Rebecca Reads » Child/Young Adult

Narrative in the Life of Frederick Douglass + The Listeners

Rebecca Reid — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 11:00:59 +0000

In his narrative of life in slavery and what led him to escape, Frederick Douglass captured the chief dilemmas that slaves dealt with, including slavery of the mind. Douglass’s slavery in Baltimore and surrounding areas was horrendous, and yet it was, as he admitted, quite tame compared to those experiences that slaves on plantations in the South dealt with.

As I read, I was struck that the main obstacle that Douglass had to overcome was not the freezing weather, the starvation, the humiliations, and the beatings, but rather a broken will. Of course, all of the former abuses directly contributed to the later, but it is his will that allowed him to be himself amidst the horrors of slavery.

Douglass was a strong-willed and intelligent boy as he grew in Baltimore. For example, he tricked the white boys his age to teach him how to read and he secretly worked on learning more. But as a teenager, he found himself reassigned to an overseer in the country who had a reputation for “breaking in” rebellious slaves. Eventually, Douglass’s spirit was broken too. That was the most heart breaking to me, for the slave masters determined to turn him into something less than human.

Douglass’s story about his broken spirit reminded me of the story of Sethe and the others in Beloved, one of my favorite novels. “You your own self,” Sethe is told. And that is what I kept thinking as Douglass told his story. He was his own self, and he was strong. He had to rediscover his will to be an individual after that master “broke” him, just as Sethe ultimately had to discover herself in Beloved. As is evidence by the existence of this narrative, Douglass eventually escaped slavery and was able to tell his story, further evidence that he was able to rediscover his will to be an individual.

Douglass’s story was written just ten years after his ultimate escape from slavery, when he was 27 or 28, and that also fascinates me. It was the 1840s, and slavery was a long way from being ended. As an escaped slave, evidence of his whereabouts could bring slave catchers, and many Northern states were required to return the slaves. Yet, he does not fear to name many names. It is clear that he has a confidence in himself. He later was able to earn enough money, lecturing in Europe, to legally buy his freedom. That is a story of success and self-confidence.

As I read this account of a slave in a border state, a slave with a difficult and tragic life and yet one that was not “that bad,” I was repeatedly reminded of a picture book I read a few weeks ago. I wrote up a blurb about it and had intended to post it with other picture books about the subject in a few more weeks. My original impression of The Listeners by Gloria Whelan, illustrated by Mike Benny, was as follows:

In a beautifully illustrated large book, we learn the story of three little slave children, whose job it is to listen near the plantation house every night and report back to their parents. It’s a slave story, but it has an element of hope to it. The illustrations are gorgeous. I’ve seen some comments suggesting that it is too light-hearted a look at slavery: truly this is not like the slavery I’ve read about before, and I can accept those comments. But it still is a touching and beautiful picture book, and I can see it as a good introduction to the subject for young children.

After reading Douglass’s book, I am now confused about what I think about The Listeners. I think it gives an incorrect view of slavery. I no longer have it to reread (I had to return it to the library), but I do remember a scene where the children are dancing with their parents. They delight in those evenings.

On the contrary, Frederick Douglass said:

I have often been utterly astonished, since I came to the north, to find persons who could speak of the singing, among slaves, as evidence of their contentment and happiness. It is impossible to conceive of a greater mistake. Slaves sing most when they are most unhappy. The songs of the slave represent the sorrows of his heart; and he is relieved by them, only as an aching heart is relieved by its tears. At least, such is my experience. I have often sung to drown my sorrow, but seldom to express my happiness. Crying for joy, and singing for joy, were alike uncommon to me while in the jaws of slavery. … (page 35, emphasis added)

Gloria Whelan, author of The Listeners, is a woman from Detroit, who has written a number of picture books set in rural Michigan, as well as other stories and picture books set in other locales, such as Russia and Japan (see Wikipedia; her author site). I guess I wonder what books she’s read about real life in slavery. Has she read any escaped slave journals and accounts, like this one? Maybe she has; I don’t know. But now I doubt the veracity and the appropriateness of a picture book with slave children laughing and dancing. It gives the wrong impression.

In Douglass’s account, as a child, he received one shirt a year and when it wore out, he went naked. He was always hungry. All the children ate out of a trough, and the quickest ended up eating the most. At night, he had a burlap sack as a blanket. In the rural Maryland winters, his feet would frost over in the night. He was forced to watch women being whipped, and saw a man shot for being slow to respond to the master’s orders.

How does one teach this cruel reality of slavery to children, or do we just gloss over it with pretty picture books until they are older?

Do you think it’s appropriate to emphasize, in a picture book, imagined happy moments that some slave children may have had?

I don’t have any answers. As I said above, I’m conflicted.

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Harlem Renaissance Poetry

Rebecca Reid — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 12:20:05 +0000

Yesterday began Black History Month in the USA! The Harlem Renaissance-themed Classics Circuit began yesterday as well, and I hope you follow along as bloggers unite in reading classic works by African-Americans.

Although this post is not for the Circuit, in preparing for that Classics Circuit, I did a lot of preliminary reading about the era and I really wanted to dabble in the poetry. I meant to post this weeks ago, but it never happened and now it’s already February! It works well, though, because I’d like to write at least one post about African-American literature each week in February.

In my library shelf searches, I could not find a comprehensive collection of Countee Cullen and Claude McKay and any of the other, less well known African-American poets of the Renaissance. I still haven’t really found a comprehensive Harlem Renaissance poetry anthology at my library, but I did find an out-of-print 1941 anthology of poetry for children that met my needs. (Thank goodness for my library’s reciprocal borrowing program with 15 other libraries!). This allowed me to read a number of different poets who were writing during the Renaissance and before.

Although Golden Slippers was edited and prepared for a “young readers” audience, it’s applicable to all, and while the poetry in it is not my favorite, it seems to have an important overview of some of the poets of the near-contemporary age to the Renaissance. Researching online, I found more poems by each poet. I also focused on Langston Hughes a little bit in the past few weeks.

When I say the poetry in Golden Slippers was not my favorite, I mean that the “traditional” dialect-written poetry seems a little bit stereotypical (a number of poems in the volume were labeled “traditional”). I struggle to read dialect. Not all the poems were dialect though, and I understood those more.

A few of Paul Laurence Dunbar’s poetry was dialect poetry in the Golden Slippers anthology. He died in 1906 (age 34), 14 years before the Harlem Renaissance actually began, and his poetry paved a way for other poets. I believe his poetry is more impressive than this volume illustrates, and according to Wikipedia, he was often held back from writing his preferred standard English poetry because publishers wanted to see black dialect poetry. He resented that, and I don’t blame him. His non-dialect poetry is amazing. I went and found more of it online (in the public domain). I most appreciated “Dawn” (in Golden Slippers), “Sympathy” (with the first line of “I know why the caged bird sings”),”Dreams,” and “Emancipation.” The last three aren’t in the Golden Slippers children’s collection. They are wonderful and I think children today could relate to the themes of dreaming, feeling trapped, and ultimately overcoming.

I also loved the poetry of James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938) included in Golden Slippers: “Lift Up Every Voice and Sing” and “The Creation.” The first has been called the “Negro National Anthem” because of its motivating message. The second is a clever retelling of the creation of the world. I would like to revisit James Weldon Johnson in the future, because as with Dunbar, I suspect there is a lot more here to enjoy than the first glance reveals.

Countee Cullen (1903-1946) was greatly influenced by Johnson’s poetry, and “The Wakeupworld” has a biblical element to it as Johnson’s “Creation” did (it’s the story of a bird who missed Noah’s ark). Cullen also hearkens back to the other poets of his era in “For Paul Laurence Dunbar” and “For a Poet” (the later is, I suspect, Langston Hughes.) He also comments on the race inequalities of his day in “Incident: Baltimore” (a sad story) and “For a Lady I Know” (in which he ponders the afterlife for a lazy lady he knows.) Browsing on the web, I also found some other Cullen poems I really like: “Lines to My Father” and “Saturday’s Child” (this is so good, although very sad!).

Claude McKay (1889-1948) wrote a few poems in Golden Slippers: the ones that stood out to me were “Under the Mistletoe” and “After the Winter.” Other notable poets represented in Golden Slippers were Georgia Douglas Johnson (“I Learned to Sing,” “Tomorrow’s Men,” “Youth,” “Guardianship,” “Benediction,” and “My Little Dreams”),Waring Cuney (“No Images”), and Helene Johnson (“Bottled: New York”). Many of these did not seem race or time limiting, and anyone can relate to the emotions and encouragements given in them. I’m not that familiar with poetry in general, so maybe that can be my excuse for not having heard of them before.

And then I save the best for last. I loved Langston Hughes’ contribution to the Golden Slippers anthology, and I also purchased the Poetry for Young People volume (which turns out to have been a 2007 Coretta Scott King illustrator honor winner). Then I found some award-winning children’s picture books at the library. I really should do a completely separate post on Langston Hughes because his poetry is so wonderful – and I’ve only read a couple dozen of his poems! I will definitely be revisiting Hughes at some point. Actually, all the poets I’ve mentioned are wonderful, and I think it’s too bad I’ve only read a few of each of their poems.

(Side Note/Rant: I think it’s a sad commentary on the Poetry for Young People series editors that there are only two volumes by African Americans; the other is Maya Angelou. Why not one of Dunbar or Johnson or Cullen? But then again, maybe I’m the only one seeking these out.)

Just as with the other poets I tasted briefly through Golden Slippers, it seems Langston Hughes’s poems focus on dreams and the fulfillment of them. Some are positive (like the wonderful “I Dream a World” and “Dream Keeper” and “Dreams”) and some are more negative (“What happens to a dream deferred?/ Does it dry up/ Like a raisin in the sun?” from “Harlem”). He looks to the future of youth and tries to help them define themselves in poems like “Merry-Go-Round” and “Theme for English B” and “I, Too, [Sing America].” Hughes also seems to impart his advice (“Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair” from “Mother to Son”) and optimism (“We have tomorrow/ Bright before us/ Like a flame” from “Youth”).

The illustrations for the Poetry for Young People volume reminds me of the Harlem Renaissance art I found: it’s very appropriate. It’s not my favorite style, but illustrator Benny Andrews is obviously talented at capturing the African-American experience Hughes writes about. I am so glad this is a part of my Poetry for Young People library. And now I need to read the full collection of Hughes’ poetry: I’m sure I’m missing some great ones!

As I’ve had Langston Hughes in mind this month, I also noticed two award-winning children’s picture books of his poems!

The Negro Speaks of Rivers, illustrated by E.B. Lewis, was recently awarded the Coretta Scott King Illustrator Honor. It captures Langston Hughes’ titular poem with gorgeous, sweeping watercolors: “My soul has grown deep like the rivers.” It perfectly captures the modern and ancient echoes of Langston Hughes’ musing on the African heritage. I really enjoy the illustrations: they were so much more than illustrations.

This year’s Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award winner was also for a Langston Hughes poem. My People, photography by Charles R. Smith Jr., captures Langston Hughes’ thirty-three word poem with stunning black and white photographs of African-Americans of all ages. I love this: it is so beautiful. My son also loved looking at the photos. “Eyes!” “Hands!” “Hair!” he pointed out. Langston Hughes’ brief poem is also beautiful. Together, the book is a true celebration of African-American art and beauty.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that Langston Hughes was my favorite: after all, I read more of his poetry than of any of the others. I sincerely enjoyed my brief foray into Harlem Renaissance and early African-American poetry, and I look forward to reading more in the future.

What are you reading to celebrate Black History Month?

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1000 Books: A Little Clarification + The First 80 Books or So

Rebecca Reid — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 12:30:25 +0000

I created the 1000 Books Project for myself when I reviewed an inspiring book about infant and toddler literacy, and I picked that book up because I felt bored with the picture books I’d been reading and rereading and rereading with my son. There, I said it: I was getting bored reading with my son.

Besides, reading the children’s books that I wanted to read (like Newbery or Caldecott winners and historical children’s literature) wasn’t always at the right level for my young son: my son is only two. I needed a way to be motivated to read with my son.

I read a lot of books myself (as my 2009 in stats might attest) and yet, a good part of my day before, after, in between my reading is taking care of my young son. My new goal is to read 1000 books with my son in approximately four years. Not just any books: different books. (Note: Before, I intended 1000 books by his fifth birthday. I have since decided on his sixth birthday.)

A few people have questioned the reasons why there is a number: Why not just spend time reading? I think that’s a great goal for any parent. Although I am not a professional by any means (and please don’t take my comments as if I were), I think reading and rereading is what a kid needs most, and I intend to continue rereading with my son all the time.

But as I mentioned, I was getting bored. I really didn’t look forward to the ten minutes before bed when we read because I’d already read The Little Red Caboose five to ten times that day.

My goals in this project is to go beyond togetherness time and make it fun for both of us. My goal is that in seeking out new books every few weeks, we will find new favorites, my son will find new concepts that interest him, and as a result, he will develop new vocabulary and understanding of the world around him. At some point, I anticipate reading together might help him when he needs to learn to read, but for us now, when he’s two, it’s to help him learn about the world around him.

