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Rosie and Buttercup by Chieri Uegaki; illustrated by Stephane Jorisch Kids Can Press
Everybody who'd be perfectly happy swapping their siblings for a bag of chips, raise your hand. I have both mine in the air. Can I swap them even if they're full-grown? Please? I promise to eat the chips slowly.
Yeah, okay, I'm over the sibling rivalry thing. Mostly.
But if it weren't for that ages-old tussle over birth order, there'd be so much less fodder for adorable picture books, this one included. Rosie's a rat with pet crickets and a taste for dried dandelion puffs. She looks mighty cute in a tu-tu too, as depicted with European flair in Jorisch's watercolors.
Buttercup ruins a perfectly good solo act, and a fed-up Rosie offers her free to a good home. Fortunately, it's the babysitter down the street, who takes Buttercup off Rosie's hands long enough for her to cycle through her immediate bliss, then gradual remorse and finally, sheer panic.
If you've seen this before in other forms, it's fine to recycle the idea, as it rarely gets old. Rosie gives it a girly girl spin, though I'd have liked to see more of Buttercup's personality to better underscore their conflict.
Animals are Sleeping by Susanne Slade; illustrated by Gary R. Phillips Sylvan Dell Publishing
This short but sweet bedtime book sneaks in some lessons about animal habitats, showing polar bears, sloths, fish and other critters catching some zzzz's. Slade's simple verses aim for the preschool crowd with plenty of repetition and easy-breezy rhymes, and Phillips' lush illustrations almost glow, with touches of day-glo colors shimmering out amid the somnolent dark blues and greens.
The book's been vetted by a zoologist for accuracy, so there's no anthropomorphism or cutesy antics. The animals are shown as they would be in the wild. What I like is how it confers instant genius status on the reader, making you a hero to your kids, who have know way of knowing that you'd never seen a sloth sleeping, either.
The "For Creative Minds" exercises in the back reinforce lessons on what the pictured animals eat and where they sleep. But it's also fine for reading just before you tuck your human cub under the blankies too.
What's Going On? by Elena O'Callaghan; illustrated by Africa Fanlo Kane/Miller
Hmmm ... the household's falling to pieces. Mom and Dad used to be so efficient, so on top of things, until about three months ago. Now Dad wears mismatched shoes, the place is a wreck, Mom puts bug spray in her hair. Whaaaa?
That's one little boy's reaction as his whole house is turned upside-down. Graph paper's used to give Fanlo's mixed-media creations a retro feel, but a bit off-kilter, like the Jetsons having a series of bad hair days. One one side--Then--is how things used to be: squeaky clean kitchen, ultra-calm parents. On the opposite--Now--is Mom wobbling under armloads of laundry or Dad missing the easy shots in soccer.
Of course, you'll know exactly what's happened in the last three months, but let's not spoil the surprise. The narrator is clueless, an unusual trick to see pulled off so convincingly in a book for very little kids, but they'll have fun figuring it out in the last page or so.
And you can always point out what caused your tot's parents to lose their last shreds of sanity. They'll probably think that's pretty funny too.
Doctor Ted by Andrea Beaty; illustrated by Pascal Lemaitre Margaret K. McElderry Books (Simon & Schuster)
Beaty brings her sharp wit to another character with a fertile imagination who runs afoul of us numskull adults. Ted's a bear who wakes up and bangs his knee. When he can't find a doctor anywhere in his room, he dons a labcoat and stethoscope and goes about diagnosing everything from gingivitis to mumps and dispensing cookies.
Sounds like my kinda medicine!
But his Mom, teacher and principal just don't appreciate Doctor Ted's contributions to modern medicine and order him back to reality. I don't know what it is about us grown-ups that we're always portrayed as such sticks in the mud. We're fun! We like to play too! Just look at ex-New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer. Okay, that's probably not the kind of fun we had in mind here.
Ted wins the day, of course, after a playground incident that requires medical assistance. Kids like that sort of predictability--and seeing us grown-ups get our lumps too.
Sally and Dave: A Slug Story by Felice Arena Kane/Miller Books
reviewed by Kelly Herold
Warning: Unintentional Alliteration Ahead
Sally Slug is a stuck-up gastropod mollusk, proud of her sports skills and sleek physique. Dave Slug is more rounded, prefers "sleeping sideways in his own slime," and is fond of sweets. Felice Arena's Sally and Dave: A Slug Story is a sweet tale featuring lots of s-alliteration and a clash of sluggish personalities.
