G is for Goat

I got an email from Milly's preschool teacher this morning alerting me to the plight of neighborhood goats Carne (a Nigerian Dwarf) and Leche (a French Alpine).  It seems that the county considers them livestock and their owners to be in violation of local zoning ordinances; find out more at www.SaveOurGoats.com.  To be fair, we do live in Arlington, VA; just outside of Washington, DC; but my primary concern is that if the county allows it, the kids will want a pet goat, too.  Or two.

We're going to visit the goats on Saturday morning (the owners are hosting a goat-petting party).  In the meantime, we're reading Patricia Polacco's alphabet book G is for Goat (Philomel, 2003).  It has bouncy rhymes and bright illustrations, and it passes the Q test ("P is for push, when goats just won't go.  Q is for quit, when goats just say no").  Polacco's goats (they're in a lot of her books, come to think of it) are Nubians; read more about them in Oh, Look! (Philomel, 2004), the sequel to G is for Goat.  Are there any other good goat books?

What Happens on Wednesdays

We read everything Emily Jenkins writes (for kids; she also writes for adults, but I haven't read all of that. Yet).  What Happens on Wednesdays (illustrated by Lauren Castillo; Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2007) was of particular interest to Milly, who is starting to pay more careful attention to the days of the week and the routines that correspond to each one.  WHoH is as much about the preschool-aged narrator's (urban) neighborhood as it is about what she does there, and Lauren Castillo's mixed-media illustrations of Brooklyn in winter are warm with just the right amount of detail.

Jenkins writes (on her amazon.com blog) that "[her] hope is that readers and families will map their neighborhoods and write down their schedules, focusing not only on the events and locations that are important to the adults for navigation and structure, but on the things that matter to the children as individuals."  And that's exactly what the kids started working on, without any prompting from me, as soon as we finished this book.

[Two new Jenkins books not to be missed: Skunkdog (pictures by Pierre Pratt; FSG, April 2008); and Toy Dance Party (pictures by Paul O. Zelinsky; Schwartz and Wade, forthcoming in September 2008).]

Happy Birthday to Milly from Angelina and Lily

Yesterday (May 13) was Milly's 4th birthday.  Even the sun came out in her honor, after days (and days) of rain.  If you knew her this would come as no surprise.  Anyway, it was a day in which all of the ordinary things we did (make breakfast, go to school, play outside, read books together) were somehow extra-special.  And there were presents, too.

Milly loves Angelina Ballerina, so for her birthday this year I gave her a copy of Angelina's Birthday by Katherine Holabird; illustrated by Helen Craig (Viking, 2006; originally published as Angelina's Birthday Surprise, 1989).  It's nice to share a birthday with a friend from a book.  Sort of like reading a book about London while in London (unless, of course, you already live in London).  Angelina's birthday is a particularly nice one, too (book and birthday, actually); after Angelina crashes her bicycle, she helps earn money to buy a new one by doing odd jobs for neighbors like Mrs. Hodepodge, but she doesn't make quite enough for a new bike in time for her birthday picnic.  I like the way that Holabird emphasizes Angelina's growing sense of independence (she is allowed to ride her bike to the village on important errands) and responsibility in her birthday story.  And Craig's delicate, detailed illustrations of the village and the countryside in spring make me want to ride my bike to Chipping Cheddar, too.  Happy birthday, Angelina!

And happy birthday, Milly!  I'm sorry I couldn't get you the Polly doll you wanted (I blame the eBay snipers); but you should note that Angelina's baby sister (book and baby, actually!) doesn't arrive until 1991.  You seem happy with your consolation Henry, though.

[N.b., last year I gave Milly Happy Birthday to You, Blue Kangaroo by Emma Chichester Clark (Andersen, 2006), in which blue kangaroo feels left out of Lily's "I want everything to be pink!" birthday party.  Both are highly recommended for preschool birthday girls who love pink, ballet, and birthdays.  Maybe you know of one?]

Poetry Friday: Los zapaticos de rosa

The poem in my pocket yesterday was a childhood favorite: "Los zapaticos de rosa" by Cuban poet Jose Martí (picture book edition illustrated by Lulu Delacre; Lectorum, 1997). I chose it in honor of my mother, whose birthday was yesterday, too. When I was little I used to make her recite it to me every night before bed. She knows it by heart; the way, I suspect, many Cubans (and Cuban-Americans) do. These are the opening lines:

Hay sol bueno y mar de espuma
Y arena fina, y Pilar
Quiere salir a estrenar
Su sombrerito de pluma.

¡Feliz cumpleaños, Mami!

[This week's Poetry Friday roundup is at The Well-Read Child (which also happens to be one of my favorite kidlit blogs).]

A Spree in Paree

[We're celebrating April in picture book Paris.  Please comment with your favorite picture books that are (even remotely) about Paris, and I'll add them to my list and post them next week.  Merci!]

