More Jonathan Bean: Big Snow

A little bonus post to go with Caldecott Hopefuls: Building Our House. This is Jonathan Bean's Big Snow (FSG, 2013), and the forecast is warm and cozy (there's cookie baking, but also bathroom cleaning, which one doesn't see so often in picture books), with occasional flurries and the exciting possibility, real or imagined, of big snow.

I don't have as much to say about Big Snow (although it is a perfectly fine book, exemplary even) as I did about Building Our House, which is really the point of this post: only one of these books feels like a Caldecott contender to me. Would comparing them help to articulate why that is? Or maybe I'm wrong and Bean will pull off another Klassen!

Turtle in Paradise

We read, or rather listened to, Jennifer L. Holm's Turtle in Paradise (Random House, 2010) under the best possible circumstances--while driving to the Keys (that would be Paradise) during last year's summer vacation--so I have fond memories of it and was very happy (if also a little surprised) to see it get a Newbery Honor.  Turtle in Paradise is in some ways a typical Newbery pick, at least this year: it's historical fiction; it's about a girl (that would be Turtle); she's sent away to live with relatives in a new and unfamiliar place.  That describes three of the five Newbery books this year (including the winner).  Narrow the historical part down to the Great Depression and you still have two (including this one and the winner).

Which is not to say that Turtle isn't a worthy pick: I happen to know a carful of people who liked it lots!  I checked it out of the library and reread it as soon as we got home even, and my only complaint was that the ending felt a little rushed (I was afraid I might have drifted off and missed something, actually).  But it was always funny, sour and sweet like a Key West cut-up, a great summer read or read-aloud.

Like Penny from Heaven and Our Only May Amelia, Holm's other Newbery Honor books, Turtle in Paradise was inspired by family history; and the Author's Note includes family photographs (I love these) as well as a testimonial to the effectiveness of a certain diaper-rash formula--Holm uses it on her own babies' bungies.

[In other news for fans of Jennifer Holm, a sequel to Our Only May Amelia at last!  The Trouble with May Amelia (Atheneum) will be out in April.]

Bones by Steve Jenkins: Not just for Halloween!

Children's book author and illustrator Steve Jenkins sets the standard for cut paper collage illustration in every one of his books (What Do You Do With a Tail Like This?, made in collaboration with Robin Page, won a Caldecott Honor in 2004).  His newest nonfiction book is Bones: Skeletons and How They Work (Scholastic, 2010).  You might think that bones, being mostly white, would be less interesting visually than the range of fins, fur, and feathers rendered in the rest of Jenkins's books about the animal kingdom (I might have, anyway); on the contrary, Bones is Jenkins at his best.

The bones themselves, cut from a limited palette of mottled creams and grays, glow against the solid background colors, but the best part is the arrangement of bones on the page, to inviting, eye-opening, often humorous effect (the gatefolded human skeleton waving at you is just one example).  Jenkins's background in graphic design really shows here.  Witty headings and compact text plus a More About Bones section at the back round out the book.

Bonus:  Add up the number of bones in the human body as you read; you should end up with Jenkins's total (which would be...?).

[Nonfiction Monday is at Mother Reader today.  Thanks, Pam!]

Poetry on ice?

Literally, according to this reference in Louise Borden's The Greatest Skating Race: A World War II Story from the Netherlands (illustrated by Niki Daly; Margaret K. McElderry, 2004):

She could cut letters and words in the ice of the canal
with the blade of her skate,
like the long-ago Dutch poets.

Who were these Dutch poets?  Did they really cut poems in the ice?  Vondel and Bredero wrote poems about skating during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (known as Europe's Little Ice Age), and some of Vondel's poems are even short enough to skate (two words: U / Nu!).  The whole thing is probably apocryphal, but it's a lovely image nonetheless.

[The painting is by Hendrick Avercamp, A Scene on the Ice (1625).  You might recognize it from Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (actually, it belongs to the National Gallery, and you can skate there, too).]

