Frog, Toad, and one more dinosaur

Dear Aunt Debbie,

So that explains "Wick-ee!  Wick-ee!"  I've always wondered.

Before I get to one of my favorite family references, I have, as promised, one more dinosaur rec from my friend Sophia: Dinosaurs: Sounds of the Wild.  She says she likes the book "because it is interactive...dinosaurs pop up, lots of interesting sounds, etc. The text is pretty sophisticated...talks about dinosaurs according to periods, traits, etc...but it is a book that you can grow into."   I'd be interested to hear from you at some point which are the best dino books for older kids, but we're certainly not ready for them here yet.



Your recounting of some of the catch phrases that have made their way into daily parlance makes me think of so many things: calling Eleanor a "grumpy bird" and having her admit it; agreeing, as Frances says in Bread and Jam for Frances, "I do like snacks"; our entire bedtime routine based on Goodnight Moon.

But what I want to write about tonight is a catchphrase from my own childhood, which comes from a story in a series we often carry with us in the diaper bag for long subway trips: Arnold Lobel's Frog and Toad.  These books are great re-reads, both because they tap into something visceral in kids' emotions, and because they're quite funny.

There are four Frog and Toad books:
Frog and Toad are Friends, Frog and Toad Together, Frog and Toad All Year, and Days With Frog and Toad.  In each, Frog (taller, greener, generally more able to enjoy life) and Toad (shorter, browner, more neurotic) spend time together and have very low-key adventures.  A typical plot: Frog and Toad go for a long walk.  Toad gets back, realizes he's lost a button from his jacket, and gets upset.  Frog reassures him they'll find the button, and they retrace their steps.  They find lots of buttons, but all are in some way wrong, and Toad gets more and more worked up: "'That is not my button!' wailed Toad.  'That button is square.  My button was round.'"  When he gets home after his giant tantrum (so much fun to read aloud), Toad finds his button on the floor.  He feels terrible, and to make amends, sews all the other buttons he's found onto his jacket and gives the jacket to Frog as a present.  ("A Lost Button," in Frog and Toad Are Friends.)

The catchphrase I mentioned earlier comes from the story "Cookies," in Frog and Toad Together.  Toad makes an amazing batch of cookies, and shares them with Frog.  The two can't stop eating them.  To exercise will power, Frog tries in several ways to make the cookies less accessible: he puts them in a box, ties it up, puts them on a high shelf, etc.  In every case, Toad points out quite reasonably how he could get them again.  Finally, Frog gives up:

Frog climbed the ladder 

and took the box 

down from the shelf.  

He cut the string 

and opened the box.  

Frog took the box outside.  

He shouted in a loud voice, 

"HEY BIRDS, 

HERE ARE COOKIES!"  

Birds came from everywhere.  

They picked up all the cookies 

in their beaks and flew away.

"Now we have no more cookies to eat,"

said Toad sadly.  

"Not even one."

"Yes," said Frog,

"but we have lots and lots

of will power."

"You may keep it all, Frog,"

said Toad.

"I am going home now

to bake a cake."

You'd be surprised how often "HEY BIRDS, HERE ARE COOKIES!" can come up.

Each Frog and Toad book contains five short stories, all illustrated by Lobel in green and brown accented line drawings.  Some of them are sweet and funny, and some a little dark and odd, exploring the fear of being alone or being laughed at.  At times, reading them, I've wondered if Lobel was in some kind of psychoanalysis while he was writing: what is up with Toad dreaming of himself dancing and singing beautifully on a stage while Frog gets smaller and smaller in the audience, then disappears ("The Dream")?  Overall, these are books I am happy to read and read and read again.  And that means a lot.

Love, 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