Welcome to Nonfiction Monday

Welcome to Nonfiction Monday! This week, I'm starting a new series featuring nonfiction about artists, including lots of picture book biographies. First up, a review of The Fantastic Jungles of Henri Rousseau by Michelle Markel (illustrated by Amanda Hall; Eerdmans, 2012). Sneak preview: I loved it. That's Hall's illustration of the self-taught Rousseau at the top of this post.

Please leave a comment with a link to your Nonfiction Monday post (and a brief description if you'd like). I'll round up the posts here throughout the day. Thanks for participating in this edition of Nonfiction Monday!

Early birds
Tara at A Teaching Life has a review of A Strange Place to Call Home--all about some animals who call dangerous habitats home.

Laura Salas has a review of Jeanette Winter's The Watcher.

A handful of reviews of The Giant Who Humbugged America by Jim Murphy (Scholastic, 2012), at Ms. Yingling Reads, Shelf-employed, and The Nonfiction Detectives.

Mid-morning
Jennifer at the Jean Little Library reviews a classic Jim Arnosky guide, The Brook Book.

Tricia at The Miss Rumphius Effect is sharing a review of Planting the Wild Garden.

Sue at Archimedes Notebook is interrupting her compost-turning to review Yucky Worms by Vivian French--with lots of hands-on explorations for young naturalists.

Margo at The Fourth Musketeer has a review of the new biography The Bronte Sisters: The Brief Lives of Charlotte, Emily, and Anne by Catherine Reef. It will be released next month.

Jeanne at True Tales & a Cherry on Top features Play Ball, Jackie by Stephen Krensky.

Noontime
Shirley of SimplyScience reviews Animals: A Visual Encyclopedia from DK.

Abby the Librarian has a review of Superman Versus the Ku Klux Klan by Rick Bowers.

Roberta's cat reviewed Minette's Feast by Susanna Reich and gave it four paws at Wrapped in Foil.

Holly has a fun book called Poopendous! by Artie Bennett at Bookscoops this week.

Tammy of Apples with Many Seeds is looking at Popville today.

Evening edition
Bookends is reviewing Jim Murphy's Invincible Microbe: Tuberculosis and the Never-Ending Search for a Cure.

All About the Books with Janet Squires features Space, Stars, and the Beginning of Time: What the Hubble Telescope Saw by Elaine Scott.

Self-identified science geek Wendie Old features a newspaper article about the people who drive the Mars Rover, Curiosity, at Wendie's Wanderings today.

At Booktalking, Anastasia Suen is reading The Everything Guide to Study Skills: Strategies, tips, and tools you need to succeed in school! by Cynthia C. Muchnick.

Fairies and changelings

I'm currently reading (among other things) Some Kind of Fairy Tale, a grownup fantasy by British author Graham Joyce (Doubleday, 2012). It's not a changeling story, at least not so far, but a kidnapped-by-the-fairies one, in which teenaged Tara Martin disappears into a dense forest known as the Outwoods, only to return twenty years--or is it six months?--later.

Forests are my favorite magical places (castles or old houses are a close second), and Tara's description of the forest on the day she disappeared is especially evocative:

After a while I found a rock covered in brilliant green moss and orange lichen. I sat among the bluebells and put my head back on the mossy pillow of the rock.

The bluebells made such a pool that the earth had become like water, and all the trees and bushes seemed to have grown out of the water. And the sky above seemed to have fallen down on to the earth floor, and I didn't know if the sky was earth or the earth was water. [42]

Then a man on a pretty white horse appears, and you know that boundaries are going to be crossed. As it turns out (I'm on page 132), they are crossed in ways I'm not so interested in reading about. Instead I'm rereading my favorite Zilpha Keatley Snyder book, The Changeling (Atheneum, 1970): "I am a princess from the Land of the Green Sky," Ivy said. "I have discovered the Doorway to Space."

The Changeling isn't a fantasy book, although Snyder did eventually write the Green-Sky Trilogy (beginning with Below the Root; Atheneum, 1978) based on the Tree People game that Martha and Ivy play in Bent Oaks Grove. But Ivy herself is such a magical character, I almost believed that she was a changeling. And that I was, too.

[Why, why is The Changeling out-of-print? I'm adding it to my list of books to reprint when I start my own small press.]

