Alistair and Kip's Great Adventure!

by John Segal!
McElderry Books! 2008!

"Let's build a boat and travel to distant lands," says Alistair. And so they do.

Alistair cat and Kip the dog build themselves a boat and sail down river, into the bay, onto the open seas. A storm comes up, the waves crash their boat into a whale who saves them and takes them home.

"Tomorrow, let's build a plane."

The end.

The journey is a time-honored device in literature, all literature, but usually there is something transformative in the process. The dangers and desires of a journey have to have a purpose, otherwise what's the point? The Bard of Manchester once provided one of the most succinct examples of the power of journey

I was looking for a job, and then I found a job,
And heaven knows I'm miserable now.

See, the main character sets out to do something, and then he accomplishes what he set out to do, and his life has been transformed as a result. No such enlightenment here for Alistair and Kip as they merely come home determined to do the next day what they did the day before. Might as well have a story about a turtle and a donkey who go to the grocery store, eat what they bought, then plan to go to the store the next day.

Let me look at this story again, maybe I'm missing something. Do they have a magical adventure, something beyond the pale? No, they do not. You might be tempted to believe that their interaction with the whale is something, but in order for that to be the case you would have to marvel at a cat and dog's ability to build a boat and sail the ocean. But when dealing with anthropomorphic animals that stand in for humans we aren't supposed to be surprised at their abilities any more than we would stare at stranger in public adjusting their socks. Talking animals would expect nothing less from another -- the whale in this case -- than sympathy and understanding, unless it had been established in advance that whales were something to fear on their grand journey.

Do they glean anything from their experience? That whales are nice, perhaps, but is that the sum of their adventure? No, I don't find a great adventure here. Some nice watercolor work, totally ruined by variable type sizes throughout. That's about it.

I guess my problem is that I'm seeing a lot of books this season that all seem as limp as this, a story that could have been concocted by a small child. Wait, I take that back, I've heard small children tell much more involved stories. These would be the same children a simple book like this would be aimed at. So if kids are capable of longer stories why are the shelves filled with so many empty calories?

Sometimes I wonder if picture books aren't going to cause the demise of picture books.

Lady Liberty: A Biography

by Doreen Rappaport
illustrated by Matt Tavares
Candlewick 2008

If ever there was a model for how to write the biography of an inanimate object, this is it. Is it too early to be suggesting a contender for a Sibert award?

Rappaport begins by imagining her grandfather's journey to Elllis Island, wondering what he must have thought and felt when he first saw the Statue of Liberty. She then jumps back to Edouard de Laboulaye's dream of giving America a gift of a grand monument to its independence. Then comes sculptor Auguste Bartholdi's work to capture the essence of this dream. Then comes Gustave Eiffel's work engineering the various components of this grand monument; and Joseph Pulitzer's newspaper accounts mocking the wealthy capitalists who refused to help fund the project while soliciting the donations of average Americans -- many recent immigrants themselves -- to see the project through; and Emma Lazarus's ruminations that led to the poem that adorns the base of Lady Liberty's foundation.

Rappaport gives each person involved their say, each getting a free-verse voice in their part of the process while Matt Tavares singles out a particular moment to represent their efforts across the spread of pages. Each voice, each part of the process, brings Lady Liberty one step closer to completion.

At it's core, Lady Liberty is as much a lesson on the birth of most collaborative arts. It's as complex as the planning and construction of a bridge, as complicated in its funding as an independent motion picture, and like most visionary works, difficult to imagine in the eyes of many who toiled toward a single visionary goal.

It also highlights how another of those things assumed to be quintessentially American didn't originate in America and was viewed with skepticism and derision before ultimately being accepted. We didn't invent hot dogs or hamburgers, or even the fireworks we set off on the Fourth of July. Our national anthem was based on a British drinking song. But were it not for a French visionary, a French artist, an pro-Zionist poet, a Hungarian-born journalist, and multi-national labor force we most likely wouldn't have this symbol of liberty, this internationally recognized beacon of all things most Americans hold dear.

For those who cannot visit Liberty Island and follow the Lady's journey in her presence this book is an excellent alternative. Even better in some respects, because it clearly shows the connections between the people from different backgrounds and nations, in the same way this nation was constructed as a collaborative effort. A lesson I feel we need to reinforce for children in these divisive times.

Sisters & Brothers

Sibling Relationships in the Animal World
by Steve Jenkins and Robin Page
Houghton Mifflin 2008

I learn more from picture books than I probably did back in high school. Of course, I have a different perspective on what interests me than when I was younger, and kid books are pretty much all I read these days so I'm probably not learning as much as I could.

Still.

Did you know that armadillos give birth to four young, either all male or all female, each an exact clone of the other? I can't say I did, and that would make for an interesting relationship if you were raised along side three exact copies of yourself. More weirder than being identical twins.

Turkeys, on the other hand, hang around with mom for a year and then the ladies go off to mate while the brothers stay together in a band. Dudes, it's like some guys I went to school with! I guess they were turkeys of a sort.

Then there are the naked mole rats. Okay, they are practically blind and live in these huge burrows underground, that I knew. What I didn't know was that each colony has a single mom -- sort of like a queen bee -- and that when they meet each other in a narrow passage way they have to sniff one another to determine who has seniority, because the eldest gets to climb over the youngest.