Thank you to Tricia at The Miss Rumphius Effect for recommending A Spree in Paree by Catherine Stock (Holiday House, 2004); we checked it out from the library last week and have toured the city alongside Monsieur Monmouton's farm animals many times since.  The animals are typical tourists:  the sheep go shopping on the Rue de Faubourg Saint-Honore, the goats enjoy the flowers in the Luxembourg gardens, the cows gaze at paintings of cows in the Louvre (that one cracks the kids up), and at the end of the day the pigs take everyone to dinner at a three-star restaurant.  It's absolutely delightful, and you can read it right here courtesy of Lookybook:

Do the animals go to New York next?  Yes, they went last year.  A Porc in New York (Holiday House, 2007), is also available on Lookybook: note the parallels between the animals' trips to Paris and New York (this time the sheep go shopping at a famous New York department store, the goats ride the carousel in Central Park, and they all have dinner in Chinatown); and the promise that next time we see them, they'll be back on their farm with an American visitor for Monsieur Monmouton.

[I was just thinking I might like to see more of Monsieur Monmouton's little farm myself (with my husband and children, of course) when I noticed that author and illustrator Catherine Stock is essentially his next-door-neighbor.  We might even rent her cottage in Rignac.  Someday!]

Miscellaneous Picture Books Now Organized by Color

This is the miscellaneous picture books shelf in our living room.  Yesterday there were about twice as many books all haphazardly jammed onto it; these are the ones that didn't get sorted into some other, more logical place or category.  I never (never!) thought I would organize books by color, but now I think it actually makes sense--for the miscellaneous picture books, at least.  The kids love the new arrangement, too: Leo helped me line the books up; and even three-year-old Milly can put them back (when she wants to, that is).

[If you think I'm crazy:  I saw this brilliant and beautiful book, Apples for Jam: A Colorful Cookbook by Tessa Kiros (Andrews McMeel, 2007) at Williams-Sonoma today.  The recipes are organized by the color of the food.  Thankfully, there's also an index (I checked).]

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.

The 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!

Weslandia in Virginia

Yesterday Leo announced that he wanted to start a new civilization.  This didn't come as a complete surprise to me:  he's studying ancient civilizations at school; and, more importantly, he thinks big.  There's probably no better book for him to read as he embarks on this project than Weslandia by Paul Fleischman; illustrated by Kevin Hawkes (Candlewick, 1999).  Actually, I've been waiting for just the right time to read it with him since I first read it myself.  If you haven't, it's about Wesley's summer project:  "[to] grow his own staple food crop--and found his own civilization!"  (Maybe this is more of a common interest than I thought.)  Wesley uses all the parts of a mysterious and magical plant that he grows in his suburban backyard to provide himself with food, clothing, shelter, and recreation; he invents a counting system based on the eight petals of the plant's flowers and even a 80-letter alphabet which he uses to record the history of his civilization's founding.  His summer project is a spectacular success.  And, once a social outcast, Wesley now has no shortage of friends.

Leo checked Weslandia out of the school library today and, after (finally!) reading it together, he started wondering what his civilization's staple crop might be.  Wesley may have "found it thrilling to open his land to chance, to invite the new and unknown," but if we did that we'd probably end up with a lot of pokeweed.  Maybe we could grow sunflowers in Leo-landia instead?  This civilization is open to comments and advice.

Wanted: Monsters

I have a recommendation request:  A friend of mine (Madelyn, also a children's writer) is looking for monster books to read aloud at her daughter's preschool fundraiser.  Friendly monsters preferred, for obvious reasons.  She'll be starting with Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak ("Because how could you not?")and Leonardo, the Terrible Monster by Mo Willems (coincidentally one of my favorite Willems books) and needs a couple more to round out the selection.

We don't read a lot of monster books over here ourselves:  Leo doesn't like them (monsters or their books), and Milly's not terribly interested (ha!), so I haven't been much help.  Now I'm curious, too:  What are your favorite monster books for read-aloud?  Just don't scare me!

And Maple Syrup Season

Happily, 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.]

