Middle Grade Gallery 4

So far the Middle Grade Gallery has only featured paintings from fantasy novels.  This week's description, however, is from a family story set in mid-twentieth century New York; it may even refer to an actual work of art (not the one pictured, which is Renoir's Girl with a Hoop, 1885).

[She] was always finding things that belonged to her in a special way, though ownership had nothing to do with it.  Now she had found the picture.  The catalogue told her that the picture was called The Princess, that it had been painted by someone named Jules Clairon in the year 1881.  In the picture a girl about [her] age was sitting on a garden wall and looking out over an enormous city.  She had a solemn little face: her long hair hung to the sash of her old-fashioned dress, and her high-heeled boots were buttoned almost to the knee.  Among the potted chrysanthemums at her foot sat a black poodle with a red bow on top of his head.  On either side the clipped plane trees were almost bare, and in the distance the huge city was spread in a dusky web of blue and gray.

This must be referring to the French artist Georges Jules Victor Clairin (1843-1919), although I can't find a painting of his online that fits this description.  I substituted Renoir's roughly contemporaneous Girl with a Hoop:  she has the same solemn face, long hair, and old-fashioned dress.  Sadly, no poodle.

Please leave a comment if you think you recognize the source of this description (or if you're an expert on Clairin).  And check back on Monday for the details!

The Shadows

The painting of the forest at night featured in last week's Middle Grade Gallery comes from Jacqueline West's debut novel, The Shadows (Volume 1 of The Books of Elsewhere; Dial, 2010).  It's one of several paintings--landscapes, portraits, genre scenes of stonemasons and laughing girls-- in the old house on Linden Street that serve as portals into a mysterious Elsewhere.

Enter Olive Dunwoody, the eleven-year-old daughter of two abstracted math professors who have just bought the house and its contents.  Olive, lonely and left to her own devices most of the time, senses almost immediately that the house is keeping secrets.  With the help of a pair of spectacles, three talking house cats (Horatio, the gigantic orange one, is my favorite) and her own determination to solve the mystery of the paintings and the people in them, she travels into--and out of--Elsewhere.  But if she's not careful, she may get trapped in a painting before she can stop the dark forces who created them...and live in them still.

I absolutely adored this book.  Starting with Olive, who's an extremely likable heroine--shy and awkward, but also imaginative, curious, and brave (lots of bookish girls will recognize themselves in her); her relationships with her parents, who are present if not exactly paying attention; and with Morton, a small annoying boy who's been trapped in a painting for a long time himself.  Plus the cats!

Then there's the house.  Who can resist an old stone Victorian, full of antique furniture and strange knicknacks?  Not I.  It's got an attic heaped with things, too; not to mention an overgrown garden that I hope Olive explores more thoroughly in one of the later books in the series.

Most of all, though, I love the mystery, and the mechanics, of The Shadows.  The paintings aren't just portals between the house and Elsewhere, they are Elsewhere.  The people there are mostly paintings, too--the scenes where Olive realizes this about Morton, and then later when he realizes it about himself, are especially memorable.  [For what this might look like, check out Alexa Meade's acrylics on flesh.]

A note about the book itself:  If I were to write a middle grade fantasy novel, I would want it to be as beautifully made (let alone written) as this one.  Poly Bernatene's black-and-white illustrations are fantastic, a perfect fit for the creepy/comic tone of the text; the endpapers, printed with empty frames, are the exact same shade of blue as the sky on the jacket; there's even a debossed pair of spectacles on the hardcover underneath.  It's all very satisfying.

The Shadows has been compared to Coraline, but really, I liked it even better.  Highly recommended!

[Review copy received from publisher at ALA; thank you so much!]

Despicable Me and Sleepy Kittens

The best part of the movie Despicable Me, for my money anyway, is when Gru reads a bedtime story to Margo, Edith, and Agnes, the three little girls he's adopted to help him infiltrate his nemesis Vector's lair.  The book he reads--at Agnes's insistence--is called Sleepy Kittens; it's a novelty book featuring three kitten finger puppets who drink their milk, brush their fur, you get the idea.  Gru is disgusted: "This is garbage!  You like this?"  (Of course they do.)  I think he even suggests that a two-year-old could have written it.  I'm sure a lot of parents have thought they could do better when it comes to their kids' books, too.  It's harder than it looks.

Anyway, the smart merchandising folks at Universal published Sleepy Kittens as a movie tie-in, finger puppets and all.  Apparently the actual book is not as good as the one in the movie, in a sort of meta-reversal of people's usual complaints, but it's a clever idea nonetheless.

[And one that the people who made Michael Clayton missed out on completely.  My post on the middle-grade fantasy novel featured in that movie, Realm+Conquest, consistently gets more hits than anything else I've written here, and despite the fact that Realm+Conquest is not a real book, people continue to ask me where they can get it.  Someone please write that book already!]

