Guest blogger: Sleeper Hits of 2012

Dear Aunt Debbie,

I remember with great fondness Grandpa (your father) reading me The Light Princess -- is there something in it about having to cut her hair as well, or am I confusing it with another story?  In any case, sounds like the right time for us to rediscover it here.

On Monday, I collected my fabulous, time-consuming creative writing portfolios from my high school students, which means it's time for our winter round of guest bloggers!

The first is my friend Faith, a masterful blogger and writer in her own right over at The Pickle Patch and in Faith in Vermont, a regular column in the Addison County Independent, where she writes about raising her three girls in small-town Vermont after living in New York and the Bay Area.

Here she is:

Sleeper Hits of 2012: Five Books That Unexpectedly Delighted Our Family

Parents like to think that their children are exceptional – and of course, every child is exceptional, in their own special way. But I’ve been forced to admit that, when it comes to taste in reading material, my own children (three girls aged 22 months to five years) are decidedly, predictably…ordinary. On our weekly trips to the library, they head immediately for the rotating display of “Ready-to-Read” books; anything with Dora, Tinkerbell, or a Disney princess on the cover is a definite take-home. The “literary” books that I slip into our tote bag usually get a single polite listen. Even tried-and-true classics, like The Cat in the Hat, have bombed in our house.

I tend to believe, at least in the beginning stages, that any reading is good reading (within reason, of course; I draw the line at A Child’s Guide to Cooking Meth). I’m just grateful to have three children who love to read, and I’m DELIGHTED when my children love books with a literary nutritional value greater than, say, Fruit Loops. Sometimes, their choices surprise me, and these books I call “sleepers:” books in which nothing much happens, that are dated, or that have a moralizing message; books that I wouldn’t expect to attract children in an age of Fruit Loop literature. Herewith, five sleeper books that delighted our brood this year:

Our Animal Friends at Maple Hill Farm by Alice and Martin Provensen. One of the best books you’ve never heard of – I certainly hadn’t heard of it, and it’s not in our local library. It was recommended by two mothers of older children, and is the most realistic and charming depiction of farm life I’ve ever read. Alice and Martin Provensen lived on Maple Hill Farm in upstate New York, and this book is a catalogue of the animals – both welcome and unwelcome – who also lived there. It’s a sleeper because it’s long (many animals live on a farm), and because it has no plot. But it’s filled with honest details – sometimes hilariously brutal – that entertain all the ages in our house. Like the understated conclusion to a page chronicling a day in the life of chickens: “A fox is carrying Big Shot [the rooster] away.” Or, following a description of some wonderful farm dogs: “Other dogs are foolish dogs who do useless, foolish things. These dogs aren’t around any more.” Or, my personal favorite, which I’ve sometimes quoted (unfortunately): “Field mice are on the pantry shelves. Why don’t they stay in the fields?”

Owl Moon, by Jane Yolen. A particular favorite of my 22-month-old, who has been known to demand ten readings in one sitting. I have no idea why, since, like Maple Hill Farm, it’s a book in which not much happens: a girl and her father walk through moonlit woods looking for owls, they see an owl, they go home. Add to that the kind of gorgeous, poetic language that would usually make my children’s eyes glaze over (“When you go owling you don’t need words or warm or anything but hope…. The kind of hope that flies on silent wings under a shining Owl Moon.”), and you have a book that seems designed to delight parents and bore children. But my toddler can’t get enough of it.

My Henderson Robot, by Matthew Swanson and Robbi Behr. You probably won’t find this book at your library or local bookstore; it’s available from Idiots’ Books, a small enterprise run by Matthew and Robbi (both college classmates of mine). Compared with the previous two books, My Henderson Robot is action-packed, but here’s the plot summary from Idiots’ Books: “In which a little girl makes a friend and does the boring, inconsequential, plot-deadening things that kids do. Not much happens.” My Henderson Robot is filled with the sort of quirky details that fill my own children’s heads, which is probably why they find it so relatable. Their favorite detail: “At night the Henderson Robot waits by my closet door to keep any monsters out. He keeps his blue eye open so I can know where he is. He shuts his red eye so it can get some rest.” I have a particular fondness for the closing lines: “We step outside. The sky is green. It is hours until lunch.” Depending on the day, this seems like a perfect description of the idyllic, endless days of childhood – or the existential despair I sometimes feel as a parent immediately following breakfast.

