May 26, 2013
The Foolish Frog
Pete Seeger’s The Foolish Frog is our best book from the library haul this week, which is lots of fun to read and apparently quite nice to have read to you, and we were very excited to see that it’s also a short film that you can watch too. Oh, we do love Pete Seeger at our house…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CImi8VwNN1A
May 7, 2013
City Books for Spring
(This post is cross-posted over at Bunch)
Right now as spring arrives and family life moves back out of doors, it is a perfect time to share some books that connect readers to the local and which affirm the goodness of life in the city.
In Lucia’s Neighbourhood by Pat Shewchuk and Marek Cole: This picture book based on the NFB film Montrose Avenue tells the story of “the ballet of the good city sidewalk” (as quoted by Jane Jacobs) in Toronto’s Little Portugal neighbourhood. The book opens with the epigraph by Jacobs, and then goes to render the urban visionary’s ideas in a way that a child can easily understand. A fabulous celebration of city life, In Lucia’s Neighbourhood is most remarkable for its illustrations which are so utterly Toronto: streetcars, three-panelled windows and wrought-iron porches. How wonderful to encounter one’s own world within the pages of a book.
Maybelle the Cable Car by Virginia Lee Burton: This one’s not a Toronto book, but in some ways it may as well be. San Francisco’s iconic cable cars are under threat, as Big Bill the Bus explains to Maybelle: “I just heard the City Fathers say/ the cable cars must go…/ that you’re too old and out of date/ much too slow and can’t be safe/ and worst of all YOU DON’T MAKE MONEY./ What they want is Speed and Progress/ and E-CON-OMY…” San Franciscans don’t respond well to the potential loss of their cable cars, forming a citizen’s committee to save them. Petitions lead to a referendum, and the cable cars are preserved. “We, the people, are the City. Why can’t we decide?” And with that, your child’s political foundation is laid.
Jonathan Cleaned Up and Then He Heard a Sound by Robert Munsch and Michael Martchenko: Another book that seems eerily prescient of the current state of Toronto politics. “Subways, subways, subways!” indeed, and somehow a station has appeared in Jonathan’s house. “If the subway stops here, then it’s a subway station,” Jonathan is told by a TTC conductor who has a relaxed emphasis on customer service and instructs Jonathan to go to City Hall if he doesn’t like it. When Jonathan gets there, the Mayor has run out for lunch. Wandering the empty corridors of City Hall, he comes across an old man crying behind “an enormous computer machine.” Turns out the computer is broken and the poor man behind it is responsible for running the entire city. Jonathan gets him to move the subway station in exchange for four cases of blackberry jam, demonstrating that sometimes civic engagement (and bartering) is the only way to get things done.
Jelly Belly by Dennis Lee: This one is not the most obvious contender for the list, but I happened to be reading it soon after reading Edward Keenan’s Some Great Idea, and noticed some parallels between the two books, absurdest story-telling aside. Lee gives us poems not only poems about garbage men and traffic jams, but also a reference to David Crombie in “The Tiny Perfect Mayor” and another poem called “William Lyon Mackenzie.”
A Big City Alphabet by Allan Moak: I loved this book as a child, and now I love that my daughter is growing up in the very places Moak’s paintings illustrate. City kids will recognize their favourite parks, Kensington Market, the AGO, laneways, variety stores, and other familiar spots. (Hint: A gorgeous print of “I is for Island Ferry” is for sale for $5 at St. Lawrence Market’s Market Gallery, along with other prints from the city’s art collection).
Who Goes to the Park by Warabe Aska: We picked up this book as a library discard, a most excellent find, as used copies are hard to come by. Fortunately, a few copies are still circulating in the library system. In his beautiful paintings which manage to perfectly meld realism and the ethereal (as all the best parks do, really), Aska tells the story of Toronto’s High Park throughout the four seasons, and of all the people and other creatures which are part of life there. (Image courtesy of the Osborne Collection’s online art exhibit).