Back to Despicable Me.  Later in the movie, Gru reads the girls a book he's written just for them, The Lonely Unicorn.  He should probably stick to his day job, but the girls love it.  (Of course they do.)  Have you seen the movie?  Did you?

A Boy Named Giotto

We read A Boy Named Giotto by Paolo Guarnieri (illustrated by Bimba Landmann; FSG, 1999) at the National Gallery of Art yesterday, as part of the NGA's summer series Stories in Art (this year's theme is Explore Italy).  Inspired a legend about the artist's childhood, the story tells how the boy Giotto, with materials borrowed from the artist Cimabue, paints a sheep so convincingly that even her missing lamb is fooled and returns to Giotto's father's flock.  When Cimabue sees Giotto's painting of the sheep, he asks Giotto's father to let his son become Cimabue's apprentice, which eventually he does.

Landmann's elegant illustrations are likewise inspired by the work of Giotto, which is a daunting task; but not imitative, which never works anyway.  They evoke the early Renaissance, with its Byzantine grace and modern spirit.  I love the palette Landmann uses here as well, all rusts and ochres and gold.

Unfortunately, A Boy Named Giotto is out of print (my library doesn't even hold it anymore) so we haven't been able to reread it or look closely at the illustrations.  If you can find this one, it's worth it.  In gold (or at least gold leaf).

[Nonfiction Monday is at In need of chocolate this week.  Thanks!]

BraveMouse Books: Benjamin and Bumper to the Rescue

When Benjamin Middlemouse's mother goes missing from their home in the armoire, Benjamin and his friend Bumper (a small elephant who lives on the bed) go on a search-and-rescue mission that takes them into the kitchen, out to the garden...and straight up the stairs to Sir Pouncelot's tower.  Will they free Mrs. Middlemouse from her cage before Sir Pouncelot (ha!) bakes her into a casserole?  Well, yes, but how they do it--and make him promise never to eat mice (or moles) again in the bargain--is part of the homespun, handmade charm of Benjamin and Bumper to the Rescue by Molly Coxe, with photographs by Olivier Toppin (BraveMouse Books, 2010).

Benjamin, Bumper, Mrs. Middlemouse, and Sir Pouncelot, not to mention the miniature world they inhabit, are quite literally the creations of author Molly Coxe.  (You can make a BraveMouse like Benjamin, too!  Molly and her daughter show you how.)  They were photographed for this book by Olivier Toppin, who specializes in lighting effects that set a magical mood.  It doesn't hurt that the photos were taken in a medieval French village, either.

The interior scenes, like the one in Benjamin's bedroom (above), are filled with a combination of repurposed, miniature, and handmade items that child readers with an eye for detail will love to discover.  I especially liked the outdoor shots, too: the whole thing, from kitchen to garden, feels very French.  [A good thing!  More sample pages at BraveMouse Books.]

It's clear that great care and love have been lavished on this book, the first in the Adventures of Benjamin and Bumper series to come out of "mouse-sized" publishing company BraveMouse Books (a story in themselves).  The next book in the series, Posie and the Pirates, promises more small adventures for the BraveMice (and Bumper).  Watch out for the Roof Rats!

[N.b. Review copy provided by the publisher; thank you!]

Middle Grade Gallery III

This week in the Middle Grade Gallery, a painting (one of several) from a brand-new novel I absolutely adore and can't wait to review.  In the tradition of paintings like the one of the Narnian ship at sea, it's a portal to another, mysterious place. 

It was a painting of a forest at night.  The twigs of leafless trees made a black web against the sky.  A full moon pressed its face through the clouds, touching a path of white stones that led into the dark woods and disappeared.  But it seemed to [her] that somewhere, maybe just at the end of that white path, maybe in the darkness where the moonlight couldn't reach--there was something else within that painting.  Something she could almost see.

[Me again.]  Okay, so there are no trees in Andrew Wyeth's Snow Flurries, 1953 (NGA).  There is the suggestion of a white path, though, and of something else....

I'll reveal (and review) the source of this description next week.  In the meantime, please comment if you can recall any other portal paintings in middle grade novels, so I can add them to my collection.  Thanks!

[The review is here.]

Voyage of the Dawn Treader

Congratulations to Charlotte of Charlotte's Library and Jennifer of Jean Little Library, who correctly identified the source of last month's featured work of art in the Middle Grade Gallery:  The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis.  The rest of you just weren't trying!  It is of course the picture of a Narnian ship at sea that hangs in a back room at Aunt Alberta's (I've always wondered who gave it to her) and becomes a portal into Narnia--or more precisely, into the Narnian sea--for Lucy, Edmund, and their horrible cousin Eustace.  I love this scene in the book and have been very curious about how it will look in the movie (due out December 10); fortunately, it's featured prominently in the trailer.

In the book, the children notice that the things in the picture are moving (Lewis notes that "it didn't look at all like a cinema, either"); then there's wind and noise and a wild, briny smell; finally, "a great, cold salt splash [breaks] right out of the frame." Then the children grow smaller or the picture grows bigger (it's not clear which), and they're all drawn down into the sea.  Here's the trailer for comparison:

What do you think?  Does this scene look as you had imagined it?