And then finally, a puzzle piece I didn't realize was missing in a story I conceived long ago. New Mexico Whiptail Lizards are all female. There are no males. That just blows my mind.

I think this is the first time I can remember where the text upstaged Jenkins cut paper illustrations. Or perhaps I've just gotten so used to his work that it no longer surprises and delights the way it used to. That doesn't make it bad, it's just become as familiar as Eric Carle's style in it's sameness.

By using sibling relationships to explore these unique animal families, Page and Jenkins supply a lot of great information in a clean, easy to understand style that is obviously engaging enough for an adult but readily accessible to young readers.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have some Whiptail Lizards to research.

The Beeman

by Laurie Krebs
illustrations by Valeria Cis
Barefoot Books 2008

This is a neat little picture book introduction to the art of beekeeping. Told in gently rhymed text (that didn't annoy the way a lot of rhymed text does these days) the story follows a boy and his grandfather the bee man as they dress, build a colony, study, care for, and harvest honey from man-made hives. Instead of the usual single page of back matter there are four pages all about bees, and a recipe for honey apple muffins that looks enticing.

Really, that's it. There's a load of great information that doesn't feel at all like it's teaching, or trying to be educational. A nice little book.

Oh. Huh. Look at that. This book was originally published in 2002 by National Geographic. Who knows what that's about? Different illustrator. Haven't seen the original to make comparisons, but there's a difference in page numbers for the two books, so perhaps the earlier version doesn't have the back matter? Whatevs. Doesn't change my opinion, I'm sticking with nice.

Nice.

Hen Hears Gossip

by Megan McDonald
illustrated by Joung Un Kim
Greenwillow 2008

I always understood a gossiping hen to hold negative connotations, not just about gossip but about a type of woman who get together with like and hold hen parties. Am I wrong, is this not considered a negative stereotype?

And I cannot be the only person with that song from The Music Man running through his head.

There. Now it's in your head too.

We start with hen, who overhears cow say something to pig. Gossip! She loves Gossip! And so she spreads the word.

From here the book turns into a game of telephone, where the message changes as each of the barnyard animals spreads the word. The messages are, of course, absurd, and as the animals track the original message back to the source it turns out that cow was telling pig that her baby calf was born.

I'm just "okay" with this book. I think if it had begun and been titled with another animal I wouldn't have that negative connotation rolling around inside my head, and then it would be a somewhat amusing story about some misheard information. I suppose one could extract the lesson that gossip is bad but in order for that to be the case here there would need to be some sort of consequence for the gossip. That's the missing component, the one that would give the story some depth.

I guess I expect too much story from what is, at heart, just a misheard rumor.

Physics: Why Matter Matters

created by Basher
written by Dan Green
Kingfisher 2008

From the people who brought you the Periodic Table...

Well, it's been a year since we last visited our friends the Elements, those hip cats who it turns out have their own personalities. Now Basher and Green have given us a companion volume explaining the world of Physics. The book opens with a quote from the the Big Guy on a bike:

"Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler." Albert Einstein

Yup, that just about sums up what's going on here, proving the Einstein's smaller theories were pretty solid as well. The physical world and its inhabitants are once again anthropomorphed and grouped by association. We get the Old School dudes (Mass, Weight, Density, &c.), the Hot Stuff (Energy, Entropy...), the Wave Gang (Sound, Frequency...), the Light Crew (Radio, Microwave...), and so on. It's all here, each aspect with its own spread, a first-person breakdown on the one side and a graffiti-like cartoon portrait on the other. There's also a "first discovered" box and a short historical list of how or when they were famously employed.

As with the Periodic Table: Elements With Style, I think this book works best in the classroom as a supplemental text (though used correctly they could be primary) with wide appeal. A great introduction for budding young scientists to the basics of physics, a playful refresher for older young scientists, and an easily digestible crash-course for adults who need the background to keep up with their budding young scientists.

In a semi-related note, check out what happens when the Periodic Table meets Art. Courtesy of Sara over at Read Write Believe.

Little Boy

by Alison McGhee
illustrated by Peter Reynolds
Atheneum / Simon 2008

This Father's Day, when a Hallmark just won't cut it but $20 seems like too much to spend, why not give this little gem?

Generously borrowing from William Carlos William's poem "The Red Wheelbarrow," each of the rhymed sections in this picture book begins with the phrase "Little Boy, so much depends on..." to inventory the innocent mischief, imaginative play, and rituals of what it means to be a boy. All that and a big cardboard box. Reynolds illustrations are as precious as McGhee's cadences are measured, which is to say they are calculated with great care.

This is the father-and-son companion to Someday, the book about the mother-daughter bond that reads like a snake eating its own tail. With both books I can't imagine what sort of child they are intended for. Grown children? Adults with children who want an American Greeting Card memory of a time that never really existed except in a post-martini haze? Seriously, with Little Boy I can see maybe half a reading of this before the little boy being read to wants to go find a cardboard box of his own to play with rather than finish this non-story.