Martin de Porres, the rose in the desert

I wish I knew what drew Gary D. Schmidt, better known for realistic middle grade fiction such as The Wednesday Wars (a 2008 Newbery Honor book) and Okay for Now (2011), to the story of Martin de Porres, the first black saint in the Americas (actually, Schmidt tells us, Martin was the son of an African mother and a Spanish nobleman, born in Lima and educated by his father in Ecuador). The author's note at the back of Martin de Porres: The Rose in the Desert (illustrated by David Diaz; Clarion, 2012) is no help.

Schmidt's text, however, emphasizes Martin's humility and service to the poor as well as his love of animals (the note does tell us that Martin is patron saint of, among other things, social justice, public education, and animal shelters). And David Diaz illuminates Martin's story with his distinctive mixed-media illustrations, in what the Horn Book calls "Latin American hues [?] of red, turquoise, gold, and brown."

My favorite image is more subdued: It's night. Martin, in his black-and white Dominican habit, carries a basket of bread. He has a brown dog at his heels. Two silvery angels guide his way.

Listen to Origami Yoda, you should

Not the finger puppet that counsels students at McQuarrie Middle School (although you could do worse than follow his advice), but the audio of Tom Angleberger's The Strange Case of Origami Yoda (Recorded Books, 2011; Amulet, 2010). We listened to Origami Yoda (and its sequel, Darth Paper Strikes Back, which is even better) while on vacation last week and highly recommend it to everyone who loves Star Wars and has ever been (or will ever be) in middle school.

Origami Yoda has some of our favorite audio features--namely multiple narrators, only one of which we didn't like, and an episodic plot (we were mostly making short trips in the car). Bonus: it's funny. And for a couple of hours, the kids only argued over who got to read The Secret of the Fortune Wookiee first when we got home (I won).

The Lonely Book

I'm pretty sure that the lonely book on the cover of Kate Bernheimer's The Lonely Book (illustrated by Chris Sheban; Schwartz and Wade, 2012) would actually have been published by Floris Books:

It was a green with a yellow ribbon inside to mark its pages. On the cover was a picture of a girl in the forest under a toadstool.

Maybe Elsa Beskow wrote it?

Floris, a small publishing company based in Edinburgh, Scotland, publishes a lot of international picture books and nostalgic classics in translation; in addition to Swedish author Beskow, their list includes picture books by Astrid Lindgren (also Swedish) and Sybille von Olffers. Floris books are beautifully made, too: ours don't have ribbon markers, but they do have bookcloth bindings.

Bernheimer's The Lonely Book (published by Schwartz and Wade; an imprint I also like, but for different reasons) has a nostalgic feel of its own. It's about loving a library book and later, rediscovering it (at the library book sale, no less). I think we can all relate.

Six Degrees of Peggy Bacon's children's books

Peggy Bacon was an American artist and printmaker who also wrote and illustrated a lot of charming children's books--one of which, The Ghost of Opalina (Little, Brown, 1967), is reviewed today at Charlotte's Library. I was curious about Bacon and delighted to discover that she's the subject of an exhibition, Six Degrees of Peggy Bacon, now showing at the Smithsonian's Archives of American Art (I haven't seen it yet; the photograph is by Michael Barnes, from a Virtual tour of the exhibition on Peggy's Facebook page).

The exhibition focuses on Bacon's connections to people in the art world, but I wonder if we could do the same thing for children's books? Bacon herself illustrated books by everyone from Lloyd Alexander (My Five Tigers: The cats in my life; Thomas Y. Crowell, 1956) to Betsy Byars (Rama the Gypsy Cat; Viking, 1966--I still have my childhood copy of this one, fortunately). She seems to have been the go-to illustrator for cats in the 1950s and 60s, and a fascinating person besides. More Peggy Bacon, please!

The ballad of Long Lankin, for Poetry Friday

Debut author Lindsey Barraclough's YA novel Long Lankin was inspired by the eponymous old English ballad (Roud Folk Song Index 6) in which Long Lankin, aided and abetted by a nursemaid, murders a lady and her infant son--by pricking him all over with a pin (shiver):

"Where's the heir of this house?" said Long Lankin. / "He's asleep in his cradle," said the false nurse to him.
"We'll prick him, we'll prick him all over with a pin, / And that'll make my lady to come down to him."

The baby's cries bring his mother, and she dies in Long Lankin's arms.

Barraclough sets her retelling of the ballad in postwar England: Sisters Cora and Mimi are sent from London to stay with their great-aunt Ida in the coastal village of Bryers Guerdon, but Auntie Ida, stern and secretly terrified, doesn't want them there. Of course, Cora and Mimi disregard her warnings (Ida doesn't even want them in the great big house alone) and go straight to the forbidden church and graveyard. Don't they know they're in a gothic horror story? Sigh. Poor Mimi.