Merry Navidad and Felices Reyes

I may have missed Christmas at bookstogether, but I'm just in time to wish you a happy Three Kings' Day with this carol or villancico, collected in Merry Navidad! Christmas Carols in Spanish and English by Alma Flor Ada and F. Isabel Campoy (illustrated by Vivi Escriva; Rayo, 2007):

The Three Wise Kings are coming
across the sandy deserts.
Among the gifts they're bringing
are the softest diapers.

I love that the three kings, in their wisdom, bring the baby diapers.

Feliz dia de los reyes!

Happy birthday, Tomie dePaola!

It's Tomie dePaola's 75th birthday today, and I'm celebrating it by ordering a copy of the just-released Strega Nona's Harvest (Putnam Juvenile).  I wish I were celebrating it by visiting the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art's retrospective of his career, Drawings from the Heart, but that's in Northampton.  Someday!  In the meantime, I'll have to host my own in-house retrospective.

Do you have a favorite Tomie dePaola book?  Please share!

Awful Ogre, Summer's Over

Awful Ogre and I are forced to admit that summer's over.  You can read all about Awful Ogre's summer in Awful Ogre Running Wild by Jack Prelutsky, with gloriously grotesque watercolor and pen and ink illustrations by Paul O. Zelinsky (Greenwillow, 2008).  Actually, Awful Ogre and our family did a lot of the same things:  painted pictures, went on picnics, attended concerts, visited grandparents.  There may have been a little running wild in there, too.

"Awful Ogre Reflects on the Summer"

Oh, it's been an awful summer,
A delightful awful summer,
Just the sort of awful summer
Awful Ogre does adore.
But at last, alas, it's ending,
Yes my awful summer's ending,
My delightful awful summer
Now is practically no more.
[continued]

Prelutsky and Zelinsky's Awful Ogre's Awful Day (Greenwillow, 2005) is just as awful as his summer was.  Which is to say, we loved it.

[Poetry Friday is at Wild Rose Reader today.  Thanks, Elaine!]

Lily-of-the-Valley Day

I remember three French customs from A Brother for the Orphelines by Natalie Savage Carlson (pictures by Garth Williams, 1959):  masks on Mardi Gras, the April fish, and lilies of the valley on the first of May:

"The first of May is Lily-of-the-Valley Day in France.  People gather the flowers in the woods and give sprigs to their friends for good luck.  Even the president of France gets one, because ever since the days of King Louis IX, the head of the French government has been presented with a lily of the valley on the first of May."

The orphelines look for their lilies of the valley in the Ste. Germaine Woods outside of Paris, where they live in a falling-down house with Madame Flattot and Genevieve to care for them.  A Brother for the Orphelines is the third in Carlson's series of books about them:  The Happy Orpheline, A Pet for the Orphelines (cats, 12 of them), A Brother for the Orphelines (Josine, the youngest, finds a baby boy in the breadbasket), The Orphelines in the Enchanted Castle, and A Grandmother for the Orphelines.  I seem to have liked French orphans, too.  Happy May Day!

Easter eggs

We decorated eggs today. 84 of them! It's a big Anderson family tradition.  I always pull out our copy of An Egg is Quiet for inspiration (Dianna Aston, illustrated in ink and watercolor by Sylvia Long; Chronicle, 2006).  Its endpapers look like the blue speckled scarlet tanager egg pictured here; for a variety of eggs, see the first double page spread and the one for "An egg is colorful."

Other family favorite Easter books (mostly picture books, and one middle grade novel) listed here.  Which are your favorites?

Santa Lucia, Hugo and Josephine

Happy Santa Lucia Day!  This image of Lucia and her attendants comes from my childhood copy of Hugo and Josephine by Maria Gripe, with drawings by Harald Gripe (1962); translated from the Swedish by Paul Britten Austin (Dell, 1969).  Sorry about the poor image quality:  what kind of paper were Dell Yearlings printed on in the 1970s?  Anyway, there is Josephine as a maid of honor (May-Lise, the prettiest girl in the class, is Lucia) and Hugo at far left as a star-boy.

