bad mood on the prowl

I liked this book. Mostly because I could relate. Haven't we all been in one of those inescapable bad moods? The kind that makes us want to be thoroughly mean to strangers just because their existence annoys us? The kind that makes us feel like some great beast from within is try to rip right through our skin...no, just me? Well, I suppose Bell Hooks must know something about it too. Once again, Raschka and Hooks collaborate for Grump Groan Growl which is about a boy whose bad mood is literally a monster on the prowl that he can't get rid of. Once again, Hook's words are incorporated into Raschka's art and handwritten by the illustrator. I think Hook's actual storyline is a bit hard to understand because she writes with a strange rhythm. It's more like a poem. I'm not sure how many kids would get the figurative language of just letting their bad mood 'slide'. I read this with a first grader and, while he enjoyed the book (Hooks repeats a few of the sentences, which are nice and short and convey an idea in a single word sometimes, so he even tried to read with me the second time through), I'm 97% sure he didn't totally understand it. I think what really drew him in were Raschka's illustrations. They have this really masculine aggression to them. I don't even know how. But he uses bold colors and there's a certain angry sloppiness to them. Splotches, like someone pressed too hard with the brush or were so upset they couldn't see straight, and thus, missed their mark a few times. Who knows? But the effect is, erm...effective.

a thoughtful hippopotamus is who is you

Finally, something written by Chris Rascka that I liked! The Blushful Hippopotamus is cute. It's just cute. It's about Roosevelt the hippopotamus whose sister is just evil to him. He's either really dumb or really young, but she rubs his face in every mistake he makes which causes him to blush. Finally, after enough abuse, Roosevelt asks his best friend Lombard the bird (stork?) if he really is a blushful hippopotamus. And wouldn't you know it? That Lombard knows exactly what to say to make Roosevelt's mean sister shrink (literally, she gets smaller and smaller) and his confidence swell. The best part, is that you get the feeling Lombard's being honest. He's not telling Roosevelt that he's the best Squash player in town or anything, but, rather, that he's thoughtful, hopeful, skillful, and wonderful! In the end, Roosevelt responds with a simple heartfelt thanks and he and Lombard hug. At least I think it was heartfelt. I mean, that's what I gathered from the illustrations. This book was funny for some reason. Maybe it's the sister's use of 'applesauce', 'pish posh', 'pooh', and 'it is to laugh' (whatever THAT means) in place of bul--loney...as she gets smaller and smaller in size. Maybe it's Lombard's silly sentence structures (a skillful hippopotamus is what it is you are, etc.). Really, it just kind of warmed my heart...and made me a little mad at my own friends.

Raschka's illustrations here are a lot like the ones for Waffle. The characters are blobs of colors with their bodies drawn on top.

good help makes leaving easier

The Purple Balloon is based on odd phenomenon. It seems that often when terminally ill children who are aware of their "pending death" (as Ann Armstrong-Dailey so delicately puts it in her note before the story) are asked to draw what they feel, they draw a single blue or purple balloon floating. This sketch apparently spans cultures and religious beliefs. Researchers think it has something to do with children somehow knowing part of them will live forever. To me, this similarity is heartbreaking in its significance and prevalence. So naturally, I was expecting some deeply moving, wipe a tear from your eye, experience from The Purple Balloon. Perhaps in the end, just a single, solitary, globe sailing away into the open skies trailed sadly and haphazardly by its own string...this is not what I got. I was alarmed from the first sentence. I spent the entire story completely worried. It was not at all soothing or comforting. I mean, I don't think there's such a thing as a children's book just about dying. It's usually got some ulterior motive--generally to give the child some insight or help in dealing with the situation. I'm pretty sure that was Chris Raschka's aim too, but it felt oddly empty. I feel like he just strung opposites together to cover all his bases. Even the single sentences he accented by putting on pages by themselves just made me more scared. Now, I have to take my reaction with a grain of salt because I've never been in the situation Raschka's addressing. Maybe this is really how it goes when you're in the hospital really sick and you've left your life behind. Your friends at school, your teachers, parts of your family. Only to have them replaced by doctors and nurses, tutors. Maybe kids in these situations are meeting more people than they ever thought they would. And maybe Raschka's trying to normalize the effects or explain what all these people are for. But describing them as "making dying less hard" and "leaving easier" just seems totally presumptuous to me. Dying is never easy. Especially when you're young. And while it pains me to disagree with Desmond Tutu who gave the book a glowing review on the back cover, I think Raschka's aim was a little off with this one...or maybe I'm the one being presumptuous now?