How to Build Your Own Country by Valerie Wyatt and Fred Rix: Older kids with an interest in politics and civic life will appreciate this multi-award-winning book from the Citizen Kid Series. It’s a step-by-step guide to building a nation from scratch, and also serves as a fantastic illustration of how our society and those of other countries are structured–however precariously.
Watch This Space by Hadley Dyer and Marc Ngui: Another non-fiction book for older readers, this one about “designing, defending and sharing public spaces.” This one is a nice extension of In Lucia’s Neighbourhood, with references to Montrose Avenue and Jane Jacobs, even, but also takes on a global perspective and discusses how public space is used differently around the world. It”s a vibrant and engaging book with all kinds of suggestions about how to employ its many lessons out on the street.
May 1, 2013
Picture Book Happenings
On Sunday, we had the pleasure of attending the launch for Andrew Larsen’s latest book In the Tree House (which you might recall that I adored). I do feel sorry for literary types who don’t know what they’re missing in picture book launches. The reading is never boring, they skip the Q&A (yay!) and snacks are always excellent–at this one, we got yellow star cookies, rice crispie squares and delicious lemonade. We saw lots of friends there, and had a wonderful afternoon. It was wonderful to celebrate with Andrew, who is a truly fantastic person. If you don’t know his work yet, I’d encourage you to check out any of his books. You will be enchanted.
I also have a new picture book review online at Quill & Quire for In Lucia’s Neighbourhood by Pat Shewchuk and Marek Colek. While it’s not a perfect book, it’s a remarkable one, and an essential addition to the library of any urban picture book lover.
There is much to love about In Lucia’s Neighborhood, the picture book by Pat Shewchuk and Marek Colek that grew out of the duo’s celebrated animated short film Montrose Avenue. Opening with an epigraph from Jane Jacobs’ The Death and Life of Great American Cities (“The ballet of the good city sidewalk never repeats itself”), the story goes on to show how the urban theorist’s sidewalk ballet is enacted every day on one street in Toronto’s Little Portugal neighbourhood. (Read the rest here)
April 11, 2013
A Book for Baby's Library
I bought a book for the new baby this week, the very first book of this baby’s own. It’s Welcome, Baby, a gorgeous new board book by Barbara Reid that I’m sort of thinking was written just for our new baby. If you know Barbara Reid’s illustrations, then you already know the book is beautiful–I’m in love with the quilt on the title page. “Welcome, baby, welcome!/ All the world is new,/ And all the world is waiting/ To be introduced to you…” the book begins, with a picture of a couple holding their new little one, a tree and robin just outside the window. And what I really love is that older siblings are a part of this welcome too, and so Harriet gets to point to the picture of Big Kid and Baby playing trucks, and saying, “That’s me!” of the former, and so too with the picture of the siblings splashing in the paddling pool. It ends, “We’ll hold you close,/ And let you fly.” which is just perfect, and the whole trick of being a parent really. I look forward to reading this one over and over, and in delighting as new tiny hands learn to grasp its pages.
April 7, 2013
New kids' books we've been enjoying lately
Mister Dash and the Cupcake Calamity by Monica Kulling and Esperanca Melo: Before reading this book, we’d thought about its title and speculated as to what the calamity might be, and we were wrong wrong wrong. We hadn’t yet read the first Mister Dash book, so we had no idea that Mister Dash himself would be the picture of calmness and civility while the calamity was everything that happened around him. When Madame Croissant decides to start up a cupcake company, she enlists her faithful hound to help (and makes him wear a baker’s hat, much to his dismay). When the tornado that is Madame Croissant’s granddaughter Daphne enters the mix, there has to be cupcake batter scraped off the ceiling and other calamities averted. In every situation, Mister Dash narrowly saves the day, and all are overjoyed in the end to find the cupcake business is a go-go! Especially since Mister Dash is finally allowed to take his silly hat off.