Beyond that, the book is a keepsake, a contemporary Norman Rockwell portrait of boyhood. Grandparents will love it, so might some parents, but it's not for children.

i love dirt

52 activities to help you & your kids discover the wonders of nature
by Jennifer Ward
foreword by Richard Louv
illustrations by Susie Ghahremani
Trumpeter / Shambhala / Random House 2008

galley provided by publisher

There is absolutely nothing wrong with this book, and everything wrong with it. It's a book for kids, but it's a book for parents. these are the best of times, these are the worst of times...

As a collection of outdoor activities for adults to do with children there's very little fault I can find in the premise of the execution. Most of what is included are simple outings, grouped by season, that allow parents and children to commune with nature of a manageable scale. There are bird watching activities, cloud watching games, backyard camping or a general nocturnal excursion. All with goals attainable in most parts of the country and with little investment. Each of the activities also includes a "Help Me Understand" box with select questions and answers that a child might ask.

But all in all, it's sad that it's come to this.

Going out into nature should be, well, natural. It shouldn't feel guided by a book that provides one activity a week - giving the air of a constitutional duty as opposed to enjoying the enterprise. In the introduction, Richard Louv talks about how when he was a child in the 1950s he would go out into the nearby woods every chance he got. But in half a century we have become a nation of people who must schedule their children's playdates, supervise their destinations with cell phones and text messages, and must budget time to shove our children into nature in order to learn (and hopefully respect) what the Earth Mother has to teach us.

Kids just don't "go out" the way they used to, the way I used to. Physically the neighborhoods haven't necessarily changed, but our relationship to them, and our priorities about this free time, has changed. We no longer trust our children to trundle off to places where they can explore on their own, nor do we allow the time for such behavior by preferring to over-program kids into structured, organized teams and activities. And so, to fill this deficit in our culture, we have books to help us attempt to round out the experiences of our children.

In books like this aimed at parents there is an unavoidable undercurrent that the parent in need of such a book either won't find the book, or will feel condescended to. The point where I feel this most is the little check box at the end of each chapter that summarizes the purpose and goal of the activity. "Encourages exercise and well-being," "Stimulates wonder, experimentation, and a feeling of exhilaration," phrases like these give the book it's pedantic feel and sours everything that proceeds it. It's one thing to have a book as a reference for what to do with kids in he great out-of-doors, it's another entirely to have to be told that the exercise will "Stimulate caring and stewardship for living things." And what if it doesn't, is the exercise a failure? Is there something wrong with parent or child? There's little a family can do with these exercises if they don't go as planned but turn around and go home.

Also, the problem with the "Help Me Understand" sections is the presumption that a child will only have one question per activity. If the exposure to, say, a spider's web or a bird's feather opens a child's imagination there is clearly an opportunity to explore further on line or at the library. As the review copy I received failed to include the Resources and Recommended Reading listed in the table of contents it is hard to judge whether this book is all that helpful in supplemental guidance. Still, to only address one bit of trivia per outing seems a bit shallow.

The publisher feels the activities will appeal to children from 4 to 9 but I can tell you most of what I saw wouldn't float with my girls beyond the age of 7 or so. So it's for the curious, the very young, and the parents who might not otherwise introduce their children to nature without a guide.

The Adventures of Sir Lancelot the Great

by Gerald Morris
illustrations by Aaron Renier
Houghton Mifflin 2008

It's been way too long since I read me some Arthurian legend. And while I should probably go back and remind myself of everything I've forgotten from T.H. White's The Once and Future King, or perhaps Roger Lance Green's King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table (with it's spiffy new Puffin Classics edition), it was more fun to get Gerald Morris's take on the French knight aimed at the young reader crowd.

Fun is key here. Morris has neatly selected a series of tales from Lancelot's part in the legends and presented them as a series of adventures that begin with his inadvertently spectacular arrival at Arthur's court to his days where he has grown weary of the burden of being Sir Lancelot. Along the way he meets challengers to his title as unbeaten, ladies who hold him hostage until he chooses one for a wife, and in the end, defender of the innocence of the queen.

Ah, yes, Guinevere. There's no mention of Lancelot's secret affair here, and nothing else unsavory that might scare off young boys (and girls, to be fair) who might be getting their first introduction to the Arthurian legends. Guine isn't even mentioned by name, she's simply the queen. All in all there is a very sanitized, safe feeling about these adventures, but that doesn't make them any less enjoyable.

The humorous illustrations, both inside and on the cover, are an appropriate indication of what the reader can expect. In some ways, the book's lineage feels closer to Monty Python than any of the traditional prose or poetry of legend. It's hard not to see the rampaging John Cleese at times as Lancelot goes through his paces, until you come across one of Renier's illustrations and are confronted with an entirely different, but equally humorous, character.

This is the first is what is promised as a series, the next up this fall being The Adventures of Sir Givret the Short. If I were a boy I'd be looking forward to these.

Wait a tick! I am a boy!

A Joker and a Jack

Uncle Shelby's Zoo: Don't Bump the Glump! and Other Fantasies
by Shel Silverstein
originally published by HMH Publications Inc. (Playboy) 1963
HarperCollins 2008









My Dog May Be a Genius
by Jack Prelutsky
HarperCollins / Greenwillow 2008













In these waning days of his tenure as Children's Poet Laureate, Jack Prelutsky and his publishers (who also happen to be Silverstien's publisher) give us another of his larger poetry omnibuses. For as much as I like to pick away at Prelutsky I have to give the man credit for his consistency and his ability to deliver the exact tone of poem that children like to read over and over.