On the bright side, sales of the book help critically ill children. And the illustrations are kind of cool. The thin color spreads he uses in the backgrounds to accent the watery balloons might mirror how transient this life, especially the lives of those facing death sooner, are...or I might have started to read way too into this book.

waffling

It was hard for me to imagine how a kid would feel after reading Chris Raschka's Waffle. Mostly because I didn't know how to feel after reading Waffle. I imagine I felt much like Mr. Waffle himself. A little unsure, a little lost...Ok, I'm going to be honest: I really appreciate Raschka's ability to weave text and pictures into a singular experience and all, but this book kind of creeped me out. I really think it was over my head...which is unsettling. I like that Waffle's wishy-washy-ness and timidity was apparent through the uneven text and through the way he was illustrated. Waffle's a two-tone blob with some lines for features and stubby little legs. The two best pages of the book are where the actual story occurs. Raschka takes the word 'waffle' and Waffle himself and plays with them until they've transformed into something else. 'Waffle Waffle' wobbles and stretches until it somehow becomes 'flew' as Waffle sprouts wings (really, the blob that is his body just gets wider) and flies with the last page reading 'WAFFLE WORKED A WONDER (WITHIN)'. I get that I think. He tried to step out of himself and found a beauty and liberation inside that he had no idea was there. That's fantastic. But what I really don't understand are all the different colored smiley faces leering at Waffle from the opposite pages of the book...what do they mean? Are they the world? Are they Waffle's own insecurities? Why do they form specific shapes? Why does one of those shapes look suspiciously like a swatistika (while I'm sure this was completely unintentional, it's something I noticed)? And when you take all of these elements together, just what are supposed to understand in the end? I felt oddly good after reading the book, but all these uncertainties almost made me paranoid as well. Perhaps I'm being too adult about it. I can say I really loved the artwork though. Raschka goes bold.

a simple story of a boy who peed on a war

Ok. Here's something you should know about Vladimir Radunsky: he is a pacifist. You may be wondering why that's important. Well, it explains his motives for writing Manneken Pis and that explains why the book doesn't make a whole lot of sense. It was completely by chance that I picked up two controversial books based on the same statue of a peeing boy in Brussels. I don't think it was by chance that I liked one way better than the other. Radunsky chooses to tell the story of the peeing boy and how he became so famous in Manneken Pis: a Simple Story of a Boy Who Peed on a War. That right there is intriguing. And I thought to myself now, how did this work out? So I started reading. I was immediately captured by the great illustrations. I would describe them as frenzied painting...or something. And so I read of a little boy who lived very happily with his mother and father until one day enemies came and ruined everything. At this point, I'm expecting a brief explanation of war. Maybe some hint at its complexities. But no, Radunsky says no one knew why they came and that perhaps it was jealousy of the town's beauty that drew them there (to destroy it). And that's it. And now all of a sudden the boys parents are gone and he's scared and there are people fighting everywhere. So he walks up to a wall and he very suddenly has the very urgent need to pee--this part was actually kind of funny because it literally came from nowhere. So he stands on that wall and he lets it fly. And somehow this little boy is able to pee on everyone and everything. Seriously. And the mean people fighting the war, instead of getting mad, laugh. They laugh themselves to sleep in fact. And in the morning they wake up in such a good mood, they stop fighting. And look!--are those the boy's parents coming up the lane there? And yes, they all lived happily ever after...so like, I get the message. And I get the humor. It really was kind of funny. But I just don't get the writing. I just think Radunsky could have done more. It feels choppy and incomplete. I guess he wasn't kidding when he said he'd be telling a "simple" story.

roy, silo, & tango

And Tango Makes Three. Ah, I've been meaning to read this book for months. I've heard so much about it. how inappropriate it is, how it's not suitable for children. And you know what? Yeah, it's a sensitive subject but, like...they're penguins. Are we seriously trying to shelter our children from the taboo and potentially dangerous love of two penguins? Gosh, when I finished this book, I just kind of sat there. I thought it was so well-done (although perhaps the message was a little obvious). We pretty much just get the honest, observation-based account of the behavior of two male penguins in the Central Park Zoo. Of course, the authors make sure to compare everything in the book so that we understand that Roy & Silo are comparable to any other couple, any other family. I like that Richardson and Parnell don't give any other name to what transpires between Roy & Silo but love. That kind of keeps it simple and keeps focus. These two little penguins try so hard to be like everyone else but they just can't. I think that's an important point somehow. It's not as if the author is saying that homosexuality is the same as heterosexuality, but, rather, another thing that makes us beautifully diverse. It isn't until the zookeepers give the two penguins Tango's egg that they are able to become a family. And in the end I think the reader's supposed to see that a couple like Roy & Silo can be a functioning/contributing and successful part of society if given the chance. And that Tango's family does and needs the same things as everyone else's, even if it is a little different. There's also some neat non-fiction information in the back of the book about the penguins and their home in the zoo.
Oddly, the thing I was most unimpressed with about this book were the illustrations by Henry Cole. They're certainly not bad by any means, they just didn't wow me. My eyebrows raised even higher when I read his little bio in the back flap that I think described him as something like "an extremely incredible and versatile" illustrator or something. But Tango is quite adorable. There's no arguing with that.