Current goals:

Find new favorite books (books we reread five times a day)
Learn new vocabulary and concepts
Try to find an interest beyond trains and trucks because Mommy is getting bored

Our First 80 Books (or So)

The running list of 1000 books in progress is on the 1000 Books Project page. Below, I will mention books that have not been mentioned already elsewhere on this site. Because this first batch of books includes books we own and already reread many times a day, it was much easier to get to 80 books than the next ones will take! I will have to seek a bit more carefully for the next group of books. Finally, a number of books we own that we’ve read did not make it on this list so I’ll make sure to count them next time.

Also, this post is incredibly long. I’ll have to post about children’s books more often, I guess, because I have so much to say!

New Favorites

I always thought I was a fan of Dr. Seuss until I tried to read aloud to my son when he was an infant. It’s not so easy to read and the repetition becomes rather tedious. But I’ve decided Dr. Seuss’s books need to be given a fair try. I found Green Eggs and Ham at a library sale a few months ago, and that is my favorite. My son, of course, waits for the train pages. In fact, he turns ahead, anticipating the train. As I reread it, I get used to the rhythm. I don’t dislike so much.

We also tried The Cat in the Hat and the sequel, and my son likes those very much. When we got to the part where the cat in the hat is showing off (holding a number of items including two books and hopping up and down), I asked my son if he could do that and from then on, every time we read the book, my son had to demonstrate his hopping abilities, while holding the books. Wow. What a talented boy! And while I’m not looking forward to reading Oh Say Can You Say? out loud again, my son sure enjoyed listening to it and the few times we read it, he always giggled when I stumbled over the tongue twisters.

Corduroy by Don Freeman is also a new favorite, thanks to the Scholastic movie. We watched the movie (which is a life-action stuffed animal movie) and suddenly this is the coolest book: “Mommy, watched!” my son says when he sees the book, and he promptly wants to read it. Whenever Corduroy starts walking in the book, my son says, “Look, Mommy! Walking!”

Same with the Caillou books, but those don’t really grab me: they are written like the television show they are based on, and the dialogue is awkward in print. My son loves the show, and I do think that reading a book about Caillou and his daddy is probably better than watching yet more television. This is one of those examples where I’m glad he has a book he enjoys, but I don’t particularly like reading it. (It’s up there with the Thomas books: pure fun for Son, dull city for Mommy.)

We found a number of new “favorite” books that Mommy wouldn’t mind owning so we could read them more often. Margaret Wise Brown’s Two Little Trains was one rather pleasant train book. Terrific Trains by Tony Mitton is also one that we both enjoyed. Both have pleasant rhymes that make reading it enjoyable, and both have attractive illustrations. The first book is about a real train and a little wooden train, and they go through parallel adventures. The second has three animals riding trains: the best part is we learn something about trains from the rhyme.

And then there are the two books my son and everyone else in the world loves that I can’t stand reading. First is No, David! by David Shannon. Now, don’t misunderstand me: the illustrations are lovely! I love how Shannon has captured the crayon-and-marker world of a five-year-old with gorgeous illustrations. I could look at the illustrations all day. My son loves it, too, but not just for the illustrations: I suspect he relates to the mommy always saying no (*guilt*). He says “uh oh!” when the carpet gets dirty, and when the boy runs out of the house he says “Mommy! Clothes!”. At the end of the book, he always looks for me to give him a hug, for of course, it ends with “Yes, David, I love you!” My son sits and “reads” it to himself. Because the words are mostly “No, David,” he’s actually pretty good at “reading” that one.

I just don’t like it. I don’t want my normally well behaved son getting ideas from the pictures, like the playing with his food and coloring on the walls. I suspect the “no” sinks in too, but I’m just not a fan of this one. We’ll check it out again, I’m sure. Just don’t get any ideas, Son!

The other book my son loves is Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! by Mo Willems, which I’ve already mentioned. I still don’t like it, for similar reasons (giving him ideas of how to have a temper tantrum). And I seriously believe my son is the ONLY KID ALIVE who always tells the pigeon yes. Every single page of this book, he says, “Yes” to the pigeon’s requests to drive the bus. The day before it was due at the library, I did a little coaching. “Can you say ‘no?’ Good. Now when the pigeon asks, say ‘no.’” And he still said yes a few times. He just really wants to let that pigeon drive the bus. It drives me crazy, because the book doesn’t make sense if you say “yes”!

New Vocabulary and Concepts

One of the suggestions in The ABCs of Literacy was to seek out good nonfiction. To my surprise, my son really enjoyed the nonfiction we read together! I was even amazed at how long he stayed sitting. Some of the books had a lot of text and he wanted to hear it (at least the first time). The best find was Gail Gibbons. Dollins mentioned Gail Gibbons in her book and I’m a convert! Some of the books are a bit dated but I still really enjoyed learning about cars and libraries and gas stations and …. well, we’re still looking for more. See the full book list for other books we’ve been reading.

And then I was surprised by how quickly my son learned words by reading nonfiction. We read I Drive a Snowplow by Sarah Bridges and that night he was noticing snowplows on the road. “Look, Mommy! Snowplow!” It makes me think that reading about other things will help him learn those words too. I’ve been trying to find a book of opposites each time we go to the library, and he’s starting to get a little better and understanding the concept. He loves “awake” and “asleep”! They are fun to act out.

I’m trying other books: books with pictures of children about feelings and bodies, and Sesame Street books about eating healthfully and toilet training. But the thing that stood out to me was that thinking in terms of nonfiction helps me help my son connect concepts.

For example, we’ve read The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats many times, and we both enjoy it. He’s gotten to the point that when he sees the little boy put the snowball in his pocket, he says “All gone! Mommy! Snow all gone!” Today, it started snowing and he noticed the snow on my hair and coat and exclaimed over it. I asked him if I could put it in a ball and put it in my pocket to take home for later and he thought I was being silly. “No!” he said, without hesitation.

Maybe I’m silly to think that a significant moment. For me it was a lesson that learning from fiction and nonfiction is for mommies too: I need to think in terms of what my son knows, and I need to introduce him to good books — including nonfiction — so he can continue to learn about the world around him.

In case you are wondering, yes! My son talks in exclamation points all day long.

I have some of my favorites as well, but they will have to wait for the next post, as this is getting long.

Does/Did your child tell the pigeon no?

What are you reading with you kids this week?

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Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss

Rebecca Reid — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 13:40:07 +0000

image via Wikipedia

In the Robinson Crusoe tradition, Johann David Wyss created a story of a Swiss family that was shipwrecked on a desert island. Much as Robinson Crusoe, the family must learn to use the land to meet their needs. As with Crusoe, there is a religious element of learning to thank God for their blessings, but unlike Robinson Crusoe, the version of Swiss Family Robinson that I read had a lecturing tone that didn’t take long to irritate me.

Swiss Family Robinson may fascinate children. The family learns and explores natural science, mechanics, engineering, astronomy, biology, mathematics, and so much more through their experiences in a new place. I loved learning about the house in the trees and I was fascinated to hear how they built everything themselves. Maybe young children could relate to the four boys’ adventures in learning.

The main theme of the Swiss family’s story of survival is paradise: unlike Robinson Crusoe, this family loved their new home from the beginning. They ultimately don’t want to be rescued: they preferred to remain isolated in their paradisiacal home. Wyss added an impressive (and impossible) array of animals to the little island, and everything the family needed for survival conveniently appeared, from “candleberry trees” to flax and cotton. It truly was a paradise.

There are downsides to reading an island adventure for the 1800s that was specifically written for children. In this book, the downside was the “message,” although with a little tweaking, the message may have been fascinating.

Some aspects of the message were interesting. The self-discovery of learning to make things from what you have was fascinating to me. I imagine older children would love learning how to make a water wheel, how to carve stairs in a tree, and how to make cloth from flax for example (or maybe I’m just projecting my nerdy self on to some unknown nerdy kids). The father made everything into a teaching moment. For example, when the children were trying to figure out how long of a rope they needed to read the tree branch, the father showed them how determine it via mathematics:

My boys had been trying to measure the tree with the long canes I had brought, and came laughing to report to me, that I ought to have got them ten times as long to reach even the lowest branches. “There is a simpler mode than that,” said I, “which geometry teaches us, and by which the highest mountains can be measured.”

I then showed the method of measuring heights by triangles and imaginary lines, using canes of different lengths and cords instead of mathematical instruments. My result was thirty feet to the lowest branches. This experiment filled the boys with wonder and desire to become acquainted with this useful, exact science, which, happily, I was able to teach them fully. (page 66-67)

The downfall of Swiss Family Robinson, however, that it is told from the father’s perspective. Maybe you can tell from the above quote: he’s a bit of a know-it-all. In fact, time and again, I found myself hating this father of theirs. He was constantly scolding the children (and his poor wife!) for being too irreverent, too lazy, and too insensitive. Yet, because it was from his own perspective, I felt we were not getting the whole story. He seemed a bit “off” to me.

Another downfall was the completely unrealistic portrays of the children. Although more than four years pass on the island, the boys never seem to age. The youngest boy (Frances) was about eight at the beginning, but even when he is 12, he doesn’t seem any less needy. The two oldest boys, on the other hand, are at least 19 and 17 toward the end of the novel, and neither shows any interest in the prospects of his future. What I mean is I think most men that age would be hoping for a lady friend or something for themselves to be looking forward to. Instead, when there is a prospect of a ship, the oldest (at least age 18) says,

“If there should be any ladies amongst them, how pleasant it would be for mamma to have a friend!” (page 199)

Oh my, what a dedicated son to his mamma! The boys never felt realistic to me, and this is just one example.

I had a lot of other issues with Swiss Family Robinson. Because I remembered enjoying the Disney movie as a kid, I was looking forward to the book. In the end, though, I think this is a time to stay with Disney. There is a plot! There are pirates!

The novel Swiss Family Robinson was written in a time when pirates are not a worry, but savages. I should say that in the end, there is a little of a plot to drive it as the story resolves, but for the majority of the novel, the plot revolves around becoming more and more self-reliant as the family creates a modern paradise in their own Eden.

According to Wikipedia, Swiss Family Robinson has been retold through its translations, so it is impossible to know which one is the “original” story by Wyss. I listened to the audio and read via a Librivox.org and a Project Gutenberg translation that is missing two pages. It was the longest version of the story offered as an etext. There is no note as to who translated this version.

I visited Swiss Family Robinson as part of my Reader’s History of Children’s Literature project. It fits right in with the other island tales, and especially with Robinson Crusoe itself, the grandpa of the genre. It has interesting aspects, but I was ultimately disappointed in this version of the story. It was not something I’d like to read to my young son, simply because the father’s lecturing and the unrealistic portrayal of children is not inspiring for a child today. If anything, we’ll watch the Disney movie, which is fun.

Have you read Swiss Family Robinson?

Do you avoid “lecturing tales” for your children? Does this sound like it would bother you?

Would your child like to learn how to build things themselves?

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Treasure Island and Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson

Rebecca Reid — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 12:42:32 +0000

Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson transferred me to a world of pirates and sea-life, but best of all the boy protagonist drove the action. Because he was in the right place at the right time and made great choices, he was able to “save the day.” I think it’s perfect for a child to read, and it reminds me that there is great classic literature for children: this is what I can’t wait to introduce to my son.

I found Robert Louis Stevenson’s Kidnapped less engaging and loveable, but still an interesting story of success. A boy is kidnapped by his uncle and sent toward the Americas. Due to his cleverness, he is shipwrecked in Scotland, but things go wrong and he becomes a political outcast as he flees south with a political refugee. While I struggled as I read it, I still enjoyed it.

Treasure Island’s charm lay in the power of the child. While Jim Hawkins was probably an older boy (age 16 or 17), I still felt he was a “boy” as I read and I think older kids would love relating to his adventures. From the beginning, Jim is the one discovering things and When a pirate dies in his family hotel, Jim finds a map with a treasure marked on it. With some help from a wealthy neighbor, they plan their trip to the island. There are a number of coincidences, of course, but one can’t help fall in love with Long John Silver, the one-legged cook who we are not surprised to find is actually a pirate. (I was so pleased to see how good he really was!)

I picked up Treasure Island as a part of my history of children’s literature project. Treasure Island is a part of the Robinson Crusoe legacy, and it is clear how it is. As Seth Lerer points out in his book Children’s Literature, when Jim Hawkins comes across Ben Gunn on the island,

“It is as if the boy had come upon Crusoe himself, marooned on his island and attired in the tatters of his former life.” (page 142).

Since I loved Robinson Crusoe, I also loved finding these parallels. While Jim Hawkins didn’t go through a religious transformation as Crusoe did, he did go through his own rites of passage to become an adult: surely, all his actions proved him worthy of being called a “man.”

While Stevenson’s other children’s novel does not hearken as clearly back to the Crusoe legacy (and wasn’t mentioned in the Children’s Literature book, I don’t think), it still captures some of the magic of the sea-faring life that must have been every young child’s dream. Of course, David’s sea experiences are horrible, and the testament to the abuse may have cured children of the dream of going to see. Did Crusoe’s ship-wreck likewise make sea-life less attractive?