Billy and Blaze,  by C. W. Anderson. Somehow, I am the mother of two horse-crazy girls. Horses played almost no role in my own childhood, or in my reading. Perhaps because we live in Vermont, where horses are a daily presence, my oldest daughters can’t get enough of them. The day came when they wanted to read only “horse books.” Since this isn’t my area of expertise, I turned to our wonderful children’s librarian, who said, “Well, it’s pretty dated, but try Billy and Blaze.” Thus began our relationship with Billy and his pony, Blaze. Billy and Blaze is the first of an eleven book series written between 1936 and 1970. They’re certainly dated, with illustrations in the Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys vein. We’ve read five Billy and Blaze books so far, and the stories are formulaic: Billy is riding his pony when they suddenly encounter some minor emergency (often involving a homeless dog). Boy and pony save the day with their intelligence and pluck, and Billy proclaims Blaze “the best pony in the world.” Despite their mid-century wholesome blandness and their male protagonist (usually a turn-off for my girls), the Billy and Blaze books have all merited repeat readings in our house.

Because Amelia Smiled, by David Ezra Stein. Published in 2012 and filled with action, Because Amelia Smiled is a sleeper because it’s the type of parent-pleasing book – beautiful message disguised as children’s literature – that I always want my children to love, but which they usually spurn. The premise is simple: “Because Amelia smiled, coming down the street…Mrs. Higgens smiled, too. She thought of her grandson, Lionel, in Mexico and baked some cookies to send him.” And so on, until Amelia’s smile has indirectly changed lives around the world.  Perhaps because the message – that doing small things with great joy can make a big difference – is somewhat subtle, hidden behind delightfully illustrated mini-narratives, this book didn’t set off my daughters’ “preachy” alarm. So for a change I get to read a book that chokes me up, and my audience is riveted.

I hope that one of these books – or another surprising treasure – delights your family in 2013. Feedback on your favorite sleepers welcome!

Faith

And love from me,

Annie

Dinosaur picture books

Dear Annie,

Dinosaurs, dinosaurs -- so many different things to different people. 

Dinosaur books tend to come in two categories: one where dinosaurs are
the stand-ins for people and things and tend to get very rollicking.  The other tries to
convey some facts about the big old guys.

Dinosaurs as stand-ins for kids are what the Yolen/Teague How Do Dinosaurs... series is all about.  How Do Dinosaurs Say I Love You? is one of the more recent ones, and it sounds like it's lacking in the strong behavioral message that comes with most of them.  The first,
How Do Dinosaurs Say Good Night? has dinosaurs acting out bad going-to-bed behavior in a way that many kids find hilarious:

Does a dinosaur slam his tail and pout?
Does he throw his teddy bear all about?
Does a dinosaur stomp his feet on the floor and shout: 'I want to hear one book more!'?
DOES A DINOSAUR ROAR?

After detailing many wrong ways to go to bed, the book goes on to the right ways to say good night -- whisper, hug, kisses, etc.  It's a widely-loved book, by both parents and kids.  I feel a little grinch-like saying it's not one of my favorites.  A little too far into the preachy end of things.  I'd be curious what Eleanor thinks of it.  And, as you pointed out, all the books in this series have accurate dinosaur names.

Another book which includes scientific names, but has a great story-book plot is
Harry and the Bucketful of Dinosaurs by Ian Whybrow. Harry finds a stash of plastic dinosaurs at his grandma's house, washes them off and identifies them all -- identifying dinosaurs is an important element of many kids' dinosaur fascinations. They go everywhere with him, in a bucket, until the day he loses them.  Getting them back involves Harry reciting their names -- it's a lovely ending.


Advances in paleontology have made a few old dinosaur classics out of date, but some new ones are filling the demand for dinosaur science.   
Oh, Say Can You Say Di-no-saur? is part of a new series of science books for pre-schoolers, all written in Dr. Seuss meter.

Dinosaurs lived
on the earth long ago,
before you and me.
So how do we know?
From fossils!
Dinosaur teeth, eggs, and bone
got stuck in the muck.
Then that muck turned to stone.

I realize the rhymes can become mind-numbing, but the series -- called The Cat in the Hat's Learning Library -- conveys a lot of information well.

And I'll end with my current favorite dinosaur book:
When Dinosaurs Came with Everything by Elise Broach.  A boy and his mother are doing errands, and  every business they visit (bakery, doctor, dentist, etc) is offering a free dinosaur with purchase.  So he ends up accumulating several full-size
live dinosaurs, which he takes home with him.  Much chaos results.  Great illustrations by David Small, and the story is a lot of fun.

Lots lots more, but there's a start.

Love,

Deborah

How do dinosaurs compare to princesses?

Dear Aunt Debbie,

It's heartening to know that there's more complexity to princess books than Disney fare; I'm looking forward to checking out your latest recommendations.  (Particularly the King Arthur stuff; we play the music from Camelot a lot in our house.  As with so many other musicals, this leads to interesting conversations about Major Life Issues, such as adultery.)

In our growing conversation about princess books, however, I'm afraid we're leaving out the other major toddler and little kid subjects which seem to engulf boys in the same way Princess engulfs girls: dinosaurs and trains.  Before starting this blog, you and I corresponded at length about both of these subjects, and I'd love to bring that conversation here.

