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35 picture books in 24 hours - life as a Cybils picture book judge!

 

Dot, Clem, Ozzie, Ollie, Maya, Nalah, Loula, and Ripple. Henry, Dorothy, Francis, Betsy, Willow, Jemmy Button and Anna Hibiscus. Plus French film icon Jacques Tati and former Vikings defensive end Alan Page.

These are my new best friends. And they are just a very few of the main characters of picture books nominated for Best Picture Book in the Cybils Awards. Go on, take a peek at the nominations list. Wow, right?

It's a diverse bunch of folks - there's a dolphin, a dog, foxes, monsters, princesses, squirrels and more than one bunny. Loula is French, Noah and Na'amah are South Asian in The Enduring Ark, the Lucky Ducklings live in Montauk, the Tiny King is Japanese, and Anna Hibiscus lives in "Africa, amazing Africa." Jemmy Button was real. Mr. Hulot was the fictional alter ego of the real actor Jacques Tati.

One Cool Friend by Toni Buzzeo, pictures by David Small - review

 

Oh David Small! For decades you and your wife gave us stories that we loved, populated by characters that, for all their exaggerated features, were wonderful, recognizable real people. Your landscapes and buildings always looked effortless but terrific. Then you wrote Stitches: A Memoir, and we all cried our eyes out. Amazing graphic novel memoir. And I don't know about other people in my industry, but I figured, given the acclaim Stitches garnered, David Small would then by and large quit illustrating picture books.

So pleased to be wrong!

Bawk & Roll written by Tammi Sauer illustrated by Dan Santat - review

From Bawk & Roll:

The lights went down.
The curtains went up.
The barnyard went wild.

YES. Have I gushed about a picture book recently? Let me check. Nah, not really. Well get ready, because I am ready to talk about Dan Santat.

The Unruly Queen by E. S. Redmond - review

Unruly. We can start with that. There's something rough and challenging about the word. It calls to mind glamorous rogues who are always getting in bar fights. Elizabeth Taylor in Taming of the Shrew. Wouldn't you like to be thought of as 'unruly' from time to time? Slightly unsafe? Unpredictable, like the high-heeled little spitfire on the cover of this new picture book?

Let's open her up and see.

On the title page we see a uniformed maid, an old lady with a big bottom, high heels and garters, down on her knees with a bucket scrubbing marker off the striped wallpaper. On the next we meet our evil little regent, rollerskating down the hall in a pink tutu and bow, marking the wall with a thick china marker. Her eyes are cast back at the maid and she is smiling a tiny, rotten smile.

I think I'm going to like this. I love characters that actually shock children.

11 Experiments That Failed by Jenny Offill & Nancy Carpenter - review

 

Ok, stop: the peaceful, rapturous expression on our girl scientist's face as she lets fly a slice of bologna in the school cafeteria would have sold me on this book even if I had not already been giggling, snorting, and cackling on almost every page prior.

I'm going to scan that page. Hold on.

Tsk. I can't fit the book on the scanner without breaking it in half, and it's a library book. I'm going to take a picture of that page. Hold on.

 

Look at that. That's a The-Hills-Are-Alive face. That's Elizabeth Taylor in National Velvet crossing the finish line with a half-ton of wild but gifted racehorse under her butt. That face - you just know it - is going to get in soooo much trouble in about fifteen seconds, but for now, that is the face of scientific validation.

 

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:

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.

 

And the green grass grew all around - ecology read-alouds

Sometimes I get a request from a library customer or a friend that is so inspiring, it sticks with me for days. Our friend Doug, who is finishing up a master's in education sometime in the next decade or so, is working up a model English class for middle schoolers who have been studying ecology. He figured he'd read them The Lorax as a discussion starter, but wondered if I had any other suggestions.

 

Now, The Lorax is pretty much on the nose for this purpose, but it's long, and sing-songy, and might already be familiar to middle schoolers as an environmental cautionary tale. So I rubbed my hands together and thought.

Doodleday by Ross Collins - review

There are some picture books that I gravitate to so strongly, it's like they are the Sun and I am a speck of planetary debris.

Hm. "Debris" sounds so drab. Brightly colored planetary debris. Planetary crayon shavings. Or... planetary confetti. I am wearing my calavera cowboy shirt today, and feeling not at all drab.

Plus I am looking at this orangey yellowy and bright white picture book, which is probably what made me think about the Sun, and that book is not making me feel drab either.

Little Chicken's Big Day by Katie and Jerry Davis - SPECIAL GUEST REVIEW

My guest reviewer today - my very first guest reviewer, by the way, but I have a couple more lined up - is my colleague Christina, aka Dances With Chickens.

I give most of the real people in my life blogonyms when I mention them on the interpoops, partly because I love giving people nicknames and I'll use any excuse to do it, and partly because if they get pissed off at me I can say, "Er... whaddaya talking about? When I referred to 'my colleague Token Boy Librarian' I was talking about... uh... the other... boy librarian."

Forsythia & Me by Vincent X. Kirsch - review

 

Speaking of rabbits. I was admiring this new book from Vincent X. Kirsch (The Two Little Boys from Toolittle Toys) with my friend and colleague Mrs. Rabbit the other day.

"Look!" I said. And also "Awww!"

"This guy has the most delicate etchy line, but his shapes are bold and strong."

"I like the little details. Look at her with her heart-shaped glasses!"

 

Blue Chameleon by Emily Gravett - review

Let's just get this right out of the way: Emily Gravett earned my undying devotion long ago, with Monkey and Me, and she's never let me down since. So - no surprises - I am going to gush about this book. Get ready.

Chameleon, who is drawn using the most vibrant colored pencils on the roughest paper I've ever seen, is sad. All that throaty texture and voluptuous color is for nought - he is nothing but blue on the inside. So, gamely, he tries to make friends.

He turns himself yellow and curvy to try to fit in with his potential new friend Banana. No dice. Turns orangey sunset gold and blub-blub-blubs at his potential new friend Fish. That fish's expression is priceless, as is the green grasshopper's when Chameleon hops after him in pursuit of companionship.

Poor Chameleon. He has all but given up, faded whitely into the page, when a there's a tap on his tail.

 

Look! Someone who shares his appetite for fun, his bangin' dance moves, AND his fashion sense! The other chameleon, I mean - I'm sure it was just a coincidence that this book arrived the day I wore my new purple suede cape embroidered with multicolored flowers over a green and blue striped sweater.

This is your storytime: you read the book, then we all get to do our best imitations of bananas, snails, socks and rocks. And at the end, we strike our most fabulous pose! Have a wonderful weekend, everyone! And if you live in Baltimore, join us Sunday at The Chameleon Cafe to eat the amazing small plate creations of chef Jeff Smith (the man who taught me how to carve a pig head) in support of The Neighborhoods of Greater Lauraville! 4pm to 7pm, $40 prix fixe.

