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Author: Gary Clay Article source: http://www.articlealley.com/. Used with author's permission.
This is Appletree Farm, this is Mrs Boot the farmer, she has two children called Poppy and Sam..... This was the opening page of every story in the much loved Farmyard Tales stories and is no doubt burned into the memories of thousands of children and the parents that no doubt read it to them!
Farmyard Tales are a series of children's books from UK publisher's ?Usborne Books' that have been immensely popular throughout the world and have helped to teach many thousands of children to read and develop an interest in books. The books were the work of writer Heather Amery and artist Stephen Cartwright and were initially designed to encourage children to read by having two levels of text on each page - one simple sentence at the top of the page, one or more slightly harder ones at the bottom, all written under the critical eye of Betty Root, an expert in the teaching of reading.
However, it was quickly realised that the attraction of the books, and the reason for their amazing popularity was the charming illustrations Cartwright produced and the wonderful stories that appealed to parents as much as children.
The Farmyard Tales stories centre on the activities of a farmer, Mrs Boot, her two children Poppy and Sam and their animals including Curly The Pig, Rusty The Dog and Woolly the Sheep. Adventure is generally never far away and usually driven by the mischievous activities of the farms principal animals and a diverse range of visitors to the farm. The gentle pace of the stories made them perfect bedtime reading which was a large part of the success of the series and led to many spin offs including pop up books, cookbooks and jigsaw books amongst others.
The star of the show though had to be Stephen Cartwright's trademark drawing style that created the loveable characters that inhabited Appletree Farm. Cartwright did nearly all of his work for Usborne books starting off illustrating factual books for children before settling on books for a younger market. On the advice of the publisher Cartwright (and Amery) had invented a little ?signature' for himself of including a little yellow toy duck in every picture. Since then every picture Cartwright produced had this little yellow duck hiding somewhere on the page which created great sport for eagle eyed children and eventually became so popular that he had his own spin off series.
The Farmyard Tales series now extends to nearly 100 books and has been translated into a myriad of different languages. The animal characters finally came of the page recently in the form of the Farmyard Tales Soft Toys which included the ubiquitous yellow duck!
Sadly Stephen Cartwright Died in February 2004 leaving behind his wife Di ,two children, and millions of adoring young readers around the world. His amazing drawings will no doubt live on for decades to come and help to introduce new generations to the joy of reading and the naughty activities of Curly the Pig!
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