The staying power of children's books

Dear Aunt Debbie,

Hearing about your work in the store always makes me happy -- so good to know you're there, making excellent book to person connections every day. I've just put the first two books in the Whatever After series on my library hold list -- they sound like a perfect fit for Eleanor, who loved the Sisters Grimm. We're constantly on the lookout now for new middle-grade series to keep her happily in books. Yesterday, she picked up The Lightning Thief, the first Percy Jackson book, and stayed up past midnight to finish it, thrilled and a little frightened by the end. She must have stopped 25 times during the day to tell me, "This is a really good book!" Any other suggestions?

I've been thinking this week about the staying power of children's books. As I'm sure you've noticed, a recent meme on Facebook has people listing 10 books that have stayed with them and/or made a difference in their lives. A little data analysis done by the folks at Facebook was reported in Mother Jones, under the headline, "Almost All the Books People Say Influenced Them Were Written for Children." Many of these are YA titles, with Harry Potter topping the list, but a few are picture books as well.

My own list (when I succumbed to being tagged and posted one) was no exception: half children's books. The one straight-up picture book I chose was Maurice Sendak's fabulous In the Night Kitchen. Immediately, my friend Ann messaged me about this choice. She said she'd bought the book for her daughter on my recommendation, but found aspects of it "surreal and horrifying," and wondered what I did with the Holocaust references. 

Holocaust references! I had to think, because that's something I'd never seen in In the Night Kitchen. I've always read the book in the way my father read it to me, with great joy: as an assertion of individuality, and a triumphing over people who try to force you to be something you're not. The bakers want to put Mickey in the cake, and refer to him as milk, but he breaks out: "I'm not the milk, and the milk's not me! I'm Mickey!" Then he goes farther, finding the real milk and adding it to the batter, helping to create the cake which will feed everyone in the morning: "I'm in the milk and the milk's in me! God bless milk and God bless me!"

Mickey isn't in control at the beginning of his journey -- the fall out of his clothes and into the night kitchen -- but he has gained control by the end. It's always felt to me like a vivid depiction of something children feel all the time, as they are thrown into situations not of their own making. So while I can look at it now and think, oh, the bakers have mustaches and they're trying to put Mickey in an oven, and Sendak wrote other things specifically referencing the Holocaust, I can't feel that that is the meaning behind this book. And of course it's not a meaning a two-year-old would have access to.

Sometimes being a parent requires you to put aside your own references in order to make space for your child's interpretation, or at least to combine your understanding with theirs. I know that my understanding of In the Night Kitchen was shaped by my father, who also read me the Chronicles of Narnia without ever hinting at their Christian underpinnings, but was willing and able to discuss that meaning with me when I figured it out later.

This goes beyond books as well, of course. Will is fascinated by airplanes, and points up at them every time he hears one go by overhead. This past week, with the anniversary of September 11th hovering, I was terribly aware of the resonances of airplanes in a cloudless blue sky, even as I watched Will's enjoyment of them.

This week, I will make time to read The Lightning Thief, so that Eleanor and I can talk about what thrilled her and what scared her yesterday. I'll continue to read The Phoenix and the Carpet to both Eleanor and Isabel when Will is distracted by something else, and will read Will Ollie the Stomper (sequel to Ollie) roughly 500 times. And I wonder, as I often do, what will have the greatest staying power for them.

Love, Annie

Charlotte Zolotow

Once there was a little girl who didn't understand about time.  She was so little that she didn't know about Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday.  She certainly didn't know about January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December.  She was so little she didn't even know summer, winter, autumn, spring.
   What she did know about was all mixed together.  She remembered a crocus once, but she didn't know when.  She remembered a snowman and a pumpkin, and a Christmas tree, and a birthday cake, a Thanksgiving dinner and valentines.  But they were all mixed up in her mind.

Dear Annie,

That's the beginning of Over and Over by Charlotte Zolotow (illustrated by Garth Williams), explaining the rhythms of a year.  Zolotow died this past week, at the age of 98.  She wrote more than 70 picture books, and edited countless other children's books.  They have a gentle straightforward tone to them -- they feel a little old-fashioned but still very in touch with kids' feelings.