Minette's Feast is here today!

I'm happy to be hosting a stop on the blog tour for Minette's Feast: The Delicious Story of Julia Child and Her Cat by Susanna Reich; illustrated by Amy Bates (Abrams, 2011), about Julia's first cat--and kitchen--in Paris. It's truly a delicious book (much preferred to mouse and bird)! Today, I'm sharing a conversation with Amy Bates about her lovely, lively and atmospheric illustrations for Minette's Feast.

Anamaria: I was delighted by the illustration of Minette as the iconic Steinlen cat on the dedication page of Minette's Feast!

Amy: I am so glad that you caught the Steinlen reference. There are actually two references; the second is the composite of images where Minette is pouncing and chewing and gnawing on the bone toward the end of the book. Steinlen was known for a sort of syndicated comic that he published in the newspapers or magazines. They always featured a sort of mischievous or curious cat that comes to a bad end. They are pretty hysterical. I love his drawings of cats and I felt like Julia Child herself would also approve the reference.

Are there are any other references to French art in your illustrations?

The cover I hoped would evoke a sort of Alphonse Mucha advertisement. (Usually he painted half-clad nubile women and I like  to think that Julia would have been tickled to be substituted for one of them).  [I think she would have!]

I suppose there is a little seasoning of a lot of different artists in there. Just like seasoning a soup.

Minette's Feast is beautifully researched (Susanna notes, for example, that none of the dialogue is invented). How did you research the characters and especially the Parisian settings--Julia and Paul's apartment, their neighborhood--that are such an important part of this book?

Research was tricky for this book. I have to say that I didn't go to Paris to research, but for all future books that involve Paris I am absolutely demanding a research trip out of it! Susanna did an absolutely beautiful job, I love this book! [I do, too!] I read My Life in France [Julia's memoir] for some detail. And I asked Susanna as well as a friend of mine who is a chef for help (in trying to figure out more information about the meat at the end, our best informed guess based on Julia's account was that it was a joint of venison).

I definitely looked at all the published images that it was possible to find of Julia Child in Paris. Some in her memoirs, some in old magazine articles. I watched her shows, looking at the way she moved, etc. to get a feel for her gesture and person.

I pieced together her kitchen with those old photos the best that I could (though I couldn't find a complete 360 degree view). The building is part of the French Department of Defense, or the Department of Defense runs up right behind so it is actually quite difficult to find information about the building itself, other than the outside from the front. Even an aerial photo would have been helpful, but I did the best with the information I had.       

As for the neighborhood, well, some of that is real. Les Deux Magots is a famous landmark as well as a place that Julia Child talked about eating at. I think she mentioned that sometimes Colette was there too! I took French for 6 years and my high school teacher was real stickler for Paris geography, so I guess I know the layout and feel of the city just from having loved it and studied it.

Actually, I made this book while living in Japan. I am taller than average at 5'9" (not nearly Julia's height) but I definitely understood what it felt like springing into a new culture without speaking the language and sticking out like a sore thumb. The market scene is a page out of my own life.  Little kids aren't one bit afraid of being curious and the little kids that lived in my neighborhood loved to watch us, and ask questions. That is why I put the little girl in this book.

Your illustrations of Minette licking a paw, weaving between Julia's ankles, or (my favorite) pouncing on a Brussels sprout capture her personality as well as the body language of cats everywhere. Do you have a cat of your own, or did you use other models for Minette?

Sadly, I am allergic to cats, although I think they are the most fascinating animals. I love their skeletal structure. But I don't own a cat. I used a friend's cat a little bit, but some of those poses are just too hard to catch. I made them up.

Julia's kitchen in France (like the one in Cambridge, which you can now see at the National Museum of American History in Washington, DC) features an amazing array of utensils and gadgetry! Do you also like to cook?

I love that D.C. has her kitchen on display. Everyone should go see it at the American History museum. I love cooking!  Although with three small kids, my husband and I usually don't get too fancy. I will not say the words "Macaroni and Cheese" lest I be judged. But I love good food. All kinds from all places.

What's your favorite kitchen gadget?

I love cooking gadgets and art gadgets. My favorite kitchen gadgets are my knives- which must be SHARP. I hate dull knives.

Finally, what are you working on now (or what's forthcoming)?

