Getting started, Wizard of Oz

Dear Aunt Debbie,

You started giving me fabulous picture books when I was a little kid, and have been an extraordinary book recommender all my life. Now that I'm a mom (of Eleanor, age 3, and Isabel, 7 months), your recommendations and gifts have become a vital part of our home library. After the umpteenth conversation with parent friends of mine about what we're reading with Eleanor these days, and the thousandth time I've recommended a book you sent us, I think it's time we take our conversation public.

For now, every time we mention a book, we'll link to it via the website Indie Bound, which will let readers buy the books at a local independent bookstore. Perhaps in the future we can link to your awesome store, Child's Play -- Eleanor still remembers our visit there last summer, seeing all the books we have at home and greeting them like old friends: "There's Frances! There's Nora! There's Max and Ruby!"

It's funny that you've started by posting about Piggie Pie, because it's not one of my favorites. I find the drawings a little disturbing -- they're so close-up, in your face, like the camera has gone crazy, and I think the witch is creepy. My parents have a copy of it, and we haven't read it in a while, so I'll go back and revisit it with Eleanor the next time we're over there. I honestly don't remember her reaction to it, just mine. But I find myself pulling away from reading her books I don't like. Sometimes at the library she picks something dreadful, and then of course that's the book she wants me to read her three times a day for the next three weeks.

We are still obsessed at our house with one of your best ever recommendations: the abridged L. Frank Baum Wizard of Oz illustrated by Charles Santore.


Wizard of Oz (Santore illustrations)

It has the most extraordinary watercolor paintings -- bright, vivid, imaginative. They feel informed by the movie, but not of it. Eleanor spends half an hour at a time sitting on the floor turning the pages and just looking at all the pictures, and she wants us to read her pieces of the book (it takes several sittings to finish) all the time. We play "Wizard of Oz" a lot these days: she's Dorothy, of course, and I'm the Tin Woodsman; Isabel is Toto, the fate I suppose of younger siblings everywhere. The only downside of the gorgeous big pages of this book is that she's ripped the bottoms of a few by turning them on her own so much. I've already bought five copies of it to give to friends with kids the same age or slightly older -- it's just so beautiful. Thanks again for that one.

Love, Annie