My favorite is Mr. Rabbit and the Lovely Present, a lovely discussion between a girl and a rabbit (illustrated by Maurice Sendak) about what she should get for her mother's birthday.  It, too, starts wonderfully:

"Mr. Rabbit," said the little girl, "I want help."
"Help, little girl, I'll give you help if I can," said Mr. Rabbit.
"Mr. Rabbit," said the little girl, "it's about my mother."
"Your mother?" said Mr. Rabbit.
"It's her birthday," said the little girl.
"Happy birthday to her then," said Mr. Rabbit.  "What are you giving her?"
"That's just it," said the little girl.  "That's why I want help.  I have nothing to give her."
"Nothing to give your mother on her birthday?" said Mr. Rabbit.  "Little girl, you really do want help."

Mr. Rabbit suggests several different colors, which get narrowed down to objects (red > red underwear > red roof  > red bird > red apple) until the girl ends up with a basket of fruit for her mother.  It's idiosyncratic and lyrical.

Zolotow wrote the iconic (but kinda archaic) William's Doll about a boy who's teased for wanting a doll.  It became rooted in the psyches of a whole generation (not mine -- was it yours?) who grew up listening to Free to Be You and Me.

This Quiet Lady was a favorite in our house.  Anita Lobel's illustrations underscore the intimacy of a child exploring pictures of her mother's childhood.  I was always partial to the drawing of a 10 year-old mom going off to school with a Beatles lunchbox.  It was rooted enough in its era that it eventually became outdated: the Beatles belong to grandma now.

Every now and then I'll be reminded of another special book that Zolotow wrote.  A woman who really cared about communicating with children.  Her daughter, Crescent Dragonwagon has also produced dozens of kids' books.

Here's a little bit of the L.A. Times obituary:

. . . a few days before she died she stopped eating and drinking. 

"She lived a full life and it was like, she had been at the party, and now it was time to take off her shoes," Dragonwagon said.

One of Zolotow's last published books was 1997's "Who Is Ben?" about a boy asking questions about his existence. Dragonwagon said she might read from it at a memorial for her mother.

"The boy asks, 'Why does the day end?' " Dragonwagon said, "and his mother tells him that it doesn't end, it goes on to become day somewhere else."

Love,

Deborah

Back to the schoolyard

Dear Annie,

I can just see Eleanor absorbed in the catalog of the Thorne Rooms.  And what excellent timing on reading the book, just as you were visiting the Illinois grandparents.

Up here in Maine, I've been browsing our kids' book collection and came up with a wonderful one.   I think you were looking at it when you came to visit Child's Play:

I Saw Esau: The Schoolchild's Pocket Book, edited by Iona and Peter Opie with spectacular illustrations by good old Maurice Sendak.  We've talked about Opie collections of nursery rhymes before, but this one is more chants than rhymes, suitable for schoolyard recitation, like "sticks and stones..." or "rain rain go away...."  But those are just the beginning!

The Opies put the 174 rhymes into wonderful categories --

Nonsense
Insults
Retaliation
Graces 
Riddles
Lamentation
Contempt
Incantation

-- to name just a few.

Here's one from "Reality":

Under "Guile - Malicious":

Adam and Eve and Pinch-Me
Went down to the river to bathe;
Adam and Eve were drowned,
Who do you think was saved?

An interactive rhyme, that one.  Under "Guile - Innocent," with the note "punctuation is important":

Charles the First walked and talked
Half an hour after his head was cut off

Sendak illustrates with a very elegant headless gentleman.  Then there are several rhymes suitable for writing in one's own book, under "Book Protection":

This book is one thing,
My fist is another;
Steal not the one
For fear of the other.

"Mock Scholastic" has a sub-category, "Loony Latin" (best when read aloud):

Brutus adsum jam forte,
Caesar aderat. 
Brutus sic in omnibus,
Caesar sic inat.

The illustration includes two miserable-looking guys in togas and laurel wreaths, one with his face buried in a hat.

One can tell that everything about this book is fun: the collecting of the rhymes, Sendak's wacky illustrations, the reading aloud.

Something to put a little zip into back-to-school.

Love,

Deborah

Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle

Dear Annie,

Books and a flashlight under the pillow!  Excellent!

 I've just spent a lovely afternoon re-reading Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle.  A little while ago I referred to it as an Ur-text of what Eleanor called a "lesson book."  Betty MacDonald wrote four Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle books between 1947 and 1957, all of which pointed out bad behavior in children and illustrated ways to modify it.