 

Blue Chameleon also reviewed at The Bookbag, Kids Book Review, and Waking Brain Cells.

Cloudette by Tom Lichtenheld - review

 

Cloudette. Cloudette is a little bitty soft white cloud. A friendly little cumulus cream puff whose name, as I say, is Cloudette. I could say that all day: isn't it satisfying when you come upon something that is that just-right and self-evident? "Yes," you think. "Of course her name is Cloudette." It's so clever - not show-offy clever, just cute clever. Clever like putting bacon in a chocolate bar. Anyone could have thought of it. But you know what? Tom Lichtenheld thought of it.

And since Tom Lichtenheld thought of it, he got to write a story for Cloudette, too. It's not a very complicated story. It's got a status quo, a note of dissatisfaction, crisis, venue change, and resolution. That's a nice arc, and in Lichtenheld's hands it has balance and excellent pace. It's a story that's built like a brick... rainbow.

Sneezenesia by Deb Lucke - review

 

I once yelled at one of my kids so hard I gave myself a cold. No lie. What had he done? Um. He forgot a thing. He forgot a thing something like 65 days in a row, and I admit I kind of lost it. I lectured, I harangued: I got so upset I picked up a kitchen chair and banged it on the floor a few times like Krushchev or Baltimore's former mayor with a shoe. And when I stopped for breath, I sneezed four times and then had to go lie on the couch for three days.

The kid in Sneezenesia has the opposite problem. Poor kid has sneezed so hard he's forgotten his own name! Shopping at the supermarket, he's forgotten what his mom looks like! And then he keeps sneezing and keeps sneezing until all the facts he's ever known - dinosaurs, presidents (none the worse for wear, but Richard Nixon is covered in snot) - pop out of his nose and lie scattered on the floor in the canned foods section.

 

This book came out last year but somehow I missed it. I'm glad I caught it now. I'd put it together with A Sick Day for Amos McGee and do an unexpectedly fun cold-and-flu-themed storytime. Anybody know a good song about sneezing?

 

Lulu and the Brontosaurus by Judith Viorst, illustrated by Lane Smith - review

Judith Viorst, by virtue of that book she wrote last year when Alexander and his family moved in with her temporarily and made her shiver for the fate of her velvet upholstered parlor chairs (Alexander and the Wonderful, Marvelous, Excellent, Terrific Ninety Days: An Almost Completely Honest Account of What Happened to Our Family When Our Youngest ... Came to Live with Us for Three Months), sticks in my mind as some kind of Joan Didion character. Sharp-eyed, funny, a little uncompromising, extremely self-aware. She lives in D.C., not New York or CT, and D.C. to me implies a certain Nina Totenbergitude.

Or a Mrs. Basil E. Frankweileriness. Like she'd be a person who speaks to children directly and appraisingly, a person who has no patience for the kind of performances that adults sometimes put on in front of children, and who finds the recitations of cuteness or precociousness that children are sometimes expected to roll out in front of adults likewise appalling.

Am I assuming too much about Judith Viorst? Well, clearly. What do I know? Maybe she speaks baby talk to grocery clerks and wears amusement park souvenir sweatshirts every day. But nothing in her new book Lulu and the Brontosaurus would lead me to believe that she is anything but the classy, smart-alecky dame I imagine.

MORE BEARS! by Kenn Nesbitt, illustrations by Troy Cummings - review

How many times have you been reading a picture book aloud, maybe to your own children, maybe to a classroom full of kids, maybe just to the people waiting on the subway platform or in line at the grocery store (they love that, trust me), only to be interrupted by some goldfish-cracker-eater clamoring for this or that or the other?

"When is the dragon going to eat her?"

"They should not be cooking waffles they should be cooking CANDY."

"You skipped the tizzle-topped Tufted Mazurka!"

Nathan Hale-batross and Jon Agee-lotl*

I crush pretty hard on illustrators sometimes. I love the assured line of a Tom Lichtenheld. The expressive faces drawn by Emily Gravett. Mr. Dan Santat's mastery of movement and composition (which he wrote a post on recently). The deceptively old-fashioned-looking ink drawings of Nancy Carpenter. Patrick O'Brien, who actually paints, and who says his 3rd Captain Raptor book (with Kevin O'Malley) is in the works. David Small for his gestures. Marla Frazee of course. Sigh. Wish I could draw.

Two of my absolute all-time favorites are Jon Agee and Nathan Hale. Agee has this uncluttered, declarative style (lots of white space, authoritative lines) that harks back to Bill Peet or Syd Hoff. Not a bad thing - even after fifty years, Hoff's books still feel fresh and funny, as do Bill Peet's.

13 Words by Lemony Snicket, illustrated by Maira Kalman - review

Bird. Despondent. Cake, Convertible. Mezzo-soprano. And eight more. Write a story using these thirteen words. It doesn't have to make sense. Nope. In fact, it might be more fun if it didn't. (If you can wedge a song into your story, do it.)

I would read this book to a class and let them come up with guesses about how it came to be. I myself am guessing. For all I know, Lemony Snicket startled a pigeon one day and it flew up and hit him hard in the head and when he came to, he only knew thirteen words, so this story came about as therapy. Could be. You don't know that guy's life. Neither do I.

Maira Kalman is at her very best here, layering thick pasty paint in ultra-saturated colors, adding lots of interesting details that could be the result of her own random-word assignment. Tambourine. Porcupine. Pocket square. Nap.

I'm going to come right out and call this a classic. If it were published forty years ago, New York Review of Books would be republishing it right now. That kind of classic.

Liveblogging the picture books

Aw, yeah... it's ON up here in the room we call the Homework Room... No fact families or sight word lists now, though, the kids are in school, and I've got Ted Leo on the iTunes, the willow tree out the window, and a stack of picture books I haven't had time to get to lately.

This is how I started all this review nonsense, actually - I would take a stack of like TWENTY picture books, read them through, and write two-sentence impressions of each, just so I could remember which ones I should recommend to my library customers.

So this is a ROOTS post:

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:

Sleepover at Gramma's House by Barbara Joosse, illustrated by Jan Jutte - review

Ok my kids may be only 7 and 9, but after reading this book I want them to get right on having some grandchildren! Barbara Joosse scripts a syncopated, swingy, stop-start love song for a granddaughter and her grandma. They have a tea party, they paint, they listen to a thunderstorm snuggled on the front porch. They know, "the very best way to fall asleep is inside a hug."

HOW long til my boys start dating, settle down, and give me a granddaughter?

