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.

There 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!

Poetry Friday: From the Gargoyle's Den

We spent last Saturday morning at the Gargoyle's Den, a workshop for families held every week from 10-2 in the crypt classroom of the Washington National Cathedral.  Lots of projects:  Leo and Milly loved it.  The classroom has a nice collection of cathedral-themed picture books, too.  This poem is from A Gargoyle on the Roof by children's poet laureate Jack Prelutsky; pictures by Peter Sis , whose distinguished work as an author and illustrator I admire (Greenwillow, 1999).

Mother Gargoyle's Lullaby

The moon and stars have vanished,
The long dark night is through,
Another day is dawning,
The sky is clear and blue.
The morning sun is rising,
It's climbing overhead.
My precious baby gargoyles
Should snuggle into bed.  [continues]

Other picture books about gargoyles:

god bless the gargoyles by dav pilkey (Voyager, 1999).  Look at this book for the gorgeous paintings (made with acrylics, watercolors, and India inks).  One was inspired by Edward Hopper's Nighthawks.

Night of the Gargoyles by Eve Bunting; illustrated by David Wiesner (Clarion, 1994).  Gargoyles on a museum building come to life at night in Wiesner's black-and-white charcoal drawings.

The End

We love this clever book:  The End by David La Rochelle; illustrated by Richard Egielski (Arthur A. Levine, 2007).  And we're not the only ones:  it received four starred reviews.  The droll and deadpan text (hand-lettered by Georgia Deaver) begins with "And they all lived happily ever after" and proceeds backwards until it arrives at "Once upon a time...", encountering knights, princesses, dragons, bunny rabbits, giants, and enormous tomatoes along the way.  Egielski's illustrations, done in sepia ink and watercolor, are brilliant, matching the offbeat fairy tale feel of the text, enriching and extending the story (look for the elf on the flying blue pig).  The book design by Elizabeth B. Parisi is also exceptional:  even the copyright information and title page are relocated to the back of the book.  We've read this thing forward and backward multiple times, and it still feels fresh.  The perfect read for the the end of one year--or is it the beginning of the next?  Happy new year!

[See David LaRochelle's website for a terrific teaching guide, too.]

Poetry Friday: Good King Wenceslas

Good King Wenceslas; original carol by John M. Neale; illustrated by Tim Ladwig (Eerdmans Books for Young Readers, 2005).

"Good King Wenceslas look'd out

on the feast of Stephen,

when the snow lay round about,

deep and crisp and even."

Ladwig, working in watercolor, liquid acrylic, and oil on paper, beautifully illustrates Neale's carol about the tenth-century Bohemian king who goes out with his page to give alms to a peasant on St. Stephen's Day (the second day of Christmas, December 26).  I like Ladwig's framing device, a little boy looking at the statue of Wenceslas in Prague and "imagin[ing] a long time ago..."; the same little boy (and his dog) appears in the story as Wenceslas's page.  A "Historical Note" at the back of the book tells us that Neale wrote the carol in 1853 to inspire children to be generous on St. Stephen's Day: it's not too late!

See this article in Wikipedia for the full text of the carol and notes on its form (it was set to the melody of a thirteenth century Swedish spring song).  There is also another picture book about Wenceslas by Geraldine McCaughrean (whose work I very much like); illustrated by Christian Birmingham (Transworld, 2007); this one appears to be a prose retelling of the Wenceslas legend.

[Leo is finally interested in knights, kings, and castles, much to the delight of his medievalist mother (me); he especially liked Ladwig's warm illustrations of the castle interiors.]

New (to me) Christmas books for the basket

We have a big Christmas book basket (not to be confused with the seasonal book basket for winter) and check out lots more from the library.  Every year I like to add one or two Christmas books to the basket, the ones I'm already looking forward to reading next year.  These were my favorite "new" books this year:

A Christmas Like Helen's by Natalie Kinsey-Warnock; illustrated by Mary Azarian (Houghton-Mifflin, 2004).  "To have a Christmas like Helen's, you'll need to be born on a Vermont hill farm, before cars, or telephones, or electricity, and be the youngest of seven children."  This gorgeous book is the next best thing.  Be sure to read the author's note (she's one of Helen's 32 grandchildren).