During the years that we read a lot of Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle, I went from finding the books archaic and ponderous, to scathingly satirical, to straightforwardly hilarious.  I still love the books now, although I know they can be an acquired taste.

Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle is a charmingly eccentric (but wise!) little woman who lives in a house that has been built upside down, with chandeliers rising from the floor.   She plays with all the neighborhood kids, who have free run of her house and possessions, and counsels the parents how to stop the children's bad habits, which are legion.  The structure of almost every chapter is the same: we meet a new child, discover his or her intolerable (to the parents) vice: extreme selfishness, aversion to bathing, tattling, dishonesty, etc.  Someone mentions that Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle might have the answer, and the rest of the chapter is devoted to her "cure."  In our household, the first mention of her name was usually shouted out by all listeners.  Wikipedia has a lovely chart of all the cures.  In two of the books all the cures are behavioral; the two others introduce magic.  I'm sticking to the non-magical today.

In "The Selfishness Cure" we meet Dick Thompson, who refuses to share anything.  Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle tells the parents to label everything with Dick's name "DICK'S BOOK -- DON'T TOUCH! DICK'S NOTEBOOK -- DON'T TOUCH!  DICK'S CRAYONS -- DON'T TOUCH!"  This extends to bicycle, baseball bat, lunchbox, and even food, which is labeled with icing: "DICK'S APPLE -- DON'T TOUCH!"  Dick is mercilessly laughed at in school; by the second day someone pins on his back "THIS IS DICK -- DON'T TOUCH!"  Dick can't take the ostracism and within two days he declares that he's willing to share everything he owns.  This story gave us another family literary reference -- every now and then one can be moved to theatrically assert ownership, adding, DON'T TOUCH!

"The Radish Cure" deals with Patsy Waters, who refuses to bathe.  Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle counsels her parents to wait until the dirt on Patsy is deep enough to sprinkle her with radish seeds while she sleeps.

When they had finished and were standing by her bed gazing fondly at their handiwork, Patsy's father said, "Repulsive little thing, isn't she?"

The dads often get to say the little zingers.

Patsy, unphased by dirt, is horrified by green radish sprouts and demands to bathe.  Problem solved.

The names are part of what won me over to MacDonald's nutty sense of humor.  Corinthian Bop, Enterprise Beecham, Jimmy Gopher, Electra Rockstall and my favorite, Paraphernalia Grotto, all have appearances.  The upwardly-climbing Foxgloves name their sons Harvard and Cornell; the daughters are Melody and Emmy: this is the Fifties.  The moms are all full-time moms, baking cookies and talking with the other moms about their children.  Dads are consulted on the phone, want to read the evening paper more than engage with their families, and forget Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle's name ("Call that Mrs. Wriggle-Spiggle.").  But as this theme goes through story after story, I start suspecting MacDonald of being a proto-feminist social critic.

The story that provoked the most glee in our house was "The Fighter-Quarrelers Cure," about the constantly bickering Russell twins, Anne and Joan.  Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle tells the parents to take notes on the girls' fights and then act them out the next day.  So the day starts with the mother screaming to her children that the father has told her there's a spider in her bed (Joan's usual attack on Anne). 

Mr Russell said, "Was she scared?" and jumped out of bed and ran into the bathroom shouting at the top of his voice, "Ha, ha, my first turn for the shower!"
   At that Mrs. Russell came flying in from the twins' room and began pounding on the bathroom door, yelling, "It is not your first turn!  It's mine!  You traded me your first turn yesterday for a new golf ball."
   Mr. Russell laughed rudely and called out "Too bad for you.  I've got the door locked."
   Mrs. Russell kicked at the door and shouted, "Cheater, cheater, cheater!"

The fights go on until the children, having learned their lesson, beg their parents to stop fighting.  All go out for ice cream.

The redeeming element of all these stories is that outrageous behavior -- by kids and adults -- is so much more entertaining than the final lesson (let's-be-good-and-share/bathe/not fight).

 I look forward to seeing what your family will think of Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle.