I have a book coming out in September called That's What I'd Do written by singer-songwriter Jewel. It is an endearing lullaby and I love how the whole thing turned out. It is full of Mama-baby love, so it is close to my heart! Also I just finished a picture book, Peter Pan, which is coming out later this year, too.

Congratulations, Amy, and thank you for sharing your research and inspiration!

[Be sure to visit the blog tour every day through Tuesday, May 8, and enter to win a free, signed copy of Minette's Feast by emailing Susanna with the subject line "Minette's Feast giveaway." One entry per person, please. Winners will be selected at random on May 31. Thanks for reading!]

Horn Book Highlights, May/June 2012

Here's a list of the books I added to my hold list after reading the reviews in the current issue of the Horn Book (I left out the ones I already read). A first step toward reviewing some of them here!

Lady Hahn and Her Seven Friends by Yumi Heo (Ottaviano/Holt). Lady Hahn is a seamstress, and her seven friends are her sewing tools personifed. The tiny women argue among themselves about who is the most important, but of course, they all are. The appeal for me is the subject (textiles!) and Heo's colorful oil-and-pencil illustrations of Korean traditional dress.

Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore (Dial). I loved Cashore's Graceling, but didn't seek out Fire, the companion novel--I wasn't interested in the character of Fire, impossibly beautiful, able to control men's minds, etc. But Bitterblue I remember as a child in Graceling, and now she's the young queen of a troubled country. Charlotte of Charlotte's Library liked Bitterblue, too (and she's giving away two copies! I hope I win, because the hold list is already very long).

The Year of the Book by Andrea Cheng (Houghton). Cheng writes realistic fiction with multicultural characters and themes for elementary to middle grade readers. Only One Year (Lee and Low, 2010) is my favorite of her books. This one is narrated by Chinese-American fourth-grader Anna Wang, who always has her head stuck in a book. I can relate, then and now.

Ghost Knight by Cornelia Funke; illustrated by Andrea Offermann (Little, Brown). I am not always a Funke fan, but this sentence from the review is impossible to resist: "Funke's consummate way with setting, well-interpreted in Offermann's looming illustrations, brings the medieval English town (and all of its ghosts) to life, from the sprawling boarding school campus to the echoes-of-the-past cathedral and eerie cemetery grounds; a side jaunt to Stonehenge even adds some levity." We (almost) went to Salisbury when we were in England last winter, even! Maybe next time.

Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein (Hyperion). I already started this YA novel about two young women, spy and pilot, during World War II (thank you, Hyperion and NetGalley!). The first part is the spy's confession; the second, the pilot's accident report. So far, so compelling--technical detail about airplanes (the author is a pilot herself) aside. This one got a starred review. I look forward to following up with my own.

Extra Yarn, hold the needles

At last count, Extra Yarn by Mac Barnett, illustrated by Jon Klassen (Balzer + Bray, 2012) had received four starred reviews. It's Klassen's second picture book--his first, I Want My Hat Back (Candlewick, 2011), also got a lot of attention and went on to win a well-deserved 2012 Geisel Honor. I'm not so sure about Extra Yarn, although I do love a picture book about knitting. I think Mars is a great name for a dog, too.

But back to the knitting. There's only one illustration in the whole book of Annabelle actually knitting something (it happens to be a sweater for a pickup truck, but that's another issue). And I'm pretty sure that the needles aren't supposed to be pointing up like that.

Does it matter, though? After all, the book is about a box that holds a never-ending supply of yarn of every color: Annabelle can probably knit it however she wants. And knitters as well as critics seem to love the book anyway. Maybe you are supposed to hold the needles that way, at least in picture books! Just don't try it at home.

Hans My Hedgehog

Welcome to Day 5 of the Hans My Hedgehog blog tour, celebrating the publication of Kate Coombs's retelling of the Grimm brothers' tale (illustrated by John Nickle; Atheneum, 2012). I'm delighted to be hosting Hans today for several reasons: I'm particularly fond of folk and fairy tale retellings, which I've written about before; and I can't resist wee Hans holding his fiddle, as seen on the cover of his book.

Kate is the author of The Secret-Keeper, an original fairy tale (paintings by Heather M. Solomon; Atheneum, 2006), and two middle grade fantasy novels, The Runaway Princess (FSG, 2006) and The Runaway Dragon (FSG, 2009). She also blogs at Book Aunt ("Because OTHER people give you clothes and video games for your birthday!"), and I always look forward to her reviews as well as her thorough, thoughtful comparisons of folk and fairy tale retellings.

