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You need this: Picture books for parents

Misnomer. False advertising. NOT picture books for parents. This is NOT a review of Go the F**k to Sleep. What I think about that book was expressed quite soundly - and strongly - by Roger Sutton of The Horn Book. Roger Sutton is a modern-day hero.

No. These are picture books that are fully for children. Funny, sweet, colorful, devoid of swear words. BUT. They are books that grown-ups will legitimately enjoy themselves. It is one of the perks of having little kids - you have an excuse to consume picture books. Some picture books are insipid or tedious. But some are sly and sparkling.

TO WIT:

Everything I Need to Know Before I'm Five by Valorie Fisher - review

 

If I owned as many plastic bugs, letters, numbers, dice, marbles, dolls, blocks, dollhouse furniture, and Matchbox cars that Valorie Fisher does - and at times it feels like I do - those objects would be broken, tangled, mangled, and covered in dust, not bright and sweet and clean like the hundreds (thousands?) of little treasures in this book.

Not that this is important or will contribute to your enjoyment of Everything I Need to Know Before I'm Five, it's just an extra image to conjure. Valorie Fisher's living room, I bet, isn't carpeted with this toy mulch; nor are her plastic roosters living with their plastic kin in the bottom of a plastic bin that has not been excavated SINCE THESE KIDS WERE THREE I mean come on can't we get rid of SOME of this stuff?!

Hrm.

On the other hand, I will bet her house isn't some hyper-organized scrapbooker's heaven, either. I bet it's adorable. I used to know a couple who had decorated the rooms in their house in themes: there was the Maya Room, with frescoes and faux Pre-Columbian statues; and the Fresnel Room, papered in plastic Fresnel lenses. The fireplace in their kitchen was a mosaic of bottle caps, and the mantel was a parade of hundreds of salt and pepper shakers.

I'm a little distracted. We had an earthquake yesterday, it's possible you heard about it. Nobody was hurt, power and water stayed on, looks like we're going to have to have our chimney rebuilt la la la I'm not thinking about that right now... and as I walked around the house picking up framed photographs and art from the floor where they had fallen, I thought of my friends and their house full of knicknacks. What a mess I bet it is over there. My office is floor-to-ceiling books, and when the house started shaking I remember making a very specific wish that I not be buried under them. If Valorie Fisher keeps her doodad collections in her studio on shelves, she might have been buried under half a ton of particulated kitsch.

That's no way to go.

Apple Pie ABC by Alison Murray - review

Well, I've been on something of a YA kick this summer, as all both of my regular readers could tell. I'm preparing to be a facilitator at Books for the Beast this fall, in the Horror/Suspense category (join us, won't you?), and so there have been a lot of cannibals and nail-biting (do cannibals bite their nails?) around my house lately.

 

Maybe that's why I responded so warmly to this dumpling of an ABC book that I found on the New Picture Books shelf. It has pie! A girl in ponytails! And an extremely winsome dog of the beagle-y terrier-y variety. WHAT could be more wholesome than that?

The beagle's name, I find out from the book's website, is Georgie. And the little girl in the blue jumper is Grace. A is for apple pie, and B C and D are the verbs Grace uses to bake it, cool it, and dish it out. After that, it's all Georgie, finding a crumb on the floor and then obsessing over that fat pie, plotting and pining in a realistically single-minded puppy way. Alison Murray's text is cool and simple and perky, getting around the tricky letters so smartly that I had to go back and look - what did she do about X?

The art features a subtly unusual palette of navy blue, blood red, burnt orange, and the slightly off pastels that are produced when those colors are watered down. This scheme results in contrasts that are graphically strong - the navy blue jumper against a watery blue background, for example - while maintaining color harmony.

This looks to me like good confident ink and brush drawing on top of chunky, forthright shapes done in some kind of print process - silk screen I guess, given the texture. The ink still looks sticky, which is an effect I love for children's books. After watching dozens of kids visually reverse-engineer the illustrations in dozens of picture books so that they can try to duplicate a style or effect, I am partial to art techniques that reveal process or bear the imprint of the materials used.