Alphabeasties is just my type

The animals in Alphabeasties and Other Amazing Types by Sharon Werner and Sarah Forss (Blue Apple Books, 2009) are created--or composed, as in printing--of type.  There's a different typeface for each animal, from Volta EF Aaaa's for alligator to American Typewriter Zzzz's for zebra (as seen on the cover), with lots of clever combinations, like Bauhaus Dddd's for dog (it's a Dachsund, of course) in between. The result is a playful and sophisticated alphabet book that works for little kids, big kids, and their design-minded parents, too.

In a brief introduction to typefaces and to the concept of the book, Werner and Fosse ask readers to think of a word to describe each animal and consider whether that word also describes the typeface used to create it--a nice exercise in visual thinking.  My favorite match of typeface to animal might be the shaggy sheep (see below).  The typeface is Giddyup, except for a sans-serif band around the middle where the sheep has been sheared (with scissors): 

There's more witty letter-and-wordplay in the sidebars, where you'll find embroidered E's, zippered Z's, and a mouthful of T's, among multiple examples for each letter; as well as gatefolds that open horizontally or vertically to reveal the alligator's open jaws or (another favorite) the unicorn's flowing mane.  [See more interior photos at Werner Design Werks flickr; it was hard to pick!]

Ultimately, Alphabeasties reminds its readers that a b sounds like a b no matter what it looks like (little kids will appreciate that), but a Fette Fraktur B...that's a different animal.  Can you guess which one?

[N.b. Review copy provided by the publisher; thank you!  Alphabeasties is also available at the NGA Shop (that's where I saw it first).  For the littlest kids, there are Alphabeasties Flash Cards (the typeface animals are on the front of the cards; flip them over to make two floor puzzles).   And for everyone else, there's the Alphabeasties Amazing Activity Book as well.]

The Blue Bird of Happiness Project

I read The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin (Harper, 2009) during my blog break and immediately set about starting my own Happiness Project.  (Me and everyone else who reads the book, I imagine.)  I'll spare you the details, although it does involve more blogging--which brings me to this post.

At one point during Gretchen's project, she decides to collect bluebirds, because bluebirds are a symbol of happiness.  The connection arises from Maurice Maeterlinck's play The Blue Bird (1908; link is to Project Gutenberg), in which two children--Tytyl and Mytyl--search everywhere for the Blue Bird of Happiness only to find that it was at home all along.

And of course, The Blue Bird is the matinee performed by the students of Madame Fidolia's Academy of Dancing and Stage Training in Noel Streatfeild's Ballet Shoes (1937).  Two scenes from the play are quoted at length in the book; I loved reading these as a child and imagining myself in the roles of Pauline-as-Tytyl and Petrova-as-Mytyl.  I collect books, not bluebirds, but they bring me happiness all the same.

[N.b.  I love the costume notes for The Blue Bird:

TYLTYL wears the dress of Hop o' my Thumb in Perrault's Tales. Scarlet
knickerbockers, pale-blue jacket, white stockings, tan shoes.
MYTYL is dressed like Gretel or Little Red Riding-hood.
LIGHT.--The "moon-coloured" dress in Perrault's _Peau d'âne;_ that is
to say, pale gold shot with silver, shimmering gauzes, forming a sort of
rays, etc. Neo-Grecian or Anglo-Grecian (à la Walter Crane) or even
more or less Empire style: a high waist, bare arms, etc. Head-dress: a sort
of diadem or even a light crown.
THE FAIRY BÉRYLUNE and NEIGHBOUR BERLINGOT.--The traditional dress of the
poor women in fairy-tales. If desired, the transformation of the Fairy into
a princess in Act I may be omitted.
DADDY TYL, MUMMY TYL, GAFFER TYL and GRANNY TYL.--The traditional costume
of the German wood-cutters and peasants in Grimm's Tales.

And many more, all of which I want to make.  Puppet show, anyone?]

Middle Grade Gallery II

This week in the Middle Grade Gallery, a work of art which might be more familiar than the portrait of Oldknow children we looked at last week, and maybe even instantly recognizable.  As you read, try to imagine what this work of art looks like (I'm not a visual thinker, so I have to remind myself to do this):

It was a picture of a ship--a ship sailing nearly straight towards you.  Her prow was gilded and shaped like the head of a dragon with wide open mouth.  She had only one mast and one large, square sail which was a rich purple.  the sides of the ship--what you could see of them where the gilded wings of the dragon ended--were green.  She had just run up to the top of one glorious blue wave, and the nearer slope of that wave came down towards you, with streaks and bubbles on it.  She was obviously running fast before a gay wind, listing over a little on her port side.  All the sunlight fell on her from that side, and the water on that side was full of greens and purples.  On the other, it was darker blue from the shadow of the ship.