Your mention of good parenting made me think about my decidedly mixed feelings for the best-selling How Do Dinosaurs series, by Jane Yolen and Mark Teague.  The one we own is How Do Dinosaurs Say I Love You?, but there are endless variations: How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight?  How Do Dinosaurs Eat Their Food?  How Do Dinosaurs Get Well Soon?  How Do Dinosaurs Love Their Dogs?  (I worry a bit about that last one.)  The conceit of the books is that children are like dinosaurs, galumphing around and misbehaving, but parents love them anyway.  The children are depicted as full-sized dinosaurs, and the parents as normal-sized, racially diverse humans trying to wrangle creatures ten times their size.

It's the illustrations that make the books.  I knew I liked Mark Teague's work from the Poppleton books, but he outdoes himself here with double-page spreads of parents and dinosaurs in bright acrylic paints.  He paints a wide variety of dinosaurs, so much so that I looked some of the names up tonight to see if they were real: Tapejara, Nothosaurus, Kentrosaurus, Neovenator.  They all were.

It's the text that bothers me.  Jane Yolen writes the books in perfectly decent rhyming couplets, and stresses that bad behavior doesn't stop a parent from loving a child, which is a moral I agree with.  But in these books (or at least the one I'm looking at right now), there are no consequences for bad behavior at all:

Out in the sandbox
you threw lots of sand.

You ran from the slide,
after slapping
my hand.


But you suddenly turned
with a smile I adore.
Oh, I'll always 
love you, 
my dinosaur.

Well, yes and no.  You do those things, my little dinosaur, and that smile needs an apology to go with it.  The illustrations are so full of humor and love, and of course the sentiment makes sense when you're dealing with toddlers, but I wish the text didn't seem to encourage bad behavior.

What are some of the other good options out there?

Love, Annie

Poetry 1

Dear Annie,

There's been a question about poetry for two-to-five year olds, so for the moment I’ll stick with pre-readers. The big question for me is, what is poetry for someone that young? Bob reminds me that somewhere in our house we have a five-pound book with bible-thin pages called something like “Poems for Children,” the majority of which were written in the 19th century. I bought it at some point when the girls were quite young, but we can’t remember ever opening it. One had the impression there would be a lot of sorting through to find the gems within.

There are wonderful books of poetry, like A.A. Milne’s When We Were Very Young, eloquently praised by you on 5/5/10, and  Now We Are Six. And everyone needs Mother Goose – in any edition – even if some of the poems are weirdly incomprehensible. For a very beginner book of poems, Jane Yolen’s
Here's A Little Poem: A Very First Book of Poetry, collects a lot of later 20th century poets (Mary Ann Hoberman, Jack Prelutsky, Rosemary Wells, Nikki Grimes, and more) in simple, sweet and funny works.

Does poetry mean rhyming? Lots of fun, and a necessary concept to grasp before one moves on to learning how to read. But look at the books you’re already reading:

I would not like them here or there.
I would not like them anywhere.
I do not like green eggs and ham.
I do not like them Sam I Am.
(Green Eggs and Ham)

I meant what I said,
and I said what I meant
An elephant's faithful,
One hundred percent.
(Horton Hatches the Egg)

Just about all of Dr. Seuss is rhyme, as are many many others. Do I recall an Eleanor anecdote about her speaking in Dr. Seuss meter? A book I committed to memory early in parenthood was
The Piggy in the Puddle, by Charlotte Pomerantz :

See the piggy,
See the puddle,
See the muddy little puddle.
See the piggy in the middle
Of the muddy little puddle.
See her dawdle, see her diddle
In the muddy, muddy middle.
See her waddle, plump and little,
In the very merry middle.

Ah…


The Seven Silly Eaters by Mary Ann Hoberman, with great Marla Frazee illustrations, seems to have a life of its own at the store – flies off the shelf.

Not so long ago, they say,
A mother lived -- just like today.
Mrs. Peters was her name,
Her little boy was named the same.
Now Peter was a perfect son
In every way – except for one.

He was a picky eater, as were his six younger siblings. The action centers on all seven of them trying to agree on what to make their mother for her birthday. Hilarity all around.

Or by poetry, do we mean economy of language and vividness of imagery? Writing a picture book is not unlike writing a poem. Even though the imagery is helped along by the pictures, every word counts, and text is sparing. I offer one recent spare-text book by Emily Gravett,
Orange Pear Apple Bear which is a combination of just those four words and great illustration. Is this not poetry?

I don’t want to sound too hokey, but when you’re reading with pre-schoolers, poetry is all around you.  This is of course the beginning of a conversation which we'll come back to quite a lot. 

Love,

Deborah