File of draft material and correspondence relating to the four books written by Leila Berg which were published as part of the 'Chatterbooks' series (Methuen, 1981). These titles are 'In a House I Know', 'Our Walk', 'The Hot, Hot Day' and 'A Tickle'. The file contains manuscript and typescript notes on Leila Berg's concept for the series, and what she hoped it would achieve; hand-made generic dummy books, created by Berg to give the publisher a sense of what she wanted the books to look like; a typescript draft for a book entitled 'Together', with a manuscript note attached explaining that this title was dropped from the series as the concept was 'too adult'; correspondence between Leila Berg and Rosemary Martin, the series editor at Methuen; a small amount of notes and correspondence relating to the photographs by John Walmsley used to illustrate the books; and three large boards featuring prints of selected photographs from the three books.
The correspondence between Berg and Rosemary Martin makes clear that Leila Berg was not happy with the 'Chatterbooks' series when it was finally published by Methuen, and felt it seriously deviated from her original concept for the series.
Some of the manuscript notes on the series in this file show a greater resemblance to the 'Small World' series than the 'Chatterbooks' series. It is possible that both series developed out of the same root idea, as outlined in these manuscript notes. However, it is also possible that these manuscript notes were simply mis-filed by Leila Berg in the 'Chatterbooks' file, when they actually relate to 'Small World'.