Oy. Feh. So? by Cary Fagan and Gary Clement: I don’t think I’m the target audience for this book, as no one in my family has ever used a lot of Yiddish, but I do know about great aunts and uncles, the kind who would visit on Sundays in enormous automobiles. These relatives at a remove who plant themselves on the couch and aren’t so interested in the children. In Oy. Feh. So?, Aunt Essy, Aunt Chanah and Uncle Sam aren’t interested in anything, all attempts at conversation resulting in their respective signature exclamations, and so one Sunday the kids decide they aren’t going to take it and go to extremes to rattle their unshakably miserable rellies. It’s a funny story that appeals to a similar nostalgia as Barbara Reid’s The Party, the humour underlined by Clement’s cartoon illustrations.
Hoogie in the Middle by Stephanie McLellan and Dean Griffiths: This was one book that did not immediately appeal to my adult kid-lit-loving sensibilities, but I knew something was up when Harriet suddenly couldn’t stop talking about it. (“You be Pumpkin, you be Tweezle, and I’ll be Hoogie,” she’d demand of whoever was in her company, or a variation on this.) I asked her why she liked the book so much: “Because Hoogie’s a monster and she’s nice,” Harriet answered, and I liked that answer. In her family of Muppet-like creatures, Hoogie is not the biggest or the smallest, but she’s stuck in the middle instead–ever too big or too little. Until one day her frustration gets too much and Hoogie explodes, and then her parents take the time and let her know how much they love their monster in the middle (“You’re the sun in the middle of the solar system,” says Dad, as they swing her through the air. “The pearl in the middle of the oyster,” says Mom as they catch her in their arms.”) This is a good teaching book for any middle child, but also (I have a feeling!) useful for any little one suffering a bit of family displacement. Hoogie will help them to articulate their feelings and know they aren’t alone.
What a Party! by Ana Maria Machado and Helene Moreau: This is a bit like those If You Give a Mouse a Cookie books, but so much more interesting, and involving birthday parties, which is a pretty important topic if you happen to be four years old. The book posits what might happen if your mom, in a moment of distraction, tells you to invite “anyone you’d like” to your upcoming party, and then you invite everyone you know, who happens to also resemble the United Nations, and each friend brings a party food from their own particular culture and pets (which are another topic of fascination if you’re four). The party becomes a glorious celebration of delicious food, live music, salsa dancers and a raggae band, and then it goes all night long (which could happen “especially if the parents drop in and start having drinks and chatting instead of going home”). What a Party! is the perfect recipe for the “craziest, wildest, funnest party ever”, Moreau’s illustrations capturing the festive mood perfectly.
March 24, 2013
In the Tree House by Andrew Larsen and Dusan Petricic
Oh, there is nothing else quite like a tree house. We like to imagine that we live in one, what with the giant trees that cover our house in shade and maple keys, and the squirrels always on the run past our door. But when I was a child, I dreamed of a tree house, a place up a ladder to call my own. I don’t know if it was because I was a girl that all fantasies came with visions of curtains at the windows, but I wanted a tree house regardless, a cool place for summer nights high above my suburban backyard.
With everything my parents did right (which was most things), we still do so delight in tormenting them over holiday dinners with recollections of where they failed us and the story topper-most of all of these is the saga of the playhouse plans. For Christmas 1988, we received a set of blueprints for a playhouse that was never ever built. (My dad also backed his car over my bike on more than one occasion, but that’s a story for another day.) In the months that followed that Christmas, we moved to a new city and our nation’s economy fell into recession, two factors that probably played a role in the playhouse’s failure to come into existence. I don’t know what ever happened to those blueprints, but their memory lives on in infamy as a symbol of childhood disappointment, of the hideout we never had. We made do with the basement crawlspace instead, until we grew too tall and started hitting our heads.
And so I was amused to encounter fervid tree house planning in Andrew Larsen’s latest picture book In the Tree House, and even to encounter tree house planning disappointment. A small boy moves to a new house with a big backyard and gets to planning: “I planned tree houses that could turn into flying ships at the flick of a switch./ I planned tree houses with secret slides for quick getaways./ I planned one tree house that had two levels, one for me and one for my brother.” He and his brother put their plans together and show them to their dad who tells them, “When I was a kid, I wanted a tree house more than anything else in the world.” He’d made plans, just like his sons do, but his never came to fruition. And oh, I know exactly how that feels. I’d never seen my own story so expressed in literature before.
