April 2, 2009
Preferring chocolate cupcakes
Lovely that Shirley Hughes’ Dogger has been reissued, though I hope my baby is content with an older edition, as I’ve been saving it all this time. On Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons, and it really is about time I read that book. Annabel Lyon’s review of the new Mary Gaitskill collection is one of the most entertaining reviews I’ve read ever, as well as quite persuasive: “Short story fans like things short, so here’s the skinny: Buy this book. Now, for the rest of you, the fat…” Craig Boyko on the short story, which I only read because of cupcakes in the headline, but I’m glad I did: “If stories do not sell, I guess it must be because people prefer to read novels. As someone who enjoys short stories, I find this preference odd. It’s like preferring chocolate cake to chocolate cupcakes. Aren’t they the same thing?” (They sort of are. Except that cupcakes are their own particular brand of amazing.)
March 16, 2009
What I've learned about children's books
Behold, The Baby’s library, which is a work in progress but well underway. The “nursery” is beginning to come together, which is wonderful, but I continue to be more concerned with the library than any other aspect of it. Perhaps because it means I get to focus on BOOKS rather than the solid terrifying fact of a baby coming to live at our house in just ten weeks. (Eeek. That’s ages away, right?)
In less frightening news in children’s literature, I am finding my experience at The Children’s Book Bank quite fascinating. I remember last December at the Art Matters “A Passion for Reading” panel that my co-panelist, author/illustrator Genevieve Cote provoked a bit of controversy by suggesting that in her experience (through school visits), boys and girls liked different kinds of books. Which is not the sort of thing some people like to hear, but I find it to be true with adult boys and girls, so why not with the wee ones?
I wish it weren’t particularly so, but the little boys I read with at the Book Bank are riveted by books about trucks, and the girls love ones about princesses and fairies. Neither book in either genre even has to be good or interesting, but these kids know what they like. When the girls get older, the fairy fixation continues with a rather wretched series called The Rainbow Magic Fairies, which probably isn’t any worse than The Babysitters Club and Sleepover Friends, which I was devoted to at that age. They all like novelized versions of TV shows and movies. Jillian Jiggs and Robert Munsch go over as well as they did when I was little. (Yesterday a little boy informed me that he knew Robert Munsch. “Really?” I asked. “How do you know him?” “Well, I have his books,” he said.)
Kids have become accustomed to really amazing and dynamic illustrations in books, which means that classic stories like Make Way for Ducklings or Blueberries for Sal often get picked over. Of Eric Carle, no one can get enough. Dora The Explorer books are more educational tools than books, but they’re less obnoxious than I thought they’d be. Surprisingly, Barbie books aren’t atrocious, but they’re all a little bit dumb. Madeleine still has her fans, and Curious George is timeless.
March 3, 2009
Addendum
This occurred to me yesterday as I was making my lunch, as an addendum to the Life-Changing Books list. That I must note Beverly Clearly’s Ramona Quimby, Age 8. Because ever since reading it many years ago, I have been unable to crack a hardboiled egg any other way except slap against my forehead.
February 24, 2009
darkness of a child's heart
“You can control and censor a child’s reading, but you can’t control her interpretations; no one can guess how a message that to adults seems banal or ridiculous or outmoded will alter itself and evolve inside the darkness of a child’s heart.”– Hilary Mantel in The Guardian
February 8, 2009
Reading in Pickle Colour
Today I finally picked up a copy of the marvelous I Can Read With My Eyes Shut, which might be the closest thing to a holy book those in my religion have– in rhyme no less. (“The more that you read,/ the more you will know./ The more that you learn,/ the more places you’ll go.”) And I like to think the first page (shown here) was a reference to Pickle Me This. I got the book at Circus Books and Music, which is a wonderful store with exceptional children’s books. We were out on the Danforth after a spectacular brunch at The Only Cafe, and then walked westward. At the Danforth Type Books, I bought I Kissed the Baby, but not for me, that one. (Oh no, it’s for the baby’s library.) Outside, we’re enjoying this crazy February Sunday Sun again and it’s wonderful.