[Me again.]  It doesn't look anything like Fitz Henry Lane's Lumber Schooners at Evening on Penobscot Bay, 1853 (NGA), does it?  In many ways the two paintings are exactly opposite, yet I think they share the same magical quality (hint).  If you can identify the source, please be sure to leave a comment so I don't lose faith in my readership.

[See this post for the answer.]

Children of Green Knowe

Last week's featured work of art in the Middle Grade Gallery came from L.M. Boston's The Children of Green Knowe (1955; this edition, Harcourt Young Classics, 2002). No one guessed.  I hope this is a reflection of how many people visit books together and not of how many people read Lucy Boston, because the Green Knowe Chronicles are wonderful. Old-fashioned, yes, but in the very best sense of the word. There's an ancient manor house, an almost equally ancient great-grandmother, and the ghosts of the three children in the painting--Toby, Alexander, and Linnet.

The painting of the Oldknow children (which can be glimpsed in the background of Brett Helquist's cover illustration for this edition) is at the center of the second book in the chronicles, Treasure of Green Knowe. It's gone to an exhibition in London and may have to be sold.  Worst of all, its ghosts (but not all of them) have gone with it.  I think I like it even better than the first.

Life-Size Zoo

Life-Size Zoo by Teruyuki Komiya (Seven Footer Kids, 2009 for English edition) is better than a trip to the zoo.  There, I said it.  At least when it comes to seeing the animals up close, that is.  An "actual-size animal encyclopedia," Life-Size Zoo is beautifully designed (it's a Japanese import) and illustrated with vivid color photographs of 21 zoo animals.

Each animal gets a double-page spread.  Occasionally two animals share a spread that highlights their similarities and differences; prairie dog and meerkat, hedgehog and armadillo.  There are also a couple of gatefolds (giraffe, elephant, rhinoceros) and vertical layouts: it's a very interactive book.  The standard format looks like this (link is to a PDF of the tiny image below):

Here, the right-hand column gives information about the animal in the photograph (including its name! This tiger is called Baito) and more information about what you can see in the picture ("Time for a Close-Up"), as well as facts to keep in mind when you see the animal at a zoo (note: these are often poop-related).

"Time for a Close-up" is my favorite feature of Life-Size Zoo; it encourages careful looking by asking the reader to notice specific details of the photographs such as, in the case of the tiger, four huge fangs; black lips; thick whiskers on his cheeks, and a short mane all around his face.  I also love the Contents, designed to look like a zoo map, and the endpapers, which include full-body snapshots of the animals in their zoo habitats.  My kids like the little cartoons that illustrate the animal facts, too.

If you like lions or prefer penguins, check out More Life-Size Zoo and Life-Size Aquarium (May and September, 2010).  You might also want to compare Actual Size by Steve Jenkins (Houghton Mifflin, 2004), which is illustrated in his trademark cut and torn paper collage (there's a tiger in it, too).  What's the same or different about the books' content, images, and design?

[Nonfiction Monday is at the SimplyScience Blog this week.  Thanks!]

KidsPost Summer Book Club 2010

The tenth annual KidsPost Summer Book Club reading list came out today.  This year, the focus is on new books by "rock star" authors (last year it was nonfiction).  The first three books on the list are Rick Riordan's The Red Pyramid; Ann M. Martin's prequel to The Baby-Sitters Club series, The Summer Before; and Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer by John Grisham.  Not really my kind of list!  But there's probably something on there for everyone, and for me that something might be Chasing Orion by Kathryn Lasky (Candlewick).  KidsPost describes it thusly:  "The author of the "Guardians of Ga'hoole" series writes a story set in Indiana in the 1950s."

Not a particularly compelling description, is it?  Maybe the publisher can do better:  When a beautiful teen with polio enters their lives, a girl and her older brother find themselves drawn into a web of lies.  The polio epidemic?  Why didn't you say so, KidsPost?  It's on the hold list.

Middle Grade Gallery

I've been collecting written descriptions of works of art that appear in middle grade novels (fairly frequently, as least in the sorts of middle grade novels I like).  I'll post them here every now and then; bonus points if you know the source of the one below (leave a comment!).

As you read, ask yourself:

• Would you recognize this work of art from the author's description?
• What do you think it looks like?

Over the fireplace hung a large oil painting of a family, three children and two ladies.  There were two handsome boys, wearing lace collars and dark green silk suits.  They had long hair but looked anything but girlish.  The elder of the two, who might be fourteen years old, was wearing a sword, and it looked so natural to him that [he] was filled with hero-worship.  He had his hand on the collar of a tame deer.  The younger brother had a book under his arm and a flute in his hand.  The little girl had a smile of irrepressible high spirits that seemed to defy the painter to do a serious portrait of her.  she was holding a chaffinch, and beside her on the ground was an open wicker cage.  One of the two ladies was young and beautiful.  At her feet was a little curly white dog with a black face; on her arms was a basket of roses.  The other lady was old and dressed in black.  They all had large dark eyes and all their eyes seemed fixed on [him].  If he moved to one side all the eyes moved after him.

