Library Round-Up #4

This week's library haul in brief (some briefer than others):

Amelia and Eleanor Go For A Ride by Pam Munoz Ryan, pictures by Brian Selznick.  I found this book via Annie and Aunt (who currently have a great series of posts about books for the very earliest of emerging readers) and I can't say enough good things about it.  From the amazing black-and-white illustrations by yes, that Brian Selznick, to the wonderful writing, this book is a winner and perfect for Women's History Month.  It is not quite non-fiction, but is based on a true event and the author smartly includes a note at the end detailing what parts are true and where she took liberties.  Of course, it doesn't hurt that the story, about the friendship and adventures of two of the most admired women of the mid-twentieth century, provides great material.  This one's going on my to-buy list.  And now I'm interested in the author's book about Marian Anderson, too.

Posy by Linda Newbery and illustrated by Catherine Rayner.  This simple story about a cat's activities is elevated by the clever rhymes ("whiskers wiper/crayon swiper") and expressive illustrations.  I do wish, however, that the color palette had been enlivened a little.  The brown, black and light orange of the calico cat don't make for the brightest color scheme so less muted colors for the other items in the illustrations would have been nice.


Maudie and Bear by Jan Ormerod, illustrated by Freya Blackwood.  I can't decide what I think of this collection of five stories, well-regarded in its native Australia.  As the book jacket says, "Bear's world revolves around Maudie.  Maudie's world also revolves around Maudie."  The bear is clearly a stand-in for a parental figure and somewhat of a martyred one at that.  The sacrificial aspect and the second story, a take-off on the Three Bears which I think explores the guilt Goldilocks must have felt, don't sit right with me, but the quiet prose and illustrations are lovely.  I especially like how the illustrations, not the words, provide the punchlines in both The Bike Ride and Telling Stories.

Prudence Wants a Pet written by Cathleen Daly and illustrated by Stephen Michael King.  Another (I think Australian) book I'm ambivalent about.  Prudence wants a pet so desperately she adopts all kinds of inanimate objects until her parents finally succumb.  On a first reading, my girls thought the story was hysterical, but it didn't hold up as well upon rereading.  Truly clever moments (adopting a shoe and calling it Formal Footwear, since that is what it says inside) seem to highlight that the rest of the book falls short.  The part of the story about "sea buddies" was confusing to us (what are they exactly?  some type of plant?) and neither my girls or I were sure whether the pet at the end was a cat or a dog!  On the plus side, I love how the adults in the story are only depicted from the waist-down, a true child's eye view of the world (and reminiscent of the grown-ups in Charlie Brown).  Strangely, it is the third book I've read recently with inanimate objects as pets - the tween novel, When Life Gives You O.J. by Erica S. Perl and Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great by Judy Blume were the others.


Apple Pie ABC by Alison Murray.  I have a soft spot both for retro-looking illustrations and unique alphabet books and this book scores high  on both counts.  I can't think of another alphabet book that actually tells us a story like this one, although there must be one, right?  Also going on my to-buy list.




 
A Ball for Daisy by Chris Raschka.  Justly deserving of its Caldecott for the illustrations (I love the colors) but I found the plot of this wordless book a little thin.

My Rotten Redheaded Older Brother by Patricia Polacco.  A great semi-autobiographical book about sibling relationships with photos of the author and her real rotten redheaded older brother on the endpapers.

Listen to My Trumpet! by Mo Willems.  The latest in the Elephant and Piggie series, this one was definitely not my favorite.

Dumpling Days by Grace Lin.  The third book in Grace Lin's semi-autobiographical middle-grade series about Pacy Lin, a Taiwanese-American girl, which, like the first two (The Year of the Dog and The Year of the Rat), successfully explores immigrant identity and the difficulties of just growing up.  The kind and wise parents remind me of the Quimbys.  My only complaint is that the books are not very subtle, but that may be all for the best considering the target age group.

Have you or your kids read any of the above?  What did you think?

B.P.: Before Pink

Before pink, there was red.  Red used to be a "girl color" and I've got the books to prove it.  Ann Likes Red by Dorothy Z. Seymour follows a determined little girl on a shopping trip.  She turns down every suggestion for clothes other than red and ends up with an all-red outfit - and a very nice one, I might add!  Written as an early reader and as an alternative to Dick-and-Jane type books, I have to confess that I find this book a tad boring, although my girls love it.  Its five-star rating on Amazon appears to be due more to nostalgia than quality, with reviewer after reviewer reminiscing about how this book helped her learn to read.