For me, Kidnapped lacked some of the “child power” that I enjoyed in the first novel. While David Balfour was obviously a smart boy, he relied on others, such as Alan Breck, for much of the novel. If Alan had not appeared on his ship, David would not have been able to wreck the ship. Without Alan’s leadership, money, friendship, and guidance, David would not have made it back to England. I enjoyed the premise of the story, but since I’m so unfamiliar with English and Scottish history, I found myself confused during the political discussions. (My ignorance prompted my current Project Book.) I did not understand the “refugee” status the two had, and so I felt I missed a major element of the novel.

In the end, of the two, I absolutely loved Treasure Island. I bought a lovely copy for my 8-year-old nephew for Christmas, and I can’t wait to get a lovely copy for my own son too. Maybe 8 years old is a bit young, but I’m all for promoting the classics no matter what age. (Hence the fact that I read my one-year-old Robinson Crusoe last year…)

Have you read either of these books as a child? How old were you?

What did you like most about them?

P.S. Don’t you love the cover for Treasure Island above? It reminds me of my time visiting the Twelve Apostles in Australia!

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Jane Austen: A Biography by Carol Shields, a Quote Book, and a History of England

Rebecca Reid — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 11:00:03 +0000

I’ve have been itching to read Jane Austen lately, and although I’ve decided to read Sense and Sensibility for Valentine’s Day, I found a few things that could satisfy my craving right now! A movie or two also may help in the coming weeks.

Jane Austen: A Life by Carol Shields

I loved Carol Shields’ biography of Jane Austen! The narrator for the audiobook had a lovely Austen-esque British accent, which gave it a great sense of place. Then Shields began by admitting that she’s an “amateur Jane Austen fan” who goes to the Jane Austen Society of North America meetings because she loves Austen so much. That made me think of her as a kindred spirit.

While I haven’t read many Austen novels (yet), I loved Shields’ emphasis on the fact that we can learn from and compare Jane Austen’s own life to the setting, characters, and situations in her novels.

It was very short (about 5 ½ hours, the equivalent of 180 pages) and yet I feel I have a greater understanding of the remarkable woman who wrote some delightful romances.

Some random facts about Jane Austen (and long-time Austen fans probably already know all of these things):

Jane Austen spent her first years farmed out to a neighbor for nursing purposes. (Apparently, mothers did not normally feed their own babies.)
Jane Austen had a romantic interest in Thomas Lefroy but neither of them had money, so nothing came of it.
Jane Austen was engaged for one night to Harris Big-Wither. She returned the next morning to cancel the engagement.
Jane’s sister Cassandra was engaged to a sailor, who died. He left Cassandra all his money in his will. Cassandra never married.
Jane’s father wrote the query letter to a publisher for the manuscript of Pride and Prejudice; he really believed in her!
Jane’s novel (now known as) Northanger Abbey was purchased for ten pounds, but never published; Jane eventually bought it back. It was not published until after her death.
When her father retired (he was a vicar), he moved the unmarried Austen sisters to Bath, where he died, leaving his widowed wife and two unmarried daughters rather poor. Jane did not write any novels during the ten years she lived in Bath.
Jane had to pay out-of-pocket to get Sense and Sensibility (first published novel) printed.
Jane Austen was “encouraged” to dedicate Emma to the Prince Regent, which she was probably not happy about, since he probably never read it.
Jane Austen died age age 41 of what may have been breast cancer (although Wikipedia suggests Hodgkin’s lymphoma).

Jane Austen’s Little Advice Book edited by Cathryn Michon and Pamela Norris

Then I turned to a short little quote book that jumped out at me while I was at the library one day. The editors of this quote book admit feeling a little guilty to earning money on this book, since Jane Austen herself never earned more than £700 in her lifetime. Yet, it’s rather cute and it was fun to read over the course of an hour.

Using only Jane’s own words, including letters, her unpublished works, and her published novels, the editors give us Austen’s “advice” on Men and Women, Love and Marriage, Family, Worldy Things, The Human Condition, Social Life, The Literary Life, Odd Topics, and Jane Predicts the Future. They readily admit that they take quotes out of context, and I must say that the editors’ comments on each quote are the most amusing parts. From those chapters, I must say my favorite part was the “predicts the future” section, with such quotes as these.

On Predicting the Success of the TV Series E.R.

A sick chamber may often furnish the worth of volumes. (from Persuasion)

On Not Worrying About the Ozone Layer

What fine weather this is… at least everybody fancies so, and imagination is everything. (from the letters of Jane Austen)

There are 125 pages worth of fun quotes, and reading through them got me even more excited to read Sense and Sensibility (as well as the other novels) in the future.

Two Histories of England by Jane Austen and Charles Dickens

Jane Austen’s The History of England and A Child’s History of England by Charles Dickens are a bit harder for me to write about because, um, I know nothing about the history of England. Therefore, I missed the delightful jibes and jokes that Austen wrote and, while I understood Dickens had an interesting bias and judgment of history, it did not make sense to me in a historical way as the writer of the introduction indicated it would.

Jane Austen wrote her short manuscript for her sister when she was 16, and it was clearly a parody of history books. From my perspective, it certainly was amusing. For example:

“Edward the 5^th: This unfortunate prince lived so little a while that nobody had time to draw his picture.” (page 5)

Her snide remarks about various kings and queens really went over my head, since, as I mention, I know little about England’s history. I can only assume her frequent and over-the-top defense of the Stuarts was more sarcasm.

Charles Dickens’ A Child’s History of England is also sarcastic and judgmental. He refers to King James the First as “His Sowship” because that’s what James’ favorite helper called him and Dickens “cannot do better than call his majesty what his favourite called him” (page 72). The disdain is just dripping throughout the descriptions of the king’s reign.

But Dickens’ history (which is much longer, and apparently is only an excerpt from the whole) is packed full of all sorts of extraneous details that make it fascinating and fun. I loved learning about the Gunpowder Plot through Dickens’ imaginative story!

To me, the most amusing thing about Dickens’ account is that, according to the introduction, it was actually a part of the school curricula for British school children “well into the 20^th century” (introduction, page ix). My question is: was it used as a history text or rather as a humourous part of British culture? As I read, I kept laughing at the thought of this being a proper history textbook. There were so many descriptive beheadings!

I first saw this on Heather J.’s blog and I had to get it!

Have any people from England read Austen’s or Dickens’ histories? I’m curious as to the “accuracy” and/or the impact of the humor on those that actually are familiar with the history of England.

Which Austen novels are your favorites? I’ve still only read Pride and Prejudice and Northanger Abbey. (But I’ve seen all the movies!)

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Kids Corner: What Are Your Children Reading? 22 October

Rebecca Reid — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 10:00:39 +0000

Welcome to What Are Your Children Reading?, a weekly meme started by The Well-Read Child. I have the privilege of hosting it this week. If you participate on your blog, leave a link to your post in the comments.

For those who may not know, I have a son who turned two this month. Most of our current reads are therefore not very intellectual. To keep my sanity, though, I keep getting some picture books just for me.

The first board book that my son has been carrying around with him is Cars, Trucks and Planes/Carros, Camiones y Aviones by Gladys Rosa-Mendoza. He loves every vehicle that moves and this book is perfect because each page has a different vehicle. It also has Spanish translation on each page: my son looks at me funny and shakes his head “no” if I try to read it to him in Spanish. Most of the time, he reads it to himself (“Bus! Truck! Airplane!”) as he turns the pages.

He’s taken an interest in the toilet lately, so another book high on his list for the last week is Once Upon a Potty (for boys) by Alona Frankel. It is, as you would expect, the story of one boy using the potty. I like the author’s suggestion to adapt it, as you read, to the terminology you use in your own home. At any rate, my son loves this one right now. This week, he has been demanding to sit on the toilet about 5 times a day; it’s a game, and it’s one I don’t mind encouraging. (Although I wouldn’t mind seeing actual progress, I accept the fact that he is still quite young!).

Rainbow Fun! by Emily Hawkins is a pretty basic board book of a rainbow of colors. My son likes it because there is a die cut on each page so he can wiggle his fingers through it as he turns the page. He likes to say the colors, but hasn’t learned the differences between them yet, so I guess we’ll keep reading it.

And then we turn to Feet are Not for Kicking by Elizabeth Verdick. We haven’t gotten this particular book from the library before (We had Hands Are Not for Hitting) and I’m hoping maybe the “let’s not kick” message will sink in. This mommy is tired of being stepped on, kicked, and hit by her two-year-old. (He’s not violent: I suspect he thinks it is fun?)

Those are the books that he likes this week. Here are three more picture books I picked up this week that I liked.

Green Eyes by Abe Birnbaum has gorgeous color paintings for each page, as it tells the story of the life of a cat, Green Eyes. It won the Caldecott Honor in the 1950s and I think the full-page color probably helped because it is stunning. Lots of white space, lots of gentleness. My son isn’t interested in cats, but if you child is, I think he or she would love this one! Green Eyes is a cute cat.

The little boy in the story The Boy Who Wouldn’t Go To Bed by Helen Cooper rides his car away from his mother in search of adventure friends who want to stay up all night with him. But the lion is sleepy, as are the soldiers and the choo-choo train and the animals. Eventually, the little boy’s car falls asleep too and the boy is alone in the dark. On one of the last pages, the boy is rescued from the dark. Who was it?

Someone who was ever so sleepy, but couldn’t go to bed until the boy did.

The mother, of course! I think most mothers reading bed time stories can relate to that line!

I loved how the illustrations showed the real-life setting: walking back to his bedroom through his imaginary wonderland, there is a huge toilet and toothbrush in the background so we know that even his wonderland contains a bit of real life. A perfect bedtime story for this mommy!

The last picture book I’ll share is one that I found quite interesting but I can’t get my son to even glance at it. The Black Book of Colors by Menena Cottina and Rosana Faria is completely black: only words are in white text. (The cover shows a gray illustration, but that is the only place that illustrations are not black.) The rest of the book is textured or raised, with all the text translated into Braille. The illustrations, although shiny black-on-black, are also raised. Each page describes a different color, with a textured illustration (such as feathers).

Thomas says that yellow tastes like mustard, but is as soft as a baby chick’s feathers.

The purpose of the book, according to the front flap, is to “convey the experience of a person who can only see through his or her sense of touch, taste, small or hearing.” As one who has always had my sight, I struggle to imagine learning colors from this book. That is, I think, why it was so fascinating to me.

What are your children reading this week?

If you write a post, leave a link in the comments and I’ll add it here!

Other What Are Your Children Reading? Posts (22 October):

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Kids Corner: Three Novels by E.B. White

Rebecca Reid — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 02:16:23 +0000

I reread three E.B. White favorites from my childhood this week, and as I’ve realized with other childhood favorites, these aren’t so favorite anymore. I reread Charlotte’s Web, The Trumpet of the Swan, and Stuart Little. I enjoyed them, but they are each a little odd.

I realized when I went to write up my thoughts that I’m inclined to mention the endings, but the more I thought about it, I realized I can’t discuss these books as an adult without doing so, since the overall themes are what interest me. In some respects, knowing the ending of children’s books, though, doesn’t really seem to “spoil” the book, since children’s books are more about the stories, the feel, and the overall themes.

What do you think? Does knowing the ending of a 150-page children’s book “spoil” it for you? What if you take the fact that these books are 30-60 years old in to consideration?

I don’t think knowing the endings would spoil these novels, but if you think it would, don’t read the rest of this post.

Charlotte’s Web

In Charlotte’s Web, the runt of the litter is saved by the smallest farm creature, a spider. Charlotte the spider befriends Wilbur the pig when he moves to Zuckerman’s barn, and her talent for weaving words in to her web shows the world that Wilbur is “Some Pig” and definitely much too special to be killed for holiday dinner. While Wilbur is the one whose life is saved, it’s interesting to realize that Charlotte is actually the creature to be praised.

When Mr. Zuckerman tells his wife about the spider web and how Wilbur is a very special pig, Mrs. Zuckerman isn’t quite sure.

“Well,” said Mrs. Zuckerman, “it seems to me you’re a little off. It seems to me we have no ordinary spider.” (page 80)

Charlotte’s Web, therefore, is about service and about true friendship, for Charlotte in the end has spent her life for Wilbur’s cause, even though she was never recognized as the one who made the difference in Wilbur’s life.

My first grade teacher read me Charlotte’s Web, and I’m sure I reread it a few times myself as a child. I loved this book. As an adult, I felt it was a bit dated and slow, but that may be a result of my reading it aloud to my two-year-old at a rate of about five pages a day. Children may still relate to the themes of friendship that permeate.

The Trumpet of the Swan

In The Trumpet of the Swan, Sam Beaver befriends a wild trumpeter swan named Louis who was born without a voice. Louis learns to write (by going to school with Sam) and later to play the trumpet, successfully working as a nightclub performer in Boston for years in order to pay back his debt to society (the trumpet had been stolen). In the end, the wild calls him back.

