You can tell from this list, that I like a lot of different styles of art work and genres of tale. I am sure that if I walked through my picture book section, I would come up with ten or twenty other favorites...Any of your favorites on the list? Which aren't?
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Banjo and Squeakless Mouse are waiting for their next story time. What shall we read?
Cal and his family live "way up as up can get" in the Appalachian mountains of Kentucky. Once every so often "That Book Woman" comes to the house, rain or shine, to drop off books and take returns. Cal's sister Lark loves to read, but it's all useless chicken scratch to Cal. That Book Woman won't accept payment from Pap...not even a poke of berries (which Cal picked thinking Mama would make a pie). Then in the dead of winter, That Book Woman navigates a storm and deep snow to deliver books. Cal begins to wonder what inspires such bravery. Lark teaches him to read...and when he asks That Book Woman come summer what he can give her in return for all the books, she asks him to read to her & says that's payment enough. As a Librarian that makes me all teary-eyed just thinking of it. Caldecott winner David Small's illustrations are...well, Caldecott worthy as usual. (But I'm wondering where them tow-headed twins come from with Mama, Pap, Cal and Lark all with hair black as night) Small's lean figures and expressive faces rendered in watercolor with just the right weight of line have become recognizable over the years. They bring Henson's folksy verse story to life. Sure the arc of the story might be a little predictable to us book people, but to younguns it will be new as a Spring piglet. To top it off the words, when read aloud sound beautiful evoking Appalachia with their rhythm alone. Based on the packhorse librarians of the 30's, this is a fabulous picture book. Not a new title, but worth adding to your collection personal or public. (Ahh! Just looked up the professional reviews of this and learned my friend Angela Reynolds in Nova Scotia wrote the School Library Journal review...small reviewing world!) "There is one thing Lily says that drives her dad mad" (What do you think it is?) "Why?" Morning noon and night, she asks why. Her dad tries to answer each time she asks, but after a while it just drives him bonkers. Then one day while they are playing in the sandbox, the horrible Thargons land...they say they are going to destroy the planet Earth. All the adults quake in fear. All the kids and kitties quake in fear...but Lily asks: "Why?" The dread leader of the Thargons answers...and Lily asks: "Why?' Big people you can probably take this to the logical conclusion. Little people are probably giggling and wondering what happens next. Go find this at your local library. If you're an adult with a child of a certain age, you will laugh in sympathy. If you're a kid, you'll just laugh. Tony Ross's pictures ALWAYS make me smile (here and elsewhere). Here they are scribbly bright expressive and a little inspired by graphic novels (before that was all cool and stuff). Lindsay Camp should have never stopped writing for children...and more of his books should have jumped the pond...sadly he only writes big people nonfiction and websites now...weep... I wrote a review of this thirteen years ago on Amazon, and I still love it. I read it to a generation of first graders in Massachusetts and then the following year in Ohio during school visits...and on more than one occasion, a young patron came up to me in the library and pulled at my pantleg and smiled and said: "Why?" Konigsburg never fails to amaze me...spinning story lines and characters aimed at the sophisticated child readers and creating stories that touch and entertain kids and adults. Even her "more accessible" novels like From the Mixed up Files of Mrs. Basil E Frankweiler ask more of readers than most of children's literature, and that's a good thing. Her books are works of art you can either spend time picking the levels and relationships of events and people apart...or just enjoy the gestalt. In this near-sequel to The Outcasts of 19 Schyuler Place, Amadeo Kaplan and his mother move from New York to St Malo, Florida. It's his first time being "the new kid" and he's smart and rich, so he doesn't make many friends right off the bat. He does befriend William whose mother is helping to catalog the possessions of the strange and pretentious Mrs. Zender, a retired opera singer who is moving to a retirement community before her money runs out. Amadeo wants to discover something no one else has, and there's a chance of that, he thinks, in helping William and his mother with Mrs. Zender's belongings. Through bits of memoir and letters, the boys uncover a mystery that touches on art history and Nazi oppression. Maybe I just had a weird childhood, but no matter whether her books are set in the modern world or before I was born or back in the mists of history, reading Konigsburg puts me in mind of my own childhood. Her one-of-a-kind Newbery win (Mixed up Files) and Newbery honor (Jennifer, Hecate, MacBeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth) in the same year happened the year I was born--maybe that's the root of my connection to her books. Give them a try; you're in for a treat.
I love David's books. He makes me laugh ("Boy Meets Boy"). He makes me cry ("Are We There Yet"). Every time I open one of his novels I feel like I know him better than I do (and I am lucky enough to have spent some time with him at library conferences...and he's lucky enough to not live too close to me :-). This was just great. He is a master of the love story. And dipping his toe into the Fantasy-Genre pool (ok, "Wide Awake" was kind of a Fantasy, for now--you gotta read it to find out why I say that), he totally nails the cross-genre storytelling. Strong characters that all ring true with round personalities. "A" is the same person day after day...in a different body. He/she wakes up in a new town in a new body every day. It's been going on for as long as he/she can remember. There are rules, but when he/she wakes up in the body of Justin...and meets Rhiannon the rules get thrown out the door. Big issues (gender, sexuality, right and wrong, origins of true love...) get addressed. They make you think, but they never stick out like they do when you're in the hands of a less skilled author. There is vivid writing that's so down to earth...when reading Richard Feynman, my dad says it's like reading a book he wrote himself. That is kind of the way I feel when I read David's novels especially this time: Kate Bush's "Running up that Hill" (a personal favorite song) figures in the tale...and Alice Hoffman's books (another favorite author of mine) appear in the story...and then there's the the fact that I stole Judy Blume books from my sister. You'll have to read this to find out how that figures in. this is a great read, I never wanted to put down...and one I would recommend to nearly everyone |
About MeTim is a writer, book reviewer and Librarian. He has a Master's of Library Science and was on the Newbery Committee twice. Technology scares and often annoys him, but he is always game for a silly costume! Archives
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