let girls go running free

I honestly don't see why this book is controversial...it wasn't even that interesting. In fact, it was a little boring. It's pretty much just an illustrated, hand-written poem about little Black girls and the beauty of their hair. What's wrong with that? And it was written by Bell Hooks who has, at times, been credited with writing one of the most influential books of the 20th century, Ain't I a Woman? Hooks (real name: Gloria Jean Watkins) is a very accomplished writer, educator, activist, and feminist. Much of her work deals with class, gender, a race in art, education, and society. She's been a professor at some of the most prestigious universities in the country. I suspect the controversy has something to do with the title. 'Nappy' getting tossed into the fray often gets people up in arms. But she's not reckless with her words. And she's certainly not reckless in Happy to Be Nappy. The title is probably the most controversial thing about this book. I'm pretty sure she picked these words because they rhyme and they're simple. It's for children after all. The most interesting thing about this book, besides the author's accomplishments, is the illustrator. Chris Raschka. I just find them to be a funny pair. Chris Raschka has written his own award-winning books and I'd heard of him but not Hooks. Yo! Yes? by Raschka is one of my favorite books to read with kids because you can do so much with it. He chose to use "color washes with bold strokes" for Happy to Be Nappy. They're definitely a little abstract. I liked how he also depicted girls of different shades of brown which I feel like I don't see a lot. The hair is where the bold strokes come in. It shows a real thickness. The paper the book is on is a little coarse too, matted, unfinished. Subtly anyone?
But I have to say, I'm still not sure what a "girlpie" is. Must just be a term of endearment Hooks is fond of using.
Edit: it occurs to me after thinking about it again that this book is perhaps not appropriate for classroom use unless you teach at a predominantly Black school or can somehow communicate to your children the history of the word "nappy". At the same time, though, I'm torn because nappy hair is a reality. Sure, it's maybe not the most PC term but I've used it all my life and I think it's good for children to be exposed to something outside of what they know. I just imagine the little girl(s) in a school that is predominantly different from them being self-conscious about the way they look and it seems silly to keep a book that might offer some relief away from them. I guess this brings up the age-old question of where to draw the line.

mr. & mrs. ogglebutt

All right. I didn't particularly care for this book. And not because of the subject. I thought the 'un-wedding' was a really good idea. I just didn't like the book. It was obviously intended to be funny but I only found 3 parts amusing. Most of the time I felt like Babette Cole was trying too hard. The illustrations (especially of the house in the beginning that explained why the parents fought) were a little overdone. Its only redeeming qualities were its few simply stated points. For instance, when the children hold their meeting to determine if their parents' fighting is their fault, they all decide that it's not their fault their parents act like "five-year-olds". I know that doesn't sound funny now but at that point in the book, it was welcome comic relief. The second part that was somewhat amusing was all of the un-wedding guests saying things like "thank goodness" and "it's about time" as the Ogglebutts unpronounced themselves man and wife. I thought that was interesting because the children's books I've read about divorce up until now have only dealt with the nuclear unit and not the friends and extended family who also have to watch these people fight and make each other unhappy all the time. The third part I thought was funny was that while their parents were off on their separate honeymoons, the kids took it upon themselves to order two of everything for the separate houses they built for their parents...right next to one another (what?). Ok wait--I guess I lied. I found a fourth thing a little funny...the names. Ogglebutt. I did giggle. But that's it. Really. I think The Un-Wedding would have been better if it had been posed more as a fantasy for two children whose parents fought all the time instead of trying to be real. But I do tip my hat to Cole's originality.

'why don't you try it too?' he seemed to say.

This book was hilarious! I read it at the public library and found myself feeling like a creep for laughing out loud in the children's section while kids read with their parents all around me. Especially for what I was laughing at. Standing up by Marie-Anne Gillet isn't a potty training book per se, but more about the tweaking of said potty skills. But I don't think this book is controversial for the plot line (although I guess I could see how some people might not understand the need to write such a book) so much as for the illustrations by Isabelle Gilboux. The story is based on the famous Manneken Pis statue in Brussels. A boy is perfectly content sitting on his training potty until he sees this famous peeing statue. It seems to call to him and from that point on he will not rest until he's figured out how to pee standing up. I'm serious. And this is probably where it gets hairy. On his first try, we see the boy standing, holding himself, with pee gushing out of his cup hands onto his pants and the floor. Pretty much every picture after that is of the boy holding himself with a stream of pee trickling, spraying, or streaming from his nether regions. The main problem with these illustrastions is probably the fact that even though the boy is holding himself, we still get a few pretty clear glimpses of "himself". Another problem perhaps is that most of the boy's urination takes place in public, which is not illegal in much of Europe. At one point, he pees off the balcony of his home onto a woman who is, very luckily, holding an umbrella. He pees on a snail, on his mother while she's taking a bath (I should mention that all of his mis-aims were accidental), and even with his father when he finally gets the hang of it. But don't worry, all we see of the father is his butt in blue jeans. But they're both very clearly peeing on the side of some building. So I guess I can see how some might find the book a little inappropriate but to those people I say: lighten up. You might even laugh. I know I did.
And if you want to laugh a little more (or find others championing your cause) try MAPSU...I think they might be for real.

