Meg & Mog - Meg's Fancy Dress (Meg and Mog Books)

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Helen Nicoll was born in Natland, Westmorland, in 1937. She was educated at schools in Bristol; Dartington Hall, Devon; and Froebel Education Institute, London. Helen Nicoll married Robert Kime in 1970 and they have one daughter and one son. It was produced by Carl Gorham and directed by Roger Mainwood, featuring the voices of Alan Bennett as Owl, Fay Ripley as Meg and Phil Cornwell as Mog with additional voices by Morwenna Banks and Paul Shearer. When we used to ask the children to raid their wardrobes at home to find an outfit that might be worn by their favourite character from literature, I was as enthusiastic as anyone. Another productive partnership began for Jan in 1977, when he and writer Helen Nicoll created Meg and Mog - the much-loved duo of a witch and her cat. As illustrator Mark Southgate recently observed, 'Jan Pienkowski's wonderfully creative use of the picture book format looks ground-breaking even by today's standards.' Twenty years after the series began, the books remain contemporary and have lost none of their appeal. Meg and Mog books have achieved such a lasting affection with children and parents that in a Gallup poll, conducted for The Telegraph in 1992, Jan was the third most recognised contemporary children's author (after Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake). It involves every pupil, gives a book-centred focus for the entirety of the second half of the spring term each year, is both collaborative and creative, and makes our school environment a truly lovely place to be.

I've commented before on how hard it is to review picture books like this - I mean, by the time I've got into my flow here I'll have used more words than are contained within this entire book.But then, alas – and particularly regrettable as the whole World Book Day initiative was born out of the desire to giveto children rather than take from them – the profiteers began to get involved and mass-produced costumes started to appear, expressly targeted (it was claimed) at “busy, hard-working parents” who – thanks to those dreadful teachers! – suddenly found themselves “required” to provide their child with an outfit for school themed around a character from literature. Jan's other books include the Nursery series, pop-up books like Haunted House, Robot and Little Monsters, and the sound effect books like Phone Book and Door Bell. In a very different style, Christmas and Easter bring the words of the King James' Bible vividly alive for a young generation. Mog and Owl are hungry, so Meg makes a spell. It goes wrong and they all go to bed without any supper, but Mog and Owl are still hungry... Drawing on a wriggley, excited three year old is no easy task, so it’s not perfect. She looks like some kind of cat-bunny hybrid to me, but Syd was more than pleased with the end result, and super proud of her Mog from Meg and Mog costume! I put her hair in 2 buns, right behind her cat ears. In the end, I figured that if she took off her headband, she would still have cat ears, then! However, the restricted range of costumes commercially available means conformity now risks becoming the norm.

The book selected is used as a stimulus for creative work over the next few weeks, and this is all displayed inside. The door/cover therefore becomes – quite literally – a portal into another world.Away from books, theatre has been a continuing interest of Jan's since Cambridge days. Among the shows he has designed are The Meg and Mog Show, two plays for Theatre de Complicité, Beauty And The Beast for the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden and a spectacular production of Sleeping Beauty for Disneyland, Paris. In addition to the Meg and Mog series, Helen had a long and varied association with Puffin - as editor of the Junior Puffin magazine The Egg from 1977 - 1979, as compiler of the popular children's poetry anthology Poems for Seven Year Olds and Under, illustrated by Michael Foreman, and through her partnership with Puffin, the enormously popular series of Puffin Cover to Cover story tapes of which Helen was the Producer.

Meg and Mog is a series of children's books written by Helen Nicoll and illustrated by Jan Pieńkowski. First published in the 1970s, the books are about Meg, a witch whose spells always seem to go wrong, her striped cat Mog, and their friend Owl. [1] The first book was published in January 1972. Following the death of Helen Nicholl in 2012, the series was continued by Pieńkowski and David Walser. Helen Nicoll worked with Jan Pienkowski for over forty years, first at the BBC and then on the Meg and Mog stories. She owned and ran the audio company Cover to Cover for many years. Helen lived in Marlborough, Wiltshire. She died on September 30, 2012.

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Children enjoy reading about personalities essentially like themselves, but with certain particular exaggerated character traits.

Meg Goes to Bed is the latest of the iconic MEG and MOG picture books that continue to delight children up to the age of 3 with the brightly coloured and spellbinding antics of Meg the witch, Mog her cat and Owl. Forgive me, but the whole dressing-up endeavour should never have become a job for parents. Instead, it has always been an ideal task for children. Jan Pienkowski is a celebrated illustrator of children's books. He has won the Greenaway Medal twice - for his illustration of Joan Aiken's The Kingdom Under the Sea and for Haunted House. Jan lives in London. Helen Nicoll was a television producer with the BBC for many years. It was here, as Producer of the children's educational series WATCH, that she first met Jan Pienkowski. After working together for four years, they decided it was time to preserve their creativity in book form for future generations of children to enjoy. The result is the immensely popular MEG AND MOG series. Originally published in 1972, this initial entry in author Helen Nicoll and illustrator Jan Pieńkowski's Meg and Mog picture-books, about a witch named Meg, and her cat Mog, pairs a simple text with boldly graphic illustrations that will grab the young child's attention. Following Meg as she gets up, gets dressed, prepares breakfast, and sets out (with Mog) for a witches' spell party, the narrative has a repetitive quality that will aid beginning readers, while the artwork is colorful (primary and secondary colors only), and makes use of simple shapes and clean lines.

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There are surprises galore for Meg, Mog and Owl in these three classic Meg and Mog stories: Meg's Eggs, Meg at Sea and Mog in the Fog. As ever, Meg casts her spells with the best of intentions but always with hilarious results. Children will love exploring the colours, sounds and shapes in this bumper volume, perfect for sharing or reading alone. Particularly valuable, I thought, were the costumes that couldn’tbe easily guessed: asking a child to explain who their character was and to articulate why they had made certain clothing decisions was entertaining (often hilarious), informative and educationally beneficial.