enchantment, freedom, happiness, innocence
In a happy childhood, such secret nests can be a place of enchantment and magic, a place to escape the grown up world for a while. I still like the idea of cosy places in nature or in a rambling old house; where you can take supplies of chocolate and biscuits, with...
beauty, colour, discovery, enchantment
What a teacher, this god who exhales perfumes and offers to impart his knowledge of nature’s flourishing. And what a syllabus: “I am the genius of clouds and sunshine,” answered Frey; and as he spoke, the essences of a hundred perfumes were exhaled...
discovery, enchantment, innocence
Like many children, the characters in Ransome’s books have a refreshing way of stripping things down to essentials.  ‘This isn’t a secret place,’ said the boy. ‘Any place is secret if nobody else is there.’ See another comment on the nature of secrets. ...
authenticity, discovery, enchantment, freedom, happiness, humour, innocence, moments, nuannaarpoq, sharing
This post is also available as a podcast on Spotify, click here to listen. We were recently invited to spend a few days with friends at their place on the beach. Among other things, I enjoyed watching children and their families playing in the water and the sand....
authenticity, awards, beauty, enchantment, happiness, innocence, kindness, moments, resilience
Our fifth nominee for a Nuannaarpoq Award is: Maria Voiteshonok Parameters:Â 20th-21st centuries, Russian, real, human, female, living Nuannaarpoq qualities:Â authenticity, beauty, enchantment, innocence, kindness, resilience References: ‘The story of a...
authenticity, happiness, innocence, kindness, resilience
After years of exile, deprivation and harshness, some kindness is shown to two young girls cursed by having had politically tarnished parents, leading to a protracted period in Siberia. The elder sister, Vladya, had tuberculosis, picked up while living quite...
happiness, innocence, kindness
After spending most of her childhood exiled in Siberia, much of it as a half-starved orphan, Maria is finally rescued by a distant aunt who takes her in and gives her a loving home for the first time in her life. “Oh my little birdie …” my aunt would...
beauty, discovery, kindness, moments, sharing
This Russian writer remembers moments in her harsh Siberian childhood where someone showed passing kindness and in so doing, made her and her sister feel they were recognised as human beings. Coming as they did from a family of political exiles, in a system where the...
happiness, imagination, innocence, resilience
This excerpt from an interview with a Russian writer brought up in Siberia, due to the political exile of her parents, demonstrates the child’s deep need to play and the imagination which led her to create her own dolls, despite poverty, exclusion and general...
beauty, colour, discovery, enchantment, happiness, innocence, moments, resilience
This moving quotation is from an interview with a Russian writer who grew up in Siberia, born of a family which was politically exiled during the Soviet era, meaning that both she and her sister began life living, quite literally, underground, and were later...
beauty, colour, discovery, enchantment, happiness, innocence, memory, nuannaarpoq
A powerful recall of childhood memories regarding the names of plants, the homes of toads, the awakening of birds and the smell of both seasons and trees. A surprisingly gentle recollection in a book which has plenty of violence. I started learning the names of...
authenticity, discovery, enchantment, happiness, innocence, moments, nuannaarpoq, sharing
James Rebanks describes a touching element during a class visit to his farm, where one little boy finds solace in simply gathering some eggs or watching the dogs work with the sheep. One day a class came from a distant town, and we were told that one little boy was...
freedom, happiness, sleep, time
One of the joys of leaving a job is the growing awareness that waking becomes a natural process, rather than an aural shock. This doesn’t necessarily mean waking late, just naturally, and I still get up as early as I ever did, about six in the winter and five...
happiness, moments, sharing
A lovely moment on a children’s walk – I like how they follow the instructions with such verve; meeting a boy selling ice-cream, they stop him and practically buy up his stock. Also can’t resist the inevitable pun that comes of combining...
happiness, humour
Wondering how best to get this bright new year off to a good start? Follow this sound advice from the Swallows & Amazons family.  I got up early to make what I thought were muffins until, having liberally adapted the recipe, I realized it was meant to be for...
discovery, life
Now I know why it’s called ‘seventh’ heaven – it takes only seven steps to get there. I stumbled upon this revelation while doing the Spring Circular, the 10km round robin walk with which I’ve been savouring the season’s renewal. A...
beauty, enchantment
As winter is ushered out the door ever earlier and the last of the snow visible on the Jura melts, I wave goodbye to it with this magical moment. Snow may become something of a rarity in a warming world.In any case, do not make yourself hurry.’But Dorothea could...
beauty, discovery
A lyrical description of a boy’s realisation that the world is a tiny pebble compared to the stars he is learning to observe. He swings from an awareness of our insignificence to the fact that he has something vast to commend him: knowledge and understanding....
authenticity, sharing
At the height of the Cold War when Westerners were facing down Russians and vice versa, John Steinbeck and Robert Capa got it into their heads to hop over to the Soviet Union to see for themselves. Visiting three Soviet republics, they finally concluded that the...
happiness, innocence, memory, moments, resilience
Arundhati Roy’s heart-rending novel captures moments of intense sweetness, all the more precious for their rarity. Here the two children make of them a scant necklace of joy-beads. ‘Moments like these, the twins treasured and threaded like precious beads...
innocence, life
According to his biographer John Drury, the English poet George Herbert ‘thought that it was better being a child than an adult’, perhaps confirmed by the simple closing line to his poem ‘Holy Baptism (II)’, comprising three diamond-shaped...
happiness, innocence
You can spend a lot of time thinking about civilization and whether it has a future, but defining it isn’t so straightforward. Or is it? This definition works for me, particularly on a hot summer’s day in a piazza in Italy. Or anywhere.Favourite flavours...
innocence, moments, sharing
One evening I had supper in an Italian restaurant in Beijing. A family came in, Spanish: a pretty wife, a smiley husband and a girl of about eight. She sat with her back to me which allowed me to see the beautiful big blue bow in her hair. Then she looked around at me...
moments, sharing
Many small children are nuannaarpoq-on-legs. I was walking home through the village when I saw a man pushing a pram and next to him his daughter, a tiny tot of about two, pushing a small dog-faced wooden cart or trolley in front of her. When she saw me coming, she...