Toothy, bold ink lines give the illustrations an almost woodcut quality, while the color palette, done up in watercolors, is jaunty and varied. It's the composition and details that I like best, though - penguins and other birds, many wearing hats, observe the action... the little girl's apartment is littered with some very suave midcentury modern, and Gramma's comfy little house is cheerfully eclectic. Dutch illustrator Jan Jutte also illustrated Barbara's Roawr! (see image below), and I am looking forward to see more from him on this side of the ocean. And of course, I am always happy to see anything from Barbara Joosse. Her sense of rhythm and her insight into what's fun about childhood make her books small daily treasures to share with little kids.

 

Monsters Eat Whiny Children by Bruce Eric Kaplan - review

I am not sure I even need to write about this book, given that title. You are either going to think that's the funniest thing that has ever entered your house, or you are going to think that's appalling.

Wait, I have 4 elementary school boys around my dining room table right this second. Lunchtime poll:

YNL: Look at the cover of this book. Would you read this book?

Secondo: No.

YNL: No? Too scary?

Secondo: No. I just won't say yes to anything you ask me ever.

YNL: Always suspected as much. Zhou?

Zhou: Yeah, sure, I would read it!

Prime: Looks good to me!

Mao: Ehhh... I'd rather read LEGO Star Wars.

YNL: Like, not right now... would you read it ever at all?

Mao: I've already read it and it's really funny.

 

Well that wasn't very satisfying. Maybe I'll ask a followup question.

YNL: If you were to eat whiny children, how would you prepare them?

Secondo: With pepper and salsa - a lot of salsa!

Zhou: I would bake them and then I would put them with a little bit of bacon, one egg, and all the materials for making a burrito except the tortilla.

Prime: I would probably chop them up, donate them to a restaurant, go to the restaurant, and order something good.

Zhou: With them in it.

Prime: That's what I mean.

Mao: I'd put them in a burrito with salsa, a lot of cheese, and some beef.

Zhou: But that makes you fart.

Better! Me, I would braise those whiny children. I like a slow braise. But there is no actual cooking in this book, although the oven does get preheated preparatory to baking the whiny children in a cake, which doesn't happen because somebody spills the flour. Sorry if I gave away a plot point. I thought it was maybe important to note that no children are actually consumed in this book. You'd be surprised what parents sometimes don't take for granted. Although, come to think of it, almost anything can happen in a picture book. That one book that I thought was about classroom manners and turned out to be about sexual abuse of a child? I have never gotten over that book. And this book is written and illustrated by a New Yorker cartoonist, and some of those guys have an odd sense of what is funny. There was a whole Seinfeld episode about that. And in fact, the guy who wrote that Seinfeld episode wrote this book. Huh.

Endpaper bonus: funny endpapers.

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...

Kindergarten Diary: as told to Antoinette Portis by me, Annalina - review

Check out this quote from Kindergarten Diary:

We are Room 2K.
We are fine!

Assertive. Clear-eyed. Defiant-like. Almost... anthemic. And, written as it is beneath a drawing of three little kids hanging upside-down, big smiles on their faces and their belly-buttons showing, "fine" begins to assume a whole bunch of meaning:

• First kid (subtext): "Not only are we 'fine,' we are happy and fine!"
• Second kid (subtext): "And we're just going to get fine-r!"
• Third kid (subtext): "Not only did we have nothing to worry about, you parents can quit your hand-wringin' too!"

Feeding the Sheep by Leda Schubert, pictures by Andrea U'ren - review

You know what I love for first and second graders? I love a good process book. Whether it's baking a cake or sculpting a clay pot, any book that starts with raw materials and ends with a manufactured item, and shows us the steps in between already has a leg up in my esteem.

Unfortunately, some process books can be - how do I say this - boring.

Not Feeding the Sheep (and not either of the other two books I linked to).

BEA (no longer so) brief recap

 

Your Neighborhood Librarian with some of the guys of Guys Read: Jon Scieszka, Adam Rex, and Mac Barnett. David Lubar is lurking off to the right.

Wow. Was this a great show or what! I am still a little breathless, not least from hauling the giant bag of great books away from the Javits Center. And I swear, I only took the great ones, or the ones I expect to be great, or the ones I really want to know about. I didn't take any random stuff, and still there's got to be 30 books in there.

Everything from Charlie Higson's new book The Enemy, which I find especially intriguing because it intrigues my 15 year old friend N, who usually restricts his reading to game guides... to David Ezra Stein's Interrupting Chicken. The title alone tells you that this book is going to be a mega hit at storytimes for preschoolers on up. My son Zhou read it to us this morning - it's a star!

The Thingamabob by Il Sung Na - review

I have to admit, Il Sung Na's illustration style gives me almost physical pleasure. I feel that it's important for me to say that her delicate, powdery sprays of intense color underlaying the sweetest, finest scratchy ink lines are like getting my hair brushed by a small child. One of my small children, of course - I may be a little odd but I don't actually solicit random children to brush my hair, come on!

 

And then I open the book. No, seriously, I'm still talking about the cover here.

 

The endpapers made me gasp. Eighteen colorful, patterned umbrellas, in brilliant but transparent watercolors, simple and gorgeous. If they were tiles, I'd have the backsplash for my kitchen.

 

There is an elephant. There is an umbrella. The elephant doesn't know what the umbrella is or what it does. The elephant follows several reasonable paths of inquiry - asking his friends, experimenting with it in various ways. Modeling excellent investigatory behaviors. And then it starts raining.

 

Love!

Shark vs. Train by Chris Barton and Tom Lichtenheld - review

SHARK VS. TRAIN!!!

 

Ok, the best way to read this book, which proposes contests between a vicious scary shark and a powerful locomotive towing six cars and a caboose, is to pretend that Samuel L. Jackson is in your head.

Shark vs. Train
Who will win?
Well that depends on if they're...
in the ocean
or on railroad tracks.
It depends on whether they're bowling...
shooting baskets...
or going off the high-dive.

 

You hear that? The way his voice goes up really high on "railroad" and how he draws out "bowling"? Yeah. They really should hire me to do more voice casting. If Samuel L. isn't available because he's making Snakes on a Plane II: Snakes in Paradise, they could get Patrick Stewart. Or the guy who used to promote the monster truck shows on the Spanish language radio in Brooklyn. "Sabado sabado sabado! Monster truck showdown: Destrucción Total!!"

 

Because you need depth and gravitas in order to wring every ounce of giggle out of this super-silly, brilliantly fun story. Or you need menacing, over-the-top, computer-aided hysteria.

 

Tom Lichtenheld's illustrations give us some priceless expressions - Shark looking a bit guilty after having chomped a grand piano; Train well pleased with a fiery belch - but I think it's the tiny comments of Shark and Train that crack me up the most. "This is why you guys have a bad reputation," remarks Train as Shark eats the bowling pins. At trick-or-treating, Shark is showered with candy when he informs the terrified homeowner, "The clown is very hungry."

