Wow, I am finally reclaiming my brain. For about two, maybe three months I have literally not had one unclaimed hour. Since September, I have co-hosted one conference, facilitated at another, spoken at a third - IN EGYPT - and presented at two events. And written three columns for the Baltimore Sun. You should see my house.
But the smoke is clearing and I am getting my feet back under me. Today I finally put away all the Sharpies and Post-Its we took to KidLitCon. I have four tote bags and one box of books to go out the door to the school library and the family reading program at the detention center. I'm not QUITE unpacked from Egypt, BUT last night I read my way through the 18" stack of forthcoming picture books that was sitting on the radiator blocking the cats' view of the front yard. And I have a few I'd like to tell you about:
I Am Bear
Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear. Fuzzy Wuzzy deserved an update.
ANARCHY. Pure doughnut-stealing squirrel-munching purple-haired anarchy, delivered with gemlike verbal economy and fat, saturated art that in places mimics the texture of spray paint on on concrete and in others made me think of jerky calligraphy done with a giant brush.
I am calling this genius.
BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE!
Is Mommy?
Ha! You mean I don't have to be pretty and young and fun and tidy in order to be loved by my sometimes-boring, sometimes-mean, sometimes-messy children? Good to know - and I'm sure they'll be happy to learn that the reverse applies too, which is surely the point of this delightful, and delightfully illustrated book.
Tiger and Badger
Best friends who bicker and fight and trick each other and get mad at each other and cry? The hell you say!
The best discussion of the role of conflict in learning I've seen recently comes from a local preschool teacher, Teacher Tom. One of the most important points he makes in what is a very worthwhile blog post is this:
"As a teacher in a school that engages in no direct instruction, but rather bases its curriculum on the evidence of how children learn best, which is through their own self-selected free play, I'm here to tell you that conflict stands at the center of how learning happens. Our entire school day, is, for all intents and purposes, recess, and yes, much of what the children are doing while playing both indoors and out is bicker."
What's the most important thing we learn, ever? How to get along with each other. And how do you learn to get along with someone else if there is no conflict? This book is one of the rare ones that realistically models the sometimes nonsensical ups and downs of preschool friendship. Does it look like a semi-hallucinated movie about insane people in some places, with its haphazard placement of laundry and teacups? Yes, yes it does. Have you SPENT any time with preschoolers lately? There you go.
There's a Little Black Spot on the Sun Today
I... I am not sure about this. Let me set it up for you and maybe you can decide for yourself: the illustrator's son was diagnosed with a "serious illness" at the age of three. The man and his son had to travel to see many doctors and hospitals and the boy had to endure painful treatments. One day, father and son heard the Police song "King of Pain" on the radio and the little boy caught on to its sentiment, identifying himself as "the king of pain."
Now, this is heartbreaking, to be sure. And rather than contradict the boy, the illustrator decided to work with the lyrics of the song, and created a set of semi-abstract geometric illustrations - illustrations full of hard edges and pointy angles but at the same time kind of calm, as abstractions tend to be. And that's basically this book.
The little boy recovered from his illness and he's ok now. This is noted not in the text of the book but in the illustrator's bio.
So here are my thoughts:
a) It is not a bad thing to acknowledge that sometimes bad things happen even to innocent little kids, and it is not a bad thing to acknowledge actual pain. Small children who experience pain should have something that reflects and validates that.
b) The lyrics to "King of Pain" use simple nouns and verbs - "there's a black-wing gull with a broken back," "there's a butterfly trapped in a spider's web" - to create easily-visualized images of helplessness, hopelessness, injury and sorrow. A kid can mentally conjure the butterfly in the spiderweb with no trouble.
On the other hand, some of these lines are a liiiitttle heavy-handed. "There's a king on a throne with his eyes torn out"? "There's a dead salmon frozen in a waterfall"? Any kid prone to morbid ideation - and I can't help thinking that a child experiencing physical or emotional pain is more likely to fall prey to such thoughts - might fixate on images like these in an unhealthy way. Also, come on - the whole song is a little bit Undergraduate Melodrama 101, don't you think?
c) The book ends with "But it's my destiny to be the king of pain." At least it doesn't end like the song does, on a fade-out repeat of "I'll always be king of pain" - damn, Sting I didn't realize it was so rough to be good-looking, wealthy, and (allegedly) able to sustain an erection for seven hours. Still, not even a glimmer of hope at the end? Especially since the kid is ok now?
I would get this book. I would keep it in a special place and pull it out when I was working with a kid who was experiencing extreme emotions. Finding words and making simple pictures to go along with them is a helpful therapeutic exercise.
But in all other contexts I would make this sucker sound an alarm when lifted off the shelf.
Whoops!
Liked this quite a lot. Reminded me of an old favorite, The Ravenous Beast by Niamh Sharkey, and here's why: it's a simple repetitive story with lotsa onomatopoiea and kooky characters, and the elements of the repetitive text that change are easily cued by the pictures. So even a pre-reader can quickly get the gist of the way the 'verses' are set up, and mimic reading along with the book.
I am always on the lookout for books like this that narrow that gap between pre-reading and reading.
Greenling
No doubt, the illustrations are amazing, I mean sink into for days amazing.
But I found the meter to be difficult to get a bead on, the message to be simultaneously murky and ham-handed, and the style to be unlikely to appeal to most kids. I'll keep a copy of his Black Dog
McToad Mows Tiny Island
In the grand tradition of toad and frog sagas (Frog Went A-Courtin'
I love the mind of Tom Angleberger, having fun breaking what seems to be a simple task - mowing the lawn - into a chain of constituent projects. And holy cow I LOVE the art of John Hendrix here. Oooh the details! OOOH the glowing acrylic washes! La la la McToad's grippy, knobby hands! I like this book!
Baa Baa Smart Sheep by Mark Sommerset and Rowan Sommerset
Researchers have found that there is no such thing as a universal human taboo. Like Rule 34 of the Internet, if you can imagine it, somebody somewhere under some certain circumstance does it. However, a few practices - incest, bestiality, cannibalism, and coprophagia - come verrrrry close to qualifying as universal behavioral no-fly zones. People all over the world have decided it's probably a good idea to keep our gene pool as viable as possible, and to keep corpses and excrement isolated from our food supply.
So a book in which a character is tricked into eating poop is just a baaaaaad idea.
(And guess what? There's a sequel: I Love Lemonade. I shit you not.)
Kirk out, kids - see you next time!
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