The Puddle

I’ve already talked about David McPhail’s Edward in the Jungle, but this past week I picked up his book The Puddle. These two books could not be more different. Where Edward was action packed and full of adventure, The Puddle is a softer quieter book with a lot of silliness mixed in. It is the type of story that I grew up with and for some reason I was reminded of the Little Bear series by Else Holmelund Minarik while reading it. The books are not similar but the tone that they were written in is. This is a quiet book about a simple thing that becomes extraordinary.

The story follows our narrator who wants to go out in the rain to sail his little sailboat. His mother agrees but tells him not to get wet or muddy. So he dresses up in his raincoat and goes out to a big puddle to sail his boat. Shortly after launching his boat, a frog comes along and steals it. He hops into the boat and refuses to bring it back near the shore. (did I mention it was a big puddle). Since the little boy can’t get wet, he cannot follow. Luckily an alligator shows up and offers to bring the boat back. He reclaims it from the frog but returns the boat with a bit of damage. But it doesn’t matter because right then a pig shows up wanting to go for a swim in the puddle. He jumps in and splashes the boy. But then an elephant comes along and wants a drink. She drinks up the whole puddle, and when the other animals yell at her, she spits it back out, drenching the animals and the boy. She leaves and the rain stops. The puddle dries up and everyone leaves. The boy goes home and is told to take a bath, where he finally gets to sail his sailboat in peace.

I’m not sure why this book seemed like a quiet little story to me with all the silliness that goes on. But somehow McPhail presents the tone as no big deal. And elephant arriving at the puddle is treated pretty matter-of-factly. In fact the interactions with all the animals is done very quietly. Even the frog bumping into a turtle or the alligator grabbing the sailboat is done with a softness. Part of this might be the illustrations. With the rainy day theme, McPhail uses mostly watercolors. There are often two smaller pictures on each page and the border of each image is not clearly defined. All the edges are soft often rounded. This gives the book a soft muted look. McPhail paints our narrator as a rather cute little boy who spends most of his time in a tiny rain slicker and what looks like a fireman’s hat. He is a nostalgic looking character and makes me think of growing up. But the animals are what really made this book wonderful for me. Each seems to have it’s own personality. The elephant is timid, the turtle serene, the frog is a bully, and the alligator is a big softie. A wonderful little story that seemed a throwback to older days. This book made me nostalgic and ultimately made me happy. A quiet little book that is perfect for rainy afternoon.

Science Verse

Last month I reviewed Cowboy and Octopus by the dynamic duo of Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith. I--to put it politely--disliked the book and said so. It was the first and hopefully only time in this blog that I will bash a book. I decided shortly after that review not to do anymore negative reviews. There is no reason for me to write about bad books when there are so many good ones to talk about.

So it is a totally different story when I talk about the duo's title Science Verse, which I finally bought and read this past weekend. I could not be more in love with this book. I picked up a number of books at the bookstore this weekend but I only had eyes for this one. I have read and reread these poems over and over since Saturday. They are just too wonderful.

For those of you who don't know Science Verse is a somewhat sequel to Math Curse (which I already own). The boy from Math Curse even makes a quick cameo in this book. Here is one instance where a sequel tops the original and that is saying a lot. I loved Math Curse but Science Verse is even better. The book is a series of poems all about science, which are done in the style of famous poems or songs. Evolution, is a silly little poem about (you guessed it) evolution, set to the Battle Hymn of the Republic. Mary Had a Little Worm, a poem about parasites, is a direct takeoff on Mary Had a Little Lamb. And these are the shorter poems. My favorite had to be a poem about the scientific method told to the rhyme of Casey at the Bat. Or the hilarious Dino-Sore told in the same cadence as The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe.

Jon Scieszka is at his marvelous best, combining familiar rhymes and cadences with new and delightful wordings. Kids may want to see what the original poems sound like but I guarantee they will enjoy the new wording so much more. Scieszka is just so witty and clever with the parodies that kids will be singing and reciting the poems over and over. These are funny, silly, wonderful poems. And they will be learning a little about science in the process. Scieszka gives credit where credit is due at the end, listing all the poems and songs that were parodied.

Not to be outdone, Lane Smith has created silly and interesting spreads for each of the poems. His illustrative work is always inventive but in this book he really creates characters that stand out. The poem Evolution has a wonderful spread with each of the evolutionary stages of our narrator. He goes from knuckle dragging monkey, to upright boy wearing his adorable little bow tie. The spreads for Dino-Sore are colorful and just plain beautiful. One of my favorite spreads is for a poem called Water Cycle which looks at the precipitation-evaporation cycle. Our narrator is held in tiny water droplets only to be pushed high in the air during evaporation. Silly, inventive, and always interesting, Smith has easily become one of my favorite illustrators.

Science Verse is hilarious, innovative, and actually educational. Kids won't understand that they are learning about parasites, the water cycle, or the scientific method, but they will want so many repeated readings that they will soak in the information. Kids will love the funny poems, adults will love recognizing the source poems and songs, and everyone will love this book. Both this and Math Curse should be required reading. I'm excited that both of them now grace my shelves.

June 29, 1999

Every book by David Wiesner I read reminds me of how much of a genius the man is. Wiesner is the master at making the reader step outside the boundaries of normal. His settings are very real but the situations just seem beyond the norm. His Tuesday is one of my favorite wordless books ever and that is based on the simple premise of flying frogs. This book has a touch of Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs meets Tuesday. There is strange and then there is the genius of Wiesner. 

The story starts with Holly Evans beginning a science experiment. She plants vegetables in boxes and then launches them into the air with weather balloons to see what effects heights and atmosphere have on their growth. It is her science experiment for class. A couple weeks later a hiker in the woods find a giant turnip. Suddenly massive vegetables are showing up all over the earth. Holly watches the giant vegetables with interest. Her experiment seems to have had some interesting consequences. That is until the Arugula is found. Holly didn't plant Arugula. She realizes that this is not the result of her experiment. Now the question becomes where the vegetables came from and where her seeds went. Well above the earth, the answer is found. I won't give away the surprising and strange ending. 

As always Wiesner's illustrations are what make this book the masterpiece that it is. His image of the broccoli that winds up in Holly's backyard is detailed and odd. He uses the juxtoposition between normal and strange well. All of his work is detailed and colorful and leads the reader into the world. We see the giant vegetables through Holly's eyes. We have the same confusion that her experiment could have produced such amazing food. In fact it is something of a let down to find that the experiment is not the cause. I wanted the oddity to continue. The ending stunned me. But the unusual story drew me in. I loved how the story starts realistically and slowly then becomes more and more unreal. 

My favorite page was the one with the red peppers, who apparently needed some help getting down to the ground. But the mix of images and words are perfect. