Pondering Posy

Have you ever read the cartoons of Posy Simmonds? I first borrowed Mrs Weber's Diary from our local library when I was about 10 (so, a long time ago!). I didn't really understand a lot of it, but I loved the way she assembled her assortment of characters and wove a series of stories about them, all through cartoon squares. It fed my own creative urges to invent 'little worlds' through writing. It only dawned on me much later that her charm and brilliance also lies in the fact that she is a delighfully wry and astute social commentator.

Above is my humble collection which I have mostly assembled by ordering them from here and there online (they never seem to be in secondhand bookshops locally) and I have to admit that when we were in England in 2000, I considered borrowing one on a fairly permanent basis I hadn't seen before from a public library (I didn't do it - my conscience got the better of me). I did, however, find her take on Madame Bovery at Waterstones on the same trip and was prepared to fork out 20 pounds to make it my own on what was an otherwise penny-pinching journey...the things we do for Posy!