[Me again]  One more question:  If you were an artist (or a child; regretfully, I am neither), how would you recreate this work of art?  Imagine a whole series inspired by fictional works of art!  Someone should get on that.

Meanwhile, I'll unveil the title and author next week.  Hint:  It's a timeslip.

[For comparison to the written description and to each other:  Joshua Johnson, The Westwood Children, c.1807 (top) and Johann Zoffany, The Lavie Children, c.1770; NGA.  Does one or the other of these match your image of the painting described?  Mine is closer to The Westwood Children.]

[Unveiled!  Jennifer (Jean Little Library) and Charlotte (Charlotte's Library) knew but alas, didn't comment in time.]

Look out! Nonfiction Monday is here

Books together is back from a blog break just in time to host Nonfiction Monday.  Now with added Barbarians!

[Barbarians include Goths, Huns, Vikings, and Mongols and are courtesy of author Steven Kroll and illustrator Robert Byrd (Dutton, 2009).  Handsome cover barbarian is Alaric, chief of the Goths and responsible for the sacking of Rome on August 24, 410 ad (ce). Look inside for more on Attila et al.!]

Who are your favorite barbarians?  Or are you loyal to Rome?  Let me know in the comments, and leave a link to your Nonfiction Monday post.  I'll add your links to this post throughout the day.

Early morning edition

Our first vote for Vikings!  Zoe at Playing by the book had a lot of fun writing about some pretty barbaric looking Creatures that glow -- a fantastic book by Anita Ganeri, illustrated by Obin, Roger Stewart and Peter Sarson.

Two posts from Redtedart's Blog this week:  Duckie's Rainbow (and rainbow cookies, yum) and three books about post (mail to US folks).  Thanks, Maggy!

Midmorning

Laura Salas put together a handy chart about nonfiction signings at ALA later this month. Authors/illustrators can add their own signing info, and attendees who want to go to some nf signings will be able to use the chart to figure out who's where at what time!

Shelf-employed is featuring award-winning nonfiction author, Jim Murphy.  Murphy is this year's winner of the Margaret A. Edwards Award for his significant and lasting contribution to young adult literature.

Abby the Librarian has a review of If Stones Could Speak: Unlocking the Secrets of Stonehenge by Marc Aronson (and the first vote for the Mongols).  Be sure to check out her lovely new blog layout, too.

The Wild About Nature blog has a review of Little Black Ant on Park Street by Janet Halfmann, from the excellent Smithsonian's Backyard series.

Bookends has two great new dinosaur books this morning: Dinosaur Mountain: Digging Into the Jurassic Age by Deborah Kogan Ray and Born to Be Giants: How Baby Dinosaurs Grew to Rule the World by Lita Judge.  They do look great, and we're overdue for some new dinosaur books around here.

At Lori Calabrese Writes!, Lori reviews National Geographic Kids Almanac 2011. She says it's an amazing book filled to the brim with everything you can think of.

Jennifer is off for another day supervising the sacking of the library by hordes of children, but is in with a quick post on The Hive Detectives at her blog, Jean Little Library.

Brenda posted about a picture book biography of Ted Williams and his .400 season on her blog, proseandkahn.  Speaking of baseball, go Nats!

Jeannine Atkins wrote about the picture book Emma’s Poem: The Voice of the Statue of Liberty by Linda Glaser with paintings by Claire A. Nivola.  It's an insightful analysis, particularly with respect to the representation of 19th century women writers, of a lovely book.

Midafternoon

Shirley wrote about Pika at SimplyScience today.  They're very cute!

Tammy wrote about Black-Canadian history at Apples with Many Seeds.  She recommends three books and is looking for suggestions.

Jeff at NC Teacher Stuff posted about a picture book biography of jazz legend Mary Lou Williams titled The Little Piano Girl, written by Ann Ingalls and Maryann Macdonald and illustrated by [books together favorite] Giselle Potter.  See his comment for a Mongol-related tongue twister that's vintage Calvin and Hobbes, too.

Anna J. chimes in this week with a review of an international picture book/artist at Full of Grace.  I'm always interested in international children's literature, and Sara Fanelli's The Map Book sounds intriguing.

BookMoot issues a "global warning" about Seymour Simon's Global Warming that emphasizes the importance of research, documentation, and sources.

Early evening

At Moms Inspire Learning, Dawn recommends If America Were a Village: A Book about the People of the United States, by David J. Smith. She says, "It's an extremely thought-provoking picture book for the 9-12 age range, and pulls in social studies, science, language arts, and math."

Three Turtles and their Pet Librarian have a "totally cheating but highly enjoyable" review of their favorite comic strip.  Hint:  It stars youth librarians.

Bedtime

Doret of TheHappyNappyBookseller is in with another review of A Little Piano Girl, a biography of jazz artist Mary Lou Williams.  I have a little piano girl of my own and will definitely add this one to our list.