There's hardly any subject new under the sun when it comes to topics for poetry but "A Letter From Camp" sounds a bit too close to Allen Sherman's "Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah" for my comfort. And then there's "The Underwater Marching Band" which had a cadence that, I swear, made me start humming along with Sandra Boynton's (of all people) "The Uninvited Loud Precision Band."

Rife with puns and wordplay, fart jokes and concrete poems, Prelutsky provides an ample smorgasbord for young palates.

I Thought I Saw

I thought I saw BBBBBBBBBBB
dive down into the CCCCCCC.
Could I believe my own II?
I'm not so sure, I'm not YY.

That would be eleven bees, seven seas, two eyes, too wise. As we say around the house; pretty clever, toilet lever.

Then he's got stuff that comes off like a cross between Hilaire Belloc Greek wrestling with Ogden Nash in front of the hearth, with a tip o' the hat to William Stieg's CDB:

A Bear is Not Disposed

A bear is not disposed
to dressing up in clothes,
not even underwear,
A bear likes being bare.

Indeed. Emphasize any one word in that last line like an actor's exercise for a variety of meanings.

* * *

Shel Silverstein was his own dog, so to speak. His early years were spent drawing cartoons of army life, as well as writing and drawing his observations for Playboy magazine. He also wrote lyrics to something like 800 songs that were recorded by people as diverse as Johnny Cash ("A Boy Named Sue"), The Irish Rovers ("The Unicorn"), and Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show ("The Cover of the Rolling Stone").

I point this out because I want to show off how much I know about Uncle Shelby. No! Wait! I point this out because there's something about the spirit of Shel Silverstien that comes though most of his work, that sense of the absurd married to the real. I say most of his work because occasionally that spirit is missing, for whatever reason, and in the case of the reissue of Don't Bump the Glump! I feel the spirit has left the building.

Of course, the spirit did leave the building in 1999 when Silverstein died, and I half-suspect this book wouldn't have been reissued if he were still with us. Maybe I'm wrong, because his Evil Eye enterprise renewed the copyright. It isn't that it's bad, but it feels early, like a man working out his style, and doing so on Playboy's payroll.

Most of what we have are short little poems about imaginary beasties, each with its own little watercolor illustration to go with. One that hit me like a ton of bricks is the following. I could have sworn I've actually heard a recoding of Uncle Shelby playing his guitar and singing to this. Is this a buried childhood memory, or something my synapses concocted on their own.

Slithergadee

The Slithergadee has crawled out of the sea.
He may catch the others, but he won't catch me.
No you won't catch me, old Slitherdagee
You mat catch the others, but you wo---

From the man who wrote the song "I Got Stoned and I Missed It" and was posthumously admitted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2002. Thanks, Shel

* * *

Check out the Poetry Friday round-up this week over at A Wrung Sponge.

Me Hungry!

by Jeremy Tankard
Candlewick 2008

Edwin the Caveboy is hungry, but Ma and Pa Cavepeople are busy (Pa is trying to figure out how to navigate a peanut with a club, Ma's got a gaggle of younger kids to deal with), so Edwin decides to go hunting for himself!

Rabbit hides, Porcupine is too sharp, Tiger is too mean, it looks like Edwin will go hungry until he comes across a Mastodon who shares his hunger and together they go in search of food. Feasting together on apples, Edwin calls out "We busy!" when called to dinner by his Pa.

Tankard knocked it out of the park last year with Grumpy Bird, his picture book featuring a bird with an attitude problem. This time around the only thing holding back my enthusiasm is that the illustrations feel a bit thin. They're lacking the density, the texture of the multiple layers. Same charming characters, same great, vibrant colors. Same playfulness. Perhaps someone suggested that the backgrounds in Grumpy Bird didn't "track well" with younger readers. I heard someone say that. I scoffed when I heard it, to the dismay of the adult scoffee.

To those who might be worried about Edwin's "cavespeak," believing it might be as horrid as the goo-goo Junie B. Jones dialect, fear not. Everyone in Me Hungry! speaks the patois of subject-verb -- adults, animals, and kids -- implying the early development of language instead of cloying malapropisms. It works, it's fun, nothing cloying about it.

Want to see a recent interview with Jeremy Tankard? You should, he's a great dude, and the Imps over at 7 Impossible Things Before Breakfast pull together a great one with the man. Go here, and tell them I sent you.

You can also see my interview with Jeremy from a while back here.

All Aboard: A Traveling Alphabet

concept by Chris L. Demarest
illustrated by Bill Mayer
McElderry Books 2008

Alphabet books. If asked, how many adults (outside the world of publishing or kidlit blogging) could name a favorite alphabet book they had as a child? I did ask people, casually, in a non-scientific poll and not one could name an alphabet book they loved.

"Wasn't there a Dr. Seuss alphabet book? I probably had that."