 

 

 

Their rivalry, like the rivalry of all best friends, playmates and siblings, is bone-deep and bitter. Think Arthur and Lancelot, Annie Oakley and Frank Butler, Gene and Finny. Ok not Gene and Phineas. Because Shark and Train know when to say when, as the challenges become more perilous and difficult. For example, neither of them can manage to keep from getting shushed in the library (HEY! We do NOT shush people anymore!), and when they find themselves swordfighting on a tightrope, they both would rather be somewhere else. As they perform a terrifying motorcycle jump (leaping a truck displaying a very clever joke for all you grownups out there), they agree it's time to take a break.

 

Funny and sweet, great for storytime. Just make sure you bring your BIG voice.

Farm by Elisha Cooper - review

Believe it or not, sometimes I get a little tired of picture books. The tiny little morality plays, the brightly-colored cartoon children and their brightly-colored antics... I only read about twenty of these things a week, you'd get a bit jaded too.

But then Elisha Cooper comes out with a new book (or Marla Frazee or Oliver Jeffers or Linda Smith or Lane Smith or...) and I am starstruck again, savoring every word, staring deep into the witty detail of each drawing, and, in Cooper's case, kind of wondering how the heck he DOES that - that thing with his pencil, how a little wavery line is a cat, or a kid, or a cloud, or a tractor.

Let me back up. This book deserves a little perspective. Lord knows Elisha Cooper has employed it - about half the pages in this yearlong portrait of a family farm are long, lean landscapes, full of sky, with an inch of flat earth at the bottom of the page. Have you ever been out in the true Midwest? It is a marvel to me that such an astringent landscape can be so luxurious in color and texture, as if the sky has to put on a better show to compensate for the lack of earthly features. It suits Cooper's style - in books such as A Good Night Walk and Beach, his large, clean forms kept his little wiggly details from ever looking fussy, and the little wiggly details kept the large volumes from looking too austere.

Barn : bean as Big : little.

Not to slight the text. Cooper is as talented almost as talented a writer as he is an artist, and his narrative choices reflect the same little/big aesthetic as his drawings do.

After a storm, the farm swells with sound. The corn rustles. The cattle bellow. A tractor echoes in and out. Birds quarrel. Bugs hum. Their hum is constant.

This language is plain and calm but never boring. There's too much going on for it to be boring: the boy throws tomatoes at birds, the cattle poop. The imagery - "The rows look like wet hair just after it's combed" - is beautifully apt, domestic and understated, and above all, authentic. Very authentic: the family loses a rooster in September, the farmer uses pesticide and fertilizer, and some of the chipmunks don't make it across the road. You almost expect a little sketch of the farmer meeting with a banker.

To sum up, here are some of the things that I love about this book:

• clouds
• the cats that have names
• skinny wavery green beans
• hay bales like a crumbling ziggurat
• a rooster, seemingly deep in thought but really just standing there
• the girl reading in the barn
• dust

  

¿Quieres algúnos libros bilingüe?

I've got two, both courtesy the Rayo imprint of HarperCollins, and, honestly, they're both so great that I don't even have much to say about them.

Muu, Moo! Rimas de animales / Animal Nursery Rhymes, selected by Alma Flor Alma and F. Isabel Campoy, English versions by Rosalma Zubizarreta, illustrated by Viví Escrivá.

Once Upon a Time: Traditional Latin American Tales / Había una vez: Cuentos tradicionales latinoamericanos, by Rueben Martínez, illustrated by Raúl Colón.

There is no reason any school or public library should be without these two books. Yeah, I said it. The beautifully textured and colored illustrations are of the highest quality, made in paint and pencil by artists who invest their work with detail and thought. The selected folktales and nursery rhymes - some new, some traditional - are interesting and unusual and have a lyrical quality in both languages, good for reading aloud. My hat is off to Harper Collins for putting this kind of investment into bilingual picture books this year.

The Purple Kangaroo by Michael Ian Black and Peter Brown - review

Now I know what the Evil Hate Monkey (some photos not particularly appropriate for work) did when he was but a young, not-quite-evil-more-like-just-an-Impish Smartass Monkey. I need to buy this book for all my friends RIGHT NOW.

One joke (one funny funny joke). Peter Brown's clear, delicious colors. Might look nice in a basket next to something made of chocolate and a few Jordan almonds, don't you think?

Here's the video Michael Ian Black and Peter Brown made about making this book, and you know what? The Evil Hate Monkey thing is not as far off as one might think. Hard to believe anyone ever meets Michael Ian Black and then decides to let him write children's books. But then again, I am wearing a Boy Scout uniform shirt and a chainsaw earring right now and people beg me to do library service to children, so I guess...? standards are really low? Whatever keeps us in Pop-Tarts, right?

Insectlopedia, poems and paintings by Douglas Florian - review

I admit, it can be easy to not read Doug Florian. I buy his books, I put them on the shelf, I pull them out when we're doing something birdy, beasty, spacey, swimmy, and I am always happy to have them. But, as with other items that I trust and rely upon (), I don't always pick them up to read and enjoy them.

The Weevils

We are weevils.
We are evil.
We've aggrieved
Since time primeval.

(excerpt from "The Weevils" by Douglas Florian)

That is funny. They are all funny! Clearly, I should open these books more often. And the paintings are prime too - collaged, sometimes gloopy, accessible. A kid could mimic Florian's technique and get pretty good results, and I like that.

Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes by Eric Litwin, art by James Dean - review

Think of the blue dog - those stupid paintings from the Clinton era, which I think that guy is still doing - and then make them cool, not creepy, and of a self-assured cat rather than a freaked-out dog, and you have a starting point for visualizing the powder-coated apehanger handlebar simple authentic genius of Pete The Cat.

DO I HYPERBOLIZE? NO I DO NOT.

Pete (the cat) is a lean blue cat with a full set of white high-tops. Out for a walk, he steps in various fruit, also mud, turning his white shoes various colors, including brown. But he doesn't let it get him down - he loves his shoes no matter what color they are. He is one laid-back kitty.

Listen, y'all - there is even a song. You can sing it any way you want to, or you can download the mp3 from Harper and sing it their way. The text is simple, repetitive, and visually cued - which are the things you really look for when you're doing a storytime. Those same characteristics are amazingly useful for reading-readiness books. After the briefest introduction, any 3- or 4-year-old will be able to page through this book and "read" it - and be proud to do so.

