Today's birthday celebrant (June 2nd), Helen Oxenbury, is as well-known outside her native England as she is inside by preschoolers and their parents who share a love of Oxenbury's illustrations, particularly those in We're Going on a Bear Hunt written by Michael Rosen (1989). Oxenbury, married to English writer/ illustrator John Burlingham, whom she met at art school in London, says Burlingham influenced her work greatly and that she began writing and illustrating when her own children were young. A little-known gem, Many Letters of Thanks (1969), written by West Indian Manghanita Kempadoo when she was eleven, is a parody of the song The Twelve Days of Christmas and shows the difficulties of thanking a giver for unwanted, unwelcome, boisterous gifts that arrive and accumulate until the recipient returns all but the partridge and rings. As with Oxenbury's other illustrations, these capture humor and offer a glimpse of rural England.