Hans, she writes in Retellings Beautiful and Beastly, is a close cousin of the Beast in that other, more famous story. He's half a hedgehog, cursed before birth by his father's wish for a son. In the Grimms' version of the tale, Hans's father and mother reject their prickly baby (his mother won't even nurse him); but here, Hans is loved, albeit still lonely. Aside from the cover image, this is perhaps my favorite illustration in the book: I love the way his parents gaze at baby Hans in wonder (as all new parents do, of course!), although his mother still looks slightly stunned.

Kate makes other changes to the original (see the Author's Note), but this one seems fundamental to sharing Hans My Hedgehog with your own prickly little people. And I hope you do. Congratulations, Kate and Hans!

[A final, favorite detail: "The palace seamstress made them clothes for the wedding, and of course she sewed a velvet suit for Hans, though he struggled to fit it over his quills."]

Can We Save the Tiger?

Most of us, if asked, would want to save the tiger.  Just look at the one on the cover of Can We Save the Tiger? by Martin Jenkins; illustrated by Vicky White (Candlewick, 2011): it's beautiful. But the real beauty of Can We Save the Tiger? (apart from White's illustrations, which I'll talk about later) is that it makes us want to save things like partula snails, and vultures. As Jenkins writes, "Ugly things can be endangered, too."

The text of Can We Save the Tiger? is, like its title, both conversational and direct. Jenkins doesn't pull any punches: we won't ever see a live dodo, kids. "And then there are all those other species that are still around, but just barely." Case studies of tigers, snails, and vultures explain the various reasons why; they're accompanied by examples of other animals that are threatened for similar reasons (because they're running out of room, affected by predators introduced by people, or otherwise accidentally endangered by human actions or disease).  There are hopeful notes ("Sometimes, though, we have managed to do the right thing in time"), but no easy answers.

Jenkins's text is perfectly paired with White's evocative and beautiful illustrations, done predominantly in pencil with touches of oil paint. White earned a master's degree in natural history illustration from the Royal College of Art, in London; her animals (and one orchid, on the Index page) are precisely rendered, standing out against an expansive backdrop of creamy, oversized pages. Often they seem to look right at you, as does the tiger on the cover.

Can We Save the Tiger? is a gorgeous book, but above all, I appreciate its respect for the intelligence and concern of its young readers and listeners. Who just might be inspired to find out how they can help save the vulture.

[I don't think Can We Save the Tiger? is eligible for the Caldecott (White would have to be an American citizen or resident), but I was happy to see it listed among the Best Books of 2011 in the Horn Book Fanfare. Do you have any Caldecott Hopefuls from among last year's nonfiction picture books?]

Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?

A Monster Calls: A novel by Patrick Ness, inspired by an idea from Siobhan Dowd (Candlewick, 2011) is a heartrendingly beautiful book, one of the year's best. It's being considered for all sorts of awards, including the Cybils, where it's a finalist in the Middle Grade Fantasy and Science Fiction category.

But is that where it belongs? If the monster is real, existing as a physical entity (that's the definition in Webster's Dictionary), then yes: the book is fantasy. But if the monster is only metaphorical, then no, because otherwise it's set firmly in the real world, the one where mothers die of cancer, and there are bullies at school, and you're only thirteen. That one. Ours.

I happen to think that the monster is both real and metaphorical: that's the source of its power. But if I had to categorize the book itself, I think it would be fantasy, on the strength of passages like this one:

It had been a dream. What else could it have been?
    When he'd opened his eyes this morning, the first thing he'd looked at was his window. It had still been there, of course, no damage at all, no gaping hole into the yard. Of course it had. Only a baby would have thought it really happened. Only a baby would believe that a tree--seriously, a tree--had walked down the hill and attacked the house.
    He'd laughed a little at the thought, at how stupid it all was, and he'd stepped out of bed.
    To the sound of a crunch beneath his feet.
    Every inch of his bedroom floor was covered in short, spiky yew tree leaves. (11)

This monster leaves more than a trace--he leaves a floor covered in needles, or in red yew tree berries (37).  Those aren't metaphors (Conor has to bag them up and throw them in trash, after all). Or if they are metaphorical, they are also, definitively, real.

The multiple meanings of the words real and fantasy complicate these arguments.  Emotions are also real, even though they don't exist as physical entities. And it seems paradoxical that the more real something might be, the more firmly a book that is all about raw, real emotion becomes (just?) a fantasy book.

