After the hurricane

Dear Annie,

I know some of those September 11 books and will devote a post to them soon.  Right now, we're about to be on the road trying to get home after Hurricane Irene blasted up the I-95 corridor just before we were going to take that route home to DC.  So we're still in New England, not badly blown about, but I thought I'd do a short list of hurricane books.

Time of Wonder, by Robert McCloskey, which we've written about here (look again at those great windy illustrations!) is the first that comes to mind.  The build-up, the drama, the aftermath, complete with downed tree.
Hurricane, by David Wiesner (whose works we've explored here and here), is another picture book which does the storm, then lingers on the fantasy world of playing in a fallen tree.

And where would a good natural phenomenon be without Ms. Frizzle?
The Magic School Bus Inside a Hurricane gives the explanation for what's going on in Joanna Cole's usual breezy funny fact-filled style.  The bus starts as a hot-air balloon, then transforms into the airplane on the cover of the book. 

These picture books are about hurricanes which have their scary moments, but are something to get through basically unscathed.  On a much more serious level, for kids about ten and up, Dark Water Rising by Marian Hale is a fictional account of the 1900 Galveston Texas hurricane.  Wikipedia calls it the most deadly natural disaster ever in the U.S.: thousands of people died when Galveston was submerged by a hurricane.  The book follows one 16 year-old boy through a horrifying night as he watches much of the city being swept away. 

A number of books have been written -- from picture books about lost dogs to a magical/fantasy book for teens -- about Katrina, and they keep coming out.  I'm without scanner or my bookshelves right now, so can't explore that route -- but they're out there.

In the meantime, I'm off to pack the car, hit the road, and inspect the damage back home.  Am worried about all those books in the store staying dry...

Love,

Deborah

"I only like princesses."

Dear Aunt Debbie,

The Fairy's Return is next on our list of chapter books after The Voyages of Doctor Dolittle.  Eleanor really likes the cover, natch.  I'm glad to know that it's a little post-modern (though what else would I expect from the woman who bought me the anthology Stories for Free Children?).  In the last month or so, Eleanor has been hitting the princess obsession hard, and it's driving me a little crazy.

We've written before (here and here, among other places) about the inescapable allure of princess stories, and the ways in which the Disney machine has commodified what might have started as a natural interest into a full-scale kid lifestyle.  Eleanor's 4th birthday brought a host of new princess products into our house (mostly courtesy of her friends, who got her what she asked for), and with them and the post-birthday letdown has come a period of trying behavior.  At preschool, she told one of her teachers that she was bored with Circle Time and only wanted "to talk about princesses."  Coming home last week, she was asked by a neighbor if she liked cats: "No, I only like princesses."  It doesn't seem to matter to her that this isn't objectively true: the Doctor Dolittle she's so heavily into right now is about the farthest thing possible from a princess story, and over the weekend she had a great time at the Brooklyn Children's Museum watching sea anemones, then painted a pretty awesome underwater scene featuring a jellyfish.  But there's something about the marketing of Disney Princess that has infiltrated the way she conceptualizes what she is, and should be, interested in.

In short, I am the target audience for Peggy Orenstein's new book, Cinderella Ate My Daughter.  I bought it this weekend at our local independent bookstore after reading Eleanor yet another godawful flat story from a Disney Princess Golden Book.  (Our bargain is that I'll read them to her in the store or the library, but we won't take them home because they're badly written.)  I'm only a couple of chapters in, but let me tell you, Orenstein speaks to my soul.  She's recycling some of the material that has appeared in the NYT magazine over the last decade (I linked to my favorite of her pieces here), and has expanded and added new iterations of the same basic idea: Yes, your experience as a parent that girls' choices of what to play with and how to play are being steadily pinkened and narrowed is correct.  This is what's happening, and it may seem fairly innocent, but it's actually kind of scary.  I am filled with righteous outrage!

And so again, what do I do about it?

My mother-in-law gave Eleanor a new alternate-princess book for her birthday, and she's been enjoying it.  Babette Cole's Princess Smartypants is written in the mode of The Paper Bag Princess.   In this story, Princess Smartypants wants to hang out with her monster pets and stay single ("She enjoyed being a Ms.") rather than marry any of her many suitors.  She sets them all impossible tasks, then watches happily as they fail.  Then Prince Swashbuckle shows up.  He seems a good match for her -- he too can roller-disco till dawn -- but when he passes all her tests, she turns him into a toad with a magic kiss and gets to live happily alone again. 

On the one hand, I like the humor here, and the reversal of expectations, and Princess Smartypants's overalls and monsters.  On the other, her name bugs me: "Smartypants," in my experience, isn't a positive thing to be called.  (Did I mention that several of the princess-y things Eleanor got for her birthday were made by a brand called "Klutz"?)  Also, she's kind of a jerk to Prince Swashbuckle, who looks a little smarmy but just does what she's asked him to do. 

Reading this book, among all the others, makes me wonder what I'm really looking for.  Do I want a better model of princess, or just less princess in general?  Am I overreacting to what will turn out to be a nice little pre-feminist stage?  Thank goodness for Isabel's taste in books and products, which has lately expanded from dog ("Aaa-ooooo!") to monkey ("Mun-kee!").  Animals feel like such a relief.

Love, Annie

Aack! New Baby!

Dear Annie,

Before I go on to new sibling books, I have one last discovery to add to the Best-Ever cover change. Remember the cover for
Best-Ever Big Sister, which I thought had been unchanged? Well, guess what arrived at the store today?:

The change isn't as drastic as going from an African-American kid to blond hair and blue eyes, as they did with the brother (see 6/1 post) . But she still isn't who she used to be.

You ask about new sibling books. The Best-Evers are fine, and good for toddlers, complete with lift-the-flaps. They fall into the see-what-I-can-do category of big sibling books: reassure older sibling by celebrating his/her accomplishments, plant the idea that older child will be able to teach younger. My favorite of this type currently in print is Babies Can't Eat Kimchee, addressed quite nicely by you on 5/28.

Then there are the informational books. New baby will come. Mom and Dad will go to hospital and come back. Small baby won't be able to do anything. etc. Joanna Cole (yes, the Magic School Bus person) is an author who can do those books very straightforwardly, and they can be useful to introduce the subject:
These books have also gone through a redesign: these are the re-illustrated versions of what were books with bright red or blue covers.

Then there are the I-don't-want-this-baby-here books. They're often the best literature of the lot, because they tell good stories. See especially A Baby Sister for Frances in your 5/22 post. And the favorite in our house was always
Julius the Baby of the World by Kevin Henkes (two syllables) with the flamboyant Lilly (of the Purple Plastic Purse) in the role of obnoxious older sibling. Much of the book is her very funny but intense comments on how much she dislikes new baby Julius. In the end, she's offended by a cousin making similar criticisms, and she rises to Julius' defense. Illustrations show that the siblings become fast friends. Because Lilly's feelings are so raw, this is not the first book you want to read with your soon-to-be older sibling. But for an older child, or some months into the new baby's life, it's very funny.

One other, new last year, which doesn't quite fit any of my categories above:
Surprise Soup, by Mary Ann Rodman tells the story of two brothers and a father making soup for their mother as they await her arrival home with the new baby. Younger brother Kevie is constantly being put down or ignored by the older, and even Dad doesn't hear what he says -- Kevie's the only one who knows Mom's secret ingredient. All turns out well in the end, and it's a very cozy family story. Also a good reminder that life doesn't always revolve around the baby.