As if all that weren't enough, you should see the art. It is big, saturated, and accessibly sloppy, and Pete the cat is looking at you on every page with his wise, amused, sleepy eyes. I have so far storytimed this to my kids and to a couple of adults, and I plan to take it to a kindergarten class tomorrow. I am going to KILL with this fun book.

Shapes that roll by Karen Sagel, illustrations by Steve Wilson - review

Just as cute dogs are chick bait when you walk 'em in Battery Park City, and my friend Juliet is a magnet for smelly old drunks, some picture books attract hipster parents like flannel attracts lint. Kevin "Squidfire" Sherry's books. Laura Ljungkvist's. William Bee (guy has a book called Whatever, for Pete's sake - if that's not playing to the post-modern parent I don't know what is). The geometric world of Bob Staake. French illustrator Marc Boutavant, whose book Boule de poils et mon canard translates to "Hairball and my duck," and so I must have it.

And don't think that these artists don't know it. There is, as one Facebook commenter put it recently, "A built-in grandparent market" for cool design. (I would call it a built-in godparent / auntie market, but then I am not ready to accept that, at 45, I am in fact old enough to be a grandparent.) So sometimes one gets the feeling that the kid content of these books goes somewhat overlooked in the process of making an extra-groovy high-design kid book. The books of Ann and Paul Rand, for example, are/were too conceptual for most kids, but web-designer uncles just keep snapping them up for their nieces and nephews.

Letters, numbers, colors, and shapes seem to be particularly tempting topics for modern illustrators and designers. Marion Bataille did that stunning ABC pop-up. There's Bruno Munari's ABC. Charley Harper's illustrations have been repurposed into ABC and 123 books. Counting with Wayne Thiebaud. The Shapes of Wayne White. No no, I made that last one up.

The matte white and inky black backgrounds of Shapes That Roll contrast luxuriously with the shiny varnished bright shapes in the foreground, to make a book that is visual and tactile candy for design-minded moms and dads. That varnish is slick and kind of sticky. Oh yeah. But you know what that varnish is really doing? Much as in The Black Book of Colors, the varnish gives the geometric shapes that are being defined in the book a tiny measure of volume, an additional method of communicating to a child what we mean when we say the word "oval."

The rhyming text is swingy and fun to read aloud, with a nice beefy typeface showing you where to put the emphasis in case you weren't going to be able to figure it out yourself. I think if I had one complaint, it would be that this book is too physically small to comfortably share with a big group of kids. It's storytime-worthy.

The Underground Gators by Tina Casey, illustrated by Lynn Munsinger - review

I used to run a Circus Arts club at the elementary school. We'd do some hula hooping, some slapstick. It was pretty fun. We got to holler and run around. But when it rains. 24 kids who were expecting to be clowns for an hour, stuck IN A CLASSROOM? BRRRR.

One rainy day this fall, at a loss for an activity, I had a brainstorm for a quickie little vaudeville-y act, something two kids could do to distract the audience while we changed scenery between acts. Jokes! We'd have two kids tell jokes! So on this rainy day, I challenged them to come up with jokes. You ever hear what an elementary school kid thinks is a joke?

"Why did the headless kid survive the shipwreck?
Because he was Otto von Bismarck!"

Otto von Bismarck whut? And why a headless kid? But never mind - we must have done 25 minutes of headless kid jokes. The time passed pleasantly and we came up with an act.

There's a lot of this spirit in The Underground Gators. Why are school buses orange? Because "Nobody wants to argue with an alligator who is holding a paintbrush." Why do doughnuts have holes? So that the alligators can carry an extra on their tails!

YESSS!! It's nonsense, pure and simple, taking as its starting point the persistent myth that there are escaped pet alligators living in the sewers of New York City. Lynn Munsinger, who has always excelled at depicting adorable rosy-cheeked tykes beset by the less-cuddly members of the animal kingdom (David Greenberg's Bugs!, Skunks!, Crocs!), supplies this book with personable gators and bemused children in a bright and lively color palette. Good for a read-aloud, good for sharing one-on-one, good for anyone who could use a laugh!

Do Not Build a Frankenstein! by Neil Numberman - review

Kind of like a new baby / big brother book, but funny in a way that many new baby / big brother books sometimes kind of (ugh) aren't (Mail Harry to the Moon, cough). The kid in this book warns the kids in his new neighborhood NOT to bother with the research, the trial and error, the hard work that goes into building a Frankenstein... that even though it can be fun to have someone to play with all the time, there are downsides: the monster will scare your friends and pets, and, though he is more than willing to push you on the swing, you have to watch out for how hard he pushes.

In the end, the kids get to decide for themselves whether it's worth it having a Frankenstein around, as the monster shows up and suggests a game of monster tag.

Good fun, with loopy, cartoony Jeff-Kinney-esque illustrations. Some super expressions here, as when the kid goes whizzing around the swingset, or electrocutes himself by mistake.

Me and You by Geneviève Côté - review

Me and You by Geneviève Côté

When I was in college, my roommate and I had a brief hobby we called "____ Appreciation Day". It started when one day, by accident, we both wore a lot of earth tones to a class taught by an esteemed art historian who wore so much brown that we called her Mudwoman. We decreed that day "Mudwoman Appreciation Day," and from time to time would honor a friend or professor similarly. We'd wear a hat, or a lot of color, or an athletic shirt. Or we'd try to be real short, for "Melfo Appreciation Day." That didn't work - we were both 5'11". Of course, what we were really doing was appreciating each other - dressing alike, cracking each other up.

The pig and bunny in Me and You have much the same impulse. They are such good friends that each wants to be just like the other. The pig puts a pair of tights on her head to mimic bunny's long ears, and bunny makes herself a curly tail out of a lemon twist. The crunchy, sketchy graphite lines and delicate watercolors are are as light and fun as the story is. For the littlest kids.

Books for the unborn

Yikes. That title makes it look like we're talking zombies, doesn't it? Sorry. We're not.

It all started with a novel request - and at five-plus years in the public library, those are becoming fewer and farther between. (Although the young man who asked me to tighten the screw-in barbell in his lip piercing the other day was a new one, now that I think of it. I declined.)

So, trolling the children's section looking for patrons to harass assist, I saw a beautiful young pregnant woman (and since you ask, yes I do think all pregnant women are beautiful) with a discontented expression on her face and a small stack of board books in her hands. "What can I help you find?" is my usual entree, and I was delighted and slightly startled to hear that she was looking for books to read to her unborn child. After assuring her that reading anything out loud would probably have a felicitous effect on this lucky baby, I suggested a few books with fun rhymes, onomatopoeia, singing (lots of singing), and/or laughing, plus a few gently rhythmic books for sleepytime.

