The Little Books of the Little Brontës
The childhoods of the Brontë family have inspired a number of picture book creators for all ages, particularly the playful worlds they wrote about in tiny books. These include: The Brontës: Children of the Moors in which Mick Manning imagines Charlotte telling him their story; Anna Doherty’s The Brontës with the sisters drawn as early feminists demonstrating how their childhood creations inspired their later work; Isabel Greenberg’s excellent graphic novel Glass Town that immerses readers in their world building.
In this book Sara O’Leary and Briony May Smith have interpreted the Brontës’ childhoods for a younger age group, focusing very much on the writing and making of the little books. Readers are directly addressed and invited to look through the window of the Haworth parsonage, where Charlotte is creating a miniature book for her sister Anne. This intimate approach is carried through to an appendix with instructions on how to make a little book. The Brontës are left on a happier note than in other books that have seen them through to adulthood, and the author’s stated aim is to emphasise the joyful role imagination played in their early lives rather than some of its bleakness. ‘The books they write are tiny, but the worlds inside them are huge.’
This is echoed in Briony May Smith’s illustrations, which portray the children with round, rosy cheeked faces and convey their enjoyment of the resources they have to draw on, whether it is the toy wooden soldiers that stimulate their inventions or the wild moors close to their Haworth home.
For older readers who wish to delve further, a bibliography of adult books Sara O’Leary has consulted as sources is provided, as well as a timeline for context.