Sally's Type-A Slug finds Dave to be woefully lacking in ambition:
"'Why don't you get off your slimy slug bottom and do something special?' Sally sneered one day.
'But I always thought I was special,' sighed Dave. 'And I like sitting on my slimy slug bottom.'
'I've never heard anything so silly,' snapped Sally. 'It's slobs like you that give slugs a bad name.'"
The reader sympathizes with Dave who just wants to live a happy life of relaxation, food and sun. And he proves himself in the end as slackers often do, rescuing Sally when she's gobbled up by a sparrow.
Sally and Dave: A Slug Story begs to be read aloud. Toddlers to emergent readers will enjoy hearing the hiss of the words as they stream by. But what really makes Sally and Dave a hit are Arena's inspired illustrations. His cartoon-like slugs are obsessed with sports, food and the good life. Their expressive googly eyes tell a tale of friendship all their own and are fun to follow throughout Sally and Dave's epic story.
A not-to-miss read aloud for the three- to eight-year-old set.
Mommy's totes are always black holes for keys, lipsticks, stray paper clips, dogearred photos and whatnot. I'm not sure that a cardboard version can compete with the real thing, but Hanson has fun with it, and at least this version doesn't leak cookie crumbs or ink.
Part board book and part toy, it comes with the standard warning about small parts, not for children under 3, etc. But the sturdy cardboard construction should withstand mauling by eager toddlers. Each "page" or fold in the tote holds items you'd typically find, like a wallet or cell phone, and some surprises, like a wounded teddy bear or stray stiletto shoe. The text heaps praise on Mommy and daughter, or provides a humorous aside:
My Mommy says 'always put your best foot forward." Maybe that's why she has so many shoes.
Flaps open within flaps making peaking fun and keeps the surprises coming, though with all the loving plaudits for Mommy, it may feel as much like a big, slurpy kiss for Mother's Day as a treat for the kids.
On Top of the Potty and other get-up-and-go songs by Alan Katz and David Catrow Margaret K. McElderry Books (Simon & Schuster)
Did you know that girls don't poop or pee? I had no idea. Here I am, trying to potty train my 2-1/2 y.o. daughter who, I can assure you, has the requisite girl parts and, as far as I can tell, produces the usual prodigious excretions.
But in 32 pages of goofy songs and illustrations, there isn't a single girl going potty. Not one. Every single child in this book shown going potty is a boy. Every child showed in need of potty time is a boy. Every song features a boy character. There are two girls in the background in a single scene, and two completely random women characters who aren't shown in any potty-related activities. Everybody else is male.
Where have the author and illustrator been for the last 2 billion years? We're past the amoeba stage, guys. We have two sexes now.
Okay, so this doesn't try to be a primer on potty training and we don't see any boy parts anyway. It's the latest in their series where they've rewritten lyrics to old kids' songs--some really old--for maximum gross-out humor. So we get "Tinkle, Tinkle on the Floor" and "On Top of the Potty" (for "On Top of Old Smokey") and the like.
Maybe the duo thinks girls are the gentler sex and don't like to mention the unmentionables. They should've been at our dentist's when Lael proudly announced, "My have vagina!" That the dentist doesn't examine that particular orifice was incidental.
I don't have the patience for authors who ignore half their intended audience, or who treat girls as mere extras. They have five books out and I see a girl on only one cover, so I doubt it's any better in Take Me Out to the Bathtuband their other books.
And the quality of the lyrics? Set your mind to it and you can rewrite just about anything for potty humor. It's not like they've cornered the market. And, yes, it'll draw the expected laughs and guffaws--mostly from my kindergartener, who no longer needs help on the subject.
Minji's Salon by Eun-hee Choung Kane/Miller Book Publishers
I'm giving so many buds lately, I could be a florist. But I can't resist stories that celebrate girlhood with truly feminine flair. I think publishers are finally turning the page, so to speak, on the mini-amazons and boys-with-pigtails that passed as girl protagonists for so long. You don't need to climb trees or skin your knees for a great adventure, as Choung shows us in this charming peek at a girly girl's fantasy beauty parlor.
We first meet Minji peering into the salon. The story then alternates between the salon and Minji's home, where she's set up shop with watercolors instead of dyes and crayons for rollers--with the family dog as her customer. On the left-hand page is a woman getting her hair styled, on the right is Minji's colorful and messy mimicry.