I don't know if reading to the unborn has a measurable effect, but it certainly can't hurt, and it surely has a good effect on the parents. It introduces the parents to the joys of picture books, and is in some ways their last chance (for a while) to really sit and savor them without having to defend them from chubby, flaily little hands. They get to anticipate sharing familiar stories with this happy child once she or he is breathing air; and it's lovely to think of the time this woman is going to spend lavishing her undivided attention on the person to be. I am an atheist, and I do not believe in prayer, but I believe in the power of intention.

Anyway, I thought I'd share what I came up with.

Jazzy, fun-to-read books:

Chicka-chicka boom boom. Bill Martin, John Archambault, and Lois Ehlert.

Jamberry by Bruce Degen.

Click, clack, quackity-quack by doreen cronin and betsy lewin.

How Do You Wokka-Wokka? by Elizabeth Bluemle. Here's the Pink Me review.

Chicken Cheeks by Michael Ian Black. Reviewed on Pink Me.

Mr. Brown can moo, can you? (and lots of other Dr. Seuss)

We're going on a bear hunt by Michael Rosen, illustrated by Helen Oxenbury. Make the "swishy-swashy" sound effects a tactile experience as well.

Quiet, soothing books:

All the World by Liz Garton Scanlon. Read the Pink Me review.

Day is done by Peter Yarrow.

This Land is Your Land by Woody Guthrie

Books about parents thinking about their children:

Forever Young written by Bob Dylan, illustrated by Paul Rogers. Might really be the only time for this book - it's definitely written more for adults than for children.

Blueberry Girl by Neil Gaiman

This is the day adapted by Phillis Gershator ; illustrated by Marjorie Priceman. Made me tear up on Pink Me.

Just the two of us by Will Smith, illustrated by the breathtakingly talented Kadir Nelson.

Speaking of Kadir, He's Got the Whole World in His Hands gains a whole new meaning when singing it to your unborn child.

But I think, most of all, I'd recommend that this lovely young woman find a chapter book that makes her happy - something funny, like Nurse Matilda, or something old-fashioned, like Hitty: Her First Hundred Years, or whatever was her very favorite book when she was a kid, and read a chapter or two every evening out loud to her tummy. That is beauty with links to the past, the present, and the future.

Mazel tov to the fortunate parents, and all my fondest, strongest, best intentions to the babies of 2010,

-- your neighborhood librarian

Birdie's Big-Girl Shoes by Sujean Rim - review

Birdie's Big-Girl Shoes by Sujean Rim

Birdie loves helping her mother get dressed. She picks out her mother's sparkliest jewels, her most glamorous sunglasses. She gazes breathlessly at mommy's Louboutins. Birdie's mother, needless to say, is just as cute and chic as she could be, in her sheath dress, with her closet full of shoes. It's nice to see a mommy like that in a picture book from time to time. I know mommies like that. I am not, myself, a mommy like that, but still. Hey, I wear perfume every day - I have aspirations.

Birdie begs and reasons with her mother to let her try on those beautiful shoes. She busts out the big pleading eyes. She is irresistable.

And she tries on the shoes, and she falls down, and she concludes that her bare feet are the most beautiful shoes of all, and that's sweet. But I like this book because of Birdie's big soulful eyes, and because Sujean Rim uses exotic, delicate Japanese printed paper for some of the dresses and shoes, and wispy knits, and because I know that some little girls will just lap up the fashion illustration-esque style.

Let's do nothing! by Tony Fucile - review

Let's do nothing! by Tony Fucile

Frankie and Sal have done everything there is to do. Baked cookies, read comics, played every sport ever invented. The one thing they haven't done is... nothing. So they try it. Unprompted by any adult, I might add - and how many times have adults clutched their heads in frustration and pleaded, "Just sit still for TEN MINUTES!? Oh please?"

Well, Frankie and Sal demonstrate the impossibility of such an exercise. Pretending to be statues, Frankie is beset by pigeons. Pretending to be the Empire State Building, a giant ape steals his glasses. Pretending to be a redwood, he is visited by a friendly dog. It just can't be done. Even when his body is motionless, Frankie's imagination is still motoring along. Love that kid. Frankie and Sal may be my favorite pair of boys since Righty & Lefty, or Trouble Gum.

But as I savored the extremely natural, cartoony-sketchy boys, with their Dennis-the-Menace-y outfits and messy hair, I wondered why the wild and crafty eyes of Sal, the mastermind of the pair, looked so familiar. Hmmm.

That's right. Tony Fucile has spent most of his professional life as an animator, notably, on the greatest animated family movie of all time (YES I SAID IT), The Incredibles. This book, his first standalone picture book, has all the wit and energy of that movie, encased in a small-scale story that kids and parents will recognize and enjoy.

The Scariest Monster in the World by Lee Weatherly & Algy Craig Hall - review

The Scariest Monster in the World by Lee Weatherly & Algy Craig Hall

The scariest monster in the world? Not that scary, when he gets the hiccups! After a lifetime intimidating all the little critters in the forest, those same critters take pity on the monster when his hiccups make him cry. Eventually his own reflection serves to cure his hiccups, and he is so appalled by it that he cleans up his act and decides to act nice.

It's dear, it really is, with nice clear writing, but it's certainly not an unfamiliar story, and I don't know if I'd have reviewed it if it weren't for Algy Craig Hall's extraordinarily fluid, expressive graphite stick and watercolor art. Guy's got a nice line, renders motion beautifully, and captures a wide variety of goofy monster expressions. His work makes me think he's got a future in animation, and not so much as a financial journalist, which is apparently what he does in his off time.

Big Bear Hug by Nicholas Oldland - review

Big Bear Hug by Nicholas Oldland

For the littlest environmentalists, a book as silly as it is big-hearted. The bear wanders all over the place hugging stuff. Animals and trees, mostly. When he comes upon a man who starts to CUT DOWN a tree, the bear briefly considers mauling him to death before reverting to his nature (!) and hugging the guy. Who runs away, extremely unnerved.

And this bear reminds me of someone... ah! the bear in Jon Agee's Milo's Hat Trick. It's the lack of mouth, I think. In the Agee title, I tend to think the bear is telepathic. In this one, the bear is clearly mute. He just hugs stuff.

Love it.

One Shoe Blues, by Sandra Boynton, starring B.B. King - review

One Shoe Blues, by Sandra Boynton, starring B.B. King

This is Sandra Boynton's collaboration with B.B. King. You knew it had to happen. One beloved icon meets another. Let's just say - there are Converse high-tops involved, and that can't be bad.

So - I snatched this off the shelf today, and read it to myself while waiting to pick up the kids from school. Then I read it out loud to some 3rd graders while waiting for the 1st graders to arrive at dismissal (the 1st graders are always last). There is a song in this book: the song is called "One Shoe Blues". I sang the song to the 3rd graders. Did I know the melody? Well, no. There's sheet music in the back, but I figured - it's blues. You can make up blues. The kids enjoyed it, even though they rolled their eyes at my singing. The other parents were more charitable.

