Monte Packham: Rhyme Time

Rhyme Time is an unconventional illustrated book for children and all those with a healthy relationship to their inner child. Imaginatively combining retro images with new rhymes, the book brings visual nostalgia and the traditions of children's verse up to date.

The illustrations are 1960s line drawings that Packham carefully coloured-in as a child in 1988. Now, more than 30 years later, he has rearranged these vibrant images into playful stories and captured them in rhyme.

The unexpected results are both original tales, like that of Humphrey who chased a pesky elf from his garden with a cricket bat, and tongue-in-cheek reinterpretations of beloved fairy tales and nursery rhymes. If Snow White isn't actually the fairest in the land, then who is? And why did Jack and Jill really climb that steep and nasty hill?

On rainy days I like to bake
Some bread or scones, a pie or cake;
I weigh the flour, pour the milk
And make my batters smooth as silk.
Indeed my favourite foods are sweet:
At every mealtime I could eat
Just ice cream, jellies, chocolate eggs,
Or sugar-coated dragons' legs!
— Monte Packham