sticks and stones will break our bones but words will break our spirit

I read this book in a couple of days. I kind of couldn't put it down. I mean once I realized what the general plot lines were, especially the Collin thing (I totally saw it coming!), I just had to know how it all turned out. And I have to say when I first finished the book, I was a little disappointed in the ending. Ok, a lot disappointed. And not just because I got bored waiting for everyone to figure everything out. It was just too neat. Even the defeat in the elections which had kind of been the anchor of the book took a backseat to everything else. I didn't like that because everything else had worked out. But Jen brought up a good point in class: why not? Why not have everything work out? And it was then that I started to appreciate the ending much more for its unreality. I have to say, though, I still had a problem with many of the characters. I actually wanted to reach into the book and slap Addie off her soap box a few times. There was a little too much blood coming from that bleeding heart for me, if you know what I mean. She was presumptuous to the point of being offensive and I suppose that was Howe's point but still...those parts were harder to read. I did appreciate DuShawn's (ew) sense of humor about the whole thing though. And that he was clever enough to resist in his own way. I'm not sure I can ever fully accept the characters of his two girl friends though. I'm still working through some issues I have with their portrayals. And I gotta say, Skeezie came from left field. There were times during the early part of the novel when Skeezie would say something and I would start flipping back to see if I maybe missed that the action was taking place in 1955. I'm still not sure what that was about. It's funny that most people had a problem with Joe and he was the character I found most accurate. I've known a few Joes in my life. Even in 7th grade but especially in high school. I liked that this book did exactly what I think it was intended to do, which was to get us talking about different school environments. Even if it was to just compare our own experience with others in our group. But I have to say, some of the names on the list made me feel as though there were perhaps some deeper issues that needed to be addressed among the student body. Some of the words were racial slurs which I found disturbing. Especially because most of the kids misused them. Where are they getting this from? That's what really scared me about The Misfits.
And although it never becomes quite clear what is up Ms. Wyman, I still found her character to be hilarious for some reason. It might be the way that Bobby never seemed too fazed by her severity. I expect that if her attitude had really bothered the children, I wouldn't have taken her so lightly.

daddy's sleeping peacefully. when he wakes up, he won't even remember he died.

I was SO MAD when I finished reading this book. I was in tears and I felt like I'd been tricked. When I read the books for these blogs, I completely ignore the blurbs or any other information on the book flaps because sometimes I think they give too much information and the story is spoiled. In the case of Flamingo Dream by Donna Jo Napoli, I really wish I had. I picked up Flamingo Dreams because the illustrations (Cathie Felstead) looked awesome. A mixture of child-like drawings/collages with some watercolor and real objects mixed in. I could see any kid liking them. And the story starts off so cute: the narrator goes on a trip to Florida with their dad. It's where he grew up. It's there that they see flamingos on the racetrack. But they go to a lot of other places too. They even get ridiculous flamingo-print Hawaiian shirts. It wasn't until, like, 10 or 11 pages in that I realized something was wrong. The narrator comes home from school and listens to the dad talk about all the things he saw out the window while he spent the day on the couch. And then he falls asleep and the mother talks to the narrator about the dad's cancer and how he's "changing inside, just like the leaves were changing color" and that "he would die, just like the leaves would fall." And the little narrator says "sometimes we would cry together, all three of us." That's about the time I lost it. And so over the next few pages, nature takes it's course and the dad dies. At the funeral service, under his orders, his friends each bring a box with a pink lawn flamingo in it for the narrator. Eventually, the narrator gets angry and kicks them all over in the yard. But then they get the idea to scatter daddy's ashes at the feet of the flamingos. And then they cry. This all occurs about a month before the actual story of the book takes place. It turns out that the dad loved his camera and every year for the narrator's birthday, he would pick some pictures from the year and made a "Year Book" complete with stories for the pictures. It's at this point that it becomes clear the entire book is the year book the narrator's been working on for their first birthday without their dad. They don't have photographs but they've been collecting things. And suddenly, you can go back and look at all the pictures and see boarding passes, and ticket stubs, and flamingo feathers, and peanuts, and sea shells, even a hospital bracelet. Pretty much a trinket from every experience with the dad. And it becomes clear why everything looks like a kid drew it. Man, was I a mess by the end of this book. There was just something so honest about it and for a few minutes I couldn't figure out why. And then I realized it was the distinct lack of metaphors. Of those ridiculous, contrived, and often inappropriate metaphors authors writing about difficult subjects often use. It's the reason I couldn't enjoy that At Daddy's on Saturdays book. I just couldn't imagine a kid understanding or gelling with some of the things these authors were saying. It seemed that Donna Jo Napoli had gone out of her way to give just the facts so to speak. And one of my roommates (who I forced to read the book after me) pointed out that in the flaps, Napoli pretty much says just that: that, after losing his father (and her brother), her nephew was unsatisfied with the metaphor books or books that just kind of hinted at the pain. So she took it upon herself to write one she thought was better. And I really think it is too. It's become one of my favorite children's books to date.

'this is home now.'

