I first read this book in French. I live in Paris and it was new at our local bookshop. I loved the pictures immediately. In French, it is called, 'Le Petit Brown' - but when I read it, it sounded like a small French boy's voice in my head and although there is nothing wrong with that, the boy in the story lives in Manhattan and I felt he needed an American voice. So...we searched and searched and finally found a second-hand copy in the original English. Now the boy - who's called little boy Brown - sounds American through and through because he is telling the story in English.

It was the pictures that really interested me to begin with. They are all in black lines with brown and white. I think this is because it is a story about a character called little boy Brown - and in the story, it snows. So - black for the outlines, brown for Brown, and white for the snow. The man who drew the pictures was Romanian, but he went to live in Paris when he was nineteen and stayed in France for the rest of his life. He was called Andre Francois. He was Jewish, and when France was occupied by the Nazis during the Second World War, he had to go into hiding.

In the story, there is a family that little boy Brown goes to visit. I think that they too are probably Jewish and emigrated to the USA to escape the Nazi's. It says that they can 'all speak two different languages, and they can close their eyes and think about two different countries. They've been on the Ocean, and they've climbed high mountains. They are very wonderful people. They haven't got quite enough of anything. It makes it exciting when a little more comes!'. Perhaps Andre Francois was thinking about Romania or Austria or Hungary or somewhere like that because they are drawn imagining mountains and forests and onion-domed churches and cows with bells around their necks and wooden chalets - as well as hot air balloons and a big ship sailing across the ocean. I think the mountains and forests, churches, chalets and cows come from his own memories of Romania.

Little boy Brown lives in a big city. From the pictures, it looks like Manhattan, New York City. He lives in a hotel with his mummy and daddy. His parents don't ever have to go outside because there is a lift carrying them all the way down into the subway station and from the subway station all the way up into their workplaces. His father works in an office, his mother in a department store. Whenever his mother and father do actually go outside, they catch a cold! So little boy Brown thinks they should only go in the tunnels.

Little boy Brown is friends with all the elevator men, the doormen and the waiters at the hotel. Most of all, he is friends with Hilda, the hotel chambermaid. 'She is my favourite friend', he says. All of these people take turns in taking little boy Brown out for walks to the park. They like doing it, little boy Brown says, because usually they have to take the guests' dogs out - but his family don't have a dog, only him!

One day, Hilda takes little boy Brown out into the country to spend the day with her family. He says, 'It was the nicest time in all my life' and he tells us all about it. I won't tell you everything he tells about it, because you must read this book for yourself otherwise you will miss something wonderful. Here are a few of the marvellous things:

It is a very cold day, and Eddy, the hotel doorman, is standing inside because Jack Frost has bitten his nose! There is a great picture of Jack Frost doing this.

Hilda and little boy Brown take the bus out of the city. So many fairly ordinary things seem magical to little boy Brown because he has never experienced anything like them before.

Hilda's brother meets them off the bus. He is a real policeman and he drives a car 'that isn't a taxi'. Hilda's family live in their own, small house with lots of outside, countryside space all around it. It has an upstairs and a downstairs. There is no elevator, only stairs. There is a lovely dog 'with long ears and a cold nose' and a canary who flies around and' sits on your head or on your hand'. There are real log fires and a wood-burning stove, and Hilda and little boy Brown collect wood from the woodpile. Hilda's mother bakes a cake and little boy Brown licks the chocolate frosting bowl. They build a snowman, eat lunch and tea. They tell stories. Hilda's mother knits. Outside, it snows.

Little boy Brown is terrifically upset when it is time to go home to the hotel in the city. That night, he goes to sleep pretending he is still in Hilda's house.

I often read this book before bed, and I go to sleep imagining I am in Hilda's house, too!

We have two other books at home with wonderful pictures by Andre Francois. They are 'Les Larmes de Crocodile' and 'Lettres des Iles Baladar' (with Jacques Prevert). The first is in the shape of an airmail package saying, 'Contents: 1 Crocodile' on it as the crocodile is sent by post to France from Egypt. The other is in the shape of a very interesting letter with lots of stamps on it. They are fantastic! But I am not sure they are translated into English - yet ... Somebody should do that. Very soon.

Little Boy Brown is SADLY out of print in English but you can find second-hand copies. It has just been published in French translation (2011) for the first time by editions MeMo, translated by Francoise Morvan.

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