Precious Home and TanTan Publishing

The premise of Precious Home by Ji Hyun Lee (illustrated by Jin Hwa Kim; TanTan Publishing, 2017) is that houses might look different around the world--they're built from locally-sourced, usually sustainable materials, and designed to suit the climate and customs of the people who live in them--but each is someone's "precious home." Readers learn a little about five different kinds of houses (six, including the narrator's fairly generic one):

• a house built on wooden poles in Thailand
• a mud house in Togo
• a tent house (ger) in Mongolia
• a log house in Russia
• and an ice house (igloo) in Greenland.

Each house gets two double-page spreads, one for the outside and another for a cutaway of the inside, accompanied by snippets of explanatory text. I love a good cutaway, so I spent a lot of time flipping back and forth between Jin Hwa Kim's lively cartoon and collage illustrations of each house (the Russian log house was my favorite), and comparing them to the photographs of the houses on the back endpapers as well. Precious Home is appropriate for ages 3-7.

Something about the title and the cover design of Precious Home suggested that it was originally published in another language (Dong-hwi Kim holds the copyright for the English edition). It was published in the US by TanTan Publishing in their Knowledge series. Our library holds two more of their 2017 picture books (Kikuchi's Sushi and Grandpa Max's Wurst, possibly part of the Icook series? Will check them out). TanTan also has a well-defined Math Story series, including Math in the Art Museum (2015). They're a relatively new publisher of international children's books that I'm happy to add to my list.

Sit: Stories by Deborah Ellis

Sit, but don't get too comfortable. All too often, the children in this collection of stories by Deborah Ellis (Groundwood, 2017)  find themselves in difficult situations. While Jafar works in a factory instead of going to school, Gretchen wonders what her family would have done during World War II, and Mike survives 72 days in solitary confinement.  Circumstances for seven other children range from life-threatening to heartbreaking, usually both. And while each child proves to be resilient and resourceful, reading about them isn't easy. Important, even essential, but not easy.

I connected most with the story of Miyuki, "The Glowing Chair," perhaps because it offers one of the most redemptive endings. It begins with Miyuki sitting on a tatami mat at the evacuation center where she, her father and brother are staying after the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster; her mother has been missing since the tsunami swallowed up the veterinary clinic where she worked. Ellis economically conveys the tensions that exist between the members of Miyuki's family (including their donkey Hisu, left behind in the danger zone) as well as the bonds that remain after the events of March 2011. Miyuki's decision to rescue Hisu takes her into the danger zone, where she makes peace with the loss of her mother and discovers who she is meant to be.

Read an excerpt from Sit (the first story in its entirety) here.

As I was writing this post, I heard the sad news that Sheila Barry, publisher of Groundwood books, died last night. My sincere condolences to her family, friends, and colleagues at Groundwood. I know she will be missed.

Happy birthday to Astrid Lindgren, Frederick Banting, and this blog

BooksTogether shares a birthday with Swedish author Astrid Lindgren; I started it in 2007, on what would have been her hundredth birthday, and it's ten years old today. It was a fortuitous date, as over the years I've come to specialize in the field of international and translated children's literature. While the blog hasn't always kept pace with my work (I hardly posted at all when I was on the Batchelder committee, for example), a tenth anniversary seems a good time to recommit!

[I wasn't aware of it at the time, but November 14 is also Frederick Banting's birthday. Banting is a personal hero, a Nobel prize winner for the discovery of insulin. Since I started this blog, my son Leo was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes, so this date--World Diabetes Day--has added significance--not necessarily for BooksTogether, but definitely for me.]

A post shared by Beyond Type 1 Daily (@beyondtype1daily) on Nov 14, 2017 at 5:07am PST

NYT/NYPL Best Illustrated Children's Books of 2017

When the New York Times' list of the Best Illustrated Children's Books of the year comes out in November, I know it's time for me to start thinking about our house Mock Caldecott. But because the Best Illustrated books list doesn't have the same eligibility criteria as the Caldecott (namely, American-ness), there are always a few titles we can't consider. This year, two of my favorites on the NYT list are On a Magical Do-Nothing Day by Beatrice Alemagna (HarperCollins) and Town is by the Sea, written by Joanne Schwartz and illustrated by Sydney Smith (Groundwood); neither is eligible (Alemagna is Italian; Smith, Canadian).

Thank goodness, then, for Frida Kahlo and her Animalitos by Monica Brown, illustrated by John Parra (NorthSouth). This book was a delightful surprise (to me, not to the NYT list)--I wasn't expecting Brown to use the characteristics of Kahlo's pets to illuminate the artist's own personality ("Frida was independent, like a cat!"), but it's an insightful and child-friendly approach. And Parra's acrylic on board illustrations are totally charming. I've read and reviewed a number of picture book biographies of Kahlo, and this one is my new favorite. It was also my Cybils nominee in the Elementary Nonfiction category. Congratulations to Monica and John, and to all of the authors and illustrators on this year's list!