A Clever Beatrice Christmas by Margaret Willey; illustrated by Heather M. Solomon (Atheneum, 2006).  We love Clever Beatrice.  This time Beatrice promises her friends that she will show them a bell from Pere Noel's sleigh, a button from his cape, and a curl from his beard on Christmas morning.  Perhaps Pere Noel will leave some of those things behind at our house this year, too?  We'll leave him a big piece of the buche de noel just like Beatrice and her mother did.

Santa's Littlest Helper by Anu Stohner; illustrated by Henrike Wilson (Bloomsbury USA, 2004).  For my littlest helper, who loves forest animals.  I love that Santa's helpers look...just like Santa!  Makes sense to us.  And I just noticed that there is a sequel:  Santa's Littlest Helper Travels the World (Bloomsbury USA, 2007).  All of these author-and-illustrator teams have other books I haven't yet seen yet.  It's like a Christmas present!

Are any of you adding a Christmas book to your basket this year?

Lucia and the Light

Happy Santa Lucia Day!  My own little Lucia (and her big brother Starboy) served us dinner by candlelight this evening instead of the traditional breakfast in bed, which can be a little harder to manage on a schoolday.  Later we read this lovely book, a favorite from last year:  Lucia and the Light by Phyllis Root; illustrated by Mary GrandPre (Candlewick, 2006).  Note:  The Lucia of Root's original folktale is not the same as the Italian saint or the Swedish legend.  We know; and we don't care!  This is still an appropriate book to read on Santa Lucia Day and around the time of the winter solstice (after all, in the Julian calendar December 13 was the winter solstice).

Lucia and the Light was inspired by Scandinavian mythology (and Minnesota winters).  It's about a brave girl who climbs a snowy mountain in search of the sun and, with the help of her milk-white cat, rescues it from the trolls so it can resume its rightful place in the sky.  I love the opening lines:

"Lucia and her mother and baby brother lived with a velvet brown cow and a milk-white cat in a little house at the foot of a mountain in the Far North.  The cow gave milk, the cat slept by the fire, and the baby cooed and grew fat by the hearth.  They were happy together, even when winter piled snow outside their door."

Who could resist that scene?  Not I.  I adore Phyllis Root's work, its rich and rhythmic language.  And Mary GrandPre's (yes, that Mary Grandpre's) illustrations, done in pastels, manage to be luminous even when there is no light.  Brava Lucia!

Snow, origami, and dogs

Tricia at The Miss Rumphius Effect came up with a list of some her favorite gift books for the December Carnival of Children's Literature (to be hosted by Big A little a).  She organized them by category:  snow, origami, puzzles and mysteries, nonfiction, and dogs; and wrote a nice precis of each one.  She also asked for readers' favorites in those categories; here are some of mine:

Snow

Grandmother Winter by Phyllis Root; pictures by Beth Krommes (Houghton Mifflin, 1999).  What happens when Grandmother Winter shakes her feather quilt?  Why, it snows, of course:  big soft feathery flakes; then all sorts of creatures (and children!) must make ready for the cold winter.  I love Phyllis Root's work; here, she was inspired by the German tales of Mother Holle.  And Beth Krommes's scratchboard-and-watercolor illustrations (this was her first picture book; she went on to illustrate Joyce Sidman's award-winning poetry collections) are both beautiful and true.

Origami

Yoko's Paper Cranes by Rosemary Wells (Hyperion, 2001).  Spare text and beautiful art (using origami and washi papers, gold leaf, rubber stamps, and paint) combine to tell a many-layered, extremely satisfying story.  Yoko moves to California, but comes up with a symbolic birthday gift to send her grandmother in Japan.  Includes diagrams for folding an origami paper crane (not the easiest thing to fold, but perhaps the most well-known).  This is also a good wintertime and holiday read, especially for children who live far from their grandparents.

Puzzles and mysteries

The Westing Game by Ellen Rankin (it won the Newbery Medal in 1979).  I still remember reading The Westing Game for the first time; it was so unlike any book I had read before (or since).  The granddaddy of the puzzle/mystery mid-grade novel.  Check out this website, The Westing Heirs; it was created by a group of fourth-graders (and their teachers).  So kids are still reading it!

Nonfiction and Dogs

Dogs and Cats by Steve Jenkins (Houghton Mifflin, 2007).  Milly loves dogs; we have a basket full of her favorite "dog books."  The usual suspects are in there:  Spot, Biscuit, Harry, McDuff; as well as a random assortment of others and a revolving door of dog library books.  This fall we added nonfiction, mostly because Steve Jenkins's cut and torn paper collage illustrations are so appealing (ahem, to me), but his text is nicely organized around questions and comparisons.  It's fair to say that the "and Cats" part of this two-sided book rarely gets read at our house, though.

