Children Make Terrible Pets, By Peter Brown (2010)

Peter Brown is, unlike the other author/illustrators we've been reading, fairly new to the picture book scene.  This is his sixth book, and it's both laugh-out-loud funny and unexpectedly resonant.

On the book jacket, Brown explains the incident that inspired his story: "When I was a child, I once found a frog in the woods and brought it home to be my pet.  My mom was not happy.  'Would you like it if a wild animal made YOU its pet?' she asked.  'To which I replied, 'Absolutely!"

Through whimsical images and all-too-familiar dialogue ("You can keep him on ONE condition.  Squeaker is YOUR responsibility. I will not take care of him for you," Brown tells the story of what happens when one (tutu-wearing) Lucille Beatrice Bear brings home a little boy named Squeaker.  The playfulness of both the story and the illustrations also drives the form.  Brown embraces an eclectic combination of media: "pencil on paper, with cut construction paper and wood and a wee bit of digital tweaking" (as he explains in the author's note).  Similarly, he blends more traditional picture book conventions with those of the graphic novel, putting the entire narrative in text boxes and hand-lettered word bubbles.  The result is a delightful volume that feels simultaneously nostalgic (most dramatically through its intentionally yellowed pages and sepia endpapers) and unmistakably 21st century.

Bonus:  The word bubbles invite adults and children reading together to each take a "part;" even pre-readers can manage Squeakers role since he can only say "Squeak!"

Miss E's Read: Her favorite page is the last one, where Lucy Bear meets her next "pet"; she couldn't stop giggling when she thought about the havoc-potential (which is admittedly significant!).

On Your Toes: A Ballet ABC, by Rachel Isadora (2003)

Prior to stumbling across this volume in our local library, I had associated Rachel Isadora primarily with her African-inspired picture book adaptations of fairy and folk tales.  As it turns out, though, Isadora's first career was as a professional ballet dancer who had studied with the School of American Ballet.  And fortunately for us, she has produced a number of ballet-themed picture books ranging from adaptations of The Nutcracker and Swan Lake to Max, her revolutionary 1976 story of a boy who joins his sister's ballet class, to her Lili series.  In the near future, Miss E and I will no doubt track these down, because Miss E loves ballet, we both admire Isadora's lovely paintings, and I've had my fill of gooey pink-tulle books.

Certainly the highlight of this book is Isadora's gorgeous pastels of child dancers (a multiracial cast of boys and girls).  But I also appreciate the difficulty of making an alphabet book on this theme.  While a few of her word choices initially seem too general and forced (like "Sleep"and "Yarn"), most of them work very well, and even the few that don't are convincingly accounted for in the glossary, which also offers phonetic spellings of French terms.   Many of the images depict costumes and set designs from real ballets, not only the more familiar Nutcracker and Swan Lake but also bolder choices like Firebird and A Midsummer Night's Dream; these, too, are explained in the glossary in an interesting and age-appropriate way.  Ultimately, this deceptively simple book is both enjoyable for young dancers and sophisticated enough to engage grownups.

Miss E's Read: Two enthusiastic thumbs up for the "X Marks the Spot" page, which features her favorite ballet character Clara.  Two fierce thumbs down for the "Pas de Chat" page.  Because you can't look at the picture and not want to try it.  But if you're a beginner trying it alone without a teacher, you are bound to land squarely on your butt.  Repeatedly.  On hardwood floors.  And even if you're four, this kind of hurts.
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First the Egg, by Laura Vaccaro Seeger (2007)

Laura Vaccaro Seeger is one of my very favorite millennial author-illustrators, and so I'm glad that First the Egg has been in heavy rotation, by Miss E's choice.  Her book fall into one of my favorite children's lit categories, the "deceptively simple," seeming basic, understated images and text that are both powerful and profound.  One of the greatest delights of Seeger's books---especially when read for the first time---is her ingenious use of die-cuts that not only surprise us on every page but make us see what we've just seen in a wholly different way.

In 2008, First the Egg was selected as an Honor book by both the Caldecott and Theodore Geisel award committees (the latter given to exceptional emergent readers, a very tricky category to succeed in for many reasons).  Indeed, this book is perfect not only for "emergent" readers but for children old enough to "read" a book through memorization and visual cues, which is probably why Miss E chooses it so often.  It begins with the phrase, "First the EGG, then the CHICKEN," unfolding slowly over two double-page spreads, with key pictorial elements emerging through clever die-cuts.  The book---essentially a meditation on the wonder of transformation---continues in this pattern by showing other metamorphoses in the natural world (tadpoles into frogs, seeds into flowers) before progressing into the creative process itself (words into stories, paint into pictures) and finally coming full circle.  At each step along the way, the story invites us to move back and forth between "first" and "then" and to recognize and delight in the interconnectedness of these seemingly disparate elements.

Miss E's favorite page:  She returns again and again to the page that is, I think, the most profound in the book, one that reflects on the process by which we come to understand written language and to know the world.  Against a textured background of green paint on canvas appear 10 rows of what appears to be random letters and punctuation.  On closer inspection, though, "real" words are embedded in random "words," sense hidden in nonsense, inviting us to interact and to discover. 

P.S.  Vaccaro Seeger's website is wonderful.  In particular, see her "Educators/Kids" section for a creative process narrative about her recent What If? as well as for instructions for drawing Bear and Dog (among other goodies).

Odd Owls & Stout Pigs: A Book of Nonsense, by Arnold Lobel (2009)

It's always a wonderful surprise to stumble across a new title by a beloved author who's been dead for some time (Thank you yet again, Lackawanna Children's Library!)  Lobel is the legendary creator of the Frog and Toad books, which have enchanted children and adults since the 1970s.  Primarily a watercolorist who both paints and writes with an enviably light hand, he illustrated nearly a hundred books over his career (many of which he also authored).