Now, whether this is a middle grade or a young adult book is also up for debate (Monica Edinger of educating alice originally nominated it as YA Fantasy). I don't think this is necessarily a coincidence: extraordinary books are often difficult to categorize. A Monster Calls isn't even the only book on our list that begs these questions. Many thanks to Zoe of Playing by the book for bringing them up (in the comments on another post). Now it's your turn.

Dragon Castle

After all was said and done, I was honored to write the text to accompany Dragon Castle by Joseph Bruchac (Dial) on this year's list of Cybils finalists in Middle Grade Fantasy and Science Fiction. Writing these little paeans to literary achievement and kid appeal is tricky; they have to be concise (mine is 111 words, not counting the exclamation) yet convincing, and above all, they have to make you want to read the book. Which I hope you do.

By the head of the dragon! It’s a good thing Prince Rashko, the sensible second son, is around to defend the royal family’s ancestral castle when Baron Temny and his army of invaders move in, because he’s not going to get much help from his parents (called away to the Silver Lands) or his brother (bewitched by the beautiful Princess Poteshenie). Drawing on Slovakian proverbs and folklore, Bruchac alternates—and eventually intertwines—Rashko’s story with that of the hero Pavol, also depicted in a mysterious tapestry that hangs on the castle walls. The result is high fantasy laced with history and humor, action and adventure, as Rashko and the reader alike uncover the secrets of Dragon Castle.

I like to think I'm getting better at writing these (this is the third year I've been a first-round Cybils panelist; I wrote the blurbs for Fever Crumb by Philip Reeve (Scholastic) in 2010 and Odd and the Frost Giants by Neil Gaiman (HarperCollins) in 2009), but there's always more to say. I'm still sorry I wasn't able to work the giant, telepathic wolves into the final copy.

I would love to know, though: Would you read Dragon Castle? Why or why not? Because, ahem, you should.

Caldecott Hopefuls: The Money We'll Save

I usually like to note that by Caldecott Hopefuls, I mean picture books I like a lot, not necessarily ones I think will win the award. Happily, in the case of The Money We'll Save by Brock Cole (FSG), these coincide, and the result is a picture book that already feels like a classic. This is partly because the plot is somewhat familiar: Pa brings home a turkey poult to fatten for Christmas dinner, but when the time comes the family can't bring themselves to take it to the butcher (although they don't exactly want to keep it, either). It's not exactly Margot Zemach's It Could Always Be Worse, but it has a lot in common with that book, which won a 1978 Caldecott Honor. Starting with the title, of course, and the storytelling (Heavy Medal is considering it for their Mock Newbery); but especially the expressive, energetic illustrations.

Cole sets his story in a nineteenth-century New York tenement, crowded by definition and made more so by the turkey, whom the family names Alfred. His (Cole's, not Alfred's) watercolor illustrations range from what the Horn Book refers to as "cheerfully disheveled" to completely chaotic. Even in the final image, seen below, the table is littered with crockery and silverware. Not to mention the laundry. But no matter how many people are in the picture (and there are often five or six of them, not counting Alfred), you can always tell who is looking at whom in a Cole illustration, and exactly what everyone is saying, or even thinking. Especially Pa.

[After satisfyingly disposing of Alfred and scrubbing the flat clean, the family celebrates Christmas: "...each child had a present, if only a little one, and the oatmeal was delicious." I love the way this illustration shows us not only what each child got (that's Bridget with the book), but just how much they liked it.]

Best Horn Book Cover Ever?

My long-awaited copy of the January/February 2012 issue of The Horn Book arrived today and it is gorgeous.  The cover illustration is by Salley Mavor, who illustrated the 2011 Boston Globe-Horn Book picture book award winner, Pocketful of Posies: A Treasury of Nursery Rhymes (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; link is to my review). You can see and read more about the process of making the cover illustration (I love the way she renders the Horn Book logo in particular. Also the little girl dressed as a lamb) and enter a poster giveaway on Salley's blog, or just order your poster directly from The Horn Book.

I've been a Horn Book subscriber for two years now (the inside of the magazine is just as good). Other favorite covers are Marla Frazee's hollow tree (May/June 2011), which also appears in her illustrations for the picture book Stars by Mary Lyn Ray (Beach Lane Books, 2011); and Anita Lobel's guardian angel (November/December 2010).

Which are your favorites? [There are lots more to choose from in the Horn Book Magazine's gallery of covers, too.]