Apples in winter

We read most of our apple books in the fall, but somehow we've managed to read four in the last week.  I love this kind of reading coincidence and am always on the lookout for it: it's the idea behind bookstogether.  In this case, the apple books aren't about picking apples or making them into apple pie (both good things that happen a lot in apple books), but about making apple friends (slightly more unusual).  Here are two of them:

   

• In A Friend for Dragon by Dav Pilkey, a snake tricks Dragon into thinking a shiny red apple is his friend.  The two spend a wonderful day together ("You are a good listener," says Dragon).  But Dragon becomes concerned when the apple won't talk to him the next morning ("Maybe it's a crab apple," suggests the doctor).  What happens next is tragic and hilarious and ultimately very satisfying.  This is the first of five early readers featuring Dragon; we love them all, but A Friend for Dragon is my favorite.
• In The Apple Doll by Elisa Kleven (Farrar Straus Giroux, 2007), Lizzy is worried that she won't make any friends at school.  She turns an apple from her favorite tree into a doll she names Susanna, but her new friend isn't welcome at school, either (no food or toys allowed during class, except on sharing day).  Lizzy keeps Susanna at home, until she finds a way to make her into a real doll--and make new friends at school, too.  Instructions for how to make an apple doll are at the back of the book (thankfully, because both Leo and Milly now want to make one.  So do I!).  And I love the endpapers in this book:  apples in the front, apple dolls in the back.

In the other two books, Miss Hickory's body is made of an apple twig, and Little Little Sister grows from an apple seed.  Really, how many books about apple people can there be?

The Buffalo Storm

The Buffalo Storm (Clarion, 2007) is a beautiful book.  Beautifully written by Katherine Applegate in her picture book debut; beautifully illustrated in watercolor and pastel by Jan Ormerod.  The kids (and I) have wanted to read it over and over again, for different reasons:  I'm moved by brave Hallie's having to leave her grandmother behind when she and her parents go west to Oregon on a wagon train; Leo likes the part in Wyoming where Hallie rescues a buffalo calf and then faces the buffalo storm; and Milly likes the end, Hallie at home in Oregon with a new baby sister wrapped in her grandmother's quilt.  I think that covers the whole story!  Reviewed by Tasha Saecker of Kids Lit here; I remembered her excellent review when I saw The Buffalo Storm on the new books cart at the library (although I think I would have checked it out anyway; Ormerod's illustrations are breathtaking).  And highly recommended by me, here.

Poetry Friday: If You'll Be My Valentine

I 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).

At 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!

Poetry Friday: Mother Earth and Her Children

The illustrations in this rhyming picture book won an unusual award:  Best in Show at the 2006 International Quilt Festival in Houston.  They began as a single quilt inspired by quilt artist Sieglinde Schoen Smith's favorite children's book, Etwas von den Wurzelkindern ("Something About the Root Children"). Written by Sibylle von Olfers, it was originally published in Germany in 1906.  Mother Earth and Her Children:  A Quilted Fairy Tale (Breckling Press, 2007) is the English translation of that book, illustrated entirely with details from Smith's award-winning quilt.  Yes, that cover image is from the quilt.

Renowned fairy tale scholar Jack Zipes translated von Olfers's short text about the changing seasons into English rhyming verse for the first time.  Here are the Root Children getting ready for spring:

"All are quick and ever ready
To sew spring clothes. Their hands are steady.
With needles, scissors, spools of thread,
They measure and cut, full steam ahead.

And when the children's clothes are done,
Kind Mother Earth admires each one."

I like the way these lines now recall Smith's work "with needles, scissors, spools of thread" as well as the Root Children's.

[This is the English edition with the original art by von Olfers (Floris Books, 1980) that inspired Smith; plus an article about copyright responsibility re: Mother Earth and her Children.  In case you're inspired to recreate your favorite picture book in some other medium.]

Picture book finalists (Cybils)

I've read three of the seven Fiction Picture Book finalists for the Cybils.  All three of them are wonderful books (of course), but reading them together, I was struck by how different from one another they are, and how difficult the job of choosing one winner would be.

Leaves by David Ezra Stein (Putnam's, 2007)

For the littlest picture book readers (and listeners) on up; about the seasons of a bear's first year.  Spare text and expressive art, created with bamboo pen and a warm palette of watercolors.  This one feels timeless.

The Incredible Book-Eating Boy by Oliver Jeffers (Philomel, 2007)

Eating was a common medieval metaphor for reading.  This boy, however, literally consumes his books.  He could be forgiven for taking a bite of this one's creamy, krafty matte pages.  I love the art, which was created with paint, pencil and Letraset "on pages from old books that libraries were getting rid of, the artist found, or people were throwing out."

Four Feet, Two Sandals by Karen Lynn Williams and Khadra Mohammed, illustrated by Doug Chayka (Eerdmans, 2007)

This book is dedicated to Zanib, a refugee girl who asked for a book about children like her (read more about how it came to be written at the author's website).  The girls who share the sandals in this story are living in a refugee camp outside of Peshawar, but the themes of friendship and separation are universal.

[Okay, I also read Knuffle Bunny Too: A Case of Mistaken Identity by Mo Willems (Hyperion, 2007).  You probably have (too).  And did you hear it won a Caldecott Honor?  Of course you did.  So you don't need me to tell you how good it is, although I will if you want.]

How does one choose a winner from among these books?  Hmm, maybe I need to take a closer look at the judging criteria for the Cybils.

