Guest blogger: Matthew Swanson gets excited by stuff in Crabtree

Dear Aunt Debbie,

Your family takes awesome vacations. Best of luck to Bob and Lizzie on their Rosemary Sutcliff-inspired trip!

For a while now, I've wanted to have Matthew Swanson write a guest blog. I went to college with Matthew and his wife Robbi Behr, the dynamic duo behind the kids' book and music subscription Bobbledy Books and a host of other projects. We've mentioned their Build Your Own President book, and our guest blogger Faith raved about My Henderson Robot, a favorite in my house as well.

Here's Matthew, with one of his recent favorites:

Oh my gosh, I love this book.

It’s called Crabtree. It’s by Jon and Tucker Nichols. 

I love it for various reasons.

1) It’s really big. And it has smooth, thick paper. It’s really nice to hold in your hands.

2) It’s about a guy named Crabtree. He’s really funny. He’s downright hapless, which means he’s pretty confused all the time and can’t find what he’s looking for and needs lots of help. Which kind of reminds me of me. The specific thing Crabtree needs help with is finding his false teeth. He decides that the best way to go about finding his missing teeth is to go through every single thing he owns.

Here's Crabtree. Isn't he lovable?

3) Because Crabtree is going through every single thing he owns, every page of the book is full of stuff. All of Crabtree’s stuff. And Crabtree has lots and lots of wonderful stuff. He has hats and helmets, for example.

He has real ducks and his fake ducks (otherwise known as decoys).

Here are his ants (most of them, anyways).

And all the things he owns that are yellow.

This book is not big on plot, but it's huge on amazing drawings of stuff, stuff weird and unexpected, stuff mundane and sublime. I love the wonky style, the not-quite-perfectly-colored in shapes, and the hilarious captions for each of the drawings.

Seriously, anyone who likes to laugh will like this book, as will anyone who likes to look at other people's stuff. Which means that anyone I've ever met will like this book.

4) (Perhaps you forgot that we were following a numbering scheme, but here we go again.) This book boasts advanced production techniques, including a double gate fold, which allows for so many drawings of stuff that my head nearly explodes with happiness.

5) Just as my head was literally about to pop off of my neck and fly up to the moon in utter delight, I discovered that the dust jacket is actually a poster!

And not just a poster, but a TWO-SIDED poster!

I've read enough about book reviews to know that I'm not supposed to give away the exciting conclusion. But this I will tell you: Crabtree does find his teeth. However, I will not tell you how.

I wish I had written this book, darn it. But since I did not, I'm really glad that Jon and Tucker Nichols did.

The verdict: Two thumbs up. This book is the greatest. I love the art. I love the drawings. I love the humor. And, as already stated, I love the printing techniques and paper. 

This is a book that kids will love looking at (I've never met a kid who doesn't love identifying "stuff" on a page; have you?) and adults will not mind looking at over and over and over again (which is the true measure of success for a children's book in my dad-centric opinion).

Get a copy. Get it now. 

A father of three, Matthew Swanson is the author/publisher behind Bobbledy Books, a picture books and music club for kids he runs with his wife, the illustrator Robbi Behr. His book Babies Ruin Everything will be published by LB Kids in 2016.

Clearly, I need to take Matthew's advice.

Love, Annie

Bobbledy Books: the gift that keeps on arriving

Dear Aunt Debbie,

I love knowing that you're helping guide people's holiday shopping,and are so open to customers' great finds. Who Made This Cake? sounds like a fabulous book, especially for kids who are mesmerized by construction vehicles.

One of the fun things that's been happening here is that both Eleanor and Isabel are working on writing and illustrating books for a contest that's part of our favorite subscription series: Bobbledy Books. It's the creation of married couple Matthew Swanson and Robbi Behr, founders of Idiots'Books (full disclosure: we went to college together). Our guest blogger Faith wrote here about Matthew and Robbi's first foray into children's literature: My Henderson Robot, which is a favorite in our house as well.

I bought the girls a subscription to Bobbledy Books last Christmas, and renewed it this year, as it's been a huge hit. Every couple of months, they get a new book in the mail (stories by Matthew, pictures by Robbi). It is enormous fun to get books in the mail. Way better than pulling out my New Yorker issue every week and getting me to explain what the cover is supposed to mean.

The books themselves are pleasantly loopy: a boy refuses to get out of bed and builds robots in his room to get him food (Bobby and the Robots), a dragon is told that he's not real, and has an existential crisis before realizing his importance to the town around him (The Imaginary Dragon), a girl with an enormous head eats a lot of lollipops and grows other enormous body parts, one at a time, allowing her to develop a variety of special abilities (Henny Wampum Had a Really Big Head). 

When this last one arrived, Eleanor grabbed it, sat down on the couch, and read it straight through. Then Isabel asked me to read it to her three times in a row. I think it may be the next book she memorizes. Once a year, the subscription includes a CD of new children's music by Drew Bunting (another college classmate). The girls' favorite songs from the first album, "I Don't Wanna Brush My Teeth," include "Where Does It Go?" (an imaginative answer to the very good question about toilets) and "Mothra," which appeals particularly to Isabel, with her current penchant for monsters. 

Once a year, Matthew and Robbi send out a book with a title, text on a few pages, and a little bit of art on each page, for subscribers to finish. One kid's completed book is chosen to be published; all kids who enter get their names and one drawing from their book printed in the back of the winning book.The due date for this year's entries -- The Snowmen Below -- is Dec. 15 so the girls are working on finishing theirs this week. (Unfortunately, I seem to have passed on my tendency toward procrastination.)

A good Christmas gift, for those who are looking!

Love, Annie