I read and loved the Hugo and Josephine trilogy as a child (Hugo has since gone missing); my other favorite Gripe book was the more mysterious Glassblower's Children.  Gripe's books must have been widely available in translation then:  Maria Gripe, "one of Sweden's most distinguished writers for children," had won the Hans Christian Anderson Award in 1974.  Now my library system doesn't hold a single copy of any of her books.  Not one.  Which is a shame:  Hugo and Josephine, the one I've most recently reread, is a delight: perceptive, often very funny, told in a distinctive present-tense and set in a place (Sweden) and time similar to but interestingly different than our own.  When I start my own press dedicated to printing neglected or OOP children's fiction, the Hugo and Josephine trilogy will be on my list.  Does anyone else remember it?

Poetry Friday: Los Gatos Black on Halloween

From Los Gatos Black on Halloween by Marisa Montes; illustrated by Yuyi Morales (Henry Holt, 2006):

Los gatos black with eyes of green,
Cats slink and creep on Halloween.
With ojos keen that squint and gleam--
They yowl, they hiss...they sometimes scream.

This book won the 2008 Pura Belpre Medal for Yuyi Morales's richly atmospheric paintings, which reflect the traditions of both Halloween and the Mexican Day of the Dead.  It also won a Pura Belpre Honor for Marisa Montes's rhyming text about a monster's ball on Halloween night that is interrupted by the arrival of [spoiler alert!] trick-or-treaters.

Montes incorporates some spooky Spanish words: see above as well as, for example, la bruja (witch), el esqueleto (skeleton), la calabaza (pumpkin), and medianoche (midnight).  I like that the Spanish words are specific to the Halloween context; this helps integrate them into the text.  The text itself is sometimes redundant (I don't think the English word is always required, especially when there are context clues, illustrations, and a glossary), but that doesn't seem to bother the kids.

What does bother them are those gorgeous, glowing paintings.  Too scary!  Maybe next year.

[The Poetry Friday Round-up is at Becky's Books Reviews today.]

Favorite Easter Books

Our favorite Easter books are of the bunny-and-egg variety, with the glorious exception of Brian Wildsmith's The Easter Story.  We own all of these (except for the Max and Ruby books), but we also like to look on the Easter shelves at the library: it seems to me that the best Easter books are the older ones.

country%20bunny.jpgThe Country Bunny and the Little Gold Shoes by DuBose Heyward; pictures by Marjorie Flack (1939).  A classic.  I loved this book when I was a little girl, especially the spot illustrations of Cottontail's twenty-one children doing the housework.

The Easter Egg Artists by Adrienne Adams (1976).  "There are Abbotts and there are Abbotts.  These Abbotts are rabbits.  The rabbit Abbotts make the designs on Easter eggs."

The Bunny Who Found Easter by Charlotte Zolotow (1959); re-illustrated by Helen Craig (1998).  Lovely to look at and read aloud; lots of seasonal details.

The Birds' Gift: A Ukrainian Easter Story by Eric Kimmel; illustrated by Katya Krenina.  A folktale about the origin of pysanky; gorgeous illustrations.

The Story of the Easter Bunny by Katherine Tegen; illustrated by Sally Anne Lambert (2005).  The kids really like it!

Max Counts His Chickens by Rosemary Wells (2007).  So much nicer than Max's Chocolate Chicken (the one where he steals the chicken and eats it all up).  In this one he and Ruby are hunting for hot pink peep-like chicks all around the house.  "Chick! Chick! Chick!" says Max.

And The Good Master, written and illustrated by Kate Seredy (1935), Chapter 4, "Easter Eggs."  I happily read this middle-grade novel and its sequel, The Singing Tree (A Newbery Honor book), many times; this year I read the Easter chapter, always my favorite, to my own little ones.

Happy Easter!  Happy spring!

And Maple Syrup Season

maple%20syrum%20season.jpgHappily, Pancake Week coincides with maple syrup season.  We didn't make it to a sugaring-off this year (they happen early in the mid-Atlantic), but at least we can read this book:  Maple Syrup Season by Ann Purmell; illustrated by Jill Weber (Holiday House, 2008).  We read Purmell and Weber's Christmas Tree Farm (Holiday House, 2006) many times last December:  it was a refreshingly different holiday book, one of my new favorites.  Leo and Milly were interested in how tree farming (as opposed to the more familiar vegetable farming) works, and they loved Weber's illustrations of pines, spruces, firs, and forest animals.  Like Christmas Tree Farm, Maple Syrup Season focuses on a family tradition--of sugaring, this time--and includes lots of back matter about what to pour on your pancakes.