I generally stay away from historical fiction. I used to do it because I thought it was boring. Now I just can't take the sadness. I'm not sure that Angel Girl by Laurie Friedman can actually be considered historical fiction because it's based on a true story...so they said. I just went to look for an image for Angel Girl and read an article that says shortly after the book's publication last September, a newspaper discovered that much of the love story had been fabricated by Herman Rosenblat, the boy who meets Roma, his angel girl. What's really weird to me is that I actually read about this when the story broke in December and totally forgot about it until now. It's really unfortunate because Herman's story has been in print for almost 20 years now. He's told it to numerous magazines, newspapers, news shows, and other media and everyone has embraced it as being a true triumph of human spirit in times when human spirit was absent in many parts of the world. the publishing company is actually issuing full refunds to anyone who bought the book directly from them. At any rate, Angel Girl told the story of Herman Rosenblat who was separated from his mother and sent to a work camp with his brothers. Herman was close to death from starvation and cold when a girl appeared at the fence of the camp and gave him an apple. She returned every day with an apple and because of her, Herman surivived long enough to be liberated along with his brothers. He spent the next years of his life trying to forget his childhood in the camp until one day his friend sets him up on a blind date and who should the girl be but his beloved Angel Girl! Herman and Roma have been married for 50 years now.
Friedman's writing style of short sentence fragments that convey a single thought or feeling is effective I guess but I was a little distracted. I found myself wishing she had included more details. Apparently, she spent months interviewing the couple and milking every last moment from them but I was left wondering where all of that was in the book. For example, Friedman correctly shows that Herman's mother told him to go with his older brothers instead of the car for women and children with her even though he was only 11. I think it might have been useful to also include that she told him to tell the soldiers he was 16 because while I was reading, I kept wondering how he got away with it. The use of color in Ofra Omit's illustrations is interesting as well. She uses a lot of orange in outlines of people and frames and for Roma herself. I wonder if the color means something or if she just used it for effect?

what's the matter--scared?

Wow. The whole time I was reading this book, I was scared for Sam and Ben's safety. Ezra Jack Keats illustrations are so dark and dingy and ominous, I just didn't want the boys out in them. As Sam and Ben made their way through their apartment building, listening to the very ordinary (yet somehow extraordinary) sounds coming from each apartment, hiding from the super, hoping to catch a glimpse of Betsy from Apt. 2, Keats captures something special to me. These boys live in a complex that, to the reader, does not seem like a very pleasant or inviting place. I as and adult would probably not walk around that place the way Sam and Ben do. But to them it's home and, therefore, familiar and somewhat safe I suppose. The story kind of suggests that they've gone exploring around the building before. But man, when Sam turns around to see the milk outside apartment 3 gone, and a voice inside beckons them, taunting them, I broke out in a sweat. Of course, this reaction was a little dramatic considering it's a children's book so nothing too terrible could happen but I think my concerns speak to Keats' ability to create ambiance. I also liked how Keats totally preserved these boys' innocence. The first thing Sam says when the blind man in #3 addresses him is "we didn't take the milk!" which actually made me laugh, even as the story approached its climax. Sam also gets flustered when he finds out the blind man knows a lot about him, including that he has a crush on Betsy, and Ben giggles as Sam gets mad. The best part about this book I think though, is that Sam and Ben are totally enchanted by the blind man's harmonica playing and ask him to go for a walk the next day which makes everyone happy. And it's funny that they were just being little kids and trying to spend more time with something/someone that intrigued them but their gesture obviously meant a lot to the man (as conveyed through the change in his harmonica playing). I think everyone's just as excited as everyone else for the next day and that ending definitely made me smile.

they named him angel, because that's what he seemed to be.

Moondog by Alice Hoffman and Wolfe Martin starts off as an eerie tale of impending doom it seems like. Yumi Heo's weird cutout style totally adds to the tone. Her collages (done in watercolor mostly, I think) lack perspective. Houses stick out at odd angles, there are gaps between objects and the scenes they've been pasted into, etc. Even the text is sometimes placed inside of shapes in the pictures (linoleum tiles for example). It's pretty cool to look at. A puppy is left on Michael and Hazel McKenzie's front step one night amidst the total destruction of their front yard. They keep the puppy, eventually naming him Angel to match his attitudes and behavior. But then one night about a month later, Angel disappears from their kitchen under equally strange circumstances as he arrived. Michael and Hazel's search for Angel leads them to the house of the neighborhood recluse, ironically named Ms. Mingle. The story's climax occurs at Ms. Mingle's house as the children try to save their dog but end up learning the truth about Angel, Ms. Mingle's dog and Ms. Mingle herself (surprise, surprise she's not as bad as she seems!). This is about the time the book changes mood/tone, once again aided by Heo's illustrations which take on lighter colors and a little more continuity. The kids help Ms. Mingle throw a Halloween party and all the trick-or-treaters and their parents stop by...the end. If you're like me, you might be feeling like you missed something at this point. I think you'd feel even worse if I gave you the whole story about the dogs and Ms. Mingle's reputation...I got to the last page and started flipping back, because I was sure I had to have skipped a page or two, only to discover I had not. So I guess the point of the story was not to judge a book by its cover or, as the last page says "Every puppy deserves to be a Moondog at least one night a year!"--oh wait, maybe that's a metaphor. For Ms. Mingle's transformation as well. Oh...I guess that's better. Well, at any rate, it was still a fun read.

his face melted into a loopy smile whenever he heard her name--catherine!--or even a word that sound like catherine: aspirin for example, or bathroom.