Dad gets to work though and builds a tree house with his boys, a fantastic secret space with a view of the entire neighourhood. You can’t see the stars because the city is too bright, but you can see the city, and the city is enough.
But the next summer in the tree house, everything is different. The boy’s brother is far too interested in hanging out with his friends to partake in tree house things. “So now I’m the king of the castle,” the boy explains. “I can do whatever I want up here.” I point to the illustration of the boy, his chin resting on his hand, his mournful expression. “Do you think he likes being king?” I ask Harriet. “No,” she answers. “He’s lonely.”
When one night a blackout casts the city into darkness though, everything is different though if only for a little while. The neighbours emerge from their houses and urgently seek community assistance in the consumption of melting ice cream. They share candles and flashlights, observed by the boy up in his tree house whose brother has come to join him. For one magical evening, the neighbourhood is alive, and the boy realizes that his brother is fundamentally the same person he always was, that some elements of their relationship will stay the same no matter what else is changed, but also that nothing lasts forever. Childhood magic is as fleeting as a summer night, moments to be savoured while they’re here.
Because the lights come on again, but the story ends with one of Dusan Petricic’s fantastic illustrations, the two boys silhouetted up in the tree together, watching the whole world twinkling below them.
March 19, 2013
Going Postal with Picture Books
(This post is cross-posted over at Bunch!)
It’s a widely known fact that I am a postal enthusiast, that the delivery of the mail is the focal point of my day, and that I am eternally delighted by books in the post. But just as much am I thrilled when the post turns up in books–I loved Kyo Maclear’s The Letter Opener, and also epistolary books like 84 Charing Cross Road and the Burleigh Cross Postbox Theft. And I love encountering all things postal in kids’ books as well, in particular because it helps inspire postal enthusiasm in my daughter (who has had a pen pal since she was 2, of course). Here is a list of a few of our favourites that we’ve encountered lately.
The Jolly Postman by Allan and Janet Ahlberg: I know, I know, you’ve read this one already, but any book by the Ahlbergs never gets old. It’s the perfect union of all the things I love: postal themes, bookishness, fairy tales and nursery rhymes, and amazingly well-produced books with meticulous attention to detail. Follow the Jolly Postman on his round as he drinks cup after cup of tea, and provides intimate glimpses into the lives of familiar characters we only thought we knew.
Hail to Mail by Samuel Marshak and Vladimir Radunsky: The mailman delivers a certified letter for Mr. John Peck of Schenectady, only to discover that he’s just left town. The postal-system is ever-reliable, however, and its workers are determined to track John Peck on his round-the-world trip in an effort to get the letter into his hands. The story ends right back where it began, Marshak’s verse and Radunsky’s stylized illustrations making for a remarkable journey.
I Miss You Every Day by Simms Taback: Taback is a Caldecott-winner and his talent shines through in this picture book, which was inspired by the Woody Guthrie song “Mail Myself to You.” In Taback’s story, a little girl imagines mailing herself to a far-away friend. The illustrations are whimsical and attractive to children, and I particularly love the gallery of imaginary stamps on the book’s back cover.
Bunny Mail by Rosemary Wells: I really am fascinated by the weirdness of Rosemary Wells’ books–there is more to Max and Ruby than simple bunny-cuteness. In Bunny Mail, Ruby sends invitations to a 4th of July picnic while Max writes to Santa (via Grandma) expressing desire for red motorcycle. Except that Max can’t write, so Max’s letters are mostly composed of tire track, but no matter–Grandma figures it out. And little hands will enjoy lifting the flaps to “read” what Max and Ruby’s letters say.
Dear Tabby by Carolyn Crimi, illustrated by David Roberts: Oh, it’s a familiar trope, the alley-cat turned advice columnist. We loved this book about a scrappy cat who receives letters from all manner of pets–embarrassingly-pampered felines, talkative birds, dissatisfied hamsters, and lonely skunks. With her no-nonsense approach, Tabby D. Cat sets these creatures straight, though the book’s ending reveals that Tabby’s taking care of herself as well. Points also to this book for involving something called “The Dingaling Sisters’ Travelling Circus”.