I related to Trumpet as a child because I played the trumpet in my elementary school band. As an adult, I found the story rather ridiculous. I think that ridiculousness is the purpose, however, for White seems to be commenting on acceptance. Is Louis’s arrival and acceptance in grammar school (and in Boston, and in Philadelphia) a commentary on the 1960s racial issues that were dominating society at the time? I don’t think White is saying that such racial acceptance is ridiculous: rather, he’s illustrating how easy it was to accept Louis. Why not give him a job? He’s a great trumpeter!

One thing in the book irked me. In order to get Serena, the love of his life, out of the zoo without getting her wings clipped, Louis promises the zookeeper that they’ll bring one of their cygnets back to the zoo. Louis didn’t want himself or Serena to be trapped in a zoo, but he didn’t hesitate to promise one of his young. That seemed disingenuous to the entire story, which until that point had celebrated his freedom to be himself and to cross the boundaries between humans and the wild. I also went to the zoo recently, and I don’t think any animal would choose to be in there, let alone will it upon their children!

That said, The Trumpet of the Swan is a creative look at acceptance in society, and it’s a fun story of a swan and a boy being good friends.

Stuart Little

As the first book White published for children, published in 1945, Stuart Little is short and sweet at just 130 pages. And yet, I think there is more in this book that might interest adults than in any of the other two books. Stuart is the second son born to the Little family, and he is a two-inch high mouse. Through a series of adventure stories, we see Stuart leave his parent’s home and set off in to the big world. He’s seeking his friend Margalo the bird, and the book ends before he finds her.

Stuart Little didn’t feel like a children’s story. The New Yorker had an interesting article last year about the development of literature for children and E.B. White’s writing of Stuart Little. I mentioned it last July, and I thought of it often as I reread Stuart Little.

I would have to say that Stuart Little is not a childish story. A very young Stuart (at one point it said he was seven, and it was unclear to me whether he’d grown up before the end of the book) goes through painful and possibly fatal experiences. And then he runs away from home, essentially to seek his fortune and his friend. It ends, and he’s still searching. We don’t know if he’ll be okay; we don’t know if he’ll be eaten; we don’t know if his ending is happy.

I believe it ended happily. The novel Stuart Little is about growing up. Stuart feels out-of-place in his family, and he’s seeking a place in the greater world. We never quite finish growing up, and our happy endings are not always clear cut. As an adult, I enjoyed reading about his search more than I enjoyed reading the other two, more child-like stories.

Apparently, though, many dislike E.B. White’s first novel. If you are at all interested in the history of children’s literature, I’d highly recommend The New Yorker’s article.

Which E.B. White children’s novels have you read? Do you think Stuart Little is an appropriate children’s book?

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The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

Rebecca Reid — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 12:47:00 +0000

Related posts:The Dangerous Alphabet by Neil Gaiman + Happy Halloween Related posts:

The Dangerous Alphabet by Neil Gaiman + Happy Halloween

Kid’s Corner: Birthday Books (Age 2)

Rebecca Reid — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 12:36:43 +0000

My mother-in-law got word (and spread it) that I would love for my son to get books for his birthday, and I, of course, got him a couple books (among other things), so he had a rather bookish birthday this year. (Are you surprised?)

I consider books that he owns to be bonuses for me, since I have to read them every night. I’m glad I really like them all!

First, I found two books for my son at the bargain shelf at the library the other week. One was Pooh’s Bedtime Book, which has a few poems and a few chapters excerpted from the Pooh novels, of course illustrated with Shepard’s pictures. Since I don’t let my son touch our nice hard copy of those books, this one is for him to love until it falls apart.

I also found a used but still in fairly nice shape board book with pop-ups: My First Jumbo Book of Things that Go, published by Scholastic. Again, because it was inexpensive and used, it may fall apart, but he loves it. The day I bought it, he sat and played with it for 10 minutes; then I took it and wrapped until his birthday celebration. I was also looking for a used but nice condition copy of Richard Scarry’s Cars and Trucks and Things that Go. When I find it, I’ll get it for him as well!

The new Little Engine

My favorite book that he got is, hands down, The Little Engine That Could by Watty Piper, illustrated by Loren Long. It is not the original illustrations, and I’m a sucker for originals, so at first I was wary: spin offs just usually aren’t as good. My sister-in-law said, “I looked for the other and couldn’t find it, but this one is pretty too!”

The original Little Engine

In fact, the illustrations are so gorgeous, I love them more than the original ones. It’s a large-sized hardcover book with bright illustrations and lots of white space. I’ve heard people complain that The Little Engine that Could could use more white space: it has way too many words! Well, this “remake” has so many pictures and nice spacing that I don’t mind reading it! My son likes to look for the trains on each page. Further, I don’t mind rereading it to find details in the gorgeous paintings on each page. It is truly a work of art. I love the landscapes!

Those same cousins also gave my son The Little Red Caboose, a favorite Little Golden Book. Now I realize why it was I always looked for the caboose of trains! I think it was a subconscious part of my childhood, because I don’t remember reading this book as a child. There is enough in the illustrations to allow me to read it five times a night without losing my mind. (On the first read through, I read the words. On the second, I read a few words and point to pictures. On the third, I point to pictures. After that, I don’t read it: my son does. I think three is my limit.)

Speaking of Little Golden Books, my mother-in-law also got my son Baby Animals. I admit, this one has kind of scary animals (their eyes all look a little vampire-ish). But she insists that my husband loved it as a child, so I’m willing to give it a try. I’m hoping my son learns his animals because I want to take him to the zoo!

Big Dog, Little Dog by P.D. Eastman is one that my husband loved as a child, so now it’s on the shelf of the next generation too. It covers all sorts of opposites: Fred and Ted are friends, but one is tall and the other short; one wears red, the other green; one plays flute and the other tuba. It’s a cute story, although my son hasn’t requested it reputedly yet. (There are no trains in it.)

And then there are the “big” books. Some cousins gave my son My Big Truck Book and My Big Animal Book which my son simply loves. It is an extra large board book and it has pictures of actual trucks/animals! About 8-10 trucks or animals per page! He loves it, especially the truck one, and seriously squeals his excitement about the school bus and the car transporter (his truck favorites) and the puppies and the ducks (his animal favorites). This is just feeding his addiction to riding in the car: “Bus! Truck! Car!” is the running commentary from the back seat.

And that’s it for now! What books does/did your two-year-old read?

What are you reading with your kids this week?

Were any of these favorites of your when you were a kid?

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Kids Corner: Winnie-the-Pooh Books Inspired by Milne and Shepard

Rebecca Reid — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 17:00:25 +0000

Whenever I see a copy of Winnie-the-Pooh in a store, on a shelf, anywhere, really, I pick it up and hold it. I flip the pages. I pause over the pictures (whether they are in color or not). I wish I could own it.

But why? I already own a lovely hardcover in color (along with Pooh Corner) and a volume of The Complete Tales and Poems of Pooh. If I want to read it, I can just go home and read it!

Yet, there is something about this Bear of Very Little Brain that makes me want to own him.

My recent poetic attempt may illustrate how much I enjoyed my recent reread of these classics. So I searched out other Pooh books from the library this month.

I was disappointed to find that the children’s section had mostly Disney-inspired stories about Winnie-the-Pooh. Now, I love the Disney movie well enough, but in a book? I don’t want to learn how Winnie-the-Pooh went to school or the doctor. Winnie-the-Pooh should primarily be about the imaginary world of the Hundred Acre Wood as created by A.A. Milne and Ernest Shepard. (I also refuse to watch the new Disney Pooh movies. That is not true Pooh.)

I was pleased to find, upon further exploration, some Shepard-illustrated Milne stories in smaller format.

The Pooh Story Book has three chapters from the novels, but it’s in a nice-sized story book. It is, essentially, the chapters by Milne and the illustrations by Shepard excerpted from the books and put into a different format. I like this very much, and it’s definitely less bulky and intimidating than the entire book. The print is large, so I imagine older children wouldn’t mind it. My two-year-old loved flipping through it.

A few weeks ago I also found a tiny little board book with Milne’s words slightly rephrased (and obviously abridged) and Shepard’s drawings. (Great news! I just found this set online! It’s used of course, but I’m just happy to find it. Yeay! Don’t buy all the sets, I want one!) I loved the board book format, and so did my son.

And then I found a number of other Pooh-inspired books featuring the true Pooh of Milne and Shepard.

The Pooh Sketchbook contains the preliminary sketches by Ernest H. Shepard. Some of these sketches are compared to the final illustrations, and all of them are rather delightful. There are few words in this book, and my son enjoyed flipping through it too: “Pooh!” he said, over and over. It’s nice to see Pooh grow up from beginning bear to mature Pooh.

The Pooh Bedside Reader by A.R. Melrose is a bit different (and it seems to be out of print, as I can’t find it on the Amazon site). The complete subtitle is “In Which the Beloved Creations of A.A. Milne and Ernest H. Shepard, Through Smackerels of Verse, Amusing Excerpts, Anecdotes, Memoirs, Reviews, and Autobiographies, Are Affectionately Celebrated by A.R. Melrose.” And that is what it is. Chapter by chapter, Melrose reviews the characters of the Hundred Acre Wood, looking at the “real” ones (such as the boy Christopher Robin), finding excerpts from the book to illustrate the personality traits, and otherwise reminiscing about the beloved characters. It’s not dense at all, and at less than 160 pages, I’d say 50 were complete chapters excerpted from the novels (I skimmed some of those since I’d just reread the books). There are even excerpts from The New Yorker’s very disparaging review of Milne’s books. Rather amusing, if you ask me.

The Pooh Bedside Reader is about “everyone being together in the Forest. And us coming to visit.” (page 4). And that is what I felt I was doing. After each chapter, I’d realize that that character is my favorite: “Oh, that’s right! Pooh is my favorite!” or “Christopher Robin is certainly my favorite” or “Poor Eeyore! I love him so much that he must be my favorite.” I couldn’t decide, and I think that was the joy of it. I now want to go back and reread all of Milne’s novels (except I won’t because I just did). I want to sit and ponder the joy of childhood.

One quote stood out to me, and that was Christopher Robin Milne’s thoughts on his stuffed animals, the original inspiration for the stories. Although they are sitting in the New York Public Library, he doesn’t (or didn’t) think about them or miss them, much to the surprise of many people.

My toys were and are to me no more than yours were and are to you. I do not love them more because they are known to children in Australia or Japan. Fame has nothing to do with love.

I wouldn’t like a glass case that said: “Here is fame”; and I don’t need a glass case to remind me: “Here was love.” (page 156)

I’ve found a number of other books featuring Milne’s words and/or Shepard’s illustrations. Maybe someday I’ll get to them all: never fear! It is not all Disney out there!

A note: I came across the Spanish translation! How fun! Now you all know what I want for Christmas. (I’m so excited I don’t think I can wait that long. Maybe next month I’ll buy a book for myself?)

What book(s) are you always tempted to buy, for no good reason and even if you already own one or two copies of it?

Are you true to the True Pooh? Or have you even ever met him?

Did you have a “real” animal/doll friend when you were a child?

A Note

Although children’s literature is not the main focus of Rebecca Reads, I am considering talking about it more frequently. I check out between 6 and 10 children’s picture books each week: some are read over and over with my son, and others are read once by me and my son is never tempted to open it. Nonetheless, I may start sharing what my son is reading and/or what children’s books I’ve picked up. If that is a subject that does not interest you, I understand; don’t feel bad passing it by.

The Well-Read Child posts a Thursday meme called “What are my children reading?” If you’re interested in participating, go check it out.

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Pretend Soup by Mollie Katzen and Ann Henderson

Rebecca Reid — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 14:29:00 +0000

Most mornings, after my son (age 23 months) finishes his breakfast, he jumps out of his chair and runs to the kitchen stool, yelling, “Cook! Cook!” He climbs the stool and pounds the counter, a big smile on his face, for he knows I’ll probably give in and cook something with him. (I normally prepare a batch of breakfast granola twice a week, so I think that’s when this obsession started.)

I’ve been looking for something to nurture this interest, and then I recalled a book that months ago Eva mentioned her niece enjoyed: Pretend Soup by Mollie Katzen and Ann Henderson.

I didn’t realize how wonderful Pretend Soup was until I consulted another preschool cookbook and compared the two.

The second book had cooking activities, and each treat was either in a shape (such as fruit pudding decorated like a cat, bread shaped to look like a bear) or the treat itself was a sugary desert (chocolate dipped fruit, fruit tarts arranged in a pretty pattern). These recipes seemed far too artistic for my creative design talents, let alone those of my one-year-old (or even an older preschooler).

While Pretend Soup does include some “decorated” food (“Bagel Faces,” decorated with vegetables, for example), the emphasis in the entire book is different. Katzen and Henderson assert that for a preschooler, the fun part of cooking is the actual act of cooking. Watching my son, I believe it.

The introduction provides numerous safety ideas (such as mark the handle part of the bread knife with masking tape to remind the child where to hold it), as well as ideas to ease the stress of cooking with a child (such as keep a baking sheet under the mixing bowl, so clean ups will be as painless as putting the baking sheet in the sink). Cooking with children will certainly be messy, but that doesn’t mean it’s a no go.