Even better is Red is Best by Kathy Stinson.  Here the protagonist is an equally stubborn girl, a few years younger.  She, however, provides hysterical justifications for why her red mittens are better than her brown ones (they make better snowballs), the red cup is better than the green (juice tastes better in it - of course!) and so on.  What I love about this book is that it works on multiple levels.  My 4-year-old thinks the juice really does taste better in the green cup, but my 6-year-old sees the humor and ridiculousness and gets a kick out of the book as well.  There aren't too many easy picture books that my older daughter still enjoys, but this is one of them. 

Meanwhile, as a red-lover myself, I have been bemoaning the lack of red clothes for girls since my first daughter was born.  I think red's ready for a comeback!

Is there a book about your or your child's favorite color?

Retro Reading: Two Fabulous Links

Billy Parrott, an NYPL librarian, has a fabulous post about what Sally Draper would have been reading in 1964-65.   I have to agree with the commenters who suggested Marjorie Morningstar, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (two of my favorites!), Peyton Place,  and the works of e.e. cummings  and Rachel Carson.

Today Betsy Bird has a follow-up post with a challenge to identify what Sally is actually reading in photographic stills from the Mad Men TV Show.

Go, check them both out and add your thoughts!

A Little Bit Retro

I wasn't familiar with the works of Ellen Raskin, but we inherited two of her books and I'm not sure how I could have missed these!

In Nothing Ever Happens on My Block, the opposite, of course is true.  Bringing to life the mother's aphorism that, "Only boring people are bored," Chester complains and complains about how uneventful life is on his street, totally oblivious to not only interesting but outlandish things happening right before him (or rather, behind him). 

In Spectacles, a little girl sees all kind of strange things (a fire-breathing dragon, a chestnut mare, a blue elephant) that turn out not to be at all what they seem... until she finally gets the glasses she needs.

Both were written in the 1960s and a quick Wikipedia search revealed Ms. Raskin's authored quite a few books, including some young adult novels, as well as illustrated many written by other authors.

Annuals

Growing up, my family was lucky enough to be able to spend part of each summer at our country house in the Catskills.  Although we always brought new books with us, we had a few books that remained at the country house during the year.  These were not "back-up" books for when we exhausted what we'd brought.  To the contrary - one of the joys of going to the country house was reading and rereading the "country house books" annually.  As I got older, they included Marjorie Morningstar by Herman Wouk, the story of a Jewish girl's coming of age in the 1930s and Belles on Their Toes  (the sequel to Cheaper by the Dozen, which, strangely, I don't think we had at the country house), both by Frank B. Gilbreth and his sister Ernestine Gilbreth Carey.  In them, the sibling authors tell the story of their family which consisted of 12 children and their parents, the efficiency experts Frank and Lillian Gilbreth.  (I guess if you're going to have a dozen kids, you might as well be an efficiency expert!)  These are still some of my favorite books.

Now that I have brought my own kids to the country house, I have rediscovered the picture books that my mom has kept there these past 30+ years.  When a friend's recent Facebook post requesting children's book recommendations garnered several votes for The Saggy Baggy Elephant (A Little Golden Book), I thought, oh, a country house book!  While this sweet story has a moral (looks don't matter, your family will love you no matter what), the most fun part of reading it is doing Sookie the elephant's happy dance with him: one, two three, kick! one two three, kick! 

Maybe my mom had a thing for elephants, because another favorite country house book is The Circus Baby by Maud Fuller Petersham.  A mother elephant admires the way the clown family eats with utensils and wants to raise her baby to be similarly civilized.  Chaos ensues as the baby elephant attempts to eat with a spoon and mother elephant learns to accept the limitations (if that's what they are) of elephanthood and not push her baby to be what he is not.  The illustrations are charming and the book is not pedantic in the least.

Finally, If I Had a Lion by Liesel Moak Skorpen, tells of a little girl's plan for a lion to become her best friend and companion.  They would take care of each other when they were sick, play with each other and generally keep each other company.  Again, the illustrations are delightful and despite the fact that the little girl must be lonely, the book is not sad.

Of course, I am writing these reviews from memory because the books are not here - they are at the country house.  It would be a violation of an unwritten family rule to purchase them - or even read them - during the rest of the year.  So here's to next summer, when I will read all of these again (and again, and again, and again.)