Where Do You Look? by Nell Jocelyn and Marthe Jocelyn: While not strictly a postal book, I was thrilled to find a bit of mail in this brand new offering by the remarkable Jocelyn team with their amazing collage illustrations. “Where do you look for a letter?” the text asks against a fantastic airmail envelope background. “In the mailbox?” (with an image of a child posting said envelope in a red mailbox), “Or on the page?” (with the alphabet spilled across a two-page spread in haphazard fashion). Like all the best books, Where Do You Look? challenges any ideas of the world being a simple place (or language being simple to comprehend) and adds texture to the way its reader sees the world.
The Stamp Collector by Jennifer Lanthier and Francois Thisdale: This book only came out last Fall, but has already won a ton of acclaim in Canada and in the US. It’s the story of two boys growing up in China whose paths cross in an unlikely fashion. One discovers a postage stamp on a scrap of paper, and becomes conscious of a world beyond his own. The other becomes a writer whose ideas challenge the government and lead to him becoming a political prisoner. While in prison, the writer is sent letters through the PEN Writers In Prison Program, which are intercepted by prison guards. One of these guards is the stamp-collecting boy, now grown, who takes notice of these letter arriving from all over the world and establishes a relationship with their recipient. It’s a dark story, but one that’s leavened by Thisdale’s beautiful illustrations, the suggestion of a hopeful ending, and the fact that proceeds from the book’s sales are being donated to PEN Canada.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uP_d2hBE8vg
March 17, 2013
Pickle Me This Golden Giveaway! The New Baby (Vintage!)
So all this Golden-mania started about a month ago when I discovered that my favourite book from childhood had been published in an earlier edition. I ordered a copy of the 1948 edition of The New Baby by Ruth and Harold Shane, and Eloise Wilkin (though it turned out to be a 1955 reprint, but close enough), but before it arrived, I received another copy from my Aunt in British Columbia who was quite excited that I was going on about a book that she’d had sitting on her shelf for years. So in the end, we’re left with two copies of The New Baby, and I’d love to give our extra one away to a Pickle Me This reader.
We’ll be keeping my Aunt’s book, with its inscription in my grandmother’s handwriting (and also because it has more pages/illustrations than the other copy, and features the bizarrrely hovering baby at the end). But the other book is still pretty good, featuring haggard, mumpish Aunt Pat with her chicken legs, the seemingly unpregnant Mommy who is due to deliver in days but must have fastened her girdle tight, and Daddy with his ever-present pipe. It’s a weird book, but kids don’t really seem to notice, or at least mine doesn’t. If there is a new baby coming into your lives soon, this book might serve your family well, and even if there isn’t.
If you’d like to be entered in a draw to win our extra copy, just leave a comment on this post before the end of Friday March 22. Canadian addresses only please. We’ll pick a winner and I’ll pop it in the post next weekend. Because really, there is nothing better than books in the post, is there?
Update: Congratulations to Carrie, whose name was chosen by Harriet in a draw, fittingly picked out of a book bag from the Obsborne Collection of Children’s Books.
March 17, 2013
Golden Legacy by Leonard Marcus
I loved Leonard Marcus’ Golden Legacy as much as I imagined that I would. It traces the history of Golden Books and shows the changes and innovations in children’s publishing over the 20th century, and how much of a break Golden Books truly were from tradition. They were books about children’s lives in the here and now, and the world around them, which brought about the scorn of librarians who felt that children’s stories should have their roots in fairy tales and archetypal stories. Though it’s also easy to see why the librarians found it hard to be invested in Golden Books: Golden was a printer before it was a publisher, and while the quality of many of its books is hard to deny, the company’s bottom-line was always mass production and keeping costs low. Further, their writers and artists weren’t well-compensated, and their licensing agreements with Disney and the like didn’t necessarily make for great literature.