Love,

Deborah

Learning to read 2

Dear Annie,

First of all, those reading levels on the $3.99 I Can Read, or Step Into Reading, or Green Light Readers, or whatever, are not absolute.  Every publisher makes up its own series title, then sets standards for each of its levels, which vary widely.  An example from two wonderful books:

Harcourt's Green Light Readers define  Level 1 as "simple words - fun rhymes and rhythms - familiar situations."  Here are the first two pages of
Big Brown Bear by David McPhail, a starting reader I'm particularly fond of:

Page 1:

Bear is big.

Page 2:
Bear is brown.

About 80% of each page is a picture of Bear, his paint can, and his ladder. He goes on to climb the ladder with his blue paint, get bumped into by a little bear, fall and get covered with blue, wash up, obtain some green paint, and go back up the ladder, just as another little bear on a tricycle careens toward him.  "It's not over yet!" is the last line.

I Can Read, an imprint of Harper Collins, defines its Level 1 as "geared toward beginning readers who are just starting to sound out words and sentences on their own."  Here are the first two pages of
Little Bear by Else Holmelund Minarik (longer discussion of this great book here), another Level 1:

Page 1:

WHAT WILL LITTLE BEAR WEAR?

It is cold.

See the snow.

See the snow come down.

Little Bear said, "Mother Bear,

I am cold.

See the snow.

I want something to put on."

Page 2:

So Mother Bear made something 

for Little Bear.

"See, Little Bear," she said,

"I have something for my little bear.

Here it is.

The wonderful Sendak illustrations fill less than half the pages.

As with so much of parenting, you're stuck with having to figure out which books are best for your kid's particular stage.  I encourage parents to browse all brands and levels of readers until they find one that feels like it fits with where their child is.  Then you have a way to judge that publisher's offerings.  Virtually all publishers start with Level 1 as the simplest (although a few cheat with Level 0 or My First I Can Read), then add more difficult words and longer stories up through Level 3, 4, or 5. 

You're less likely to get a word that will completely stump an emerging reader in these books -- but you'll still run into a few thoughs or strengths.  HSW, commenting on your last post, talks about those old baby books kicking around the house as good starter books.  Both my girls felt like they'd cracked the reading code with different board books.  Anything that's simple and liked by your child is worth a try.

I spend a lot of time talking with parents whose children are learning to read.  I've never been trained in how to teach reading, like your mother, my sister.  Judy -- feel free to chime in here anytime.  But themes come up, and different books work well with different kids.  I intend to talk more about specific books, and also different approaches to learning to read, in future posts.

I want to end this one with some thoughts about how learning to read can look from the point of view of a child whose parents have been reading her really wonderful long books.  Going from The Secret Garden to "Bear is big/Bear is brown" can be a shock.  There are points when learning to read takes off and a child can make great strides in a few weeks, but for a while the books a child can read on her own are mostly going  to be a lot shorter and less complex.  One needs reassurance that progress will continue.  I've been aware of some kids who resist reading on their own because they fear losing all the specialness of being read to.  I strongly doubt that your girls will fall into this category.  But one of my little pieces of advice to parents is to say to your child, I will always read to you, no matter how many books you can read on your own.  Most grown-ups fully intend to keep reading aloud, but it doesn't hurt to dispel any little worries for your child.

Love,

Deborah

Poetry in a nutshell

Dear Annie,

I'd like to point out a lovely comment on the movie Hugo that's just been posted here by your father, my brother-in-law.  Testimony to the fascination of great books and movies for both kids and grown-ups.  Thank you, John.

Now on to Nick's question about more poetry, which got me thinking too.  In addition to the book lists you referred to in your post, we went on a roll about poetry back in June of 2010: there were four posts in a row: here, here, here and here.  Don't know if you found all four of them, Nick -- and they're fun to revisit anyway.

So imagine my surprise when I realized we haven't visited Maurice Sendak's
Nutshell Library.  It's four small rhyming books: Chicken Soup with Rice (about months), Alligators All Around (alphabet), One Was Johnny (numbers), and
Pierre: a cautionary tale.  They're all delightful, but for the moment I'll stick with Pierre, a boy who responds to all statements -- including his mother's "You are my darling boy/you are my only joy" --  with, "I don't care." When he stands on his head on a chair:

His father said,

"Get off your head, or I will march you up to bed."

Pierre said,

"I don't care!"

"I would think that you could see --"

"I don't care!"

"your head is where your feet should be!"