Dressing up is a rite of passage for girls--witness the Fancy Nancy phenomenon--and Choung's playful take should win the heart of the little one marauding your closet. Choung, a South Korean, has a decidedly Eastern style to her art, with flat figures on a white background. The subdued hues get interrupted by wild splotches of color, especially where Minji's our focus--underscoring how much of a whirlwind she must be.
God Bless the Child By Billie Holiday and Arthur Herzog Jr.; illustrated by Jerry Pinkney Amistad/HarperCollins
Oooh ... tingles. Pair a classic song by legendary Billie Holiday with the illustrator's fascination with the Great Migration, and you've got one powerful depiction of an amazing era in African American history.
Pinkney's watercolors capture every detail in a subdued palette that brims with diffused light. You can make out the grains on wood and the hope on faces as sharecropping families leave the South behind and eke out a better existence in northern cities.
That things didn't work out so well for so many isn't dealt with here, where we're still on the cusp of something new and great. The full-bleed illustrations dwell on intimate family scenes or the sweep of cityscapes, with the storytelling left to the readers. Holiday and Herzog's lyrics suggest the fickleness of fortune; Pinkney's art picks up on its more redemptive notes.
Money, you got lots o' friends, Crowdin' round the door, When you're gone and spendin' ends, They don't come no more.
Rich relations give, Crust of bread and such, You can help yourself, But don't take too much!
Mama may have, Papa may have, But God bless the child That's got his own! That's got his own.
The Moon and the Night Sweepers
Written and Illustrated by Mai S. Kemble
Red Cygnet Press
reviewed by Ilene Goldman
The Moon and the Night Sweeper makes a great first impression. On the cover, a young boy in his bed shirt and a man who looks like a happy chimney sweep dance across a rooftop with brooms, watched by a gleeful man in the moon. You can just hear them humming a jolly tune. Even Philippe, who usually ignores the children’s books on my desk, stopped to read this one.
This delightful rhyming tale imagines that every night after we’re asleep, twinkling stars litter the earth with stardust. Sometime in the glimmering moments before dawn:
“The Moon calls to the / Night Sweeper….. /To clean off the buildings / so they look neat and kept, / For the dust covers rooftops / and needs to be swept.”
We don’t see this happen unless, of course, we wake up at just the right moment. Then we’ll hear the music and we might even be invited to join the ritual. The little boy on the cover is lucky enough to hear the call. The Moon invites him “Up to the roof on my / magic moonbeams you’ll soar / Where the Night Sweeper completes /His one nightly chore.”
There the boy dances and sings and sweeps, sliding back into his bed when the last of the stardust is swept.
Kemble’s illustrations are big and bold, accentuating her words so perfectly it is hard to imagine one without the other. She dares to leave two-page spreads wordless or nearly so, letting the smiles on the little boy’s face exclaim his glee at flying out to join the Night Sweeper. Her whites seem to sparkle like star dust, so perfectly are they contrasted with the other colors.
Red Cygnet Press works with university art departments to locate students and then work with the student to develop a book. The concept is pioneering in a publishing segment that is notoriously hard to break into. The results, so far, are mixed. The Moon and the Night Sweeper tops the list for me so far. It fulfills the promise made by its cover. I want to read it again and again.
It's refreshing to read a picture book about a cherished childhood object that is a book itself. Think about it:
Most picture books about lost beloved items concern blankies, or stuffed animals, or favorite toys. Harris's
new picture book, Maybe A Bear Ate It!, turns its focus to the pleasure a most-loved book can bring a child and the corresponding pain
it causes when it goes missing.
Maybe a Bear Ate It! opens with five wordless pages showing our protagonist--some sort of cute creature with badger-like facial features--reading his favorite book. He climbs into bed, clad in striped pajamas, and studies his book carefully until becoming drowsy. Suddenly,
the book disappears. Then the words and imagination begin: "Maybe a BEAR ate it!...Maybe a RHINO ran away with it!...Maybe a SHARK swallowed it!"
Our hero becomes more and more frantic as he imagines the terrible fate that his book may have met.
Harris shows in a visceral way--the panic! the despair! the chaos!--how important books can be to a child. Or monster. And Emberley's
illustrations complement Harris's sentiment in a cheerful, child-friendly way. His creature is adorable and has the manic movement and changeable
facial expressions of your average three year old.
I also appreciate what Emberley does with the protagonist's size in Maybe a Bear Ate It! When the
hero is alone in his bed reading, he is of normal size. When imagining the horrible, scary animals who could have stolen his book, however, the
hero becomes small and peripheral on the page. As a reader, you want to pick him up and promise to find that missing book for him.