When we got home, we played the DVD. It was A. Dorable. Sock puppets and B.B. King singing about how he can't find his left shoe. (The shoe is on his foot.) B.B. King's mama hollers for him to look under the bed and in the closet. He says he did. She says did he look THOROUGHLY under the bed and in the closet. (B.B. King's mama has found herself dragged into the search for a missing item before, one surmises.) Set in a lovely little red shack, with curtains blowing and trees out the window, I loved the little movie. It's on YouTube, see what you think.

Oddly, the DVD was not that well received by the 1st graders and 3rd graders in attendance. I'm guessing they weren't particularly impressed by B.B. King. They don't know a blues legend when they see one. Why would they? But I was very enthusiastic, and played the thing twice, and was happy to answer the question, "What ARE blues, anyway?"

And, like the celebrity appearances on Sesame Street, I believe that such was Sandra Boynton's sneaky little plan. B.B. King is the bait to get the parents into the room, and after watching together, maybe there's more conversation. Or maybe not. Maybe Sandra Boynton just wanted to hear B.B. King sit in a chair and play her song. Nothing wrong with that, either.

All the World by Liz Garton Scanlon, illustrated by Marla Frazee - review

All the World by Liz Garton Scanlon, illustrated by Marla Frazee

One of the things I have always thought was odd about hard-line Waldorf School philosophy - and before you email me, let it be known that I have one marvelous little cousin and one fantastic grown-up niece who are Waldorf products, and I have no problem at all giving the Waldorfers some of the credit for how beautifully they have turned out so far - but as I said, one of the odder dicta of Waldorf founder Rudolf Steiner, and he had a LOT of dicta, guy was just Mr. Ruley Rulemonger, and some schools are all like, "Yes SIR Mr. Steiner sir - we'll build our classrooms with NO CORNERS," and some schools, like my cousin's school in Hawaii, are all kind of like, "Oh yeah, but knitting? Brah, it's hot here like, we don't really need knitwear. How about we teach em all how to juggle?" and that works for them.

But one of the Waldorf things is that there should be no shadows in a child's early life. And hence, there is no black crayon in the crayon box at a Waldorf school.

And I am NO anthroposophist. I am not even a teacher. If that works for them, hey wow. I figure, any school that actually has an educational philosophy (as long as it isn't, like, "Let's ignore stuff that makes us uncomfortable") is way ahead. My kids' school is a Reggio Emilio-inspired school. Do I know what that means? Not super much. But does it mean that teachers have meetings discussing how to implement that philosophy? Yes. Yes it does. And do those meetings give those teachers an additional opportunity to discuss different strategies for working with each student's strengths and weaknesses? Yup. And that is good.

But if you asked, I would say that, since black exists in nature, a kid should have black in her crayon box. Would I fight the Waldorf teachers on it, if my kids went to a Waldorf school? No. But that's what I think. And Marla Frazee, whose work in this book has recently been recognized by The New York Times, notably pulls the black crayon out of the box - to great effect - in All the World.

There is blue sky, there is green farmland. All beautiful. There are adults and children and older folks of all sizes and colors, grouped in all the ways that can make a family. Also, all beautiful. But the rocks on the beach are dark gray. And the pond during a thunderstorm is darker gray. Shadows are black. Wind is black. Also beautiful. The darkness, as night falls around a warmly lit roadside restaurant, is dark. I love this. Without being specific, or even mentioning it in the lovely text, darkness is included in the book's inventory of nonthreatening things to be found in our world.

My homies at School Library Journal called it "Perfection," and yo, we do not hand out that kind of epithet lightly. My kids enjoyed this book as much as my husband and I did. They liked the lilting poetry, and following the various families throughout the book. If you can make it through to the massive music jam at the end without a sniffle, you're a better man than me. I'm giving it to the kindergarten teacher for Christmas.

Looking like me by Walter Dean Myers, illustrated by Christopher Myers - review

Looking like me by Walter Dean Myers, illustrated by Christopher Myers

I looked in the mirror
and what did I see?
A real handsome dude
looking just like me.

There's nothing like starting out on a strong, affirming foot. Let's just put it out there, son - I am a good looking guy. And things are just going to get better from there. My sister comes along and tells me I am a brother. My teacher calls me a writer. I look in the mirror and call myself a talker. Fist bumps all around.

This big bold boy-centric anthem is illustrated with strong, bright-colored collage images - wild animals, city buildings, and images from non-Western culture underlay graphic silhouettes of young men in motion, implying the threads of civilized and wild culture that weave together to make a boy. Extra fist bump to my boy Christopher for using a picture of the gorilla diorama at the American Museum of Natural History. That silverback gets around.

This is exactly the read-aloud for the strongest, most confident read-aloud-er you know. My friend Kate, for example. You need the rhythm and flow of a Nikki Giovanni or a Jacqueline Woodson to read this book aloud. But you need nothing but fifteen minutes and an open mind to read it to yourself.

One cautious note: I held out my fist for a bump with a little boy not too long ago, and, not hip to the procedure, the kid hauled off and punched my fist as hard as he could. Didn't hurt me much, but ne nearly broke his fingers on my rings. So, if you're going to do the fist bumps along with Walter Dean and Christopher, make sure everybody knows - a real man is gentle.

The Secret Plan by Julia Sarcone-Roach - review

The Secret Plan by Julia Sarcone-Roach

Milo the little elephant has great things going on with the kids next door, three kittens named Henry, Hildy, and Harriet. They make tin-can telephones. They build a house of cards, they play forts, and they dig for treasure. But JUST when they're about to uncover the chest full of loot, something intervenes. Something parental. Curses! Just when things are getting good, it's always lunch, or dinner, or even worse - BEDTIME.

They try everything to get around it. But hiding and sneaking aren't enough. They have to come up with a special secret plan. A plan that involves the fuzzy green monster feet from Milo's Halloween costume, and the cozy attic way upstairs.

This plot is VERY appealing to little kids. It has enough tension to keep them on the edge of their seats, but no actual consequences, as befitting a picture book. The details are adorable. The illustrations slyly extend the text, adding extra humor.

The design, especially the text layout, conspires with the other elements to give us tiptoeing, frustration, and being startled. It's almost concrete poetry.

The art, in its swishiness, somehow reminds me of Good Night, Gorilla. The sweetness, and the bedtime-circumvention plot, is like that too. And when I compare a book to Good Night, Gorilla, that is some of the highest praise I know.