Odd Owls and Stout Pigs originated as two small, handmade volumes given as a Christmas gift to a friend.  They were later discovered in the Lobel archives and hand-colored by his daughter, Adrianne Lobel, prior to publication.  The finished product contains two sets of nonsense poems in the tradition of Edward Lear---the pig poems all in limerick form---accompanied by Lobel's playful, expressive illustrations.  We found them charming and very funny indeed.

Miss E's take:  Her favorite was a two-page spread in the owl section. On one side is a full-page, whimsical poem cataloging a crew of eccentric owls; on the other is a "group picture" of these same owls, inviting readers to move back and forth between text and image, searching for each owl's image as it is being described.

Goldilocks and the Three Martians, written by Stu Smith and illustrated by Michael Garland (2004)

I had never heard of this book prior to finding it in the stacks on Saturday morning.  But I'm always up for a fractured fairy tale, and Miss E enjoys them immensely.  I'm glad to have stumbled upon it.

Smith, a Rochester (NY) area teacher, gives Goldilocks a back-story; frustration with her mother's strictness leads her to build a rocket and blast off in search of a planet that is "just right" (with a cat, a dog, and three symbolic teddy bears in tow).  The story is told in rhyming quatrains, but these rarely feel forced and read aloud comfortably.  Moreover, the rhyme, in combination with Smith's witty diction, sets a playful tone that offsets---even creates dynamic tension with---the moral didacticism of the back-story.  Garland's humorous computer-generated illustrations---which seem reminiscent of David Shannon's---have a very similar effect,  ultimately making this a delightfully silly-smart book.

Though this book did not win any of the "big" ALA book awards, it did win the Children's Choice Award sponsored by the IRA (International Reading Association) in 2005, and it's easy to see why.  More intriguingly, this out-of-print book seems to have become a serious collectors' item, with new copies fetching $700-900 and used copies getting $40-200+, rare indeed for a picture book of such recent vintage.  My guess is that it's become a kind of cult favorite.


Miss E's take:  Her favorite part, she says, is the beginning, where Goldilocks feels oppressed by household chores.  Why?  "Because she's just like Cinderella!"  Duh, Mom.

Bonus:  In this book's tour of the solar system, Pluto is still a planet!!  Huzzah!

Another Bonus:  Smith's website has useful resources for teachers as well as a child-friendly slideshow on how children's books are published

Madlenka, by Peter Sis (2000)

This morning's trip to the public library yielded the usual bounty, including this title by Czech-born MacArthur Fellow Peter Sis.  Sis's genius is readily apparent in his 30-some publications; he has been a Caldecott Honoree several times (for Tibet Through the Red Box, Starry Messenger: Galileo Galilei, and The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain) as well as, most recently, a 2011 Pura Belpre for The Dreamer, a collaboration with Pam Munoz Ryan.

Sis's signature style involves richly detailed, rather dense pen and ink drawings touched by watercolor or colored pencil.  He juxtaposes black and white with color to powerful ends, sometimes a few spots of color on a black and white page; occasionally a richly colored page providing startling contrast to its more muted neighbors.  Whether writing about a little girl in his adopted city of New York or his own childhood in Prague, Sis's work is very often "about" the transformative power of imagination.

Madlenka is, quite simply, the story of a little girl who shares the good news of her first loose tooth with the neighbors on her vibrant, globally diverse NYC block.  They all greet her in their native language and, through clever use of cut outs, invite her into their inner worlds of memory and invention. Eventually she returns to her parents, declaring "I went around the world."

Is this a "perfect book"?  The academic in me can't help but notice the stereotypical---at times a little exoticized---images and artifacts associated with each culture as well as the questionable elision of regional cultures (Latin American and Asian).  Yet this is in every other way a delightful book, full of beautiful, multi-layered illustrations that reward re-reading.  It's a love letter to New York City, a tribute to Sis's own American-born daughter Madeleine, and an immigrant storyteller's reflection on his new home.  Most importantly, it is an exuberant celebration of growth, community, and imagination.

The Lion and the Mouse by Jerry Pinkney (2009)

Jerry Pinkney is one of the most distinguished contemporary African-American illustrators working on children's books.  And with more than a hundred titles to his credit---both solo projects and collaborations with authors like Julius Lester---he is undoubtedly the most prolific.  Working primarily in watercolor, pencil, and colored pencil, his signature style is both gentle and incredibly detailed; while his thematic range is quite broad, folktales are among his favorite subjects.

The Lion and the Mouse is, visually speaking, one of the most stunning books in our personal collection.  Its title characters are both very realistic and amazingly expressive, and his representation of the African Serengeti they inhabit vivdly captures the "awesome yet fragile" (to quote the Artist's Note) qualities of that place.

One of the most unusual features of Pinkney's retelling of Aesop's fable is that it is nearly wordless, making it an endlessly interactive text.  Only six different "words"---all of them animal sounds---are used, and even these quite sparingly but with powerful effect.

Miss E's take:  This time around, her favorite part was the endpaper illustration of the two animal families together. In particular, she was delighted by a lion cub gnawing on its mother's tail.  "That's totally a first-born lion!" she exclaimed.  [As it turns out, she meant "newborn," but I thought her phrasing was amusing and probably more than a little apt.]

Addendum (completely unrelated to Lion and the Mouse):   A ginormous "Thank You" to web designer Josh Frank of Black Frame Media for resizing my obnoxiously large title image.  Without me even needing to ask.  It's awesome to have friends who are both talented and generous with their expertise.