More of this Scotswoman's art is on her blog, called everything is pattern.

 

Storytime books for styley babies

Here is good news: My friend Cara has opened a shop! All the stompin' sweet Coney Island tattoo-inspired, graffitiesque baby and toddler clothes (plus a few toys, accessories and books) that she has been selling online at Urban Baby are now available for fondling in a bricks and mortar space. I stopped in last week and now I need all my (younger) friends to start having babies so that I can buy them Milkshake-inspired raggedy tutus and baby-sized Carhartts-like coveralls.

Anyway, Cara was talking about maybe doing a storytime in the shop, and wondered if I had any book suggestions. And you know? It's something I have always wanted to do - compile a list of picture books that are ALL hip and illustration-y and design-y. Picture books for art school graduates. Picture books for people who listen to college radio.

BUT. While it is not too difficult to quickly I.D. the books that make design consumers go "ooooh!" I want to be sure that Cara's storytimers have books that work out loud. Not too much text, art that reads from 6 to 10 feet away, and the opportunity to bust out funny voices or do some singing. There's a science to this stuff, you know.

 

So! Let's get down to it, boppers:

A flapjack stack of picture books

Here's what can happen when a family gets inspired by picture books, in this case Arthur Geisert's Lights Out (with just a touch of Wayne White I think). Just hit the play button:

Since returning from our vacation (long, excellent, TROPICAL PARADISE did I mention?) (and if you accuse me of gloating, please allow me to mention that my last two vacations were to Lake Erie and DETROIT - we deserved this), I have been feverishly reading picture books, trying to catch up. I consider it a responsibility to try to clap eyes on just about every picture book we get at the library. They're short, you can get through a big stack in half an hour, and the difference between a truly extraordinary picture book and an average everyday picture book is immense.

Click through for my short stack of recent favorites...

LMNO peas by Keith Baker - review

What is it about peas? Small, round, green, friendly... illustrators LOVE peas. Sometimes children don't, but that's the fault of misguided mothers who serve canned peas, or who, like my husband's otherwise sainted mother, consistently burned the peas. That woman cooked for twelve people every night for years, and - tragically - shh! - she wasn't a very good cook.

 

We grow peas in our yard, and fresh off the vine there is nothing more delicious. As small children, my boys would zip open the pods and tell stories about the tiny round brothers nestled inside. Stories with dreadful, tragic endings, as each pea ended up crushed to death between infant molars.

 

Don't believe me?



This alphabet book is right up our alley. The peas, about a quarter inch in diameter, are adventurous, ingenious and bold, scaling the giant letters on each page, demonstrating occupations (miners, nurses, officers) and hobbies (quilters, readers, swimmers) with appropriate props, outfits, and scenery.

 

The text rhymes. The colors are textured and bright. The words chosen to exemplify each letter are correct - none of this "E is for eye" business. It's a pet peeve of mine, when ABC books use words that a kid wouldn't intuitively identify with the letter. (I am talkin' to YOU Huckle Cat!).

 

But I know what you're asking - how does Keith Baker handle the hard stuff at the end of the alphabet?

 

We're weavers,

wishers,

and X-ray doctors too.

We're yogis

in a pose, and...

zoologists - that's who!

 

Satisfied? I know I am!

Compost Stew: An A to Z Recipe for the Earth by Mary McKenna Siddals, illustrated by Ashley Wolff - review

So engaging and interesting, I didn't realize it was also an ABC book until I reached the letter W! Ashley Wolff's collage and gouache illustrations incorporate so many subject-appropriate scraps - food wrappers, newspaper, pictures of food and flowers - that each page is a treasure hunt. A multicultural cast of children load up the composter with garden waste, kitchen scraps, and all kinds of things that would otherwise go in the garbage. Fun to read and informative to boot.

