December 15, 2011
Our Best Book of the library haul: Singing Away the Dark by Caroline Woodward and Julie Morstad
Okay, here’s the perfect picture book for the darkest time of year. Caroline Woodward’s rhyming verse matched with Julie Morstad’s illustrations (and oooh, that cardinal!) make Singing Away the Dark an absolutely delightful book. “When I was six, and went to school, I walked a long, long way…” this book begins, and its narrator recounts her bravery as she walks a mile to the school bus before the sun’s even risen, facing the dark, the shadows in the trees, and other obstacles (errant cows!) by trudging forthwith and singing loud. “I see a line of big old trees, marching up the hill. ‘I salute you, Silent Soldiers! Help me if you will.'”
My love of Simply Read Books knows no bounds lately, and I’m so happy to have discovered them, for their books are always wonderful, but also beautiful (and oh, the endpapers on this one, a pattern of leafless trees). And once again, I’m cheating, because I didn’t find this book on my own, but rather it comes recommended by Theresa Kishkan, Sara O’Leary, AND the Canadian Children’s Book Centre. And really, the quality of the book warrants all the hype.
December 2, 2011
Our Best Book of the Library Haul: 9 Magic Wishes by Shirley Jackson
Harriet is amazing, and so too turn out to be the books she randomly plucks off the shelf at the library. And this week it was 9 Magic Wishes by Shirley Jackson, a book I didn’t even realize existed. This new edition is illustrated by Miles Hyman, Jackson’s grandson, who so perfectly managed to capture the essence of Shirley Jackson: the Gothic architecture of the house, the cat’s constant presence, the weirdness. But there is nothing sinister here, and the book is absolutely charming. The prose displaying Jackson’s skill with cadence and euphony. It’s the story of a strange day during which all the trees were flying balloons, and a magician came down the street granting 9 magic wishes, but what if you only want 8? (My favourite wish was “a little box, and inside was another little box and inside is another little box and inside is another little box and inside is an elephant.”)
November 17, 2011
Our Best Book of the Library Haul: The Elephant and the Bad Baby
It was a very good week for library books this week, mostly because we showed up at the library on Monday not long after the librarian had replenished the featured book shelf, and then we took most of them. (Is this bad library etiquette? I’m never sure. Though even if I was, I’d do it anyway.) Stand-outs included the wonderful Dear Baobab by Cheryl Foggo, and Ella May and the Wishing Stone by Cary Fagan, and I think that if Harriet were older, either one of these would have taken the prize. But because Harriet is only 2, our best book of the week was not from the featured shelf at all, it was The Elephant and the Bad Baby by Elfrida Vipont and Raymond Briggs, which we turned up while hanging out in the stacks in the vicinity of Judith Viors and Bernard Waber.
The Elephant and the Bad Baby delights the parts of us that worship all things Albergh, and we think that Alan and Janet must have read this one back in the day. I love it most because just why the baby is “the bad baby” is never really explained (except once where he doesn’t say please), because I love elephants, and because when the elephant runs down the street, it goes, “rumpata, rumpata, rumpata” (of course!). The baby and the elephant run through town stealing things from shopkeepers, from sausages to lollypops (and maybe this is why the baby is the bad baby? Though the elephant really led him on), and being chased by the shopkeepers (some bearing cleavers), and then they all sort of work it out and end up back at the bad baby’s house where his mother makes them pancakes, and they sit around the table with a big teapot in the middle. Also, the elephant is drinking milk from a bucket, which Harriet finds no end of fascinating.
November 13, 2011
Our Best Book from the Library Haul: Argus by Knudsen/Wesson
So Argus, which was written by Michelle Knudsen and illustrated by Andrea Wesson, is another story of a misidentified egg, along the lines of The Odd Egg by Emily Gravett or Duck and Goose by Tad Hills. When it comes time to hatch chicks at school, poor Sally ends up with the odd one out. The egg hatches into what appears to be a dragon, and no one takes much notice, as poor Sally struggles to care for her most unruly “chick.” In the end, she learns that it’s not so bad to stand out from the crowd, but for me, the story’s chief appeal lies the narrative involving Sally’s teacher Mrs. Henshaw, who never bats an eye at the dragon in her room, even when she’s forced to leap atop desks to prevent it from eating her students. And anyone who dares to cross her is stopped with the teacher’s signature phrase, “Don’t be difficult.” And really, who can argue with that?
