This book provided a valuable view of a more inclusive world.