Finally, I have to add that what is most compelling about Maybe A Bear Ate It! is that the hero solves the problem himself. There's no all-knowing
Mama Creature or Papa Creature or Teacher Creature who shows up to save the day. Creature pulls himself together, does the work, and finds his
best-loved book himself.
Rating: *\*\*\*\
Editor's note: Harris is on blog tour this week. Catch her here tomorrow!
The Girl in the Castle inside the Museum, by Kate Bernheimer; illustrated by Nicoletta Ceccoli Schwartz and Wade
reviewed by Kelly Herold
Castle is a beautiful pearly-white onion. This dreamy picture book, aimed at readers ages three to seven, invites children into a layered world, and moves them from observer to participant in incremental stages.
The Girl in the Castle inside the Museum opens as a fairy tale would: "Once upon a time, there was a girl who lived in a castle." Then we discover that the castle is in a museum, inside a glass globe. "When children came to the museum, they pressed as close as they could to the glass globe in which the castle quietly sat.
"
Once we look inside the globe, we learn more. The girl inside is sometimes lonely, but her world is beautiful and she takes pleasure in its beauty. She also dreams and tells stories. Sometimes she even dreams about the reader and invites her into her world: "Now in her room and in her dreams, inside the castle inside the museum, inside this book you hold in your hands, you keep her company in a magical world.
"
And the reader will want to keep the girl company. Berheimer's text is dreamy and rhythmic, drawing you in as the layers of the onion are peeled back to its core. And Ceccoli's illustrations? Swoon. Ceccoli's illustrations are heartbreakingly lovely and she has composed them with a childlike perspective--from above and looking in to the center. She has created a magical world a child will only be too happy to join. It's a world of lush browns, oranges, greens, roses, and grays. A world of Escher-like staircases and rooms with animate toys jumping and spinning around its center. A world with a magical, beautiful princess just looking for a friend.
I dare you not to enter the castle inside the museum.
Fancy Nancy: Bonjour Butterfly by Jane O'Connor; illustrated by Robin Preiss Glasser HarperCollins
Here I go again, reviewing a book that doesn't need my help here at Book Buds. But, I ... I ... I ... can't help myself. It's Fancy Nancy! I have the new Fancy Nancy and you don't. Neener neeners!
Oh, I'm going to be so popular at Seth's school. All the cool girls will love me and want to be my friend.
Okay, so the teachers will probably look at me peculiarly until my back is turned, when they'll be snatching this out of Seth's backpack and slipping it into their book nook. Hah! Let 'em try.
I never read the original, which is supposed to be superb, (a fancy word for good), but I do have Posh Puppy, which everyone says isn't quite as impressive. By everyone I mean all the little girls who love Fancy Nancy. Which, y'know, is everyone.
The series gives little girls a (usually) well-behaved, truly feminine girl who isn't a princess or a Barbie, doesn't need rescuing, isn't out to snare a prince and loooooves playing dress-up. In the series' third book, she and best, interracial friend Bree love butterflies and plan a butterfly birthday party for Bree. Alas, Nancy must attend her grandparents 50th wedding anniversary instead. Oh, the horror!
Take tantrums and sulking to an extreme and dress it up in taffeta, crinoline and dangly beads, with a glittery tiara seemingly floating in cotton candy tufts of red hair, and that's our ethereal--if temperamental--heroine.
Preiss Glasser's* Nancy is a dazzling confection of jelly-belly colors and dramatic gestures who gets it right in the end, and we forgive her when O'Connor gives her the right touch of humility.
She even gets her butterflies, which makes it way better than Posh Puppy, which has no butterflies at all.
Ooooh ... I can't wait to share this with the other girls.
Rating: *\*\*\
*Special bonus: Here's Preiss Glasser from the 2006 LA BookFest.
We all know a few late talkers. My daughter was one. She got off to a promising start at 11 months, when she said "ball." But then her entire conversational ouevre consisted of "ball" for another 6 months.
Oliver's from that same mold, and like my little girl, the problem can be found in talkative siblings and parents. What does Oliver have to say, really, when everyone around him is yakking non-stop? Especially when they make up his mind for him?
Except by age four, Oliver's pretty much had it. He does, indeed, have a few opinions--if he ever gets a chance to express them. His bossy big sister even blows out his birthday candles (which would have courted disaster in our house). It takes a no-nonsense pre-school teacher to coax Oliver to open up, and then he can't be stopped.
