Such verdant hills against that blue sky, lovely travels my friend.
I loved that book as well. I also had another favourite book that I bet is now banned called little black sambo about an indian boy who makes butter from a tiger, I loved that book as it was pocket sized and I'd carry it around and I loved the illustrations of the tiger, probably also added to my own obsession of art with animals.
We had Little Black Sambo, too. In fact, in the Pacific Northwest at least, there was a chain of pancake restaurants called Sambos. We just loved eating there. We had a full sized volume, and you are right, the artwork was beautiful.
One thing, my parents never ever skimped on books. We always had books and they would keep upgrading to the next level. I got my love of reading there.