Ok, I'm not exactly sure who this book is aimed at. I mean, the inside cover says its for ages 4-8 but the storyline doesn't seem very relevant. I guess love is supposed to be universal and the characters are animals but like...what? It reads like a romantic drama. I imagine Kate Winslet or Gwenyth Paltrow playing the part of Catherine, the beautiful dance instructor/painter and some Leo DiCaprio or James McAvoy type playing Pierre the fisherman. Come to think of it, I guess love is really easy to talk about for little kids because they don't understand it yet. So maybe they could relate. I thought the story was beautiful and had a good message. Pierre is literally sick with love over Catherine, but then realizes that it wasn't the love that was making him sick so much as his keeping it all bottled up. Once he tells her, even though she does not reciprocate (she loves another), his life opens up. And, of course, in the end, unlike most of the movies the actors I chose to play them have been in, there is a happy ending for all. The book is kind of on the lengthy side, there's a paragraph on every page and nothing really repeats but the illustrations (Petra Mathers) are cool. All the grays and deep colors reminded of Maine (it turns out the author lives in Cape Cod). The only thing that bothered me is that when Pierre first confessed his love, Catherine rejected him because she loved someone else and that someone else was...Pierre. Like, I guess she didn't recognize him without his rubber overalls or something...or she didn't recognize him in the dark (they met at night)...or something. That part just didn't make sense. But other than that, I enjoyed the story. I think it sort of brought up something that most adults forget: we shouldn't be afraid of love.

they gather in a circle while they wait for all the others, sipping cups of ice-cold cocoa, made by snowman mothers.

Snowmen at Night offered a great alternative explanation to the changes we see in snowmen over the days of winter. A kid builds a snowman only to find him crooked and slumping the next day. To explain this, he imagines a night in the life of a snowman. As it turns out, snowmen have it good! Sledding, baseball, ice skating, snowball fights...the works. They're also a laid-back bunch, giggling and bumping into one another, and making sure everyone gets a turn in the games. Seriously, I almost missed winter and snow. I think Caralyn Beuhner's writing and Mark Beuhner's killer illustrations (vibrant blues, and vivid colors in general) give an explanation kids can vibe with. I'd much rather hear "your snowman ran himself ragged in the snowman races last night" than "your snowman's dying and eventually he'll just a be a pile of ice or even worse...water". The only thing I found slightly creepy was that the snowmen play baseball with snowballs which leads to a snowball fight...it just seemed wrong. Like, I had this brief mental image of humans throwing limbs and vital organs at one another. Call me crazy but I think about these things. Other than that, though, Snowmen at Night, with its simple, rhyming lines, is a breezy read.

brian, go to bed! and take your stupid dog with you.

Captain Pajamas was kind of standard. I mean, the illustrations were funny, especially Brian's Captain Pajama Remote-Control, Techno-Robotic, Alien Communicator(!) which was primarily composed of a Corn Flakes box, Legos, and some rubber bands, among a few other household items. The book is set up like a comic book with lost of bold, colorful letters and different fonts. After Brian aka Captain Pajamas assumes his role as defender of the universe and drags his sister Jessie out of bed in search of aliens, they don't find much. Except that Brian's dog Shadow has a very active nightlife, complete with bubble baths. After he pulls Jessie on a few wild goose chases for aliens that turn out to be Shadow, she makes them both go back to bed. Of course, in the end, the twist is that Jessie calls Brian to get Shadow out of her bed but Brian looks down to see Shadow laying at the end of his bed. I think that humor, and the repition without redundancy makes Bruce Whatley's and Rosie Smith's (a husband and wife team) story one kids might like to read over and over again. It's simple but fun. And it's definitely nice to read a book just for fun.

bus-sized women. skyscraper-sized men. kids taller than streetlights.

Hahahahahaha. I was really surprised at this effort by Laurie Halse Anderson. Yes, the same Laurie Halse Anderson who wrote Speak and a slew of other disturbing books for young adult readers. I really liked her other work but I was shocked to read such a light-hearted tale with her name on it. I mean, we're talking attitudinal author-reader conversation, we're talking greased pole climbing contests, we're talking "badda-bing"s and "badda-boom"s, we're talking happy ending and everything. Even during the would-be sad parts of the book (pretty much every page but the last one), I couldn't really take it seriously because...well, the people obviously aren't real. I mean, Benny Antonelli's "no bigger than a peanut butter sandwich"...I swear--he even sits on one to prove the point! Even the ending is totally unrealistic. It seems Ms. Anderson does love an underdog. After being tormented his whole life by kids in his family and the neighborhood for his size (used as a ball, dressed up like a doll, tied to toy airplanes), Benny takes to climbing up high where people can't reach him. But on the day of the Third Street Annual Block Party, he's caught and misused. Even a vision-impaired aunt thinks he's a tomato and tosses him in a salad (et tu Aunt Eulalie?). But Benny's moment comes in the form of the greased pole climbing contest, the object of which, is to climb to the top of and retrieve the cheese placed there. Now of course, the Sorensons (family friends of the Antonellis) challenge Benny's family to see who can get the cheese first. And of course, all these regular-sized people fail. That's when little Benny takes his chance and puts his climbing skills to good use. Nevermind that the pole is so wide there's no way he'd have anything to grip, nevermind that he pretty much climbs up the thing like Spiderman even though it's greased, nevermind that the pole seems high enough for his tiny body to shut down due to lack of oxygen. Nevermind any of that because gosh darnit, Benny gets the cheese! And a new nickname, hence the title The Big Cheese of Third Street. I dug this book for a few reasons. For one, the illustrations (David Gordon) are cool. Something about the dull colors and how the buildings in the background aren't quite clear and how everything seems a little dingy totally screams city. But the biggest reason is because as Benny's climbing the pole, he looks down and everything looks Benny-sized from way up there or maybe like he's the giant. It was kind of like he's found a place. A very dangerous, totally impractical place. I also really liked this story because it reminded me of an episode of Laverne & Shirley (I think) that involved greased pole climbing as well that I haven't seen in, like, 10 years. It's funny how things can take you back.

