All of it to everyone

Michael Foreman is one of the best-known and most prolific creators of children's books. He has written and illustrated hundreds of books over the years; any collector of children's books, whether adult or child will have some of them in their collection. This picture was taken in an exhibition at Seven Stories - The National Centre for Children's Books in Newcastle. A brilliant exhibition based on those books where he highlights things that threaten our world and tries to provide some hope for the future. The two pictures on the left are the original watercolour paintings for a very thoughtful book - One World.

And it was the idea of original art work for children's books that took us to this place today. We attended a talk about the archive of such material from many authors that is held in a centre in Gateshead. Staff, who work at the archive, brought a range of examples and, with white gloves on, we were able to handle and look closely at the paintings, drawings, sketch books from different artists. It was amazing to see the original art work from some very familiar books. A fascinating afternoon.
 
We took a long way round to get to Newcastle, so we could walk by the sea. What a glorious day it was. The extra photo was taken looking down on the beach at Tynemouth.