Further, each recipe is written twice, once for the adult in words, and then illustrated in a two-page color spread so the child can “read” the recipe himself. My son is still too young for that aspect, but I’m sure three- and four-year-olds love being able to “read” along.

And then the “critics” (i.e., preschoolers) also provide hilarious reviews of the food they’ve created.

“I wish I could have two bunches of them!” says Nathan, liking his plate after the “Zucchini Moons”

“This is so good, I can’t even say a word.” says Matthew about the “French Toast”

“It tastes so good, I’m gonna eat it ALL UP!” says Jessica on the “Oatmeal Surprise”

“Good! Very good! So really very good!” says Sammy about the “Pizza!”

What I like best about Pretend Soup is not the recipes; the end results seem mediocre and ordinary. My son and I have so far cooked the “Zucchini Moons” (sautéed zucchini with salt, pepper, and cheese), the “Hide and Seek Muffins” (with a hidden strawberry inside each one), and the “Pizza” (which he loved putting cheese on, and then some more). My son wouldn’t eat much of any of these, probably because he’s getting teeth this week and not eating much anyway. I didn’t think they were the most original or most delicious meals either.

No, what I like most about Pretend Soup are the tips and ideas for making the process fun. Cooking doesn’t have to be intimidating, and Pretend Soup makes even the most basic dishes into a game. I think the kids praised the end results (even the pretty ordinary sautéed vegetable dishes) because they had made it themselves. It was their creation: of course they liked it.

I have a friend that doesn’t let her son cook with her because “he wants to help me crack the eggs.” Apparently, she doesn’t want him to get that “hands on.” It’s messy, and eggs are, well, raw eggs.

Oh, my. How can I explain to you the look of absolute delight on my son’s face when he helped me crack open those eggs? That’s worth any mess. He had a blast: one minute the egg was hard, the next minute it was all runny. Enter: delighted screeches, loud laughter, and a largest smile I’ve ever seen. Plus, a mess on his hands and the counter, but hey, who cares?

Of the three recipes we made together from this book, I think my son had the most fun with the “Hide and Seek Muffins.” We had to roll the strawberry in sugar and dip it inside the muffin dough. My son would eat a strawberry, and then remember to get another and put it in the muffin dough. He also had fun putting the papers in the muffin tin, cracking the eggs, mixing the mix, and putting the dough in the papers. Yeah, pretty much all of it. He didn’t have patience to wait the 15 minutes for the muffins to be done: he said, “Eat! Eat!” as soon as he saw the strawberries. So we ate strawberries while we waited for the muffins. Altogether, it was a fun morning.

I look forward to many more mornings cooking with my son. It may not be recipes from Pretend Soup, but it will certainly be with my son!

Do you cook with your kids?

What are your favorite “kids cooking” recipes?

P.S. I know I’ve written three kid-like posts in a row; I’ll get back to other stuff the rest of the week, I promise!

Cross-posted on Rebecca’s Cooking Journal

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Consistency Errors in Goodnight Moon and Other Book Issues for an Obsessive One-Year-Old

Rebecca Reid — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 13:26:34 +0000

My son (almost age 23 months) insists on reading the same books every night, usually three or four or five times. I’m very glad he loves to read, but I’m getting a bit weary of picture books. I do think we’ve had some winners in our Library Loot the past two weeks, though, so I thought it’s time to share what we are reading once again.

First, did you realize that there is a consistency error in Goodnight Moon? If this were a movie on IMDB, there’d be a special note of it. Consider this an official note; it was discovered by my one-year-old. How many other one-year-olds have been disturbed by this?

It would have been so easy for Clement Hurd to draw a balloon in the corner on every full-page spread. But no, on a few of them, there is no red balloon in the corner. My son, who loves balloons, kept getting very upset when we read the book, pointing to the corner of the page(s) and yelling “Balloon!” which sounds like “biyo!”

“Biyo! Biyo!” he’d yell, sometimes throwing the book across the room. (We’re working on the “no throwing” right now.) Ok, I thought, my favorite book is not his favorite.

Then I discovered something else: the mouse. Clement Hurd was smart enough to put the little mouse on every single page. No more yelling at the balloon now! It’s all “Mouse! Mouse!” every time we turn the page. He has to search for the mouse, because it’s different on every page.

Needless to say, we never actually read the words to Goodnight Moon anymore. We always look for the mouse.

All that mouse-hunting reminded me of Goldbug from my childhood, so we had to get the library’s copy of Cars and Truck and Things That Go by Richard Scarry, which has all sorts of wacky vehicles, animals, and situations. He’s in a cars and trains phase right now. Beyond that, there is a little Goldbug on every page, hidden somewhere. My son is delighted when he discovers Goldbug, but I admit it’s a little hard for his little head to sort out all the activity on the extra-large pages. I usually have to help him find Goldbug. Probably, he’ll be a pro in another week or two.

But never mind Goldbug: My son loves this book, and he looks at all the pictures and makes little non-English comments about them. I wish I knew what he was saying. Whenever we get the page where the cars are all turned over, he yells “UH OH!” very loudly.

He does get pretty excited about this book and I admit he’s ripped a few pages in his exuberance. (We’re working on “no ripping” right now.)

I’m going to have to get him his own copy of it. Except then it will be our copy that is taped together. Hmmmmm.

And then I was browsing the board book shelf and I found a book that sounds perfect: Hands are Not For Hitting by Martine Agassi. And it is perfect. Every few pages, it says “Hands are not for hitting. What are hands for?” and then it illustrates all the things that hands can do: draw, hug, play, eat, wave, brush teeth. My son loves this book. It is one we read at least three times if we choose to read it. And now when he hits me (we’re working on “no hitting” right now), I say “Hands are not for hitting. What are hands for?” and he usually gives me a hug. His favorite pages are the waving hello and waving good-bye pages.

“Bye-Bye!” he says, waving at the sea of hands.

While in the library one day, I found an entire collection of audiobooks picture books. I’m talking picture books with just a few words per page. I love this concept! I got the audio + book of First the Egg by Laura Vaccaro Seeger. I really enjoyed the book: it has just a few words per page, and it is very simple, coming full circle and ending with “First the chicken. Then the egg.” The illustrations were gorgeous paintings (and well deserving of the Caldecott Honor. There were die cuts, which my son loved. He also recognized the things that were illustrated, so he would say the words. The audio was very well done as well; I liked the pause lengths. The only issue is that my son just didn’t have the patience to sit still to listen and/or to read the book. He just wanted to play with the die cuts and/or rip the book. (We’re working on “no ripping” as I mentioned above). I didn’t push him, and as it was a library book, we’ve since returned it. I look forward to finding more age appropriate audiobooks in the future.

That said, I should add that we own a copy of the audio + book of Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See? by Bill Martin Jr. and Eric Carle, and my son loves it. The audiobook has a little rhythm going on in the background, and my son likes to dance to it. Since we’ve had this audiobook a long time (since last Christmas), he’s familiar with it. Now he’ll sit still and “read along,” but usually going forward to the Dog and saying “DOG DOG!” until the narrator gets there.

And then, since I finished reading A.A. Milne, I needed a longish book to read while he played so I picked up the Velveteen Rabbit by Margaret William Biano, illustrated by Monique Felix. I love this story, probably because I relate to toys becoming “real.” I had a doll when I was young that was very real to me.

I thought Velveteen Rabbit would be similar enough to Winnie-the-Pooh (thoughts yesterday), with the toy theme and the bunny illustrations, to catch his attention. I thought that he’d enjoy it and recognize it and want to hear me read it. But he did not care in the slightest about the book. It was also much shorter than Milne, so we were only reading it for three days. While my copy did have illustrations on every other page, he just wasn’t in to it as he had been with Shepherd’s drawings. (With Winnie-the-Pooh, he’d run over and look at the pictures as I read, yelling “Pooh! Pooh!”). I suppose we’d need a Disney movie to get him interested in Velveteen Rabbit. (We also have a Winnie-the-Pooh chair and a Winnie-the-Pooh sweatshirt he’s just outgrown, so maybe the marketing helped make Pooh a favorite too.)

Can you tell I have an adorable almost two-year-old? I’m so excited to see him loving books and words!

What books have you read your kids to help them stop hitting, ripping, throwing, etc.?

What are you reading your children this week/month?

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Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne (Revisited in Poetry)

Rebecca Reid — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 12:03:47 +0000

I wrote a “review” of Winnie-the-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner by A.A. Milne in my pre-book blogging days (reposted on Rebecca Reads here) when I first read A.A. Milne to my son at age 4 months. I reread both books to him again over the last two months, now that he’s almost 2 years old.

I should say that my son loved it. As in: he specifically requested most days that I read to him about Pooh and pointed to the book on the shelf. As in: he would come running over to my side to see the pictures and yell “Pooh!” when he found his bear on the page. As in: when I turned the last page of Pooh Corner and closed the book, he looked up and said “More?! Pooh?!”

Since I already have reviewed it, I thought I’d do something different this time. Chance #9 for the Take a Chance Challenge is to review something in poetry. It seems appropriate to write a “review” of Milne in poetry because Pooh likes to put a rhyme (a hum) to everything.

Please forgive my non-poetic offering. I know I’m just building stereotypes of poetry as bad, but hey, I can pretend I’m a poet, right?

It ended up pretty short for the time I spent putting this together. I could write more, but I think I’ve spent long enough already!

Haiku

Pooh Bear and Piglet
and Tigger, Rabbit, and Roo:
My son asks for more.

Limerick

Christopher Robin’s best friend is Pooh Bear.
Pooh lives in the forest, and plays Poohsticks there.
Pooh and Piglet save the day,
and CR goes away.
From now on, “nothing” days will be rare.

Free verse

Listening to stories,
he finds his Bear is real:
eating honey,
climbing trees,
and building a house of sticks.

The Bear’s friends
come alive
in a make-believe forest
and the rain
batters their homes.

The Bear
saves the day
and Hums to celebrate.
The piglet saves the day
and Bear continues humming.
Everyone has their turn
to be a Hero.

Yes, his bear was real,
until he said
Good-bye
and went to learn
of Brazil and knights.
Real knights, with
more than Very Little Brain.

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The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart

Rebecca Reid — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 11:00:42 +0000

I was looking for a light “romance” to read for my library summer reading program, and I decided to go completely out of my comfort zone by reading a YA novel with a romance in it.

So because it was such a foreign genre, I suppose I was setting myself up to be disappointed by reading The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart. It just wasn’t my type of book, and it unfortunately reinforced in my mind the stereotypes I have of YA fiction. Lots of people like this book (in fact, I think I found 2 negative reviews out of about 50), but as a newcomer to the YA genre, I am not one of them.

All that said, I suppose The Disreputable History has a good underlying message for teens. Frankie returns to her preppy boarding school for her sophomore year having suddenly developed an attractive figure. Even the cutest boy in school, Matthew Livingston, notices her, and Frankie is flattered to be included in his exclusive circle. And yet, Frankie increasingly feels she is not quite accepted as the individual (and young woman) that she is, and so she takes matters in to her own hands, having lots of fun in the process. *SPOILER* In the end, Frankie realizes she doesn’t need or even want to be a part of the cliquey circle of snobs: she likes herself the way she is and not the way the boys tell her to be. (cue sappy music)

If that sounds a bit formulaic, I have to agree that the underlying plot was so. The details made it interesting in many parts, but I didn’t find myself engaged in the story at all until more than 100 pages of background were covered and Frankie was doing something interesting. The story was told in an “exposé” tone that gave it an unnecessary dryness. Besides, Frankie was constantly making up words. This may have been cute but there was enough about the book that I disliked that I found these made-up words to be rather annoying. There were also some boring parts, such as excerpts from Frankie’s school papers.

Beyond all that, the main thing that bothered me about The Disreputable History was the stereotypes. Everyone in this book seemed to fit into a stereotype. Matthew’s crowd included the “popular” teens, completely spacey, rude, and judgmental. Trish (Frankie’s roommate) was the confident girl that already had self-esteem, hinting all along how it would end up. The members of the Geek Conglomerate were geeks. And Frankie was the girl who had to choose where she fit in, complete with the drama of suddenly being popular after previously being one of the geeks.

The stereotypical crowds and the judgments associated with them was what I hated when I was in high school. In retrospect, I don’t think anyone in high school was a stereotype, and I dislike the thought of a novel for teenagers encouraging people to judge by “crowds” like this. Obviously, in the end, the novel is emphasizing the opposite, but the majority of the novel was quite irritating to me. Why would Frankie want to hang out with Matthew Livingston in the first place? I seriously don’t get it. He had no positive points in his personality. (And no, his being cute is not a personality point.)

I didn’t hate this book; I just didn’t like it. I read a comment a few weeks ago somewhere that said, in essence, “I hate it when someone trashes a book after they say they don’t usually read that type of book.” I don’t believe The Disreputable History deserves to be trashed, and I’ve tried hard not to do so. There are good points to it, and there are also many points I personally did not like. I believe that you may like it far more than I did. Many people do, citing Frankie as a strong character, Frankie as an ideal feminist, Frankie as a perfect role model for a daughter.