The Nonfiction Monday Roundup

Hello and welcome to Nonfiction Monday at books together!  My contribution this week is Gifts from the Gods by Lise Lunge-Larsen [review coming later this morning]. Please comment with a link to your Nonfiction Monday post (and a brief description if you'd like), and I'll round them up here throughout the day.  Thanks for participating in this edition of Nonfiction Monday!

The night before (good morning, UK!)

Zoe at Playing by the Book reviews What Mr Darwin Saw by Mick Manning and Brita Granström in association with London's Natural History Museum.

Morning edition

Medea of Perogies and Gyoza reviews Japanese Celebrations for her first Nonfiction Monday post.  Welcome, Medea!

Also contributing for the first time, Tara of A Teaching Life reviews The Harlem Hellfighters, an account of the brave regiment who fought in World War I.  Welcome, Tara!

Jone of Check It Out reviews Underground: Finding the Light to Freedom by Shane Evans.

Gathering Books reviews The Boy on Fairfield Street: How Ted Geisel Grew Up to Become Dr. Seuss.

Jeff of NC Teacher Stuff reviews The Fabulous Flying Machines of Alberto Santos-Dumont.

Two reviews at Ms. Yingling Reads: a book about lost cities (Pompeii) and a book about vampires in Transylvania.

Shelf-employed is featuring some light reading today with 1st and Ten : Top Ten Lists of Everything in Football.

At Ana's NonFiction Blog, three articles from kids' science magazines featuring confused spiders, revealing bandages, and scuba spiders.  Congratulations, Ana Maria!

Roberta of Wrapped in Foil took a look at Cybils nominee Digging for Troy: From Homer to Hisarlik.

Anatomy of Nonfiction features Marc Tyler Nobleman on Heroes--Super and Otherwise with a review of Boys of Steel and interview with the author.

Wild About Nature reviews Sea Stars: Saltwater Poems by Avis Harley.

At Bookends, Cindy and Lynn review Every Thing On It by Shel Silverstein.

And Shirley at SimplyScience introduces Enterprise STEM, a new Rourke book by...Shirley Duke!  Congratulations, Shirley!

Afternoon update

Learn about animals through their ears, noses and tails in What Do I Do with a Tail Like This?, reviewed by Camille at A Curious Thing.

Kids' travel guides from Arcadia reviewed by Jennifer at Jean Little Library.

At The Fourth Musketeer, a review of Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid that Sparked the Civil War by Tony Horwitz, a new nonfiction title for adults that's also suitable for high schoolers.

A picture book biography of an artist, just for books together's focus on art and artists: Jeanne at True Tales & A Cherry On Top features Diego Rivera: His World and Ours.  Thanks, Jeanne!

Jennie at Biblio File reviews Flesh and Blood So Cheap: The Triangle Fire and its Legacy.

Wendy at Blog from the Windowsill reviews Celebrate Hannukah. Welcome back, Wendy!

Good evening

Heidi highlights a series called Fall's Here at Geo Librarian.

The Nonfiction Detectives have a review of Balloons Over Broadway on the blog today.

Janet at All About the Books reviews A Wizard from the Start: The Incredible Boyhood & Amazing Inventions of Thomas Edison written by Don Brown, .

That's all for now!

National Hispanic Heritage Month Roundup

Let's celebrate National Hispanic Heritage Month! From September 15 to October 15, the Library of Congress officially recognizes the "histories, cultures and contributions of American citizens whose ancestors came from Spain, Mexico, the Caribbean and Central and South America." Here's a roundup of children's and YA book reviews, author interviews, and more to help get the fiesta started at your house.

Picture books

Jeff reviews The Cazuela that the Farm Maiden Stirred by Samantha Vamos (illustrated by Rafael Lopez; Charlesbridge, 2011) at NC Teacher Stuff (thanks, Jeff!).  Note: The Books Together Test Kitchen is making arroz con leche using the farm maiden's recipe. Review coming soon!

Author Monica Brown shares "the story behind the story" of Waiting for the Biblioburro (illustrated by John Parra; Tricycle Press, 2011) at Paper Tigers.

Tasha reviews Tia Isa Wants a Car by Meg Medina (illustrated by Claudio Munoz; Candlewick, 2011) at Waking Brain Cells.

Roberta reviews Ellen Ochoa: The First Hispanic Woman Astronaut (PowerKids Press, 2001) at Wrapped in Foil.  In honor of World Space Week and National Hispanic Heritage Month!

Chapter books and middle grade novels

Alma Flor Ada and her son and co-author Gabriel Zubizarreta (Dancing Home; Atheneum, 2011) talk about immigration and collaboration in an interview at Kirkus Reviews. See Alma's website for more reviews of Dancing Home, which is also available in a Spanish edition (Nacer bailando). The gorgeous cover art is by Edel Rodriguez.