They might have been thinking about On Beyond Zebra, which goes beyond the normal alphabet in Seussian style. The fact is they don't generally remember alphabet books. The reason is that they hold such a temporary spot in our progression as readers, a mere blip on or reading radar. The reinforcement of shapes and sounds, with images to match, can't quite lodge itself in the same memory sensors as those books that hold deeper meaning for us.

Which might be why it seems like everyone wants to come out with a new alphabet book every season, because who can recall the last memorable alphabet book?

To answer my own question there is one alphabet book I do remember, and that Sendak's Alligators All Around, part of the Nutshell Library. What I remember about it is there's more story than letter reinforcement, the alliteration of letters and sounds, and the plain fact of alligators doing silly human-like things. I think what I like most about it, what I remember, is that it's less interested in teaching me as a young reader, and more about entertaining me.

All to say that while I don't necessarily hate the alphabet book, I sometimes don't understand the point of one. Some serve as a game ("can you find the letter C?") and some are about reinforcing the sounds (those alligators again) but so many seem to be designed as clever concepts for adults to enjoy. It's a bit like the way modern animated feature films include adult jokes for the those in the audience who are sitting with young ones, a way to entertain the family. But what adult needs to have an alphabet book similarly made palatable to their tastes in order for them to show an interest with a child?

Let's get around to the book at hand. All Aboard! is an alphabet book in the style of romantic travel posters. Each page features some element of travel -- the smokestack of a steam steamer, a canoe on still water, a biplane from above -- each with a letter of the alphabet worked into the design in some fashion. They also include a word beginning with the letter appropriate for each illustration, for example the word "jump" along with a fish leaping to swallow a fishing fly.

This last example is a perfect illustration for what I don't like about the execution of this concept. The J in this case is supposed to be found in the shape of the fish, the way it's tail flips to create the tail of the letter. The problem is that it isn't an exact letter shape but a general shape and as such isn't obvious from looking at the picture.

Other letters are hidden in some clever ways that make them almost impossible to find. The H in the highway illustration is made from the edge of the highway, the double yellow line down the center, and the long shadow of a cacti plant crossing both. It's not impossible to see once you know it's there, but using the edge of the highway is a sophisticated form of shape recognition that might be just outside the bounds of young eyes that are still getting used to more than 2-dimensions.

The concept of using old travel posters as an illustration style I think is great, but since this is probably aimed at adults it would have been nice if the illustrations were a bit more true to their source. A skier making a downhill run, the S in the trail behind the skis, would have benefited from a bit of something that made it look a little more... like travel poster. Instead we get a skier against a white background which, besides being dull, doesn't convey the sense of the concept. All it would have taken is an alpine ridge, a stylized mountain edge in the background, perhaps a Swiss chalet. Similarly, the previously mentioned Highway illustration would have made more sense with a retro station wagon loaded with camping gear going through the desert instead of what we do get, an 18-wheeler making a hairpin turn.

If that sounds like I'm being nit-picky remember, I'm part of the intended audience. There's little point in making the illustration resemble travel posters from the early part of the 20th century for those born in the 21st who have no frame of reference.

I find it amusing -- that is, I smirk when I think about it -- that this book as a credit for the concept and another for the illustrator. It isn't quite a writing credit, is it? And in the forward the artist talks about the challenges of working with the editor on how to fit the alphabet letters into the illustrations. So if the artist and the editor are doing the heavy lifting... is it really worth mentioning who came up with the concept?

Yeah, I've got this idea for an alphabet book. Something with letters somehow worked into old travel posters. You guys can hammer out the details, I'll be in Jamaica drinking up my advance if you have any questions...

It's a bit like a Hollywood-type saying "Let's do Die Hard on a boat!" and getting story credit for it in the movie and ten grand for each word in his pitch. Is this the future of picture books, "conceptualists" instead of authors? I hope not.

The Pigeon Wants a Puppy

by Mo Willems
Hyperion 2008

Well, I think the pigeon has jumped the shark.

I know, I know, there are many out there, legions of you perhaps, who feel that Mo and his beloved blue bird can do no wrong. To be fair, it isn't a bad book, it's just that the pigeon seems to have... changed.

First, we're seeing more facial expressions in the pigeon, and many of them seem rather feminine to me. Nothing wrong with the pigeon a boy or a girl, or gender neutral, but this time around it feels more pronounced. That in and of itself isn't a problem. But the punchline is that the pigeon doesn't know what a puppy is and is frightened when it finally meets one and, well, it acts a bit too girly in its fear. It isn't that a boy can't be frightened of a big dog, or that kids don't like the concept of a pet more than the reality, it's that when the expressions leading up to the reveal feel feminine, a stereotypical girl reaction leaves a bad taste.

Am I off base, reading too much into this? Relax, old man! It's just a picture book for kids, I hear you say. I still say the pigeon has some other problems.

We began with a pigeon who wanted to drive a bus. Well, that's just silly, and as much as it pleaded with us we wouldn't let it drive the bus. There was a great little hint that we were supposed to talk back to the pigeon because the bus driver told us not to let anyone drive the bus.

Next, pigeon finds a hot dog, which had a cute little ducky to act as a foil, asking all sort of annoying questions. I couldn't help thinking about a bird eating another animal's meat, but that's the kind of thing only an adult would worry about. Still, the pigeon's antics amuse and entertain in keeping with our previous experience.