December 30, 2008
Christmas update
I received a Slanket for Christmas, after years and years of longing, and so I will never have to suffer the agony of cold arms again while reading. It really is the most remarkable bookish accessory, the only problem being that whenever it’s on me I very soon find myself falling asleep. But it did keep me snug as I make my way through my Christmas books. Already did the trick with Lush Life, and I’m sure there’ll be more of the same as I read Great Expectations: Twenty-Four True Stories About Childbirth. I also received Inside the Slidy Diner by Laurel Snyder and Jaime Zollars for me and my yet-born babe, and I bought the baby Night Cars, which I think it really liked. Our beloved Smiths gave us each a book by Todd Parr— The Mommy Book and The Daddy Book. (We now wonder if it might be safe to be prepared, knowing where this kid comes from, and buy it an early copy of Parr’s It’s Okay to be Different). Oh, and we also got us a copy of Pulpy and Midge in our house via a present for Stuart, which meant I was startled in bed the other night as we were reading by Stuart exclaiming in woebegone tones, “Oh no! Pulpy just fell on his potluck contribution!!”
December 23, 2008
Phoebe Gilman
Somehow it took me until yesterday to learn that Phoebe Gilman died in 2002. She was a really marvelous author and illustrator who had such an impact on me as a reader. I still remember her visit to my elementary school, and how exciting it was meet someone who’d created such a wondrous thing as a book. I can still recite most of Jillian Jiggs by heart. I also remember how Phoebe Gilman told us that she thought Jillian’s little sister was called Rebecca, although the character went unnamed in the story, and so I am excited to see Rebecca’s name was made official in subsequent Jillian tales. I am excited also to note that Gilman left such an extensive literary legacy that will bring her work to avid readers for generations to come. 
December 18, 2008
Family Literacy Day: January 27
Though our baby is still very small, and is also translucent, we’ve been reading to it regularly ever since it acquired working ears. (This is a very bookish baby– it acquired its first book while still an embryo). And while there are plenty of sound scientific reasons why reading to our baby is a very good thing, I’ll admit that I like reading stories for the sake of reading stories, and even more so, I appreciate being read to too. So while I’m not sure that the baby really knows what’s going on, being so busy beating its tiny heart and turning somersaults, even if it’s more for us, I think this is the best kind of selfish.
For all of you lucky, lucky people out there, however, whose children have already left the womb, I would like to turn your attention towards Family Literacy Day. Created by ABC Canada, the tenth Family Literacy Day will be held on January 27, and planned events include the setting of a Guinness World Record for “Most Children Reading with an Adult in Multiple Locations”. (The record to break was set in 2006, with 78,791 kids.) The chosen book is Munschworks 2.
Find out more here about how to get involved, whether at home with your family, or at a local event.
December 17, 2008
What Elephant? by Geneviève Côté
I’ve discerned that one key to successful children’s stories is to keep the kernel packed up tight. For example, by all means write a story about the elephant in the room, but really have that story be about poor George who comes home one day to find an elephant watching his TV and eating chocolate chip cookies. When George explains the problem to his friends, none of them believe him. Naturally– elephants don’t watch TV or eat chocolate chip cookies. So George has no choice but to go home again, and there he finds the elephant asleep on his bed, covered in newspapers, because the elephant has blown its nose on every single one of his bedsheets.
Geneviève Côté’s What Elephant? goes on to tell the story of George’s roommate from hell, who eats up all the food, lingers too long in the shower, takes up the entire (now broken) sofa, and steals the morning paper. Worse, George fears he’s going crazy because he knows elephants don’t actually do any of these obnoxious things, and he has nobody he can turn to. If his best friend Pip can see the elephant, he won’t admit, being just as conscious as George is about saving face.
Author/illustrator Côté has created a marvelous story with such wonder in its details– I was particularly struck by George’s prized collection of teapots, and George’s teddy bear clutched in the elephant’s trunk. The story’s resolution is sweet and surprising, complete with a trek off into the sunset, but of course the matter is far from resolved, as we’re left with the question of the talking pink poodle.
November 28, 2008
The Children's Book Bank
This morning on the radio I heard about The Children’s Book Bank, an amazing initiative offering free books and literacy support in downtown Toronto. The Book Bank operates much like a bookshop, or a library, except that the books are free.
From their website: “A visit to The Children’s Book Bank is much like a visit to a familiar and well loved children’s book store. The space is safe, warm and inviting and is intended to create a wonderful oasis for the children; a place where they can relax and experience the magic of books and enjoy reading.”
Those of us who love books very much can certainly imagine the pride these children must take in owning their own libraries. For information on how to donate money or “gently used, high quality children’s books” to the Children’s Book Bank, click here.