In the end, I fully admit that I missed the point of this book. I personally can’t imagine a teen relating to Frankie’s rich boarding school experiences, let alone suffering through the boring chapters of the novel. I’m not the target audience, though, and I am honestly not close enough to any teens to know what is realistic or not.

If you liked this book (and it seems the majority does love it), I’d love to know what grabbed you in to it. What aspect made The Disreputable History great for you? How do you relate to Frankie’s dilemma?

What YA novels go beyond stereotype? I felt that Uglies (which I read and reviewed last week) didn’t have stereotypical main characters, so that had given me hope for this one as well as the rest of the genre. Alas, this non-futuristic high school novel was still full of stereotypical cliques and longing to be “popular,” the stereotypes I have always associated in my mind with YA novels.

I’m the minority on not loving this book, so go read these other (mostly glowing) reviews:

Sophisticated Dorkiness (the review that got me to read the book; she loved it)
Becky’s Book Reviews (like me, Becky didn’t like it)
Mere Musings
Fyrefly Books Blog
Books Lists Life
Teen Book Review
Bildungsroman
The Book Bind
The Well-Read Child
MariReads
The Children’s Literature Book Club
Maw Books Blog
Bookshelves of Doom
The Curious Reader
Teen Troves
B is for Books
Book Nut
Presenting Lenore
Semicolon
Stuff as Dreams are Made On
The Story Siren
Library Queue
The Reading Zone
Books and Other Thoughts
Worducopia
Bending Bookshelf
Casual Dread
The Family With Three Last Names
A Patchwork of Books
Sassymonkey Reads
Bloggin’ ‘Bout Books
Steph and Tony Investigate

I copied a list from a different blog (Fyrefly’s). There are tons of reviews out there! If you have reviewed The Disreputable History and I missed yours, leave a link in the comments and I’ll add it here.

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Uglies by Scott Westerfeld

Rebecca Reid — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 11:00:27 +0000

I did not like being a teenager. Particularly ages 13 through 17. I was awkward. I was easily embarrassed. I was unpopular (or so I thought). I was nerdy. I was shy. I felt powerless. I wanted to be someone, and I was stuck just being me.

I suppose that’s why I’ve always avoided reading Young Adult fiction: why would I want to relive those years in a novel?

Because my goal for July was to go out of my comfort zone, I picked up the YA fantasy/science fiction novel Uglies by Scott Westerfeld despite my reservations. My goal this month has been to try something new in various genres. I’m glad I did: Uglies was very good. I can’t say I loved it, but I’m immensely glad I read it. I probably shouldn’t avoid the YA moniker as I have in the past.

Approaching teenage-hood from this angle was interesting because it felt true to life, even though I’ve since come to terms with “just being me.”

I appreciated, but didn’t love, the premise behind Uglies. In a futuristic dystopian society, Tally is a typical awkward girl, one of the Uglies, awaiting her sixteenth birthday so she can have the operation everyone gets: the operation that will make her Pretty. When her friend Shay claims she doesn’t want the operation, Tally’s world begins to be turned around. Is there really any life beyond those perfect pretty faces in New Pretty Town?

Just like teenagers have to do, Tally faces situations where she must decide: betrayal versus loyalty, friend versus foe, bravery versus the easy way out, what she wants versus what is right. These “decision” situations are what I liked most about the book. Westerfeld takes an out-of-this-world situation and puts down-to-earth choices that teens could relate to on a realistic level. What will Tally choose in the end?

I think Uglies was definitely written for a teenager to read. If I’d read it as the awkward teenager that I was, I think I would have related to Tally’s emotions and to the drama that comes from various interactions. As an adult, I found myself rolling my eyes just a little bit at the drama behind the decisions. Oh, the drama: it reminded me so clearly of being an awkward teenager. I guess I’ve finally gotten over being a teenager because the drama wasn’t personally painful to recall.

I found the formulaic feel behind the developing plot to be reminiscent of a children’s novel because it was predictable. Yet, I wouldn’t have wanted it to be any different. Any other development or ending would have been disappointing or frustrating, I think. But to clarify, the novel as a whole wasn’t childish in any way. Rather, I think the issues themselves were true to teenage life.

This is my ignorance of the YA genre speaking, but maybe that’s what makes it YA: the issues and questions are advanced (and something that teenagers can relate to), but the basic structure captures the formulas already familiar to a teen reader.

What do you think makes a novel Young Adult rather than adult or children’s? Does the genre label mean anything, or is it just marketing? I had previously thought it was a marketing label, but in this case, I think Uglies is distinctly for young adults rather than for adults or children.

In the end, I can say I really liked reading this book, and I’d recommend it to teens. It was a fast read, both as an “easy” read and in terms of plot. I just kept turning the pages, and I loved it for that fast pace. I am eager to read the next book so I know what happens, although I admit I’m a bit worried about the potential for the trilogy going sour. (I don’t think sequels ever live up to the original.)

Other Reviews:

If you have reviewed Uglies on your site, leave a link in the comments and I’ll add it here.

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Baby’s Monday Salon: Dogs, Trains, and Simple Illustrations

Rebecca Reid — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 12:25:21 +0000

It’s been a while since I’ve reviewed what my son (age 21 months) is reading, so I thought I’d jump in and mention some highlights. It’s so much fun to see my son loving reading. He’s also definitely developing preferences and favorite things in his life, so now his reading is becoming focused on what he wants to read!

Our reading has become an all-day affair. When he wakes up in the morning and/or when he eats his breakfast, I often read to him a few pages (literally) from a full-length book. If he’s not eating, he plays on the floor of his room as I read. Right now I’m reading him Winnie-the-Pooh, and he loves it! If I stop reading, he looks up at me and begs “more?!” (which is one of his favorite words).

Throughout the day, then, he occasionally finds his picture books, which are all through the house, and then sits down and turns the pages. He often goes back to the same books these days. At bedtime, we read at least three books. Sometimes he sits still while I read a book to him or we “discuss” the pictures in it; other times he sits apart from me and “reads” it to himself, talking and turning the pages. This is so delightful to watch. I’m so excited that he’s figured it out!

Dogs

My son has developed a serious obsession with dogs, despite the fact that I strongly dislike being anywhere near furry animals. So he has fun with Doggies by Sandra Boynton: we count to ten with the help of ten different dogs and ten different barks, plus a meowing cat. Another Boynton classic, full of furry animals I actually like!

I also picked up some nonfiction books about dogs. Because most picture books don’t have full-page illustrations or pictures, I wanted to get him something full of pictures just of dogs. Dogs by Gail Gibbons fills that need, with a picture of at least one different dog on each page. This one has too many words for my son to be interested in reading with me, but he certainly loves to turn the page, saying “Dog!” about fifty times through the course of the book.

Trains

My son’s obsession with dogs is now overshadowed only by his love of all trains. This originates, I think, from the train table in the children’s department at our local library. Whenever we visit (which you may imagine is quite frequently), he loves to play with the trains. Now, all his toys become trains in his imaginative play: “Choo choo!”

The first train book is one we own, a Thomas the Tank Engine Golden Book story called The Big Big Bridge. I seriously can’t stand to read it. The story is ridiculous to me, and the pictures are essentially the same throughout it; each page shows the same trains with the same expression on their “faces.” This means I can’t describe the pictures or ask my son what he sees in the pictures. Never mind, he loves to listen to the story, which astounds me because it is so stupid. Maybe it’s just the turning the pages and looking at the trains that is so fascinating. I intend to “misplace” it one of these days. (Is that mean?)

Because I got tired of reading that same story at least three times every single night (literally), I went to the library on a search for new books about trains. Chugga Chugga Choo Choo by Kevin Lewis, illustrated by Daniel Kirk, has become another of my son’s favorite books. The illustrations are busy and bright as it illustrates a little boy’s toy train running around his bedroom; the little boy pretends it is a real train. I still don’t like reading this one aloud: every page has the phrase “Chugga Chugga Choo Choo! … Whooooooo Whooooooo!” I’m sorry to say that this becomes very annoying to read when we’re reading it about three times in a row. I’m just not a sound effect girl, and that sound effect is integral to the book’s cheesy rhymes. Nevertheless, my son loves it. It’s a very fun read for him! I still think it’s better than Thomas because we can also talk about the pictures on the second and third read each night.

We’ve also turned to a few nonfiction books. These describe how trains work and what various trains are. He actually lets me read the words to some of these, and he likes to point to all the different trains. One favorite is I Drive a Freight Train by Sarah Bridges. This has cartoony illustrations of a conductor and engineer explaining the parts of the train. It has a “story” explaining the train, and then little factoids in boxes in the corner. For some reason, my son lets me read this to him most nights, without becoming bored. I don’t mind it because I do find it interesting to learn how trains work! My son likes to wave “Hi” to the people on every page.

Freight Train by Donald Crews is my favorite train book. Crews illustrates a freight train of many different colors. When the train moves, the colors blur. It’s quite cleverly done, and the simple and brightly colored cars are nicely balanced with lots of white space. Crews’ illustrations won the Caldecott Honor, and I love knowing that simplicity won out this time around. My train-loving son loves it, and I don’t mind reading the one-to-two word pages either.

Simple Illustrations

Another brightly colored Caldecott Honor book that my son loves is Color Zoo by Lois Ehlert. The geometric animals are created by die cuts in brightly colored pages; thus, while each page has just one or two colors, a few pages together create a multi-colored lion, or an ox, or a deer. My son likes the die cuts, but he also loves the bright colors. Each page has one word on it, be it the name of the shape (“heart” or “square”) or an animal (“snake” or “lion”). It’s incredibly clever, and while I don’t read it aloud to my son, he loves flipping through it by himself. I think it is a great book for children his age, given the bright colors. It’s also nice to have a break from trains.

On the completely opposite end of the spectrum (literally), is an infant board book: Black & White by Tana Hoban. I wouldn’t have noticed this book at all had not my son found it on a low shelf and brought it to me. I would have assumed that this wordless book, with black pictures on a white background and white pictures on a black background, would be utterly below his interest level, since he’s now 21 months old. To my surprise, he still loved to flip through it and say (or try to say, as the case may be) the shapes he recognized: chair, bird, bottle, banana. Just as the bright colors in Color Zoo appealed to him, I assume the stark, simple black and white pictures also appeal to him.

I suppose that’s a lesson to me that we are never too old for simplicity.

What are your children reading?

What books about dogs and trains have you and your children enjoyed?

What simple illustrations in picture books do you remember?

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Robinson Crusoe Adaptations for Children

Rebecca Reid — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 17:09:04 +0000

In Chapter 6 of my history of children’s literature textbook, Children’s Literature, Seth Lerer indicates:

Almost from its original publication in 1719, Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe had an immense impact on literature for children and adults. It has been widely seen as one of the first major novels in English; as the stimulus for a range of adventure stories; as the kernel for abridgments and adaptations; and as the marker for particular personal and political experience. (page 129)

I can believe that. I liked Robinson Crusoe’s themes (reviewed here), and I can see how people through history could pick and choose various themes to expand upon both in criticism and when creating adaptations.

For the sake of this month’s project, I decided to look at some of the modern-day abridgments and adaptations of Robinson Crusoe to determine how it is still viewed. In Lerer’s analysis of some of the adaptations from the 1800s, he observers that many of the themes of Robinson Crusoe are taken away in making it an adventure story, and each rewritten version focused on a different moral lesson. The main difference among all the early retellings was the tone (page 137).

I came to this project torn as to whether abridgments for children are good. I wished that I could determined that adapters are more faithful to the original in this day and age, but I also wished I could suggest that everyone just stay with the original, simply because I like classics to be left alone.

In the end, I’d suggest that there are similar changes in tone in the various children’s adaptations of Robinson Crusoe today, and some of them eliminate or completely rewrite the major themes of Robinson Crusoe. But this is not always bad.

The Original versus Adaptations

The original Robinson Crusoe was not just about his adventure marooned on an island; it had some beginning stories, starting with how Crusoe was kidnapped by pirates, sold into slavery, escaped, and then began a plantation in Brazil, and it also had further story after he was rescued from his island. The original contains recognition that the savages are cannibals, since Crusoe finds human remains. Do you think the cannibal theme is appropriate for children? At what age can they deal with that theme?

But for me, Robinson Crusoe was not simply an adventure story: it was a spiritual journey as Crusoe came to peace with God. It also had strong themes of loneliness, fear, and survival. Emotion carried the story, for, with no other characters, Robinson Crusoe’s emotions had to be supreme.

One of my favorite aspects of the story was Crusoe’s religious transformation, so I worry about how much of that might be eliminated in adaptations for children.

The question is, then, which parts do abridgments excise from the story? Are they faithful to the spirit of Robinson Crusoe? Why are challenging words considered bad for children to read?

Are Adaptations Good?

After reviewing a number of adaptations, I’d have to say that adaptations do have a place. They are much easier to approach than Defoe’s daunting novel, and they may introduce children to important themes.