"I don't care!"

"If you keep standing upside down -- "

"I don't care!"

"We'll never ever get to town."

"I don't care!"

"If only you would say I CARE."

"I don't care!"

"I'd let you fold the folding chair."

"I don't care!"

So his parents left him there.

They didn't take him anywhere.

The parents go, a lion appears, expresses the intention to eat him, with the usual response.  The lion then says, "Then I'll eat you if I may," to which Pierre replies, "I don't care!" and is eaten.  When the parents come home, the lion is abed and they fear the worst.

His mother asked, "Where is Pierre?"

The lion answered, "I don't care!"

His father said, "Pierre's in there!"

The doctor eventually gets a relieved Pierre out, and now, of course, he cares.  It's another Sendak mix of the absurd with intense feeling.  And it's all wrapped up in great rhythms and rhymes.


Love,

Deborah

Darker Sendak

Dear Aunt Debbie,

I'm kind of sorry to have the possible Holocaust interpretation of In the Night Kitchen in my head now.  Not that it's a total surprise, given Sendak's clear personal interest in Holocaust stories.  I saw an amazing collaboration he did with the dance company Pilobilus, which touched on Holocaust themes, and I know he and Tony Kushner worked together on Brundibar, a children's book which tells the story of the Czech opera that Nazis had Jewish children perform in the concentration camp Terezin.  I haven't yet read it.

I've always felt that the most disturbing Sendak book I know is Outside Over There.  It's a fairy tale, of sorts: Ida's papa is away at sea and her Mama is depressed, so Ida takes care of her baby sister.  The baby is snatched away by goblins, who leave a wide-eyed ice baby in her place.  Ida chases down the goblins, then plays a tune on her horn so catchy that the goblins can't help themselves, and dance until they've melted away.  The baby-stealing thing disturbed me even before I had kids of my own, but the page where the goblins dance themselves to death is just as creepy: when the goblins take off their cloaks, they're revealed to look like babies themselves, so it is babies you see laughing and dancing to oblivion.  There's a lot to analyze in that one, too.

Love, Annie

P.S. I'd love to hear more about the new store!

Let's hear it for choice

Dear Annie,

I have some vague memory of reading an essay by Sendak about In the Night Kitchen, but I've just been through a fruitless search on the internet.  The interpretations of the book that I've found, though are:

  1) Differentiation of self: "I'm not the milk and the milk's not me!"  Basically your interpretation.
  2) Something fuzzy and full of phallic/Freudian/sexual imagery involving both the extremely obvious and the slightly less so: free-flowing milk, for example.

  3) And then there's the Holocaust.  Sendak is quoted (but I can't find his words) as telling Terry Gross that the Oliver Hardy look-alike bakers are actually stand-ins for Nazis who want to put Mickey in the oven.  If it didn't come from the horse's mouth, I'd take this one with a grain of salt.  All of Sendak's father's family was killed in the Holocaust.  (And the Wild Things are Sendak's mother's relatives who they managed to get to the U.S. before World War II.)

In answer to your question, yes, In the Night Kitchen is still wildly popular, and Where the Wild Things Are is even more so.  Which brings me back to that stupid New York Times article on picture books.  No, sales of picture books are not down at our stores in the D.C. area -- although we're in an area which has not been as badly affected by the economic mess as many other places.  I believe that picture books will be the last type of book to be affected by the current digital revolution.  Long after 12 year-olds are reading their middle-grade novels on kindles, grown-ups will still be buying physical books with real pages and great pictures to read to their little ones. I hope.

Some newly-published picture books -- like any other genre, for children or adults -- don't sell.  That's the nature of the business.  Publishers winnow down many submissions to the few hundred they offer to bookstores in a season.  The book buyers choose a small percentage of those to bring into their stores (I went through about 20 sample picture books from Scholastic today and have settled on three that I'll offer to our customers next spring).  Then the end users -- moms, dads, grandparents, aunts, uncles, loving friends -- come into the store and maybe look at some of those new ones, or maybe just go for In the Night Kitchen for that special kid.  So some of the books I like don't make the cut.  And some catch on and become part of our more or less permanent collection.  No store can guess right all the time.

And of course one of the pleasures of going to a book store or a library is choice.  That's what browsing is all about -- sampling and choosing. 