Thanks again, Tricia!  Everyone (two? three?) else, please feel free to list or link to your favorites in these categories in the comments as well.

Hans Brinker

It was snowing when we went upstairs last night.  I tucked both kids (and myself) into Leo's big bed with a new picture book:  Hans Brinker, retold by Bruce Coville and illustrated by Laurel Long (Dial, 2007).  Right away there was a lot of ooh-ing and aah-ing over Long's lush, luminous paintings of snow-covered Dutch towns and landscapes.  The snow seems to sparkle (and inside, the candles glow).  Then we discovered that the story really begins on the eve of St. Nicholas...and of course, last night was the eve of St. Nicholas.  It was the perfect book for us to be reading together.

Coville does a wonderful job with this adaptation of the novel by Mary Mapes Dodge, first published in 1865 (see the Holiday High Notes from the November/December 2007 issue of The Horn Book for a review).  The story is somewhat complicated:  there is the race for the silver skates on one hand, and the situation surrounding Hans's father, who lost his memory after an accident ten years before, on the other.  Leo was intrigued by the mystery of the missing thousand guilders (and the origin of the silver watch; see, I told you it was complicated), and he was excited to learn the outcome of the race (spoiler alert: Hans does not win).  Milly might have fallen asleep, but she's only three and it was past her bedtime.  As for me, I especially liked the character of Hans, who is "strong of heart and true of purpose" (Coville, in an adaptor's note):  a good role model for my own sturdy boy (and girl).

[Happy St. Nicholas Day!  To learn more about St. Nicholas and how his day is celebrated in Holland around the world, go to the website of the St. Nicholas Center:  Discovering the Truth about Santa Claus.]

Fall Book Basket

The fall books are back on the shelf today.  I pulled them from here and there around the house in September and put them all together in a new basket just for seasonal books.  I'm not sure if we read them a lot more than we would have anyway, but at least they were easier to find when we did want to read books about back-to-school, Halloween, autumn leaves, and Thanksgiving.  Some new books found their way into our fall book basket this year, too:

We Gather Together: Celebrating the Harvest Season by Wendy Pfeffer; illustrated by Linda Bleck (Dutton Children's Books, 2006).  Non-fiction picture book about harvest celebrations from the past that are still carried on all over the world today.  We also added two of Bleck's retro-inspired Pepper the Dog books ("Pepper plays, pulls, and pops!") to our collection (Milly insisted).

How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin? by Margaret McNamara; illustrated by G. Brian Karas (Schwartz & Wade Books, 2007).  This one inspired an afternoon of seed counting (by twos, fives, and tens) at our house.  I really like Karas's illustrations, from the autumnal palette to the many multicultural faces of the children in Mr. Tiffin's class.  Perfect all season.

Boo and Baa Have Company by Lena and Olof Landstrom (R&S Books, 2006).  I like Swedish children's books in general, but we all adore Boo and Baa.  The droll, deadpan text and the remarkably expressive illustrations of these two googly-eyed and clueless sheep work together perfectly: the result is hilarious.  Apparently there is a whole series of Boo and Baa board books which are not readily available in the States (believe me, I've looked).  Good thing I can read this one over and over again and still think it's great.

Most of our seasonal books come from the library:  we go at least once at week, and we have lots of books out at a time.  These we get to live with all year round, even when it's not their turn in the seasonal book basket.

[Thank you for your patience with the last of this year's fall books.  Now it's time for winter...and Christmas!]

Mary and the Mouse, MouseMouse and Maria?

Amazon.com's list of the Best Books of 2007 appeared in my Inbox last night. I was pleased to see that Mary and the Mouse, the Mouse and Mary by Beverly Donofrio, illustrated by Barbara McClintock (Schwartz and Wade, 2007) was one of their editor's top ten picture books of the year. We don't own it (yet), which makes it difficult to write about, but I love Barbara McClintock's work. When I saw Mary on display at Aladdin's Lamp a few days ago, I took a quick peek and was instantly charmed. I particularly liked the double-page spreads of the two houses, red brick Colonial and contemporary ranch, that the two generations of girls and mice live in.

Milly got two McClintock books for Christmas last year (Cinderella, which has become our favorite edition of that fairy tale, and Adele and Simon).  I think she may find another one under the tree this year.