I think the afterward to the Classics Starts edition did a good job of explaining why adaptations might be okay:

Even for a gifted young reader, getting through long chapters with dense language can easily become overwhelming and can obscure the richness of the story and its characters. Reading an abridged, newly crafter version of a classic novel can be the gentle introduction a child needs to explore the characters and story line without the frustration of difficult vocabulary and complex themes.

Reading an abridged version of a classic novel gives the young reader a sense of independence and the satisfaction of finishing a “grown-up” book. … (Classic Starts edition, page 149)

The modern-day language retellings won’t help a young child prepare to read Defoe’s language, and I hesitate to suggest that reading them (including the Classic Starts version) is reading a classic “grown-up” book; it’s reading a classic story, not a classic novel. The characters and themes are not the same as those in the original classic. Even themes are changed to fit the adapter’s moral agenda. But there is a purpose behind these abridgments. Introducing a story to a young child may be a worthwhile endeavor, and the larger themes (as interpreted by the adapter) can be understood.

As I said, I came to this project torn as to whether abridgments are good or bad. I still think it really depends; one must read each abridgment to determine if it does a good or bad job at capturing the spirit of the original classic.

My biggest pet peeve is that most abridgments are not clearly marked as such: the Puffin Classics abridgment, which cuts out a lot of the themes, retains most of Defoe’s words, and simplifies the language, mentions an abridger in the very small print on the copyright page and on the back cover. It would be easy to miss. Therefore, if you are buying a classic for your child, read the copyright page to determine if it is an abridgment. Even if you think it’s the “real thing,” it may still be an abridgment or adaptation of the original.

The Verdict

The original and the adaptations that I read or skimmed are as follows:

Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe (Tor Books). 337 pages. The original; read in full
Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe (Puffin Classics). Abridged by Robin Waterfield, 1986; 273 pages. abridgment; skimmed
Robinson Crusoe retold from Daniel Defoe (Scholastic Junior Classics). E.W. Doloch, 1958; 127 pages. adaptation; skimmed
The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe (Great Illustrated Classics). adapted by Malvina G. Vogel, 1992; 230 pages. adaptation; skimmed
Robinson Crusoe retold from the Daniel Defoe original (Classic Starts). Deanna McFadden and Illustrated by Jamel Akib, 2006; 150 pages, including discussion questions. adaptation; read in full
Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe illustrated by N.C. Wyeth (Scribner Storybook Classic). Abridged by Timothy Meis, 2003; 52 pages. illustrated abridgement; skimmed
Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe adapted by Sam Wray and Pat Boyette (Classics Illustrated). 1991; 44 pages with comic-like illustrations. illustrated abridgement; skimmed
Robinson Crusoe (Usborne Young Reading) from the story by Daniel Defoe. Retold by Angela Wilkes, Adapted by Gill Harvey, Illustrated by Peter Dennis; 2003; 62 pages. illustrated adaptation; read in full
Robinhound Crusoe (The Adventures of Wishbone series) by Caroline Leavitt, inspired by Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe. 1997; 142 pages. retelling; skimmed

In my subjective opinion, some of these remain faithful to the spirit of Robinson Crusoe and some don’t.

My favorite abridgment by is the Scribner Storybook Classic, which is a short 52 pages of what is mostly Defoe’s writing. It is beautiful for perusing, but faithful in theme and language to Crusoe’s original. I love the beautiful paintings: they evoke the beauty of solitude in nature, as well as the adventure quality of Crusoe trying to fend for himself and the spiritual development that comes from his struggle. It is a beautiful book for children to be introduced to the story, and I highly recommend it to child and adult alike. I just need to find a copy of it for my personal library!

The abridgment by Robin Waterfield is the most complete abridgment, cutting out repetition and some of the religious themes but keeping the language of Defoe. To be honest, I like the fact that some irrelevant details are excised. I didn’t read (just flipped through it and skimmed portions) but in the end (and much as I hate to say it), I would suggest this to a reader wanting to learn the story and experience Defoe’s language but daunted by classic literature. We want teens to want to read the classics. This is as close as you can get without being the real thing.

Despite my dislike of the generic, modern writing, I really enjoyed the Classic Starts adapted version of the story. I loved the discussion questions at the end; this added some degree of scholarship, even though the stark change in language took some scholarship away from the classic. This is not a classic novel; it’s the classic story. Its main moral theme was that Crusoe regretted disobeying his father. Crusoe’s story is completely retold and rewritten, using modern colloquialisms (“that’s for sure”) and lots of exclamation points. And yet, it is so readable, I found myself reading the entire thing. It does have serious typos throughout.

As I mentioned, I reviewed a lot of adaptations this week. For more detailed analysis and for quotes for each of them, visit this page for my detailed summary. (It was so long, I didn’t want to post it on the main page!)

What are your experiences with adaptations? Have you had a bad experience? I read a bad adaptation on Little Woman when I was twelve years old; I always afterward thought I’d read it but of course I hadn’t really.

Have you had a good experience reading an adaptation and then reading the original? I’m curious if these adaptations do help one prepare for true classic novels.

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The Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle Treasury by Betty MacDonald

Rebecca Reid — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 13:35:10 +0000

Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle is a magical friend to children, with her upside-down house and delicious cookies that are always waiting for you. She’s also a wonderful help to parents, who often don’t know how to solve the problems of parenthood.

When I was young I loved learning Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle’s “cures” for naughty children’s problems, such as not putting away toys, answering back, and refusing to take a bath. Her cures were ridiculous and magical, and they were funny.

However, as an adult, reading three volumes of such stories in The Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle Treasury by Betty MacDonald became tiring. In some respects, the sequels failed to live up to the original, and I was horribly disappointed.

Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle is the original book, published in 1947, and Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle is a loving friend as she cures children such as Patsy, who refused to take a bath (“The Radish Cure”) and Allen who ate veeeeeeery sloooooowly (“The Slow-Eater-Tiny-Bite-Taker-Cure”), my personal favorite. The cures are often clever tricks of reverse psychology, and the results are rather funny. Although Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle’s world is obviously out-of-date today, I found revisiting Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle to be a lot of fun.

Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle’s Magic was written two years after the first, and now the cures involve magical potions and powders, which Mr. Piggle-Wiggle the pirate had left in a trunk when he died. These are clever but I began to tire of reading of children whining and complaining. Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle is still fun, and I wished it continued to focus on her interactions with the kids.

I had a similar problem with Hello, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, which was written ten years after the first book. In Hello, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, MacDonald provides more in-depth stories, with the cures happening in just the last few pages of each story. I found myself horribly bored with these, I’m sorry to say, and unlike the first two books, Hello, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle felt inappropriately dated to a large extent. For example, Mrs. Weathervane encourages her daughter to feel sorry for poor Cornelia, whose mother works during the day and isn’t home waiting with a plate of cookies after school. All the books condone spanking to some extent (maybe that is just illustrating how stupid the parents are without Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle’s help) but the “housewife” cluelessness can only be described as reminscent of an earlier era. The last book seems even more so. Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle herself is only a minor character in this volume of stories, and the children never interact with her.

In the end, I wish Betty MacDonald had stopped while she was ahead. Then again, maybe I should have stopped while I was still enjoying them. The “Treasury” of all three, I’m sorry to say, became rather annoying by the time I’d read it all aloud to my son.

Note: I just found two more books, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle’s Farm and Happy Birthday, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle on Amazon. If I hadn’t been so disappointed with this volume, I would have checked it out. The later is apparently written by Betty MacDonald’s daughter.

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Author Spotlight: Margaret Wise Brown + Giveaway Winner

Rebecca Reid — Fri, 29 May 2009 18:48:38 +0000

I’ve got a winner to my contest!

No one guessed the most popular book searched for on Rebecca Reads. The book that I get the most searches for is a children’s book. It is one that I think almost everybody has read at least once: Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown. I wrote a post about it here last August, and it has always gotten the most hits on my site. In connection with the contest, I thought I’d take this chance to read some others of Margaret Wise Brown’s picture books.

As for a winner for my giveaway, I chose a winner, then, from all those who did make a guess. (It pays to make a random guess, sometimes!). I’ll send the winner a copy of any of the books I reviewed in the past year.

Out of the twenty people who made guesses, the winner is ……Penny from Penny’s Pages!

Penny, I’ve sent you an email. Please send me your address and which book you’d like out of those I’ve reviewed since I started blogging. The archive is here for your browsing.

Margaret Wise Brown

Goodnight Moon is one of my favorite picture books. My son likes it too. But I hadn’t read any other books by Margaret Wise Brown, so in the past few weeks, I’ve remedied that: some of the others I like a lot, and others I didn’t.

The Runaway Bunny features our little bunny friend from Goodnight Moon and is again illustrated by Clement Hurd. The little bunny tells his mother that he will run away. But no matter where he says he’ll go, his mother has a solution to get him back again. In the end, he decides to stay right where he is. The illustrations alternate between black and white with text to full-color with no text. It’s a very sweet story, and I like to read it to my son. I got the large-sized board book from the library, and he likes turning the big pages.

My World is subtitled “a companion to Goodnight Moon,” but I did not enjoy this one nearly as much. It is illustrated by Clement Hurd and obviously pictures the same room, house, and little bunny as that in Goodnight Moon. It tells the story of a little bunny introducing you to his world. But the things he points to in his world are not always illustrated on that same page, and there is no story to drive the entire book. It randomly ends with:

How many stripes
On a bumble bee?

Tell me: what did I miss with this story book?

It’s interesting how illustration can give a completely different feel to an author. Big Red Barn by Margaret Wise Brown was illustrated by Felicia Bond, and Bond’s illustrations are playful and simple, and yet amazingly realistic. Brown’s text is rhyming and simple. The story is that of the animals going about their animal days and then going to sleep at night. It reminds me very much of Goodnight Moon in its rhymes and simplicity. It’s kind of the equivalent of Goodnight Moon for animals, and I like it just as much.

The Little Island is illustrated by Leonard Weisgard, which provides yet another different feel for a very different kind of story. The story tells of a little island in the middle of the sea, the animals and plants that grow on it, and a kitty that visits and asks how the island is a part of the world. In a subtle way, The Little Island tells that we can be comfortable with ourselves, knowing that we are a part of the world, even if no one else believes us.

And it was good to be a little Island.
A part of the world
and a world of its own
all surrounded by the bright blue sea.

The Caldecott Medal winning illustrations are bright paintings that give life and texture to the island, its vegetation, and the sea that surrounds it.

Margaret Wise Brown’s The Golden Egg Book was published as a Golden Book, and illustrated by Leonard Weisgard. It tells of a rabbit that found an egg and tried to open it. While he sleeps, the little yellow duck comes out of an egg. The rabbit and the duck are friends. The illustrations are bright and engaging, but this book irritated me to no end. Maybe it was because the duck came out of the egg looking rather old, not like a newborn chick. But maybe there was another reason. I’m not sure.

The Quiet Noisy Book is another odd book, also illustrated by Leonard Weisgard in a completely different style. A little dog awoke to a strange noise. In the end, he determines the noise is a new day. The book provides lots of (ridiculous) analogies of things that are quiet: a bee wondering, butter melting, a fish breathing. In some respects it may be educational for children trying to understand analogies:

As quiet as a chair.
Quiet as air.
Quiet as someone whispering a secret to a baby.

As an adult, I didn’t enjoy reading it aloud. But maybe a child would enjoy reading it and learning from it.

Garth William’s illustrated animals in Margaret Wise Brown’s The Little Fur Family seem a little too furry to me, but this is a story about a fur family, so I suppose it’s appropriate. The book I got from my library was a cute little size, so he enjoyed walking around with. The story of the little fur child is entertaining, I suppose, but I found the occasional rhymes rather annoying and the story less than engaging. Again, maybe a child would like it more.

The Color Kittens, illustrated by Alice and Martin Provensen, was originally a Little Golden Book, and this one I like. In this story, two kittens mix pails of paint to discover other colors, and they paint their world. The kittens were adorable, and I liked the colorful world they created together. There is a rhythm to The Color Kittens that also makes it pleasant to read aloud. I think it is a winner.

The Caldecott Honor A Child’s Goodnight Book, with pictures by Jean Charlot, has color pencil illustrations to show the different creatures and things around the world that are sleepy or quiet. It doesn’t rhyme as some of Margaret Wise Brown’s books do, but it does have a “sleepy” feel to the language, as each page ends with something sleepy: Sleepy fish, Sleepy sheep, sleepy bunnies, sleepy children. It ends with a prayer, which seems out of place today, but was probably pretty normal given the original publication of 1943.

The library also has a number of stories by Margaret Wise Brown that were originally published for magazines; now they have been reissued with modern illustrations for a picture book format. It was interesting to read some of them. Although I wouldn’t consider them great stories, it was nice to see that stories written fifty years ago can be translated into modern stories with the right illustrations.

In the end, I feel Margaret Wise Brown wrote some winning children’s books. I’m glad for her legacy, and I’m all the more interested to learn about her life and her impact on children’s picture books.

Which is your favorite book by Margaret Wise Brown? Did I miss it?