Charlotte reviews The Cheshire Cheese Cat by Cuban-American author Carmen Agra Deedy (and Randall Wright; illustrated by Barry Moser; Peachtree, 2011) at Charlotte's Library.

And her favorite Hispanic-themed children's book of the year, Tortilla Sun by Jennifer Cervantes (Chronicle, 2010).

Young Adult

Charlotte also reviewed The Queen of Water by Laura Resau and Maria Virginia Farinango (Delacorte, 2011) at Charlotte's Library. See Laura's website for the story behind this important book, and her blog for the inside scoop on its gorgeous cover. [Extra thanks to Charlotte for helping me to populate this list!]

Deviant (Adrian McKinty, Abrams, 2011), a YA novel with a Latino main character, reviewed at Finding Wonderland (thanks, Sarah and Tanita!).

 
For your consideration

The Heartland Chapter of REFORMA has posted a list of titles under consideration for their 2011 Mock Pura Belpre Award Session. This list is a great place to look for children's books by Latin American authors and illustrators, very much in the spirit of National Hispanic Heritage Month.

Please leave a comment if you would like to contribute a post to the National Hispanic Heritage Month roundup, and I'll add it to the list. ¡Muchísimas gracias a todos!

Before They Were Famous for Nonfiction Monday

The latest entry in Bob Raczka's series of Art Adventures, Before They Were Famous: How Seven Artists Got Their Start (Millbrook, 2011), takes a look at the earliest known work of artists ranging from Albrecht Durer to Salvador Dali. Thank goodness for Paul Klee, whose drawing of a carousel (made at age ten; you can see it on the front cover next to a photo of a young Klee) looks like it might actually have been drawn by a child; because the early work of some of the other artists is already incredibly accomplished. Michelangelo, I'm looking at you.

Before They Were Famous gives kids a natural entry point into the lives and work of the seven artists featured. Each gets two double-page spreads, including one page of text about his or her childhood and apprenticeship or training in art, one example of his or her mature work, and at least one portrait, self-portrait, or photograph of the artist (another of Raczka's Art Adventures books, Here's Looking at Me: How Artists See Themselves, focuses on artists' self-portraits). Even the author photo is of Bob at age 11, although we don't get to see any of his early work.

Raczka shares the story behind the book in a guest post on the Lerner blog, in which he discusses the Picasso painting (made at age eight) that inspired him to look for the childhood artwork of other artists. Here is Picasso's Little Picador in the context of the book:

Raczka also talks about how hard it was to find at least one female artist to include (he ended up with Renaissance painter Artemisia Gentileschi, whose earliest known work was painted when she was between the ages of seventeen and nineteen).  He says in the interview that would have loved to include this 20th century female artist, but didn't locate her early work in time.  Can you guess her identity?

[It's Georgia O'Keeffe, who made this drawing of an animal head when she was about fourteen.]

A Walk in London for Nonfiction Monday

A mother and daughter take A Walk in London in this lively, lovely picture book guide to the city by Salvatore Rubbino (Candlewick, 2011). Their day begins at 11am in Westminster and includes Buckingham Palace and the Changing of the Guard, the lions in Trafalgar Square, lunch at Covent Garden, a climb up to the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral, the Bank of England, the Tower of London, and a boatride on the Thames. For the record, it took my daughter and I ten days to do all of that! (But we went to the British Museum, too.)

While the main text recounts the day's events in the daughter's voice ("Hello! There's me, and that's my mom!"), spot text in a smaller font highlights related trivia (during a sudden shower, "London is Europe's third rainiest city. About twenth-three inches of rain falls here every year"). Rubbino's mixed media illustrations, often double-page spreads of city scenes, are carefully laid out and layered with just the right amount of detail. They also have lots of retro appeal. Here's an example from his first picture book, A Walk in New York (Candlewick, 2009; I couldn't find any interior images of London online):

London features a foldout Thames Panorama that would have come in handy on the London Eye, while the endpapers trace the mother and daughter's route on a map of the city. Don't forget to look for the royal family's car along the way!

Reminiscent of but more child-friendly than M. Sasek's classic This is London (1959; reissued by Universe, 2004), the picture book we referred to most prior to our trip, A Walk in London is the one we read to remember it. Mr. Rubbino, if you're reading this, please take us on a walk in Rome next!