Not Sweating the Small Stuff

May Gibbs and the Perils of Baking a Cake!

Can't help posting more of May Gibbs' work!

It's so endlessly charming.

From the anthropomorphised Australian bush creatures - both adorable and scary! To their beautifully realized gum nut world. And the lovely folksy rhyming couplets of the story. All complemented by the deliciously rustic gum nut twig script.









So much of life is in these seeming simple lines - generosity, the demands of tiredness, waggish teasing, danger, duty and loyalty, sweetness of temperament, co-operation ... . All with the dash of a sentiment that does not resonate too well in a cynical age - the triumph of the forces 'good' over 'bad'.

I think it's these underlying almost archetypal meanings that make May Gibbs' work so enduringly popular.