Sure, there are lots of stories about kids getting their say, but they're usually pitched to teenagers. This one's aimed at the little siblings who get overlooked, and gives parents a nice tool for prying a few peeps out of them.
Of course, in our case, my daughter now won't shut up, but that's another story.
Pilon's cartoon-like drawings aim straight for the pre-school crowd, keeping this story aimed at the audience most likely to gaze in awe when Oliver finally opens up.
We all know a few late talkers. My daughter was one. She got off to a promising start at 11 months, when she said "ball." But then her entire conversational ouevre consisted of "ball" for another 6 months.
Oliver's from that same mold, and like my little girl, the problem can be found in talkative siblings and parents. What does Oliver have to say, really, when everyone around him is yakking non-stop? Especially when they make up his mind for him?
Except by age four, Oliver's pretty much had it. He does, indeed, have a few opinions--if he ever gets a chance to express them. His bossy big sister even blows out his birthday candles (which would have courted disaster in our house). It takes a no-nonsense pre-school teacher to coax Oliver to open up, and then he can't be stopped.
Sure, there are lots of stories about kids getting their say, but they're usually pitched to teenagers. This one's aimed at the little siblings who get overlooked, and gives parents a nice tool for prying a few peeps out of them.
Of course, in our case, my daughter now won't shut up, but that's another story.
Pilon's cartoon-like drawings aim straight for the pre-school crowd, keeping this story aimed at the audience most likely to gaze in awe when Oliver finally opens up.
I don't normally review books that don't need my help. This book is everywhere. You can't escape it. No little girl can be without it these days. Even the boys have to read it to know what the girls are so obsessed about.
And that's the problem.
When a book about doing the unpopular thing becomes the popular thing, there's a certain cognitive dissonance going on. At least my head feels like it's exploding.
The character Pinkalicious returns from an eponymous prior book that I never read but which was turned into a Broadway play. It looks very much like a triumph of marketing over taste. (But then, what isn't? My kids have been subjecting me to Dora videos of late. Shudder.)
That isn't to say Purplicious doesn't deserve its popularity. Witty, tight writing keeps things moving, as does a strong conflict between mean popular girls (black is the new pink, dontcha know) and our fuchsia-obsessed heroine. It's perfectly pitched for girls instinctively ready to explore how soft power works--and wanting in, in a bad way.
Pinkalicious is inconsolable at the teasing, in pages full of mixed-media pink pastiches, until she makes a friend as obsessed with--you got it--a certain shade that results from mixing pink with blue.
Now, purple is my favorite color. Always has been. My parents hated purple and painted my childhood room a very '70s shade of orange, which scarred me for life, and which is why I approached this book with so much trepidation.
It's made purple the favorite color of every Purplicious-toting tot I see. Sure, I'm happy kids today get opportunities I never had to express their unique personalities in exactly the same way as everyone else.
Yesterday, my toddler picked out fuchsia pajama bottoms with snowmen to wear with a green onesy and blue-striped socks. My retinas are still searing. But she's in that phase where she has to decide everything herself.
When Randolph Turned Rotten by Charise Mericle Harper
Alfred A. Knopf
If the green-eyed monster never bites your kids, check them for a pulse. Especially this time of year, the jealousy hits hard. Having a story show how envy can wreak havoc--short of Othello-like disaster--is a pretty good idea, like an emotional band-aid when the owies are on the inside.
Randolph, a beaver, shares a city apartment with best friend Ivy, a goose. Trouble comes in the mail when Ivy gets invited to an all-girl slumber party at her cousin's beach house. Randolph goes through the various stages of jealousy, from annoyance to loneliness to festering resentment.
When Randolph decides to sabotage Ivy's good time, we're in for some sudden plot twists as it veers between his crazy ideas, remorse and Ivy's hapless misadventures at the party. Harper's good humor and those nutty geese keep things from veering into mawkish sentiment, and we never stop rooting for Randolph to work out his rivalry issues.
And while I normally don't quote press releases, Harper's blurb says she's "Randolph down to my very core." Aren't we all?
Emily Post: Emily's Magic Words; Please, Thank You, and More by Cindy Post Senning and Peggy Post; illustrated by Leo Landry
HarperCollins
Gee, bet you can't guess those magic words. If you said "back off" "up yours" and "drop dead," you'd be ... wrong. Of course.