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The Midwife’s Apprentice by Karen Cushman

Rebecca Reid — Mon, 25 May 2009 22:29:21 +0000

I enjoyed The Midwife’s Apprentice by Karen Cushman, a Newbery-winning novel. Cushman believably created a 1300s scene, and I liked learning about midwifery and superstition in the middle ages. While modern girls won’t face trials as extreme as the girl’s in the novel, they still must develop self-confidence and determine what their own dreams are. The story is therefore highly relevant to pre-teens today, and I only wished it had been longer and more fully developed.

In the beginning, a nameless orphan girl rests in a dung heap on a cold winter’s night. When Jane the midwife tells her to scram in the morning, the girl instead begs for bread, offering to work in exchange for it. Thus it is that the girl (called both Brat and Beetle in the beginning) becomes the midwife’s apprentice.

Beetle’s story is one of self-discovery. In the beginning, she accepts that she is nobody: she hopes for nothing and expects nothing. But as she helps Jane and finds small successes, she learns that she is an individual and she can have dreams.

My favorite part was when she gave herself a name. While Beetle is at the fair shopping for Jane, a man mistakes her for Alyce, a girl who can read. Beetle is shocked when she realizes that no one else knows her own internal struggles: why couldn’t she be a girl who could read? She takes that girl’s name as her own and becomes Alyce.

Alyce faces both success and frustration, and she seeks for friendship and a place to belong. In the end, she also must decide what it is that she personally wants from life, because she is an individual with fundamental worth.

Because the audiobook was less than three hours long and I took a long drive one day, I listened to The Midwife’s Apprentice by Karen Cushman in one or two days. Alyce’s personal development was predictable to the point of cliché; the formulaic climax of the novel was also a bit rushed and, to some extent, unbelievable. Nevertheless, it was well done and enjoyable for me.

I discussed The Midwife’s Apprentice with my (new) book club; the discussion was just plain fun for me because I like making connections to my own life. This is a book that I’d love to share with a pre-teen girl, despite the clichés.

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Poetry for Young People: William Shakespeare

Rebecca Reid — Fri, 15 May 2009 11:00:34 +0000

Poetry for Young People: William Shakespeare (edited by David Scott Kastan and Marina Kastan and illustrated by Glenn Harrington) goes beyond Shakespeare’s sonnets. In just 50 pages, the editors have also included some of the key speeches from Shakespeare’s repertoire.

As with other volumes in the series, each page has a bit of explanation about the poem that follows. In this case, it also gives a background to particular play the poem is from and the reasons for each speech in the midst of it. It’s a great introduction to Shakespeare’s plays — including tragedies, comedies, and histories — and it’s a great reminder of the context of the classic lines and phrases we’ve heard so often, from “Double, double, toil and trouble” to “All the world’s a stage,/ and all the men and women merely players” and “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?”

The paintings were prepared exclusively for this children’s book. Each illustration is mature and bright, and each is appropriate for the poem at hand. I think the illustrations are absolutely stunning.

This volume focusing on Shakespeare is the most mature of the three books I’ve reviewed from the Poetry for Young People series (I’ve also looked at Robert Louis Stevenson and Lewis Carroll). It is by far my favorite: it’s perfectly appropriate and interesting for adult and child alike.

Poetry for Young People: William Shakespeare counts for the BiblioShakespeare Challenge.

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The Green Knowe Chronicles by L.M. Boston

Rebecca Reid — Tue, 12 May 2009 11:00:46 +0000

Green Knowe is a medieval castle in the English countryside, and it is full of enchantment and ghosts. L.M. Boston’s chronicles about the manor house are full of child-like delight.

And yet, describing the series as a whole is challenging. They all, but one, involved magic of some kind. They all, but one, focus on a mid-twentieth century child or children having adventures. They all, but one, focus on Green Knowe itself as the center of action. Half of them focus on a mysterious connection with the past. All of them have some delightful characters, but one does have a disturbing, wicked character.

As a series, then, the novels do not always feel to be connected to one another. All the same, I enjoyed the visits to the mysterious manor house, and I knew that adventures of some kind were waiting. While I enjoyed some stories more than others (and one I would never recommend to a child), I think most children will enjoy the stories of a time when children could play freely by themselves, all summer long, in an old castle and the grounds surrounding it.

The six children’s stories are as follows:

The Children of Green Knowe, 1954
Treasure of Green Knowe (called The Chimneys of Green Knowe in the U.K.), 1958
The River at Green Knowe, 1959
A Stranger at Green Knowe , 1961
An Enemy at Green Knowe , 1964
The Stones at Green Knowe , 1976

The Children of Green Knowe is a compact and fun story. It follows young Tolly as he spends his Christmas holiday with his great-grandmother Mrs. Oldknow. Green Knowe comes alive with the history as Mrs. Oldknow tells the family stories, particularly when they are visited by three young children (Toby, Alexander, and Linnet) who died in the castle of the great plague. Yet, while this book is a ghost story, it is a delightful one, and Tolly cannot wait until the next visit from his ancient friends. I thought this was a perfect children’s story: it was mysterious and haunted, and yet not too scary.

In Treasure of Green Knowe, Tolly finds himself straddling time again as he visits with Susan and her family and friends in the late 1790s. The castle is again a character, and Tolly is brought into history again. While Susan was an interesting character, I didn’t feel the characters overall were as engaging in this story. As a first-time reader of this series, I was also disappointed that there was no continuance from the previous book, other than the two characters of Tolly and Mrs. Oldknow. (The three children who had haunted Green Knowe so delightfully no longer appeared.)

The River at Green Knowe has a different feel from the first two books for two reasons. First, it has completely new characters. Second, it deals with fantastical elements along the river, not at Green Knowe itself. Dr. Biggin and her friend Miss Bun have rented Green Knowe for the summer, inviting her niece Ida and two “displaced” orphan children, Oskar and Ping, to join her. The children spend the summer finding adventure on the river, from flying horses to giants. It’s a fun story of childhood and shows the dichotomy between realistic (and boring) adults and children who are willing to see the unusual.

A Stranger at Green Knowe is also strikingly different from the first two books of the series, and I found it to be my absolute favorite, although children probably won’t agree with me. This book begins in the jungles of Africa, when a baby gorilla is taken from his family. Ten years later, Ping meets the gorilla, named Hanno, in the London Zoo; Ping feels a bond, for just as Ping had been “displaced” from his family and home, Hanno has been displaced from his home and feels lonely in his cement, impersonal zoo world. As Ping travels to Green Knowe to spend the summer with Mrs. Oldknow, he discovers that Hanno has escaped from the zoo. In the coming days, Ping secretly helps the wild gorilla enjoy his sought-after freedom. I loved this book because I felt that Ping was superbly developed and real as neither he nor any of the other characters had been in any other book. A Stranger at Green Knowe won the 1961 Carnegie Medal, I believe it probably was well deserved. However, children that loved the first three books may be disappointed with the practical personality study and find themselves wishing for more fantastic elements, as the other three books had. In some respects, it’s a different type of book and feels out of place as a “Green Knowe” story; I still loved it.

An Enemy at Green Knowe also has a different feel from the other, innocent stories in the series. Because it deals with a witch who practices black magic and literally worships the devil, I also would hesitate to recommend it for children. I found it quite disturbing; any sensible person would request a police restraining order on the woman who so manipulated and threatened, not to mention invaded the privacy of, the residents of Green Knowe. There is magic in this book – but much of that magic felt satanic to me, while in the other books it felt playful. Now, I’m sure someone out there is rolling their eyes at the thought of me taking this book so seriously, but I honestly felt this book had less innocence and playfulness than the others had; so much less that this book was disturbing to me while the others had not been.

I am so glad that L.M. Boston came back twelve years later to finish the series with The Stones at Green Knowe. This again has the playful, magical feel that the first three books had, and I loved how it brought all the series together. It takes place in the years just after the Norman conquest, as young Roger d’Aulneaux watches his father building a grand manor house, to be called Green Knowe. He wonders about the children who will live in it after him. When he discovers a set of stones that take him backwards and forwards in time, he is able to meet Toby, Alexander, and Linnet; Susan; and Tolly and Mrs. Oldknow. This was again light-hearted and I loved how it made various points in history come alive. (I couldn’t help observing that Roger could not have possibly communicated with the other children, since the language English wasn’t recognizable as such until the 1500s or 1600s; but that is beside the point.)

I listened to all the books (except Treasure) via audiobook. The narrator, Simon Vance, was wonderful, and it has been a very enjoyable experience for the past month and a half to listen to Green Knowe Chronicles as I ran my errands.

In the end, I enjoyed a trip back to an age where children age 9 and 10 could canoe down a river by themselves, a world where magic stones could transport you 850 years in the future, and where home is an ancient castle inhabited by friendly ghosts of children long past. The series was delightful (with one exception) and I’d mostly recommend it for children looking for fantastic adventure.

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Caldecott Corner Author Spotlight: Simms Taback

Rebecca Reid — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 11:00:55 +0000

Simms Taback has an illustration style all his own. His children’s picture book illustrations are often a blend of watercolor, gouache (an opaque watercolor painting), pencil, ink, collage, and I even observed some crayon illustrations. His colors are bright and his books have subtle jokes in the illustrations (for the parents to find). So far, he has won the Caldecott Medal once (in 2000 for Joseph Had a Little Overcoat) and he was a Caldecott Honor once (for There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly).

I received There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly by Simms Taback at a baby shower, and I really enjoy the illustrations. They are bright and amusing. My son likes to put his hands through the die-cuts and look at his fingers on the other side (a practice I’m not keen on encouraging because that could lead to book damage!). All the same, I sing him the silly song as we read it.

In Joseph Had a Little Overcoat, Taback has again retold a folkloric song (this time a Yiddish song) with his blend-of-many-styles illustrations. Using die-cuts, he shows how Joseph’s little overcoat, when it is worn, becomes a vest, scarf, handkerchief, and a button. In the end, Joseph learns that even when he has nothing, he can still make something (in this case, a book!). Taback’s subtle commentary in the illustrations corners are incredibly amusing, and they play on the Yiddish tradition (for example, a newspaper headline says “Fiddler on Roof Falls Off Roof”). It’s definitely another winner.

The illustrations in This is the House that Jack Built also provide amusing sub-stories as we proceed through the cheese, rat, cat, dog, etc. that all, somehow, relate to the house that Jack built. The illustrations are in Simms Taback’s familiar mixed media. While the illustrations are just as engaging as his other books, this book is not a favorite of mine – simply because it’s no fun to read aloud! (too many “that”s).

I Miss You Every Day is illustrated with child-like crayon, colored pencils, markers, and all types of kid-like charm. A lonely child mails herself to her grandparents, who live far away, because she misses them every day. (The loved ones are never named as grandparents in the story, only in the illustrations.) I feel a connection with this book simply because I think of how much my son will miss his grandparents who live far away. (Right now, of course, he’s still a bit clueless, which is all the sadder for me when I think of it.) I love the last page, when the little narrator says “Tuck me in and read a story.” The illustration shows her bed littered with some of my favorite children’s stories: The Snowy Day, The True Story of the Three Little Pigs, Goodnight Moon, and of course, Joseph Had a Little Overcoat.

Simms Taback’s Big Book of Words is a large-sized almost board book. By that, I mean that it’s not a board book, but the pages are a little thicker and it almost acts like a board book. There are one or two words on a page with Taback’s classic illustrations, taking us through a child’s world of playthings, clothes, food, and animals. My son likes finding pictures of things he knows how to sign (he’s still not talking very much, but he is finally communicating through baby signs, sometimes).

Simms Taback also has a number of other board books and picture books with his classic artwork. I like the style: it’s unique, it’s recognizable, and it’s fun. Taback certainly has a humor of his own in his children’s books! Other books that Simms Taback has illustrated are listed here. (It appears that his official website, simmstaback.com, is not working.)

Do you and your children have a favorite Taback picture book?

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Poetry for Young People: Lewis Carroll

Rebecca Reid — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 11:00:42 +0000

The Poetry for Young People series provides classic poets in a slim illustrated volume, complete with vocabulary glosses or background information as needed.

I enjoyed how the Poetry for Young People: Lewis Carroll (edited by Edward Mendelson and illustrated by Eric Copeland) volume included background information about each poem so I knew who and what Carroll was mocking (often, it was Isaac Watts, whose moralistic children’s poems scared me silly a few months ago). Because I was not familiar with some of the contemporary poets and styles that Carroll mocked, I was disappointed that the poems weren’t as ridiculous as they could have been.

And yet, the nonsense of poems like “Jabberwocky” and “Father William” are still fun for children today. I enjoyed rereading Lewis Carroll’s poetry, and the illustrations in this particular volume were bright and appropriately fantastic. Many of the poems are from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, which I also enjoy.

Lewis Carroll’s best-known poem is probably “Jabberwocky,” which is full of nonsense words. Here it is in full, thanks to Project Gutenberg. (Of course, in Through the Looking-Glass, it is written backwards, since it is a mirror reflection.)

JABBERWOCKY

‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

‘Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!’

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought-
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

‘And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!’
He chortled in his joy.

‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

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