Little Hoot

Look at this!  A new book by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and Jen Corace:  Little Hoot (Chronicle, 2008).  It was well-reviewed by Elizabeth Bird at A Fuse #8 Production yesterday (1/16/08), but we would have wanted it anyway:  we loved Little Pea, Milly especially.  The two books do seem to have a parallel plot structure, don't they?

little Pea : little Hoot
must eat candy : must stay up late
prefers spinach : wants to go to bed

Well, it wasn't broken.  And Little Hoot ups the ante with the adorable owls.  Corace's illustrations (rendered in ink and watercolor) are more detailed here than in Pea, though there's still plenty of white space, and the book is beautifully designed.  I think we may love it even more.

Is it possible to feel sorry for a pea?

[Milly has a small collection (it numbers 5, mostly noneditioned) of Jen Corace letterpress prints, which we started for her after we discovered Little Pea.  Our favorites came from Mahar Drygoods; see also Tiny Showcase.  Not affiliated, etc.]

Saint George and the Dragon [updated!]

We attended "An Elizabethan Festival" given by the Washington Revels ("Celebrating tradition through music, dance and drama") this morning.  If you like this sort of thing, you'll love the Revels.  Leo and Milly were enraptured.  Their favorite part was the mummers' play of Saint George and the Dragon; so we read this classic edition, retold by Margaret Hodges and illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman (Little, Brown; 1984), when we got home.  Hodges's text, adapted from Edmund Spenser's Faerie Queene, is lovely but a little wordy (can you blame her?).  Hyman's illustrations, however, are magnificent.  This book won the Caldecott in 1985.

I'm still looking for a picture book about Saint George and the Dragon that captures the comic feel of the mummers' play, though.  Any suggestions?

[Updated to add:  Many thanks to Debbie of the Washington Revels, who commented with a link (scroll down) to Saint George and the Dragon:  A Mummer's Play by Revels founder John Langstaff with woodcuts by David Gentleman (Atheneum, 1973; OOP but available at the Revels Store).  It includes the script with music, instructions for performing the sword dance (look out, Milly!), stage directions and costume suggestions.  In short, exactly what I was looking for.  Thanks again!]

Little Neighbors on Sunnyside Street

Let's pretend that three-year-old Milly were guest-blogging here at bookstogether.  She would definitely want to write up Little Neighbors on Sunnyside Street by Jessica Spanyol (Candlewick, 2007).  With good reason:  it's the perfect book for preschoolers.  They get to meet some of the little neighbors who live at numbers 4, 5, 6, and 7 Sunnyside Street and drop in on them doing their everyday activities.  Philip the cow lives at number 7; he likes making things.  Kelly the pig likes messy play.  The Bugs like driving.  And Ian the dog likes to do lots of things (music, painting, cooking) with his little sister Baby Jade.  Everybody likes reading, of course.  At the end of the day, they all have a party at Ian's house (yeehaw!); then they go to bed.  Night-night, little neighbors!

What we like best about Little Neighbors on Sunnyside Street (besides Spanyol's flat, candy-colored pen and gouache illustrations) are "all the different stories."  Sunnyside Street itself is a little like the residential area of Richard Scarry's Busy Town.  And from a preschooler (and her mom), there is probably no higher praise than that.

Math and music (and picture books)

Leo and I went to the Kennedy Center on Sunday to see (and hear) an NSO Ensemble program for families called Connections:  MORE Math and Music (reviewed in the Washington Post today, 1/8/08).  The program was a good fit (maybe a little advanced) for Leo, who likes math and is just starting his second year of violin.

We also re-read two of our favorite picture books about music with Milly, who stayed home with her dad.  Surprise!  Both of them are also in some way about math, although I wouldn't have thought of either of them if asked to recommend a math-related picture book.

Caldecott Honor winner Zin! Zin! Zin! a Violin by Lloyd Moss, illustrated by Marjorie Priceman (Simon and Schuster, 1995) is also counting book:  it starts with a trombone playing alone (solo) and adds orchestral instruments one by one (duo, trio, etc.) until it has "a chamber group of ten."  Moss's well-written rhyming verses are perfectly attuned to the isntruments they introduce.  And Priceman's illustrations, done in gouache, contribute an energetic and colorful cast of musicians.

And in The Philharmonic Gets Dressed by Karla Kuskin, with illustrations by Marc Simont (HarperCollins, 1982), 105 members of the Philharmonic Orchestra (92 men and 13 women) get dressed for work.  Kuskin's quiet, precise text tells us how many take showers or baths (or bubblebaths); how many of the men stand up or sit down to get into their pants; etc.  I think Simont's spot illustrations of the various members of the orchestra are delightful, too.

Oh, and another thing these two books have in common:  great last lines.  But I can't quote them here, because you have to read the book first!