Yet I found it hard to snicker for all the wrong reasons while reading how "please" and "thank you" can open doors, "hi" and "bye" can make you friends, "sorry" can fix boo-boos and all that sort of rot. Yeah, yeah, it'll help reinforce basic etiquette. It's nice to be nice, etc.
And it is awfully cute when my toddler looks up at me with her chocolate-smeared face and squeals "thanks, Mommy!" Of course, she also sits behind me in the minivan, where she learned to say "honk honk!" and "schmuck!" while waving only one finger. I'm working on her fine motor skills. Ahem.
I do try hard to be polite. I'm polite when people cut in front of me in line, have more than 15 items in the express checkout, clog my inbox with spam, lecture me on how to raise my kids, etc.
Being polite would be more fun if everyone else did it too. What Emily Post's heirs really need to write is a sequel for how to avoid a murderous rage when the rest of the world doesn't take etiquette lessons.
My husband is a huge Mutts fan and wouldn't let me pan a book of McDonnell's even if he were capable of writing a bad one. Though this one leans a tad toward the pedestrian, if I can avoid getting shot at for saying so. Still, if I could say as much in so little space, I'd bottle his talent, sell stock in it, and retire to my own island.
So Hug Time doesn't rate with my all-time favorite of his, The Gift of Nothing, but it's a fine little book about dispensing full-frontal, no-holds-barred hugs. I don't know all the Mutts characters (being a relative newcomer to the McDonnell orbit), but a little kitty named Jules sets off on a round-the-world trip wearing a favorite sweater and carrying a hug-to-do list.
In rhyming quattrains, he meets up with a variety of animals, more than a few on the endangered list, and gives 'em a big ol' squeeze:
Exploring the rain forest by foot and canoe, Jules discovered a species brand-new. Kneeling, he whispered, "We welcome you." Off to India--with its tigers so few, Finding one is hard to do.
Okay, so there are better rhymers out there, and McDonnell isn't above some blatant sentimentality, especially considering his famed fondness for animals (he's on the board of directors of The Humane Society of the United States, among other accomplishments).
There's no real plot here--no conflict or mounting drama or discernible character arc. Still, 'tis the season for such things, and you could do worse than put a hug in someone's stocking.
Rabbit's Gift: A Fable from China by George Shannon; illustrated by Laura Dronzek
Harcourt, Inc.
The rabbit in this story starts out with an extra turnip, and winds up with a lot of friends. He passes along the extra turnip to Donkey, who he imagines is lonely. Donkey--not knowing it came from Rabbit--passes the surprise treat along to another animal friend he thinks might need it more. And so on, until it comes full circle.
An end note states that variations of the story have turned up in places as different as Germany and Jordan, and likely exist "among and beyond these cultures."
The understated acrylics cover a lot of ground emotionally, from the animals' kindly nature to the frosty landscape. You can almost feel a chill in the air (though maybe I have the heat turned too low) in Dronzek's expressionistic blending of blues, grays and whites. A dab of yellow in rabbit's white fur tells us something about his disposition--a ray of warmth in the harsh winter.
I recently came across a blog post where a Mommy--a picture book author, no less--griped that she hated wordless books because she didn't know how to read them aloud. I imagined her improvising a story, all stammers and false starts, and felt sorry for her.
I don't have that problem, obviously. Can I natter about anything art-related? Why, yes I can! Sometimes I even make sense (not that my kids ever notice).
Books like this one, where sequential pictures make for a clear narrative, make it easier, of course. This nearly wordless book speaks loudly and cheerfully, with the world's simplest palette: white and gray scale for daytime, and deep blue, black and banana yellow at night.
Know what I thought of first? Matisse. Call me crazy, but using just four colors (in printing terms, gray is really lesser tones of black) in huge, flat slabs to convey mood just smacks of my favorite Expressionist and his cut-paper collages.
It's set in the Jazz Age, featuring a sleepy fellow with a cockatoo on his head who buys an egg and sticks it in his fridge, waking in deepest, darkest night to a cracking sound. We get only slivers of light--that's the yellow, see--and the silhouette of a crocodile. What follows is the usual madcap misunderstanding, with the fellow fleeing, cockatoo in tow, to a cramped little flat elsewhere.
Foldout pages go out or up, adding scale and suspense. What'll it unfold to be? Why, a tall building, with a lonely croc peering out from the only lit window. How sad. Not to fear ... several pages later, we'll be back as the man accepts a mysterious invitation. Unfold the pages upward and discover his old building converted into a blues club, the local swells outlined in the lit windows.