November 6, 2011
Our Best Book from the Library Haul: In the Meadow by Hilde Heyduck-Huth
There wasn’t an obvious candidate for our Best Book this week, and this aged book, which was translated from German by Patricia Crampton, did not seem like an obvious contender. But you never know with Best Books really, and it’s anybody’s guess how children will respond. Halfway through our first reading of In the Meadow, the story about a dung beetle navigating a forest of grass, Harriet was absolutely captivated.When the beetle encountered his ladybug relatives, 
Harriet insisted on digging her stuffed ladybug out of her toybox. “Ladybugs are a kind of beetle,” I explained to her, but she heard it differently, and has been telling us ever since how her ladybug is a “kind-of beetle”. The illustrations in this book are detailed and beautiful. Hilde Heyduck-Huth has a website (in German) and from the links on this page you get a sense of the fascinating things she’s been up to in her illustration career (inc. an edition of Kahil Gibran’s The Prophet).
October 27, 2011
Our Best Book from the library haul: Once Upon A Golden Apple
It was meant to be, really. A team of Canadian kid-lit legends Jean Little and Phoebe Gilman could only ever have been a success. Co-Author Maggie de Vries too– I’d read her memoir Missing Sarah years ago, and she’s had a successful career writing for children as well. But I am really baffled as to how it’s taken me so long to discover Once Upon a Golden Apple.
The very best book from the library in a bumper week of very good books from the library, and as soon as we began to read it, we just knew. It begins with a father telling his children a story, deviating from the familiar tropes much to their chagrin. “Once upon a golden apple?” “No!” the children shout. “Once upon a singing fiddle?” “No, no, no, no, no!” With each preposterous suggestion, the children become more and more agitated, and just when they think they’ve got their dad back on track, he breaks off again: there lived Goldilocks and the Seven Dwarfs? The princess kissed Humpty Dumpty? Who turned into a gingerbread boy? “No, no, no, no, no!”
Gilman’s children are adorable and Jillian Jiggs-ish, and we like the sausage-stealing dog that the storytellers are too en-rapt to notice. de Vries and Little finally manage to get the tale told, though not before making ridiculous suggestions that Harriet finds hilarious, and loves most of all because it’s always fun to be in on the joke, especially when you’re aged two.
October 20, 2011
Our Best Book from the library haul: Ira Sleeps Over by Bernard Waber
We’re having a bit of an affair with Bernard Waber’s Lyle the Crocodile books, which are so good, and Harriet loves them. Though they’re a bit long, and I’m not sure every toddler would have the patience, so I was delighted when we took out a new book by Waber, Ira Sleeps Over, and discovered that here was a less text-laden book that I could heartily recommend.
I love these ’60s/70s’ children’s books (Waber reminds me of Louise Fitzhugh and Judith Viorst), their sharpness, and their irreverance. Plus, Waber is an author/illustrator, and the best of these people can elevate the picture book to a whole other level. Must confess up front though that I am disproportionately amused that this book contains the line, “That night, Reggie showed me his junk.” But that’s only because you’re the one with the sick mind.
Ira has been invited to a sleepover at his friend Reggie’s house. He’s excited, but a little nervous, and he goes back and forth between these emotions in passages with his parents and meddlesome sister– the repetitive language will especially appeal to young readers. When Ira wonders if he should bring his teddy bear with him? Would Reggie laugh?: “”He won’t laugh,” said my mother. “He won’t laugh,” said my father. “He’ll laugh,” said my sister.”” I particularly love the family dynamics, very Free to Be You and Me with Mom and Dad making dinner together, both parents pursuing interests beyond their parental roles as Dad practicising the cello in the evening, and Mom hides behind the newspaper.
Eventually the sleepover arrives, and Reggie and Ira have fun together. Reggie shows Ira his junk collection in a fabulous two page spread that might have inspired a young Marthe Jocelyn to go on to write Hannah’s Collections. The boys start to tell ghost stories, and the moral of the book turns out to be that a need for comfort is universal, that teddy bears are much less controversial than a small boy might think.
October 13, 2011
Our Best Books from the library haul: Sunny et. al. Robin Mitchell and Judith Steedman
Once again we’re cheating: these aren’t books I stumbled upon, but rather sought out after a recommendation from Sara O’Leary (whose new book When I Was Small is out next month, and whose Picture Books We Know and Love list is brilliant). Sunny (and his companions Windy, Snowy & Chinook and Foggy) are all written and illustrated by Robin Mitchell and Judith Steedman, and published by the wonderful Simply Read Books. I’ve not read Foggy yet, but the other three have been read and re-read with much delight since we borrowed them from the library last week.