Then the pigeon wanted to stay up late, which is a common problem among children and adults. The pigeon uses every trick in the book and there's a creeping sense that perhaps the pigeon isn't so unique. Yes, kids want to drive the bus, but they cannot, but pigeons should even less so. And kids are always finding things on the ground to put in their mouths, but a pigeon and a hot dog are a wacky combination. Not wanting to go to sleep? That feels a bit to pedestrian for the pigeon. You could have substituted a character from any other book and it wouldn't have made a difference.

Now the pigeon wants a puppy. It has some unrealistic ideas about what puppy ownership means - watering it like a plant, riding around on it bareback -- but this doesn't feel odd enough. Of course, the punchline of this book makes more sense and I almost would have preferred the book start there.

But there's something else going on here, something a bit more strange. The pigeon is acting like it has an awareness of itself that goes beyond the book. It's a hard thing to explain, it's almost as if the pigeon is aware of its popularity in the world and has become spoiled like a star. There's a lack of innocence, almost as if it's playing for the camera. These closer, more expressive (yet still simple) line drawings are showing us a pigeon who knows its being watched. The coy cuteness is more Actors Studio than playground, the anger is studied. The bird is veering dangerously close to self-parody inviting young readers to say "Okay, we know you're going to get what you want, I guess we can put up with all your mock protesting to find out what happens when you get it."

If you read Mo Willem's blog on a regular basis you will see the sort of adventures kids propose for the pigeon as he posts some of the choice ones he gets from time to time. They capture the absurdity of the pigeon books, which is what bothers me about ...a Puppy. Don't Let the Pigeon Punch Himself sounds a whole lot more fun!

I know adults and children can't get enough of pigeon, and I was among them for a while. I don't think the franchise has capsized just yet, but that bird is going to have to pop off with something truly unexpected next time or else it's time to abandon ship.

How I Learned Geography

by Uri Shulevitz
FSG 2008

When his family is exiled from Poland, a young boy and his parents take refuge in nearby Soviet controlled Turkestan. Too poor to afford bread, one day the boy's father comes home with an enormous map of the Eastern Hemisphere. At first the boy is resentful of his father's actions because of the hunger, but the next day -- and many after -- the boy loses himself in the map, memorizing place names and imagining himself all over the world. In the end the boy forgives his father because he realizes the map gives back much more than the temporary fulfilment of physical hunger.

Based on Shulevitz's own experiences it's hard to figure out whether this is a personal memoir or a story about loving geography. Of course it's both, but it enters that same between world of another expat, Peter Sis, with his recent bio-memoir-picture book The Wall. The story reads like an old tale, partially because of its austere setting, but the flights of fancy also add that sense of something Old World. Shulevitz tells us a variation on the old Yiddish expression that sometimes a person needs a story more than food, the idea that feeding the mind can have greater value at times. Indeed, for a boy living the life of a refugee, having a singular point of refuge from his daily plight isn't such a bad trade-off in troubling times.

Shulevitz provides us with some biographical notes at the end, in addition to a pair of drawing he made as a boy that show his interest and development as an artist. One is a map drawn on the back of an envelope (all he had to draw on) done from memory of the large map, the other a cartoon he drew as a teen living in Paris that echoes one of the scenes from the book. The connection between his life, the influence of the map, and his drawings all come together in this bit of back matter (more back material at the end of a picture book!) and give an already strong book a weightiness it might not have had otherwise.

Poetry Friday: my sweet old etcetera

from America At War
poems selected by Lee Bennett Hopkins, illustrated by Stephen Alcorn
McElderry Books 2008

Yeah, I'm back in the Friday Poetry round-up, for the month at least. Can't let National Poetry Month drift without mentioning some sort of poetry. I'm taking the liberty this week of cross-posting two different poems from the same collection because, well, just because. Does poetry need a reason?

This collection, America At War, groups poems by the wars America has participated in one way or another. A while back I mentioned this collection and included a Carl Sandburg poem, one I'm pretty sure I had to memorize in seventh grade. This time around we have a little e.e. cummings, and despite the fact that it's about a letter from the front, I like the refrain and the subtle bawdiness at the end.

my sweet old etcetera
e.e. cummings

my sweet old etcetera
aunt lucy during the recent

war could and what
is more did tell you just
what everybody was fighting

for,
my sister

isabel created hundreds
(and
hundreds) of socks not to
mention shirts fleaproof earwarmers

etcetera wristers etcetera, my
mother hoped that

i would die etcetera
bravely of course my father used
to become hoarse talking about how it was
a privilege and if only he
could meanwhile my

self etcetera lay quietly
in the deep mud et

cetera
(dreaming,
et
cetera, of
Your smile
eyes knees and of your Etcetera)

Yes, quite. Dreaming of your Etcetera. People should sign love notes to one another that way. And why not?

Check out the Poetry Friday round-up this week over at Becky's Book Reviews.
My other post is lurking over at is lurking over at fomagrams.