This study in contrasts--dark or bright, empty or busy, cramped or expansive--uses only a few monosyllables (we do get a "zoom" or a "swoosh" here and there) but a large visual vocabulary. And since kids read illustrations, they'll piece together a more coherent story than you could spin in an hour of talking.
See if they can pick out the man from all the other shadows when he's in line for the blues club. I bet they know immediately it's the silhouette in yellow, as if reflecting the light, his face upturned in obvious wonder, though he has no facial features we ever see.
You can weave stories out of whole cloth, or whole pages, with just four colors, no words, bare outlines and plenty of laughter. Try this for starters: "Once upon a time ..."
No self-respecting preschooler likes bedtime and Lucy, the protagonist of Natasha Wing’s Go to Bed, Monster!, is no different:
“One night, Lucy tossed and turned. She could not, would not, did not want to go to bed.”
Lucy decides to relieve her boredom by drawing quietly in her room. An oval, a square, some rectangles and circles later and she has a Monster.
Things begin nicely for Lucy and her Monster. They play and jump and skip. Finally, however, Lucy is tired and ready to go to bed. But Monster? No such luck. He’s hungry and thirsty and scared. Poor Lucy has to draw and draw and draw to keep up with his bedtime demands.
Sylvie Kantorovitz’s charming crayon drawings are a delight. Her Lucy, in blue-footed pajamas, is a wide-eyed child with a wicked set of crayons. Everything Lucy touches comes to life, often with hilarious results. Young children will love watching Monster’s expressions as he declares his hunger, his thirst, his anger, and his joy. Monster is being a bad boy and they’ll delight in telling you so.
Go to Bed, Monster! is perfect as the penultimate bedtime book. Just follow it up with something really sleepy like Goodnight Moon for maximum effect.
Stephen who? I promise you a celebrity and you're saying Stephen freaking WHO?
Freaking is right! As in Freakonomics, a big ol' bestseller on economics. Yawn. Dubner is yet another smug smartypants mooching off the New York Times' paranoia for having a blog on absolutely every subject whatsoever. Okay, so he's not Madonna or Will Smith. It's kinda iffy whether he's a real celebrity.
This still qualifies him to pen Children's Lit-rah-toor, as in For The Ages, for future dissertation writers, for awards committees. I know this because I've gotten three press releases on it. Two came via email -- including one from his research assistant. In my day, interns padded a resume by licking out the coffee pot and bending over for the HR folks. Now they have to flog insipid kiddie books too. It's getting tough out there.
Not since Jason
Alexander committed acts of literary indecency on the Tooth Fairy has a
celebrity (or near enough) sunk to such grimace-inducing depths.
It's about this boy, named after the author's son, just like books
written by real celebrities. Wow, can't they all get their own vanity press already?
Anyway.
So this boy has ... no way ... can't be ... two bellybuttons! Yes
way. And his parents don't think this is a big deal. He doesn't even
notice the diff until he sees baby sister with the standard-issue
singleton. This must be the only kid whose pop,
uncle, babysitter or random stranger didn't dispense moose
kisses on his middle. A tragedy right there.
A professor of buttonology who might've been a clever plot device
instead turns him away--without examining the evidence. The kid pulls
his shirt up every other page or so, but not for the good professor?
Hmmm ... I sense a don't-trust-experts subtext here to go with the
out-of-touch parents. Chip on the ol' academic shoulder, eh?
Lucky for us, the author had recently interviewed Stephen Spielberg
for the NY Times before being inspired -- if that's the right word --
to write this crapola, which I know from one of those deeply meaningful press
releases.
And did he mention he writes for the NY Times? This means he must have worthwhile things to
say. Not in this book, but generally.
Back to Spielberg. The boy smacks into the fabu director, who we know is cool
because he wears a baseball cap with his tux. And he assures the boy
that he's special and he's going to make a movie about him. Gives him his
card too.
And so what is The Message? If you believe press releases (Yes, yes! Send more ...) it's that we're all special. Isn't that special?
But if you're half awake, you realize what he's really saying is that
only Hollywood can give you the validation you crave. Pretty uplifting,
no?
This is such a flagrantly ill-advised,
blundering foray into the culture wars, I found myself empathizing with
family-values conservatives who wail about this subversive, lefty
Hollywood shit all the time. Maybe they actually have a point, except
to be subversive, it has to be clever. We're all pretty safe on that
score.