Thanks to everyone who participated in Nonfiction Monday this week!

An interview with Samantha Vamos, for Dia

We're celebrating El día de los niños/El día de los libros (Children's Day/ Book Day) a little in advance, with an interview with children's book author Samantha Vamos.  Samantha gives us "the story behind the story" of her bilingual picture book Before You Were Here, Mi Amor (illustrated by Santiago Cohen; Viking, 2009), her forthcoming work, and the mood-altering effects of arroz con leche.

Before You Were Here, Mi Amor had a long gestation period--eleven years!  Where does its story begin?

The inspiration for Before You Were Here, Mi Amor came from the first pregnancy of my younger sister.  My extended family and I began envisioning doing things to welcome our future grandson/nephew into the world.  Those thoughts generated memories of my mother telling me about my anticipation over the birth of my younger sister.  I often asked when my sister would be here and when she would be old enough to play with me.  With those memories, I began writing and my book is an outgrowth of that experience.  Of course, my nephew took a mere nine months to birth and as you’ve noted, my book took eleven years!  

How did it evolve into a culturally-specific story about welcoming a new baby into an extended family?

As usual with my writing, there is a story behind the story.  I had written a manuscript.  Although the manuscript sold to a major publishing house, that house was subsequently acquired and my manuscript sat with no plan for publication.  Later, I received a release, permitting me to shop the manuscript again.  Years later, recognizing changing U.S. demographics and the fact that the family is a very significant element of Latin American culture, I realized that my manuscript might especially appeal if rewritten to incorporate Spanish.  I drew upon Latin/Hispanic cultural elements to write the book as well as the community and characteristics of my immediate and extended family.

I have to ask:  does eating arroz con leche really give you (or your baby) "a sweet and gentle nature"?  (I hope so!)

Many books have made an impression on me and Laura Esquivel’s Like Water for Chocolate is a favorite.  Esquivel’s protagonist Tita De La Garza not only expresses her emotions through food, but also nurtures with food.  My family similarly shows their love through food preparation.  When my sister was pregnant, my father often prepared delicious, healthy things for her to eat.  As I recalled his special meals, I wondered what the pregnant mother in my book could eat that would result in blessings for her baby.

Rice pudding is sweet and mild and I thought how delightful it would be if eating it would impart beneficial qualities to the baby.  Unfortunately, I can neither confirm nor deny that eating arroz con leche gives a baby a sweet and gentle nature.  I would guess, however, that an excellent bowl could improve the disposition of pregnant mothers.  [I would agree! -- AA]

The text of Before You Were Here, Mi Amor is in English, interwoven with Spanish words.  Why did you choose to write it this way?

As I incorporated Spanish words, the text flowed differently – the words sounded more intimate, more beautiful and tender.  The text resonated more with me because the bilingual manner of speaking reminded me of the way I had heard language spoken as a child.

How do Santiago Cohen's illustrations complement the text?

Santiago Cohen’s jewel-toned illustrations are both vibrant and charming.  The entire book is a rich, robust explosion of color – from the Dedication page to the Glossary.  Yet beyond color, I feel that Santiago’s illustrations complement the text because his paintings convey the warmth and community of family life.  One of my favorite illustrations is his picture of the hermana (“sister”) showing the drawing she’s made of the members of her family.  Framed on a wall above my son’s art table are the illustration of the family dancing salsa together (they’re joyful and I cannot help but smile) and the illustration of abuela (“grandmother”) painting an animal mural on the baby’s bedroom wall.  The two-page spread of the mother rocking, wondering what her child would be like suddenly slows the text’s pace.  Santiago painted blues and purples that soothe and calm.  He’s a very talented artist and a kind, lovely person.   

Your next book, The Cazuela That The Farm Maiden Stirred (Charlesbridge, 2011) also introduces Spanish vocabulary in an organic way.  Would you tell us a little bit about that book?

The idea for The Cazuela That the Farm Maiden Stirred popped into my head one morning while making pancakes.  Lacking two ingredients, I thought how much more fun it would be if I lived on a farm and the cow was kind enough to provide a cup of milk and the hen offered an egg.  A few minutes later, I put down my utensils and began writing.  I never finished the pancakes, but I did manage to write a first draft of my story!

The Cazuela That The Farm Maiden Stirred is a children’s picture book based on the familiar nursery rhyme, "The House That Jack Built."  Like the nursery rhyme, The Cazuela That The Farm Maiden Stirred is a cumulative tale in which the action builds as certain words repeat.  Specifically, in this case, Spanish words, which are woven throughout the English text, repeat as the story builds.  Five different farm animals (goat, cow, duck, donkey, and chicken) and their farmer each contribute ingredients to a pot (the cazuela) stirred by the farm maiden. A surprise recipe is created and at the book’s end, an actual recipe is provided.  There is also a glossary with a pronunciation guide.