Creature ABC by Andrew Zuckerman - review

Creature ABC by Andrew Zuckerman

Andrew Zuckerman has made an entire little industry out of the images from his big fat Christmas-present book Creature. There are notecards and floor puzzles and a calendar, and now there's an ABC book.

I kind of can't fault the guy for it, either. When I swung open the cover of Creature abc, I gasped. His pictures of animals great and small - details, portraits, and full-length shots - are lit so brightly I worry for their fur, and shot (and printed) at such a high resolution as to appear three-dimensional. I just looked through the portraits (of humans) on his web site, and I didn't actually want to be that close to Nick Nolte.

The big bold black sans-serif text is easy to read. The little fact boxes about each animal that appear at the end are easy to digest. And there is just nothing funner than turning each thick page with a three year old. "What is that animal? It's a LION, you're right! Is that lion gonna eat you? NO! You eat that lion up first!"

Definitely my new favorite present for two- and three-year-olds.

Labels: ABC, age: PreK - Grade3, animals, superstar books

A Isn't for Fox: An Isn't Alphabet, written by Wendy Ulmer and illustrated by Laura Knorr - review

A Isn't for Fox: An Isn't Alphabet, written by Wendy Ulmer and illustrated by Laura Knorr - review

Here's an ABC book with a new angle: each letter gets two rhyming things that it's "not" for... and an animal that it is. This strategy makes the familiar (ants, zebras) feel fresh, and distracts - in a good way - from the awkward (nuthatch, xenops). Laura Knorr's kicky, detailed paintings exude personality and good humor.

G isn't for mugs; it isn't for bugs. G is for geckos that hide on the rug.

This big fun picture book is perfect to share with a little kid, pointing at the pictures to cue the kid to supply the nouns. The "G" page shows a gecko sitting on a rug drinking from a mug with a bug on it. Between the letter, the repeating framework and the illustrations of each noun, you've got that kid practically reading the whole page. There are very few books that work that way (holla, Ravenous Beast!), and they are to be treasured. Unfortunately, not every page in A Isn't for Fox quite manages the trick:

L isn't for dramas; it isn't for mamas. L is for llamas in fuzzy pajamas.

This page shows llamas having a pillowfight. Hey, I'm sympathetic: how do you illustrate llamas having dramas with their mamas? And not have it be all Lifetime movie-of-the-week? So this one the kid can't help with.

I really respect Laura Knorr's work here: she works in as many of the rhyming words as she can, and her range is spectacular. Yaks and fairies are rendered with equal skill and charm. It's just a shame that the team that produced this book couldn't support that collaborative reading process on every page.

Labels: ABC, age: PreK - Grade3, animals, picture books

NASCAR ABCs by Paul DuBois Jacobs, Jennifer Swender, illustrated by Aaron Zenz - review

NASCAR ABCs by Paul DuBois Jacobs, Jennifer Swender, illustrated by Aaron Zenz

Here's one that's been a long time coming. And it's really pretty great. The word choice is good, especially around the problem letters (Q is for Qualify, X is for X-factor, and Z of course is for Zooming); the rhymes are fine; and the collage-y illustrations are bright. There are some minor issues with page layout: the big "F" overlays the hauler instead of the flags, for example, but nothing to prevent a young race fan from carrying this book home and enjoying it.

Bonus for parents who don't actually follow NASCAR: a glossary at the back!

Labels: ABC, age: PreK - Grade3, boy books, picture books

A bold carnivore: An alphabet of predators by Consie Powell - review

A bold carnivore: An alphabet of predators by Consie Powell
Is it a natural history book? An ABC book? Or a showcase for an outstanding nature illustrator to strut her stuff? The brief, atmospheric text on each page had me counting syllables; the rythym and immediacy felt an awful lot like haiku.

Wow.

Labels: ABC, age: Grade1 and up, animals, nonfiction