[Newbery note:  One of my favorite Newbery Medal winners, in memory at least, is 1957's Miracles on Maple Hill by Virginia Sorenson; illustrated by Beth and Joe Krush.  I'm rereading it now, the same copy I read as a girl; and I'll post about it here and at the Newbery Project site if I can come up with something that is more review than just happy reminiscence.]

It's Pancake Week!

This book about celebrating spring arrived last week, just in time for Maslenitsa.  What is Maslenitsa, you ask?  It's Pancake Week!  From A New Beginning: Celebrating the Spring Equinox by Wendy Pfeffer; illustrated by Linda Bleck (Dutton, 2008):  "Families [in Russia] ate warm, round, golden pancakes [blini] that looked the sun.  The more butter they spread on each pancake, the hotter the sun was supposed to be during the coming summer."  We love pancakes over here and were thrilled to discover that Maslenitsa, a Russian folk and religious holiday, is being celebrated this week.  More pancakes, please!

how%20mama%20brought%20the%20spring.jpgHmmm (mmm).  I wonder if How Mama Brought the Spring by Fran Manushkin; illustrated by Holly Berry (also Dutton, 2008) has anything to do with the Russian folk tradition of Maslenitsa (if not the religious one, obviously)?  I haven't read it yet, although I have read Elizabeth Bird's review at A Fuse #8 Production (2/22/2008).  In that book, Mama tells Rosy about how Grandma Beatrice once brought spring to Minsk by making blintzes (Rosy and Mama try the same thing in Chicago; good luck!).  Blintzes, blini:  it makes sense to me.  What do you think?

Nonfiction Monday: A New Beginning

a%20new%20beginning.jpg

I just ordered A New Beginning: Celebrating the Spring Equinox by Wendy Pfeffer; illustrated by Linda Bleck (Dutton, 2008).  I couldn't resist, not with the gorgeous early spring weather we're having today.  Milly even saw a robin!  I like Pfeffer's other books about the seasons, We Gather Together: Celebrating the Harvest Season (also illustrated by Bleck; it's in our fall book basket) and The Shortest Day: Celebrating the Winter Solstice (illustrated by Jesse Reisch; I posted about it here).  A New Beginning offers the same combination of scientific information about spring (when the days get longer, the growing season begins, and animals have their babies); and historical or cultural background about springtime celebrations around the world (including the Chinese New Year, Passover, and Easter).  Activities, crafts, and recipes at the back of the book.  I hope we have time to try some of these before spring arrives!

Nonfiction Monday: The Story of Valentine's Day

story%20of%20valentine's%20day.jpgValentine's Day is one of my favorite holidays.  I know there are people who don't like it, but they're getting a (handmade) valentine from me anyway.  A lot of people do, just like in grade school:  I don't think of Valentine's Day as only a romantic holiday.  As Clyde Bulla writes in The Story of Valentine's Day (newly illustrated by Susan Estelle Kwas; HarperCollins, 1999), "It is a day to give small gifts of love and friendship to someone special."  This small book would make a perfect valentine (hint)--there's even a heart-shaped bookplate inside.  Also a brief and very readable history of Valentine's Day, beginning with the ancient Roman festival of Lupercalia; and of valentines themselves.  Back matter includes instructions for making old-fashioned "pinprick" valentines, examples of acrostic valentines, and a recipe for Valentine Cookies.  I really like the new illustrations by Susan Estelle Kwas, too (especially the Cupid on the cover).  Leo and Milly really liked the idea of celebrating Lupercalia, but I think we'll stick to making valentines over here!  Maybe we'll have to make one for Lupercus.

[Nonfiction Monday]

Poetry Friday: If You'll Be My Valentine

if%20you'll%20be%20my%20valentine%20google.jpgI think the best Valentine is a poem.  Preferably one written just for you.  The little boy in this book by Cynthia Rylant (illustrated by Fumi Kosaka; HarperCollins, 2005) writes a simple Valentine poem for everyone in his family, plus the cat, the dog, his teddy bear, and the bird that sings outside his window.  Each of the poems (there are ten of them) has the same format:  they all begin with "If you'll be my valentine" and go on to say, in four short lines, what the little boy will do with or for the recipient in return.  The one he writes to his mother is (not surprisingly) my favorite:

If you'll be my valentine
I'll pour our tea at three.
Spicy cookies
and an orange
just for you and me.