I’m thrilled to say that The Cazuela That The Farm Maiden Stirred is illustrated by Rafael López, the recipient of the 2010 Pura Belpré Illustrator Award for Book Fiesta! (Pat Mora; Rayo, 2009).  I’ve recently seen his illustrations for The Cazuela That The Farm Maiden Stirred and they are beautifully detailed and absolutely magical.  He has truly given the story life and the characters are both amusing and delightful.  I’m very grateful that we’ve been paired on this book.

I can't wait to see Cazuela!  What can you tell us about your current projects?

I recently wrote a children’s picture book about trucks, and after ten years, my novel about a widow is receiving finishing touches.  I have an idea for a non-fiction picture book that I’d like to try writing and I hope to soon return to a middle-grade novel that I began years ago.

I wish you the best of luck on your current (and future) projects, Samantha.  Thank you for sharing your stories with me at bookstogether.

[Me again.]  In Before You Were Here, Mi Amor, the siblings fill a bookcase with some of their favorite libros for the new baby.  You can find about more about Samantha Vamos, including some of her favorite books, and her work at her website, www.samanthavamos.com.

Poetry Friday: My Uncle Emily and the Buccaneers of Buzz

"One day when we were in the garden, choosing flowers for the table, my Uncle Emily gave me a dead bee and a poem for my teacher."

I was reminded of this incident with the dead bee, as reimagined by Jane Yolen in My Uncle Emily (Philomel, 2009), while writing yesterday's post about The Humblebee Hunter.  The poem in question is Emily Dickinson's "The Bumblebee's Religion--".

There are a lot of bees in Dickinson, actually; but the poem that is important to this book is Yolen's favorite, and maybe yours: "Tell all the Truth."  The book itself is beautifully written in something like free verse, and illustrated with period-appropriate style in pen-and-ink and digital media by Nancy Carpenter.  And it pairs perfectly with The Humblebee Hunter, now that I think of it.  Even the covers match!

The Humblebee Hunter by Deborah Hopkinson, for Earth Day

"One summer afternoon Mother and Cook tried to teach me to bake a honey cake."

The narrator of Deborah Hopkinson's The Humblebee Hunter, Inspired by the Life and Experiments of Charles Darwin and his Children (Hyperion, 2010) is Darwin's daughter Henrietta, or Etty.  I suppose I can't blame her for not wanting to be in the kitchen on a summer afternoon (I have a pet peeve about girls in books who are interested in science never liking needlework or cooking).  She is otherwise a wonderful narrator, at first reflective about her father and family's scientific curiosity, and then excited to take part in an experiment--counting the number of flowers a humblebee visits in one full minute--that also gets her out of the kitchen.

Deborah Hopkinson was inspired to write about Darwin's family life by a visit to the Darwin exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History (the image above is of the garden at Down House, where the experiment would have taken place) and The Humblebee Hunter, while technically historical fiction, captures what it must have been like to grow up in the Darwin household.  There's no reason (apart from scary Colony Collapse Disorder) you couldn't observe a humblebee in your own garden, though--I did, and my count was the same as Etty's!

A note about the pictures:  I always adore Jen Corace's work.  Its slight formality is perfectly suited to the period and the story of The Humblebee Hunter, as are its precise and graceful brown ink line and watercolor palette.

Read more about The Humblebee Hunter in Deborah Hopkinson's "Behind the Book" column for BookPage and her post at Wonders and Marvels (my new favorite blog, subtitled "A Community for Curious Minds who love History, its Odd Stories, and Good Reads").  And go humblebee hunting on the next sunny afternoon!  Or, if you're so inclined, bake a honey cake and read this book instead.  Highly recommended.

Summer Birds: Maria Merian and Margarita Engle

I'm delighted to welcome Margarita Engle back to bookstogether, in advance of the publication of her first picture book, Summer Birds: The Butterflies of Maria Merian (Henry Holt, April 2010) and in honor of National Women's History Month.

This year's theme is Writing Women Back Into History, which is precisely what Margarita is doing for Maria Merian, a 17th century Dutch naturalist and artist whose work greatly advanced our understanding of the metamorphosis of the butterfly.  Margarita graciously answered my questions about all aspects of Summer Birds, from research to writing to seeing the the illustrations (by Julie Paschkis) for the very first time.

Anamaria Anderson (AA):  How did you first become acquainted with Maria Merian and her work?

Margarita Engle (ME):  More than twenty-five years ago, I was an agronomy professor and botanist.  I stumbled onto a book of Merian's work in a library's rare book room.  I fell in love with her artwork, and her courage as a scientist and explorer.

After learning as much as I could about her life and travels, I wrote a story about her for South American Explorer Magazine.  They paid me with a t-shirt showing South America as a butterfly's folded wing, with rivers as veins.

I also tried to write a children's story, but that was something new for me, and after a couple of rejections, I put the manuscript in a drawer, and did not touch it until a couple of years ago.  A couple of years ago, while cleaning my desk, I rediscovered it, revised it slightly, and sent it to Reka Simonsen, my editor at Holt.  I didn't expect her to accept it, but she did, and her choice of Julie Paschkis as the illustrator was genius.

