On the Children's Shelf: Tasha Tudor's Locally Inspired "The Country Fair"

Recently, I was doing some research on Tasha Tudor and discovered that she spent much of her childhood in Redding. I was thrilled to learn this. I have always been drawn to her books and illustrations and now wondered if some of her inspiration came from the same places that inspire me.

In my quest to learn more about Tudor, someone was kind enough to loan me a copy of “Drawn From New England” by Bethany Tudor. In this book, I learned that Tasha Tudor would visit the Danbury Fair every summer. Her trips to this fair were the inspiration for her book “The County Fair.” Having been to the Danbury Fair as a small child (and eating at Rosy Tomorrow’s studying all the fair memorabilia), I was excited to learn that the fair was an inspiration for one of Tudor’s books. I didn’t have a copy of this book and knew I needed to find one. I mentioned it to my mom who looked online, found a copy, and surprised me with it.

Tasha Tudor’s “The County Fair” is the story of a Sylvie Ann and Tom, a brother and sister who decide to enter an animal in the county fair. Sylvie also enters strawberry jam that she made herself. The story involves them going into town to fill out their entries, preparing for the fair, their trip there, how they enjoyed the day at the fair, and finally, how their entries placed at the fair.

The story is sweet, the illustrations are beautiful, but what I love most, is that this story is drawn from the experiences of someone who lived nearby many years ago and visited the local Danbury Fair. Reading this book was like stepping back in time 80 years. I imagined children who grew up where I live now, doing to exact same thing ... entering their animal in the Danbury Fair, walking to the fair, and enjoying their day there.

I love when books connect us to someone else. Sometimes books remain in families for generations, and it is special to read the same story to our children that our parents read to us. Sometimes books were gifts from friends and relatives who are no longer with us, and rereading them reminds us of the person who gave those books to us. Sometimes books, like this one, connect us to our community. While things might be very different now, and I don’t plan to walk down Route 7 with my children and a Jersey calf to get to the Danbury Fair, reading this book, I feel a connection to those who lived in this tiny corner of the world many years ago.

If you haven’t read Tasha Tudor’s “The County Fair,” be sure to check out this beautifully illustrated locally inspired story.

Photo by Jessica Collins