The stories are pretty simple– Sunny begins to listen to the sounds in the city, realizes that city sounds are beautiful and celebrates them with a hootenanny. Poor Windy loses her beloved blue kite, but discovers it at the end of the story much closer to home than you might have imagined. And then Snowy and Chinook, an arctic adventure of two friends looking for a birthday gift for Tulip the Buffalo (and there is bunting!).
These plots are perfectly complemented by simple illustrations which are not so simple when one discerns how the contents of each scene have been fashioned from ordinary objects. On top of being visually appealing, they are also pretty inspiring craft-wise, and constructed with a fabulous dose of whimsy. Also remarkable are the double page spreads in each book with simple line drawings reconstructing a map of the story so-far– little fingers will delight in tracing the dotted line and revisiting each point along the journey.
Oh, it’s true– these are books that revel in brilliant design. The endpapers are marvelously decked with the simple line drawings from the map pages, and the underside of each dust jacket contains a hidden surprise– a recipe for pancakes, directions of kite building, instructions for homemade musical instruments. They’re absolutely lovely, and beloved by both Harriet and I . Such a fantastic discovery, so I want to pass it on to you.
October 6, 2011
Our Best Book from the Library Haul: Russell Hoban's A Birthday for Frances
It’s probably only been a month since we became acquainted with Russell Hoban’s Frances books, but I feel like she’s been a part of our lives forever. She was fast beloved, and my only complaint is that some of her books are a little bit long, which is a problem, you see, because I never end up reading one less than three times in a row. Harriet’s attention rarely wanders, however, and I think we’ve found our favourite Frances yet with A Birthday for Frances. The story of an older sister (who just happens to be a badger) upset with the attention being paid to little sister Gloria who’s on the verge of turning two. I love the Frances books because Frances really battles her demons, her worst self, and she shows that doing the right thing is so hard (and more over, she doesn’t even always do the right thing). For a badger, she’s one of the most realistically drawn, complex characters I’ve ever encountered in a picture book.
Love this book also for the marvelous prose as Frances sets the scene for an imaginary frend called Alice: “That is how it is, Alice,” said Frances. “Your birthday is always the one that is not now.” Or when she’s reluctantly drawn into making place cards for Gloria’s birthday table, and sings: “A rainbow and a happy tree/ Are not for Alice or for me./ I will draw three-legged cats./ And caterpillars with ugly hats.”
I love the way Hoban acknowledges the dark side of a child’s emotional life, reflecting and validating feelings of jealousy and anger. And how the story shows its readers how to work through these feelings, but is also resolved in a way most marvelously un-saccharine.
*Turns out Russell Hoban is a sci-fi, fantasy novelist. Though there is no sign of this in the Frances books, it’s not all that surprising either.
September 29, 2011
Our Best Book from this week's library haul: Wolves by Emily Gravett
We love Emily Gravett at our house– Monkey and Me, Orange Pear Apple Bear, Meerkat Mail, Dogs, Spells— but her Wolves was never on the library shelf, though I looked for it week after week. Turns out because it was on the older readers library shelf, probably because it’s another book in which a rabbit gets devoured (hi Jon Klassen! Don’t worry. You’re all working in the Beatrix Potter tradition. Everything will be fine…). We read it a few times, then Harriet decided it would join the realm of “too scary”, but then we got the new Chirp in the mail, which does a profile of wolves including baby ones (this is key. No such thing as a scary baby), and so now we love wolves and Wolves, and Emily Gravett’s good book is back in ours.
The poor bunny (who’s not so innocent, I think. Surely, he’s a hat thief) takes a book out of the library to learn about wolves (and Gravett gives us an images of the end papers from the rabbit’s book with the date-due slip and the checkout card that actually comes out of the book, and even though ours is a library book (yes, a library book with a library book inside it– trippy), nobody’s lost it yet– magic!). He’s got his nose in the book through the rest of this book, making the mistake that’s as old as literacy, thinking that books will tell you all you need to know. Not necessarily. Not if, for example, you’re so enthralled in your wolf education that you walk right in the path of a wolf’s 42 sharp teeth. As you’re reading about how wolves eat many different animals including… rabbits.
Gravett includes a disclaimer– no rabbits were injured, the book is only fiction. And then “for more sensitive readers”, she gives us an alternate ending in which bunny and wolf become fast friends and share a sandwich. The end. But the final page, with a pile of the bunny’s unopened mail (including a letter from the library– Wolves is overdue) suggests that all might not be well after all in the land of bunny. But I took care not to point that out to Harriet.