The new store opened last week, by the way.  More on that another day.

Love,

Deborah

Weird, wonderful Maurice Sendak

Dear Aunt Debbie,

I will certainly be trying more David Wiesner on our 3-year-old crowd -- will let you know the results.

Tonight we read, for probably the thousandth time, a classic weird and wonderful Maurice Sendak book: In the Night Kitchen.  It's one of the formative books of my childhood, and was seminal Maurice Sendak for me, right up there with the now-ubiquitous Where the Wild Things Are and the satisfyingly tiny books of The Nutshell Library.  I honestly don't have a sense of how well-known and currently popular it is -- do lots of people buy it these days?

One of the classic reading photos in our family is of me, age 6ish, reading it to Michael, probably 1 1/2, both of us intensely concentrated.  (That photo is in a hard-to-open frame at my parents' apartment; here's the best picture my mom could snap of it through the glass.)

In the Night Kitchen  is the story of Mickey, who is woken up by "a racket in the night."  When he gets up to shout for quiet, he falls "through the dark, out of his clothes, past the moon & his mama & papa sleeping tight...into the light of the night kitchen."  (It's hard to write about this book without just quoting the whole thing!)  The "night kitchen" is a city made of milk carton, jam jar, and boxed good buildings decorated with giant wire whisks: a child's-eye view of the mysteries of cooking and baking.  The bakers here are three large identical men in bakers' clothes.  They mix Mickey into cake batter and try to bake him, but Mickey pops out covered in cake dough: "I'm not the milk, and the milk's not me!  I'm Mickey!"  He skips over to the bread dough, makes an airplane out of it, and flies up to get milk from a giant milk bottle, which he dives into, singing: "I'm in the milk, and the milk's in me.  God bless milk and God bless me!"  The bakers bake their cake, Mickey returns to bed, "And that's why, thanks to Mickey, we have cake every morning."

You have to wonder what happened in Sendak's childhood.  I'm hard-pressed to explain it all, other than feeling like it has to do with a child's new understanding of his own individual identity, his me-ness, in a world which is big and strange and trying to force him to be what he's not.  Why the bakers mistake him for milk in the first place, or why they look like Oliver Hardy, or who in the world actually has cake every morning, I don't know.  I do know that this is a deeply satisfying read.  I'm looking forward to the day when Eleanor gets to read it to Isabel, as well.

Love, Annie

True love, picture book style

Dear Aunt Debbie,

Eleanor spent much of the day helping her cousins bake cookies for her Uncle Mice's wedding.  She has her own kid-sized apron, and has recently been fascinated with helping in the kitchen, especially when it has to do with baking.  Pretend Soup gets a good workout in our house, though the most-requested recipe in it is "Homemade Lemon-Lime Soda Pop."  Quesadillas are a big favorite too.

With all this wedding celebration, I've had love on my mind.  Two classic, slightly offbeat takes on true love keep recurring to me, both illustrated by Garth Williams. The first is a book I've mentioned once before: A Kiss for Little Bear.  It's the only one of the Little Bear books that contains a single story (the others each have four).  Little Bear makes a drawing for his grandmother, and asks Hen to take it to her.  Grandmother Bear loves the drawing, and asks Hen to take a kiss back to Little Bear.  But Hen wants to stop to chat, so she asks Frog to take the kiss.  The kiss is passed on until it reaches Little Skunk, who finds another little skunk, and they pass the kiss back and forth until Hen discovers them: "Too much kissing!"  The book ends with the skunks' wedding, and a fine picture of Little Bear as Best Man.

Else Holmelund Minarik's text is excellent, but what makes the book perfect are Williams's dry, funny illustrations.  The text: "Then Hen saw some friends.  She stopped to chat.  'Hello, Frog.  I have a kiss for Little Bear.  It is from his grandmother.  Will you take it to him, Frog?'  'Okay, said Frog.'"

The illustration:

And then there is the marvelous Home for a Bunny, by Margaret Wise Brown.  It is a poem of a book, about the arrival of spring and one little bunny's search for a home.  The opening lines always crack me up:

"Spring, Spring, Spring!" sang the frog.
"Spring!" said the groundhog.
"Spring, Spring, Spring!" sang the robin.
It was Spring.