AA:  What were some of the challenges of distilling your scholarly work into picture book format?

ME:  I grew up in a room filled with animals.  My sister and I were constantly "rescuing" caterpilllars, tadpoles, and other creatures, both large and small. It was easy to retrieve memories of my astonishment as I "discovered" metamorphosis.  For this picture book, I really wanted to portray Merian's childhood "aha" moment, that instant when she realized that she should trust her own observations of life cycles, rather than believing the superstitions of adults.  It is one of scientific history's most marvelous examples of truly original thinking.

AA:  How did the process of writing a picture book compare to writing a verse novel (such as The Firefly Letters; Henry Holt, 2010)?

ME:  The picture book experience was intense.  This is a characteristic shared with each individual poem in a verse novel.  It feels like tunnel vision, or time travel.  I basically can't see or hear anything except that one poem, or in this case, Merian's aha moment.  Nothing else in the world matters, during the writing process. 

AA:Summer Birds is beautifully illustrated by Julie Paschkis (also one of my favorites).  What was your reaction when you saw the illustrations for the first time?

ME:  They took my breath away!  Julie Paschkis planted my little seed of a story, and grew a whole world.  She did such a beautiful job of combining Merian's childhood sense of wonder with accurate science, as well as the fantastic medieval superstitions of adults.  People have asked me how an illustrator could "compete" with Merian's real artwork, but once they see this book, I am sure they will agree that Paschkis accomplished the impossible.

AA:  Do you have favorite details of the art you would like your readers to notice?

ME:  I love the way you can peek under the dust jacket, and see an entirely different illustration on the hard cover of the book, in a dramatically contrasting color scheme.

[Another] one of my favorite details is a ship with sails made of butterfly wings.  What a beautiful way to convey a child's dream of exploring!  That image of an adventurous ship with fragile wings is worthy of Merian's courage as an adult, when she really did sail forth to explore South America's rain forest, at a time when women did not travel.

AA:  That is a gorgeous image!  Could you tell us a little about your next picture book project?

ME:  My next picture book is about wilderness search and rescue dogs.  I know this subject from personal experience.  My husband is a volunteer K9 handler, with two dogs who search the Sierra Nevada mountains whenever a hiker gets lost.  My role is hiding in the forest so the dogs can practice.  I've spent many wonderfully quiet hours alone in the woods, waiting to be found.

AA:  And your next verse novel?

ME:  My next novel in verse is Hurricane Dancers, to be published by Holt this time next year.  It's about the first Caribbean pirate shipwreck, and in particular, about the native Cubans who were encountered by the pirate and his hostage, a wounded conquistador.

I already knew that I have ancestors who were pirates, and I was already working on this book when I learned that I carry a genetic marker for Ciboney/Taíno ancestry.  I descend from a tribe that has been considered extinct for five centuries.  Anyone who has grown up with tales of genocide knows the emotional impact of discovering that there were survivors.

AA:  Thank you, Margarita.  I can't imagine a more perfect voice for that story, and for this one.

Summer Birds: The Butterflies of Maria Merian is a beautiful book, one that works wonderfully well both as a biography of a little-known woman naturalist and as an introduction to metamorphosis for young picture book readers and listeners.  Highly recommended.

[Nonfiction Monday is at The Miss Rumphius Effect today.  Thanks, Tricia!]

The Firefly Letters: A Suffragette's Journey to Cuba

Margarita Engle is past master (mistress) of the art of the verse novel.  Her latest, The Firefly Letters: A Suffragette's Journey to Cuba (Henry Holt, March 2010), is a fictionalized account of Swedish novelist Fredrika Bremer's three-month visit to Cuba in 1851.  Of the three major voices Engle uses to tell her story, it is, perhaps not surprisingly, the adult Fredrika's I hear best:

On the coldest, darkest night
of Sweden's long winter,
I used to dress up as the Queen of Light,
with pine branches and candles
balanced on my head.

I walked carefully
to avoid setting my hair on fire
as I carried the traditional gift
of saffron buns to my parents.
I was ravenous, but I was permitted only
to keep one half of one spicy golden pastry
for myself, even though girls
in other, more humble homes
were allowed to feast
during that midwinter celebration
of hope for spring.  (21)

Fredrika's memories of her child- and young adulthood in Sweden emerge against the backdrop of a lush tropical island, and the stories of two other young women:  Elena, from a wealthy family, and Cecilia, an African slave.  They are strikingly different, yet similarly circumscribed.

I've never been to Cuba or Sweden, but my children's heritage comprises both; so we celebrate Santa Lucia's Day as Fredrika did (except with electric candles) at the beginning of the Christmas season and Three Kings' Day, as per the Cuban tradition, at the end of it.  We're lucky we can eat all the buns we want.

[The gorgeous cover art by Ana Juan connects the book's recurring image of the Cuban fireflies or cocuyos with the candles worn by the Queen of Light.]