Letter Number One

My Dear Mr Finch!

Many thanks for your last letter. Life on Swemmit sounds positively idyllic, as does the array of strange and unusual cakes made by Aloysius. Maybe one day I can visit and try one for myself!

Anyway - as you know, I’ve long wanted to write and draw picture books for children because they combine everything I love about storytelling and using pictures to tell stories. I had an accident about two years ago where I broke my wrist and couldn’t draw comfortably for a long time (before that I rarely stopped), but have recently started to create again and with a focus on picture books. Thanks to your great idea, I’m going to review a few favourites in letters to you to try and see why they work so well and hopefully will learn things so I can work towards making them myself.

Today’s choice is… When The Wind Blew by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrated by Geoffrey Hayes. It was originally illustrated by Rosalie Slocum but Hayes redid the art in the seventies which is a shame because the original art is lovely - it’s very Wanda Gag in places, and full of character and some particularly gorgeous use of colour. But Hayes art is I have to say particularly beautiful and full of character - each of the “seventeen cats and one little blue grey kitten” is drawn with genuine care and love which helps the story because clearly that’s the position of the hero of the story, the old, old lady.

Margaret Wise Brown’s most famous book is obviously Goodnight Moon, a boom I’m familiar with but don’t know very well (I mean to rectify that soon - plus she sounds a fascinating woman, I have a biography on the way any day now!), and this seems a more minor work compared to that and her lovely Little Golden Books. Nothing much seems to happen beyond the old, old lady taking her seventeen cats and one little blue grey kitten out for a walk and then feeding them.

And then the wind blows. It’s not the wind itself that’s the problem - although Hayes manages one wonderful picture of terrified cats who look for the world that they’re going to be thrown skywards any moment (my wife used to worry our cat Cluedo would blow away when she was only a few months old). Instead the old, old lady gets a toothache and because she really just lives to look after her beloved cats she begins to worry.

Hayes beautifully shows the old, old lady is more anxious than anything else. He goes to great lengths to stress her role as a care giver for the cats, clearly worrying most about who will look after them rather than herself. A lesser artist would make her cross or irritable or even just in significant levels of pain. But Hayes shows her as just someone who worries because of her responsibilities.

The solution to her tooth pain is simple and lovely and, frankly, one of the most relatable things I’ve ever seen in a picture book. The little blue grey kitten (I particularly love how Brown keeps repeating certain phrases here, giving the book a sort of emotional foundation through repetition) simply snuggles up to old, old lady’s face and in lieu of a hot water bottle (she no longer has one) provides her with the warmth, comfort and relief she so desperately needs.

My cats do this, although mostly to my wife i have to admit. I’m forever waking up to find Spooky and Cluedo sprawled on her in the night, sometimes for their comfort and sometimes for their own. But Cluedo - heading towards fifteen now, and fast shrinking back to kitten size - is particularly the one who clearly sees adoration of her human mum as the reciprocal be all and end all. She snuggles up to her at all hours, warm and safe and secure. My wife nearly teared up at the image of the kitten doing the same, it’s so well observed.

The book tells us the old, old lady simply forgets she ever had a toothache, which I’m not sure is entirely accurate, but given the loveliness of that image of the kitten providing warmth I’m very much willing to go with it. Kittens and cats provide so much solace in our moments of worry and concern and it’s lovely to see Brown and, many years later, Hayes recognise that.

(Incidentally, if you have any access to the original version of this by Rosalie Slocum, I’d love to see it and especially how the kitten’s snuggling is illustrated. I can only find scraps online sadly!)

Anyway, that’s it from me for today. Another letter and another book soon!

Chris Browning,
Todmorden, West Yorkshire, April 2026