Okay, it's a simple poem (a little boy is supposed to have written it, after all).  But I love the specificity of it:  tea is at three (the illustration of the boy and his mother having tea shows the clock in the background); the cookies are spicy.  Also that the boy is doing something with his mom that she would particularly like, although he is certainly enjoying it, too.  This is true of all the poems:  in another, the boy promises to pull his little sister in the wagon so "we can sing and talk."  Milly, a little sister herself, likes that one best.

I had planned to write an acrostic poem for each of the kids and my husband this Valentine's Day.  I still might (even though my husband's name has an X in it, and it's hard to work an x-ray or a xylophone into a Valentine).  Or maybe I'll write these instead:  5 lines, first line "If you'll be my valentine," last four lines ABCA and a promise to do something special together.

Congratulations and good fortune!

Leo's second-grade class started their unit on Imperial China with a parade through the halls of their school this afternoon.  It was terrific (and terrifically loud):  drums beating, accordion-pleated paper dragons waving, kids shouting "Gung Hay Fat Choy!"  They'll be studying China for the next six weeks (so you can expect some Chinese content here at books together).

long-long's%20chinese%20new%20year.jpgAt home, we had dumplings for dinner and read Long-Long's New Year:  A Story about the Chinese Spring Festival by Catherine Gower; illustrated by He Zhihong (Tuttle, 2005).  I like that this book is set in (rural, contemporary) China; it's a nice complement to the many books about Lunar New Year celebrations that focus on Asian-American families and communities.  Author Catherine Gower lived and worked in China for two years; and illustrator He Zhihong was born in China and studied traditional Chinese painting there.  Both story and art are authentic in their cultural--and emotional--details.

The story:  Long-Long and his grandfather set off on a bicycle cart loaded with cabbages to sell at the town market.  We see Long-Long helping out at the bicycle repair shop; meeting the cook at a street restaurant; and, after all the cabbage is sold (some to the cook), buying gifts for his family at the Hundred Goods Store.  All around him people are making ready for the New Year celebration.  At the end of the story, Long-Long sees a parade; eats a tang-hu-lu (a stick of toffee fruit); and goes home to his village with the things he and his grandfather have bought for their own family's New Year celebration.  The art:  A beautiful series of detailed double-page spreads.

At the back of the book, the author provides a note on "The Very First Chinese Spring Festival" and a glossary of Chinese words in the story (including the Chinese characters; this came in very handy when we wanted to make a Fu sign for our front door).  Sometimes I think I should have named this blog At the Back of the Book; I love back matter and think it's an important but often overlooked part of the package for many of my favorite kinds of books.  Like this one.  Highly recommended.

And it's not too late:  Spring Festival (the celebration that begins on the first day of the Lunar New Year) lasts fifteen days!

Three Kings Day: Federico and the Magi's Gift

Today (January 6) is Three Kings Day.  In keeping with Spanish and Latin American tradition, we always celebrate this day with a visit from los reyes magos.  The kids leave their shoes by their beds (along with a small box of sweet grass or hay for the camels), and the three kings leave them a small and special gift.  Which is as it should be:  after all, it's the kings who bring the gifts in the Christmas story, too.

federico%20and%20the%20magi.jpgThere are not many picture books that tell about this tradition. One very beautiful one that does is Federico and the Magi's Gift, a Latin American Christmas story by Argentine author and illustrator Beatriz Vidal (Knopf, 2004).  The story itself is sweetly simple:  Federico is worried that the three kings won't leave him any gifts.  Vidal's exquisite watercolor and gouache illustrations (painted using a magnifying glass and very, very small brushes) are anything but.  They're magical.  I also love the tropical setting: a nice contrast to all those wintry Christmas books.  And not to worry, the Magi leave the coveted toy horse for Federico.

Perhaps they've left something for you?  Feliz Dia de los Reyes!