Amid all this Spring activity, a bunny is looking for a home.  He asks the robin, the frog, and the groundhog about moving into their homes (lots of great opportunities for different voices here: high-pitched for the robin, low for the frog -- "Wog, wog, wog" -- and grumpy for the groundhog).  Eventually, he meets another bunny, who has a home under a rock, under the ground, and it's a happy ending:

"Can I come in?" 
said the bunny.
"Yes," said the bunny.
And so he did.

Love, Annie

More Chuckles & Guffaws

Dear Annie,

I love your image of Eleanor belly-laughing at The Backward Day. One of the joys of reading with kids is the surprises they can hand you.

I think it's always useful to remember that small children have -- and should be encouraged to have -- very eclectic taste. Eleanor can be captivated by a delightfully silly story like Chickens to the Rescue, then listen in fascination to The Wizard of Oz. Just like grownups, kids enjoy many different forms of writing.

A few additions to your hilarious list:

Backward Day is a New York Review of Books reprint of an out of print classic: they've been exhuming both novels and picture books from earlier eras. This month they released a delightful one: Russell and Lillian Hoban's
The Sorely Trying Day. It's from the folks who wrote Bread and Jam for Frances and sequels, and it has that same sense of families being loving but chaotic and sometimes contentious, always with a large dose of humor. Father comes home from a Sorely Trying Day, only to discover that the children are squabbling miserably. An investigation ensues, with each wrongdoer pointing to a wrong that was previously done to them. Once that circle is closed, a new circle of apology ensues, with everyone trying to outdo the contrition of the previous apologizer. It's just really funny.

Then there's Robert Munsch, best known for The Paper Bag Princess, but he's written dozens of books. He was a pre-school teacher, and his humor is very slapstick. One of my fondest memories of picture book hilarity is of watching my spouse's loving but somewhat taciturn father reading Munsch's
Thomas' Snowsuit to Mona when she was probably around 3 or 4. Thomas doesn't want to put on his snowsuit, and ends up in a series of confrontations (visuals: cloud of dust with hands and feet occasionally poking out) with various adults. When the dust clears, it's always the adult who's wearing Thomas' snowsuit. Mona started giggling, then laughing, then her grandfather started laughing, and he ended up stopping reading and laughing uncontrollably. The power of Munsch.

I'll toss in Katie Davis's
Who Hops here, which appears to be a much younger book. But there's something about it that appeals to many 3 and 4 year-olds' sense of the absurd. "Who hops?/Frogs hop./Rabbits hop./Kangaroos hop./Cows hop." (picture of very startled purple cow, who on the next page thinks, "It would never work.") And it goes on from there.

A quick note on Ruth Krauss, author of The Backward Day. She also wrote the great
A Hole is to Dig, illustrated in 1952 by the young Maurice Sendak. It's sweet and offbeat -- not hilarious, although it has its smiling moments. It's a series of definitions which aren't really, like "A hole is to dig," or "A hand is to hold." Her "a face is so you can make faces" attracted a little flack from critics, who felt Ms. Krauss was encouraging rude behavior. Ah, the Fifties.

Love,

Deborah

In appreciation of Mother Bear

Dear Aunt Debbie,

And Happy Mother's Day to you! I'm looking forward to the years when "sleeping in" will mean later than, say, 7 AM, but enjoying it nonetheless. I got an awesome 3-D sparkly Princess card.

I adore Little Bear. I was thinking about Mother Bear this weekend, planning my own mother-related post. There are so many treacly mothers out there in the children's book world that I appreciate coming across a mother with a little zing to her. (I really like the imaginative play in Even Firefighters Hug Their Moms, but I find the mom a little annoying. Come on, lady, play a part in your kids' story instead of just showing up in every scene to beg for affection! And what's up with the 80's suit and power earrings she's wearing to hang out at home?)

In the four stories in Little Bear, I agree that Mother Bear is warm and loving, but you also feel her patience being tried, and the combination of Minarik's spare text and Sendak's expressive drawings is sharp and funny. In "What Will Little Bear Wear?", Little Bear goes out to play in the snow, but keeps coming back in because he's cold, interrupting Mother Bear as she sweeps the floor, hems a skirt, and finally sits down to read a book (her activities aren't mentioned in the text -- they're all Sendak). Each time, Mother Bear asks what he needs and then makes him something new to wear. You can read her dialogue aloud in a completely patient voice, but look at her expression and tweak it a little bit, and it becomes quite dry: "Here is Little Bear again. 'Oh,' said Mother Bear, 'what can you want now?'"