Keep Your Eye On The Kid

The Early Years of Buster Keaton
by Catherine Brighton
Roaring Brook 2008

I'm all about giving kids a more rounded cultural education and I think film is one of those areas where American kids are really at a deficit. I once met a teen who was planning to study film when he graduated high school who had never heard of Orson Wells, couldn't name a single film from the 1960's, didn't think black-and-white movies were any good because "they didn't have special effects or any good equipment," and told me that the best film ever made -- without a hint of sarcasm -- was Goonies. I have since run into many kids of many ages who haven't got a clue of movies made before they were born. The only solution is the same for what we expect when teaching kids about historical figures in science, politics, and other areas of cultural history: start 'em young.

Brighton's picture book recounting of the early years in the life of silent comedian Buster Keaton is a great start in that direction. Told in the first person, which I thought was neat, we get the years from Keaton's birth to his early days in movies. He starts taking a fall as an infant down the stairs while traveling with his Vaudeville parents. He picks up his name from Houdini who uses the slang of the time for taking a tumble, or a buster. Despite laws aimed at keeping children under the age of seven off the stage his parents have him doing his prats as part of the act. At a young age he discovers the modern technological entertainment of the day -- movies, just coming into their own -- and decides that's the future. A falling out with his dad causes him to light out on his own and, with a little luck, gets started on his career in silent movies.

In the back matter (is it me, or is there more back matter appearing at the end of picture books these days?) Brighton explains that Keaton was a known storyteller, prone to exaggerating or making up facts about his life. His getting sucked out of a window during a tornado and landing without a scratch, included here for example. Makes a good story, dovetails nicely with one of his most famous gags in a silent movie when a house wall falls but misses him as he's standing where the open window lands. But is it true? No one knows for sure. Does it help balance out the story arc in a technical sense? Most definitely. Does it belong in a non-fiction picture book where a young reader is getting their introduction about an historical figure? I'm not so sure. And what of the unsubstantiated partial truths -- the possibility that Houdini didn't meet Keaton until he was grown, long after he acquired his nickname? Is this merely a way of introducing Keaton to an audience who might know Houdini and can better connect this new person in a familiar setting?

Brighton's story sense and illustration style are perfect for this book. There is a certain Little Nemo in Slumberland look to the illustrations -- rich in details and physically exciting -- that rings true with the era of the telling.

Despite some of the factual misgivings, I think this book and a couple of his short movies -- One Week at the very least - would make for a fine introduction to a slapstick comedian many (myself included) feel was much better than Chaplin.

Care for a sample? Here's are the last 7 minutes of Keaton's One Week

And if you want something a bit more substantial, rent Sherlock Jr. My preference is for the restored edition with the Club Foot Orchestra soundtrack.

Daisy Dawson is On Her Way

by Steve Voake
illustrated by Jessica Meserve
Candlewick 2008

Daisy is a daydreaming little girl who can't seem to get to school on time because she gets distracted along the way. There are worms to move off the sidewalk and butterflies to hold and release. And on this particular day she finds that something strange has happened, that she can speak with and understand animals. First it's with Boom, the dog, then with the hamsters at schools, then the horse and the barn cat, all with only the slightest bit of surprise on both sides.

Daisy isn't just a talker, she's a nurturer. When the hamsters get out of their cage at school she hears them exclaim with delight as they discover yummies in someone's lunch. She lures them back to their cage with a promise of a snack from her own lunch later. And with Boom she always backs an extra him a sandwich to feed him while on her way to school.

Trouble comes when Boom disappears and Daisy discovers that he's being held by the new dog catcher, one step away from disappearing for good. With help from the other animals they go on a rescue mission to save Boom. There's a happy ending, but not one the reader would have guessed, and Daisy's world is put to right. At the end Daisy muses with her father on the ability to talk to animals and there's a suggestion that it's something children can do naturally until one day when the magic of it wears off. For the time being, Daisy is enjoying her stay in this fantasy world.

I notice that the spine of this book is labeled with a "No. 1" implying that we've got more of Daisy coming at us in the future. There's an easy-breezy simplicity to the storytelling that makes it a good fit for young readers so I'm not troubled by this being the first in a series. I'm not sure how I'm going to feel if future books are always about Daisy talking to animals because I think that can wear thin pretty fast, but if talking animals happen to feature as part of stories dealing with a young girl and the flights of her imagination then I see no problems.

The Chicken of the Family

by Mary Amato
illustrated by Delphine Durand
Putnam 2008

It is the sacred duty of the eldest child to deviously taunt the youngest sibling. If one can do so with the aid of middle siblings, all the better. It is equally the duty of the youngest sibling to both believe the most gullible lies delivered by the oldest sibling and find an equally clever, but innocent, way to get their revenge.

And so we have The Chicken of the Family.

Henrietta is woken from her sleep and told by her oldest sister Kim that she isn't really a member of the family, she is a chicken, acquired from the farm down the road. Middle sister Claire's job is to go along with the joke, the support of two people saying the same thing giving the statement the weight of truth. Henrietta doesn't believe it's true until she wakes up in the morning and finds an egg in her bed and a couple of feathers on the floor.

Certain now that she is truly a chicken she runs away, down the road to the farm where she takes her rightful place in the chicken yard. Henrietta has no qualms adjusting to her new life as a chicken, scratching and taking a dust bath and playing follow the leader.