i can't draw a straight line with a ruler

The Dot was a cute book I could relate to. I was hoping it would be therapeutic for my aversion to art-making but it wasn't that deep. Peter Reynolds just tells the story of Vashti, who sits in her art class not making art. When the teacher gives Vashti the old "polar bear in an ice storm" comment for her blank paper, Vashti says she can't draw (oh have I been there!) The teacher encourages her to "just make a mark and see where it takes [her]", Vashti makes a dot with a marker which the teacher has her sign and hangs in the room. But Vashti looks at the dot and decides she could make a better one. After that, she experiments with all kinds of dots (we're talking big dots to polka dots to painting everything BUT the dot), eventually having enough material to put on a show of her work. Of course, at her show she meets a boy who admires her work so, mostly because he "can't draw". And of course Vashti gives him the same line her teacher gave her and he makes a squiggle which Vashti has him sign. Now, like I said, this book was cute. The illustrations were gray scale watercolors with bold black lines and splashes of actual color a la I Ain't Gonna Paint No More! The only thing ever in color was Vashti's moods (I think) and her art. But I think it would be even cuter if art teachers really let this kind of thing happen. Maybe it's just me, but I've never had a teacher who just let us create. There was always a project we were working on with a set of instructions that was to cause all of our work to converge. If someone had just let me draw a dot and run with it, I, like more than a few people I know (just ask my art methods class!), might not view "required" artmaking as the chore I do now. So I say kudos to you Mr. Reynolds!

wow!

Robert Neubecker's Wow! School! is definitely on the lower end of our age range. Each page says "WOW! _________!" with the blank being the illustration. And the pages follow an ordinary school day so there's wow! classroom! and wow! lunch! and wow! art! and wow! math!, wow! etc! But the real reason I picked this book up was for the illustrations. For the magnificent, colorful, two-page illustrations. The book is a little over-sized and Neubecker jampacks all sorts of scenes and images into every page. He kind of creates text with pictures because it takes all of two seconds to read the words but you could spend a few minutes dissecting the illustrations. One of the kids I work with had a wonderful time looking at all of these pictures. He even realized that the same dog appears on almost all of the pages. Wow! School! makes going to school look so amazing and fun, somehow capturing all the magic of the classroom, that it reminded me why I wanted to become a teacher in the first place...and I don't think you could ask for much more from a book.

you can't get lost in your own woods

Holly Hobbie's Top of the World was a little trippy. Like, Puddle's best friend Toot goes for a walk one day and just doesn't come back. Puddle tries to keep himself busy and wait for his friend's return but eventually gets so worried that he has to leave their bird friend Tulip and go looking for Toot. So he starts walking. His search takes him through the woods, on a train car (Toot loves trains), on a bus, and eventually leads him to an airport. All the while Puddles is trying to think like his best friend Toot. While walking in the airport he sees a sign for Provence and thinks to himself now that was one place Toot had never been and so he hops a plane! Now, at this point I was thinking, that's the worst plan ever! There's no way Toot will be there and Puddle will have to keep looking. But wouldn't you know it? Puddle has only sulked a little while in Provence when who should come screaming but Toot! And together the friends, after calling Tulip who must be worried sick by now, go to Nepal and climb a mountain. I say this book was trippy though because when Puddle asks Toot what happened and why he left, Toot pretty much responds with "you know how it is when you start walking..." What? You end up on the other side of the world apparently. And at this point in his journey, Puddle totally understands because that's how he found his friend. I think there's a message there. Something about walking outside of your world, maybe (because, after all, "you can't get lost in your own woods"). I don't know but the book was really simple but while stirring something in the reader. The mountain and traveling illustrations were beautiful as well.

eating all that chicken made her feel so frisky that she started dancing all over again...

James Sage's Sassy Gracie made me laugh out loud for some reason. Maybe it was Gracie's character--when this guy says sassy, he means sassy. I'm talking red high heels that go "clunkety-clunk", gold hoop earrings, you know. At first I was feeling kind of bad for Gracie because she has a "master" (I think she's some kind of servant, the cook's helper?) but it quickly became clear that she could handle her own. On the cook's day off, the master of the household is having guests over and needs Gracie to cook something. She cooks two beautiful chickens (with breaks for dancing during the process) but somehow ends up eating both of them...at which point she must figure out how to keep master and his guests from finding out. And I must admit, she does come up with a very simple, but sassy solution. Something about this book came off a little offensively. I'm really not sure why because I still had a pretty positive reaction towards it. Pierre Pratt's illustrations are neat too. They look like canvas paintings. One thing I could have done without though was the repitition of sound words. But I'm guessing Mr. Sage threw that in there to make the book somewhat patterned and predictable so younger readers would have something to anticipate to keep them interested seeing as how the story's a little long. And maybe to add a little to Gracie's character, perhaps children are more able to understand her character when they hear the sound of her high heels...who knows? Anyway, I wish I had some of Gracie's sass to get me out of potentially uncomfortable situtations.

what happened to miss foxworth? did she fall off a cliff or something?