In "Little Bear Goes to the Moon," the dialogue goes a step farther. Little Bear, wearing a cardboard space helmet, is planning to fly to the moon. I really have to quote the whole thing:

"I'm going to fly to the moon,"
said Little Bear.
"Fly!" said Mother Bear.
"You can't fly."

"Birds fly," said Little Bear.
"Oh, yes," said Mother Bear.
"Birds fly, but they don't fly to the moon.
And you are not a bird."

"Maybe some birds do fly to the moon,
I don't know.
And maybe I can fly like a bird,"
said Little Bear.

"And maybe," said Mother Bear,
"you are a little fat bear cub
with no wings and no feathers.
"Maybe if you jump up
you will come down very fast,
with a big plop."

"Maybe," said Little Bear.
"But I'm going now.
Just look for me up in the sky."
"Be back for lunch," said Mother.

There are four more Little Bear books: Father Bear Comes Home, Little Bear's Visit (about a trip to his grandparents' house), Little Bear's Friend, and A Kiss for Little Bear. All of them have wonderful moments in them; I'm a particular fan of A Kiss for Little Bear, which has lots more of the illustrations adding extra depth and humor to the text.

Eleanor adores these books. Of course, she also adores the Little Bear TV show, which is treacly in the ways the books are decidedly not, and contains a little too much canned laughter for my taste, but is otherwise harmless. Except, perhaps, for the fact that all anyone seems to ingest on these kids' shows is cake and lemonade.

While I'm on the subject of Else Holmelund Minarik, I can't fail to mention her other great book, also a collaboration with Sendak: No Fighting, No Biting!


No Fighting, No Biting!

This is one I grew up with, but I don't think I've ever seen it at anyone else's house, and it's wonderful. It's a story within a story: Cousin Joan is trying to read, but keeps getting interrupted by the bickering of Rosa and Willie, so she tells them a story about two little alligators who almost get eaten by a big hungry alligator because they fight too much. The bickering is pitch-perfect, and the mother alligator brooks no argument. There's also a side story about Rosa losing her tooth which is quite sweet.

I have so much love for Maurice Sendak. More on him, of course, later.

Love, Annie

Happy Mother's Day!

Dear Annie,

Happy Mother’s Day!

This is my first Mother’s Day without the presence of either Lizzie or Mona since I’ve been a mother. I’m feeling the satisfaction of motherhood more than the loss of breakfast in bed (although I confess I do miss that). They’re both in such good places right now – psychologically and physically – it makes me happy. I wish all those mothers of little ones out there a lovely day with strange meals and hand-picked bouquets.

Today I offer some golden oldie mother books:


Mr. Rabbit and the Lovely Present, by Charlotte Zolotow (1963) with watercolor illustrations by Maurice Sendak. Mother is off-camera in this one, while a girl and a bi-pedal rabbit discuss possible gifts she could give her mother. It’s very rhythmic and lyrical.


Little Bear (1957) by Else Holmelund Minarik also has Sendak illustrations, suffusing Little Bear with feeling. This book is three very short stories, all of which feature a patient and loving mother helping Little Bear to discover the world. At the end, when she appears at a birthday gathering her son has feared she forgot, she says, “I never did forget your birthday, and I never will.”


Are You My Mother? by P.D. Eastman (1960): a baby bird hatches while mother is away and goes off in search of her. A classic – great for very little ones. This is part of the Cat in the Hat Beginners series, by a Dr. Seuss protégé. Quiet sense of humor.

And one written in the 21st century::


Even Firefighters Hug Their Moms: a celebration of pretend play. A big brother and little sister are pretending various scenes: ambulance, firefighters, police officers, etc. Whenever Mom asks for affection, she’s brushed off “Too busy saving lives.” But she keeps gently coming back for more, and eventually gets what she’s after.

And lest we get too dewy-eyed about the Ideal Mother, I refer back to
Pirate Girl in my April 30 post. A book which proves that Real Mothers are tougher than bad-guy pirates, and a lot more fun.

Have a great day!

Love,

Deborah