Awrighty, I think we got him on the mats. Now to pin
this bad boy but good. Yes, I'm thinking Blurb-O-Mat -- the
instant quotes he can use for flap copy. I'm all for helping desperate
publicists:
"Gives navel gazing a bad name."
"Gets his anatomy wrong -- belly buttons aren't at all the right orifice for such a hack job."
Okay, I've seen some cute book promotions, and many annoying ones. Fortunately, Jarrett J. Krosoczka , author of Punk Farm on Tour, made me laugh instead of cringe when he suggested his characters do a Q&A with various bloggers.
Bloggers at 7-Imp and Fuse #8 took the bait, and so did I, but on one condition: that my five-year-old son and his classmates do the asking.
I dropped off the galleys at school and his teachers read the book about five farm animals who form a punk rock band. They were kind enough to write down the questions, but asked that the children's anonymity be protected on the Internet (hence, no photos of the dears).
I then emailed Jarrett, who admits:
These are hysterical! What a cool twist! PF has faced many tough interviewers...but the Kindergartners from Chicago Jewish Day School? Yikes, they were tough ones... =)
CJDS: Pig -- Why would he do all the stuff, when he had to stop the people?"
PIG: Well, you know how it is. When you're a pig in a rock band, sometimes you need to just make things happen. The other band-mates got a little upset when they had to wait for me.
CJDS: Sheep -- Why do you make the animals go fast?
SHEEP: Oh yeah - uh...about that. Well, you see the thing is, we needed to get back to the farm and quickly! But speeding is wrong and I don't think it's a good idea...
CJDS: Pig -- How did you make the song?
PIG: I made the song by practicing playing my guitar every day. Practice makes perfect! So does confidence. And that's why I ROCK!
CJDS: Sheep -- Why did they start the show?
SHEEP: Well, the owl who was running the club needed us to start playing on time. A lot of animals bought tickets to see the show and they'd get upset if they were kept waiting.
CJDS: Cow -- Why did he say hold your horses?
COW: Well, I said "Hold your horses" because everyone was getting upset because we were lost. I saw the barn and knew that's where we had to go!
CJDS: Why couldn't they fix the car?
GOAT: Little dudes, I tried my best to fix the van. But it's an old van and we traveled very far. I'm surprised it lasted as long as it did!
CJDS: Pig -- Why did he say I don't want to get dirty, since pigs like getting dirty?
PIG: Well, I'm not like other pigs. I like to be clean and presentable. I also don't like manual labor. So fixing a tire just isn't my thing.
CJDS: Goat -- Why are you so cool and not the other animals?
GOAT: Well, well, well...looks like the jury is out. I'm the coolest one in the group!
PIG: Hey!
SHEEP: Now, is this a scientific poll?
CHICKEN: What about me?! I'm cool!!! And not one question for me?! (sniffle)
GOAT: See...I'm the coolest because I don't get upset. Sometimes life throws you curve balls and you just need to roll with it.
COW: Well, Goat is really cool. But look at my cowbell! Cowbells rock! That makes me cool. Doesn't it? Oh.....
Shante Keys and the New Year's Peas by Gail Piernas-Davenport; illustrated by Marion Eldridge
Albert Whitman & Co.
Black-eyed peas, dontcha know, are an African-American tradition on New Year's Day. But Shante's grandma -- who's been cooking up a storm -- forgot all about them. Shante scurries about the neighborhood, but her neighbors have their own traditions and foods.
By the time Shante returns with those legumes, we've learned a bit about Chinese, Hindu, Scottish and Mexican celebrations. When everyone turns up with their own dishes, you can almost smell the varied spices. How come I don't get invited to potlucks like that?
Suspense builds quickly and we move at a brisk pace, thanks to Piernas-Davenport's taut rhyming couplets. It was almost over too quickly, but end notes describe some other customs around the world.
Eldridge's acrylics are cheery and upbeat, in pleasing pastel shades, adding all the right ingredients for some lighthearted fare.
PIG: Well, you know how it is. When you're a pig in a rock band, sometimes you need to just make things happen. The other band-mates got a little upset when they had to wait for me.
SHEEP: Oh yeah - uh...about that. Well, you see the thing is, we needed to get back to the farm and quickly! But speeding is wrong and I don't think it's a good idea...
COW: Well, I said "Hold your horses" because everyone was getting upset because we were lost. I saw the barn and knew that's where we had to go!
GOAT: Well, well, well...looks like the jury is out. I'm the coolest one in the group!
CHICKEN: What about me?! I'm cool!!! And not one question for me?! (sniffle)