When I started reading this book, I could totally relate. Doug and Harry come back from summer break expecting the comfortably warm familiarity of their school only to find that many things have changed. What kid hasn't experienced that? They come back and their favorite teacher got married and changed her name or is pregnant and on maternity leave? Maybe your gym teacher is now your homeroom teacher or vice versa. Maybe the strictest teacher in the school just became principal or VP. I totally get it. But for the rest of this book, I found myself saying "maybe if I was in third grade this would be better..." which I don't think is a good thing for any book. The story's fun I guess and it has moments that I think third graders might enjoy but the whole thing was lacking. Maybe it's because Miss Mackle, while she had some cool teaching moments, was oddly absent from most of the action. Maybe it's because I really had a problem with the students going on a field trip to a copper mine/prison until it was explained that the prison was no longer in use. Maybe it's because the Horrible Harry series by Suzy Kline seems to be aimed at boys more than girls. For whatever reason, although it did show a certain friendship and comraderie I think should be present in every classroom, I didn't find this book to be particularly great and I'll probably be sticking to my Polk Street School.

i should have known something was going to happen

This is What I Did is a little out of our age range but it caught my eye as I was perusing the shelves for books. I picked it up and decided I would read it later when I had the time. That didn't go so well...I made the mistake of reading the first few pages just to see what the book was like/about. After I read those pages, I couldn't stop reading. I pretty much read this thing in one sitting. I liked it so much I just had to talk about it. With the opening line: Last week Bruce kicked me in the balls at Scouts and all his buddies were there laughing and I started crying, something about Logan's story keeps you reading. The whole book is written with this heartbreaking honesty, but somehow keeps the limited knowledge of Logan the narrator. He's still just a kid and we don't know any more than he does. But at the same time we know even less than he does because for the majority of the book, he won't tell us what horrible thing happened to him and his best friend Zyler and that's the only reason we're even reading the book. I spent the duration of my reading thinking this book was written by a guy but was totally surprised (and I'm not really sure why) to find out is was written by a woman named Ann Dee Ellis. I liked this book too, besides it totally drawing me in, because Ms. Ellis plays with novel format. All her dialogue is written in transcript form...even the parts where no one says anything, and there are these little, like, shadow pictures that I'm still not sure I totally understand but I think they're clues about the story. I also got to learn a few more palindromes which doesn't hurt. I would say the best thing about this book is that all I was really rooting for was for Logan to begin healing and the author doesn't go any further than she needs to in telling his story. Even through Logan's limited perceptions, we see how "the event" with Zyler has affected everyone left in its aftermath and everyone those people interact with. The novel felt really complete somehow while still preserving the holes of reality.

i'm not helping!

Lately in my quest for interesting children's books, I've been finding out you truly can't judge a book by its title and cover. I've had some recent letdowns. So I've taken to picking up books whose illustrations strike me as, well, cool. Scribble by Deborah Freedman is one such book that caught my eye. The story starts off with two little girls coloring on pink and yellow paper. One girl draws a sleeping princess waiting for her prince and another draws a cat. Well, the girl who drew the princess doesn't really appreciate the artistic vision of the girl who drew the cat and a fight breaks out. Cat Girl scribbles on Princess Girl's picture. Up until the point, the story had been in comic book format with panels and word bubbles, but when the cat becomes curious, the format switches to storytelling with text at the top of the page and the illustrations become pink and yellow cutouts and sharpie lines. Cat girl and her real cat still make appearances though and the effect of her more traditional, colored pencil-type illustration against the bold cutouts. Eventually the word bubbles get worked back in too for dialogue and in the end, the book returns to its original format. I think doing the book this way truly draws the reader into the fantasy of drawings coming to life and interacting with one another. The story itself wasn't that impressive but I think the illustrations made up for it (there's a little humor in there too). It was just a fun read.

passing afternoons

I really like how laid-back and flexible the ongoing assignment for this class is. I have to admit, it kinda fun to blog with semi-anonymity. And it's really interesting to see the personalities in our class that we wouldn't see otherwise. The blogs are a rare window. My only issue with the set-up is that it sometimes adds a laborious edge to my reading which can ruin it sometimes. I feel like I'm reading just to have something to say sometimes. Like, I start a book with the intention of finding something to focus on for the blog and then I kind of don't really enjoy it as much. Sometimes I read books and really have nothing to say about them but I know I have to post something and that bothers me because then I think I'll end up saying a whole lot of nothing. Which is kind of a waste of time. To be honest, I'm pretty behind and it's totally my fault. I've read pretty much every book I need for the blog, I just haven't been able to force myself to sit down and reflect on them. I really do like reading the books though. I've found inspiration in so many places for which books to read next and find myself making notes and writing down titles and authors in the most random of places. I like how I'm being forced to consider a bunch of different things at once when reading a children's book but how the most important part is still how it makes me feel. It's not a bad way to pass an afternoon.