I found this book that I had as a child in a second hand store. When I first had it I was only really attracted to Mollie Quick's illustrations, the story didn't do much for me I remember. In retrospect, I was right. But now I think it was the litho printing of the illustrations that really appealed to me, with colours you can't get in four colour offset printing. Grahame Greene wrote a children's book (with beautiful pictures by Dorothie Craigie, and then Edward Ardizzone) about a little steamroller, but it was published after this one by Patti Saxton.

It's hard to get a lot of emotional sensitivity into a picture of a ten tonne steamroller, but the rosy cheeks and smile is a start, I guess.

I was very pleased to see that something produced at the end of the 1940s had remained in such good nick: uncoated paper, and the jacket isn't even laminated. Then, as I was putting it into the car I tore the jacket straight down the middle.