Marcus’s Golden history is extensive, and interesting, though I’ll admit I didn’t read it with a great attention to detail and the corporate history of Golden was a bit hard to follow. But I kept turning the pages because his profiles and biographies of Golden artists and writers were fascinating, and because every other page brought back a memory from my childhood, an image from a familiar book that I’d forgotten ever encountering. Golden Legacy is a pleasure to leaf through, a trip down memory lane, even if, like me, your Golden years weren’t even the most golden of Golden.
Do you remember running your finger along the train on the back of a Golden Book, encountering each character so familiar from stories read over and over again? On my daughter’s bookshelf are Golden Books that belonged to my mother when she was a little girl, and they don’t seem dated, even through the daddies are all smoking pipes and pot-bellied stoves are warming rooms. Harriet received I Can Fly as a gift from our friend Erin when she was very small, a brand new Golden Books whose words and illustrations are so vibrant that I never realized the book had been created by Ruth Krauss and Mary Blair more than sixty years ago. And we’ve read Scuffy the Tugboat over and over again, but then who hasn’t?
Like the last time I read a book by Leonard Marcus, reading this one has served to expand my literary universe. Suddenly there is a whole host of books and authors to seek out for the first time, as well as a long list to revisit. And Golden Legacy itself with be a book I’ll be revisiting over and over again.
March 5, 2013
Eloise Wilkin's The New Baby: Vintage Vintage Edition
After my recent post about Eloise Wilkin’s The New Baby, in which I mentioned that I’d tracked down a copy of the 1948 edition from AbeBooks, many people let me know that they had copies of the older edition (and that their kids liked it!). One of these people was my aunt, who informed me that her copy of The New Baby had been a gift from her older sister (my other aunt) on her fifth birthday, and within three days, her copy had made its way across the country and into my mailbox where we were so delighted to encounter it.
I am grateful to say that Mike from the story only looks demonic on the title page, and that he’s mostly cute for the rest of the book. (Will also say that Eloise Wilkin’s art improved considerably and became much more charming from the 1940s to the 1970s). The story is quite different in its details than my 1970s’ version–Mike and his family live here in a rural idyll, and his Daddy’s lawnmower is a push-mower (which he pushes while smoking a pipe. He is always smoking a pipe.)
As other readers have noted, Mike’s mother is not permitted to look pregnant in the 1948 edition, though she is just days away from giving birth. No wonder “Mike couldn’t believe it!” when he hears the news. I can’t really believe it either.
The architecture of their house is nice enough, but I am not dying to live in it the way I am with Mike’s house from the ’70s (that window seat!).
Instead of a pram being delivered at the beginning of the story, alerting Mike to the news of changes afoot, the delivery man brings something called a “bathinette”. A google search reveals that bathinettes are real and still exist, though I’ve never seen one. They seem to be designed for people with a surfeit of money and space in their houses, like a changing table but with a tub instead of a changing surface. They also have a terrible name that sounds like an irresolvable lisp.
The biggest change in character is with Aunt Pat, who in the 1970s’ book seems to be a pretty college girl who has come home for a few days to help out her older sister. Thirty years before, she’d been an impossibly old spinster with braids wound around her head and something seriously wrong with her jawbone–she appears to have a case of the mumps.
There is a lot of text on the pages, fewer pictures, and Harriet was impatient to get on with the story. Interestingly, Wilkin similarly situates both stories in Springtime, with blossoms on the trees and robins on the lawn digging for worms, which seems to be what the books most have in common. Though the ending is also the same, Mike asking to hold his new baby sister and deciding that having a new baby in the family was going to be just fine.
The older versions of the book we have feature two different final pages, and both are a bit curious. One shows five different images of babies thumb-sucking, stretching, sleeping. And the other is totally bizarre–it’s Mike’s baby sister hovering over her bassinet. Is she levitating, I wondered? Harriet posited that she was bouncing on the bed. And both of us decided that it wasn’t a safe-sleep position for a newborn whatever it was.
Less than being disturbed by the matter though, Harriet has decided that the hover-baby edition of The New Baby is the only one she will consent to have read to her.
More about kids’ books: please read Sara O’Leary’s wonderful post on boys and reading, which features the line, “My boys both had dints on the tops of their heads as babies from where I used to rest my book while I was breastfeeding.” Indeed!