Kim and Claire arrive with a directive from their parents to admit their prank and bring Henrietta home. The only problem is that Henrietta is enjoying herself too much, feels she really is a chicken, and refuses to follow. Exasperated, Kim decides to call for back-up from her parents but Claire has decided to stay -- she's broken away from her sister's scheme after seeing what fun it is to be a chicken. Henrietta and Claire do trundle on home just in time to see their older sister getting chewed out for causing this fiasco.

"Sometimes it's good to be a chicken."

Indeed, sometimes embracing your gullibility is no different than embracing what makes you unique. Accepting what her sisters have told her, Henrietta is free to discover what it means to be different. She knows she's not a chicken on some level, just as she doesn't run away to get her sister in trouble, but along the way she's learned something about herself, about another culture (if you will), and about the things others will do to control you.

Yes, this is a deeper reading that a light and fluffy picture book deserves, but it's true: sometimes it is good to be a chicken.

Trainstop

by Barbara Lehman
Houghton Mifflin 2008

On a train trip between cityscapes young girls watches as her view in a black tunnel is replaced by a vibrant countryside. When the train is flagged down mysteriously the girl notices she is the only one on the train who isn't asleep. Stepping off the train she finds a group of people gathered around a tree where a person and their plane have become lodged. What isn't apparent until she reaches the tree is that the people are all tiny, as if the remained frozen the height they were from her train window perspective. While the people are as real as the girl, the plane in the tree is one of those balsa wood planes with a rubber band powering the propeller. Once she has rescued the tiny pilot she returns to the train and resumes her ride home, out the of the fantasy and out of the tunnel, back to the city where she lives.

Out in front of her townhouse, standing in her stone yard, she looks up and sees the rescued pilot and a co-pilot flying toward her. They come with a gift of thanks, a small seedling for an apple tree that is planted in the crack in her stone yard. As a parting shot the girl sits on her stoop admiring her now-grown tree while all over the city other trees have begun sprouting up, no doubt from kindred daydreaming souls looking to return nature to the cities.

Lehman set herself an impossible bar with The Red Book a few years back and, unfairly perhaps, everything since has been measured against that amazing snake-eating-its-tale fantasy. If the impression -- mine at least -- was that her subsequent books (Museum Trip, Rainstorm) were increasingly weaker attempts to capture lighting in a bottle, Trainstop manages to stand apart from the others, on its own and with very sturdy legs. As with her previous books Lehman mines the theme of a child's daydream world, but here the idea of an fantasy taking place while the rest of the world sleeps, coupled with the message of bringing nature back to the cities, is perhaps the strongest, most direct message delivered yet. Where in previous books the children imagine or discover worlds for their own purposes and keeping, Trainstop gives us a child looking to share her fantasy with the world. It's almost a subtle environmental message, a quiet Lorax making a last call on those with eyes and ears enough to still listen.

For those unfamiliar with Lehman's work, the book is as wordless as her previous books, filled with the same thick-outlined ligne claire illustrations that are her trademark. Probably the simplest of her picture books to date, but no less engaging. I think what I'd really like to see is what Lehman can do with the long-form: graphic novels. Her sense of pacing, her imagination, I think make her an ideal candidate for an extended fantasy romp a la Sara Varon's Robot Dreams or, on a more picture book level, Regis Faller's The Adventures of Polo.

I can hope, can't I?

Hogwash

by Arthur Geisert
Walter Lorraine / Houghton Mifflin 2008

The children in Pig Village trek up the hill to wallow in the official mud hole. After their frolic they move on to the paint yard where colored liquid is dispensed onto the ground for a more vibrant wallow. As their playtime comes to an end the parents of Pig Village meet them to help supervise their collective bathing in a large agitation tub, followed by being hung out to dry on long clothes lines, and then it's all back to Pig Village, one and all.

Yes, it's wash day in hog land, or Hogwash, as the play-on-words title suggests. And as a synonym for nonsense there's probably no better title for the goings on here. Geisert's wordless picture books (not a graphic novel, mind you) traffic in these silent movies concerning the goings on of anthropomorphic pigs. He produces color etchings for illustrations, a process that renders lines a little rougher than most drawings, here giving the artwork a fussy sort of distance from being too clean.

I have to admit, there's a certain quality to Geisert's books that leave me cold, and it might be the lack of warmth in his art that counteracts the whimsy. I wasn't as impressed with his previous book Oops! because it attempted to slow down a situation -- a house falling apart -- into a book-length set of stills that made a dynamic situation stagnant. At least with Hogwash there is more of a linear narrative, and on the whole I enjoyed it.

This time around I did find one illustration that caused me to wonder about the scale of the pigs in this land. At the point where the piglets are being sent to line dry there is a wind-driven motor made with two magnets that looks like a child's science project. It's the most basic motor that can be made, and it's hooked to a power coil that appears to be copper wire wound around a wooden thread spool. Backing up, looking at the communal bath, their water is heated in what looks like a giant tea pot -- or is it a normal sized teapot?

Are these miniature pigs? Toys? If they are to this scale, these pigs would be about a quarter of an inch tall. I thought that could be an interesting reveal to first give you a world of unusual pigs and then to show you that they're smaller than insects, a world within a world as it were.

It's fun, I liked it, I just wasn't as wowed as some people get over Geisert's books.