Guess Again! by Mac Barnett, illustrated by Adam Rex - review

Guess Again! by Mac Barnett, illustrated by Adam Rex

 

He steals carrots from the neighbor's yard.
His hair is soft, his teeth are hard.
His floppy ears are long and funny.
Can you guess who? That's right! My

[turn the page]

Grandpa Ned.

This book will KILL at a kindergarten storytime. That's a fact, Jack. Take it to the bank, Frank. Goofy is as goofy does.

And speaking of what goofy does, let me address something. There are a batch of reviews on Amazon written by parents of two-year-olds, and in those reviews, those parents are a bit up in arms about the way that this book misled their children. "It seems somewhat odd that we parents spend so much time teaching our kids to think logically, do puzzles, problem solve, etc. out comes this book that sort of throws them off by giving them the completely unexpected," reads one.

YES. Humor is what separates bigger kids from little kids, and subversion of expectations is one of the fundaments of humor. You ever notice how little kids can't make up jokes? Until small children develop a basic vocabulary of expectations and consequences, they don't really understand humor. Although - don't email me - they are certainly funny people. And laugh at funny things. It's just that they're busy populating their cause-and-effect encyclopedia, and when you get in the way of that, they don't. like it. I remember being extremely pissed off at Pippi Longstocking (and ooh, that's a nice edition of Pippi, illustrated by Lauren Child? Match made in heaven!) when I was very small, because what Pippi did just DIDN'T MAKE SENSE.

But once they are well on their way to getting a firm grasp on what you can expect from the universe, you get a little leeway. Bark, Georgeis my favorite example of a funny book for a three-year-old. It's the first book of subverted expectations that a little kid will "get". The vet asks puppy George to bark, and George says "Quack." And the three year old's face goes "OH MY GOD. YOU GUYS! Did you see that? That's MESSED. UP! Dogs don't say 'quack,' they're supposed to say 'woof'! And he says 'quack' because there's a duck down his throat! How did that duck get down there! HUMOR!!! Wow my mind is totally blown right now. Read it again."

I paraphrase, of course. But little kids are like Mork, I swear. Mork would NOT GET Guess Again!. But a six-year old, and certainly a seven year old? Will. Should. And what's more, I think it's good for 'em. I think that the unexpected is good exercise for the brain.

I was talking this out with my husband and our friend Rebecca the other night, and Rebecca remembered this article in the New York Times, "How Nonsense Sharpens the Intellect", about studies that have shown that exposure to the unexpected triggers heightened brain activity, in particular, better pattern recognition. Look at that! See, I was pretty much just coasting along, developing a theory out of thin air, and professional research psychologists back me right up! Woo!

(Oh crap did I forget to compliment the art? I love the art. It's Adam Rex, people. Composition, color, watercolor technique, expression... Adam Rex can paint an argyle sweater and give it personality and depth.)

How do you wokka-wokka? by Elizabeth Bluemle, illustrated by Randy Cecil - review

How do you wokka-wokka? by Elizabeth Bluemle, illustrated by Randy Cecil

It is mid-October. I am in the depths of reading a ton of Teen Horror for a YA fiction extravaganza event, my kids and husband are off having fun while I'm stuck working, and the weather just turned... well, it's a two-syllable word that rhymes with "witty". As in cold and raw and rainy.

And then, what comes duck-walking into my day, but a scat-filled, funkified, trip-trop-tongued picture book that I cannot WAIT to share with a roomful of kindergartners! It's a mood-changer! It's a crowd-pleaser! It is fun to read and fun to hear and encourages movement.

How do you wokka-wokka?
I wokka-wokka like a mariachi with maracas -
chipi-chipi
chaba-cha-cha
shake-a-the-maracas

In fact, when I took it in to the beloved Kindergarten teacher at my kids' school, she started jiving and posing while she read it to herself, and I could see her wheels turning. You can wokka-wokka like an animal, you can wokka-wokka like a dancer or an athlete, you could bring musical instruments into it, extend it any way you'd like.

WE wokka-wokka like a party on the blocka!
Shacka-racka daddly-acka
cotton-candy
snacka-snacka.

The children in the book come in all shades and shapes, and Randy Cecil's oils manage to be both somewhat minimalist and terrifically expressive at the same time. Browns and grays never looked so warm. A terrific book to jazz up a rainy day!

Cake Girl by David Lucas - review

Cake Girl by David Lucas
The witch is alone on her birthday, again. So she bakes a cake girl, a multilayered, bonbon-studded, iced and sugar-sparkled confection. And because she is a witch, her cake girl comes to life. Cake Girl sings and dances for the witch, she does the housework, but when she is told that afterwards she shall be eaten, she starts to think for herself.

The cake girl, who looks a lot like one of the painted wooden figurines in a German crib mobile that used to hang in my bedroom, becomes the witch's first friend, and, I am guessing, first therapist. The witch, who looks a lot like my grandma, except green, and wearing pink pointy high heels with a buckle (witches always have the best shoes), learns that fun is not a spectator sport.

It's lighthearted, it's a treat visually, and it has a lovely, satisfying happy ending that, despite Cake Girl's confectionery provenance, is healthy-sweet, not sugary-sweet.

David Lucas's pen and ink and watercolor art is decidedly old-school here - perfectly consonant with his tale of a straight-out-of-the-forest warty green witch. The witch is the sweetest, squattest magical lady since Strega Nona, and even the title on the front cover looks like James Marshall's Cinderella. His curves are round and strong, and his angles are open: every object and figure in this book feels balanced and solid, a nice counterpoint to the sparkles and stars and puffs of magic smoke that Lucas sprinkles in to his edges and backgrounds. The wealth of detail will reward the individual reader, but the art is not too eensy for a small storytime. Fun for Halloween, fun for birthdays, fun in general!

To the beach by Thomas Docherty

To the beach by Thomas Docherty

I just showed this book, with its thick toothy pages and big round die-cut on the cover, full-bleed art and painted endpapers, to my colleague Mother Rabbit. "You should see this book. It's beautiful! It's adorable!" I said. "But you can't have it right now, because I have to take it in the back and pet it a little more."

On a rainy day, a boy stares out the window and dreams of going to the beach. He has his flippers and his big round tube, and so he sets off. In his imagination. Via airplane, sailboat, truck, tractor and camel. The spare text and large pictures make it great for storytime. The depth of detail makes it great to sit and enjoy one-on-one. The simplicity of the story makes it appropriate for, possibly, as young as three. It's about imagination, transportation, and, if you stretch a little, geography.

But who cares about all that? It's the pictures. What does Thomas Docherty do really well? He does composition really well, with sweeping landscapes dominated by a large foreground element. His perspectives are exaggerated and poetic. He conveys gesture and movement with a sketchy, sculpted line that is never sloppy. And he loves color. And he loves the little boy in this book. 

This is exciting!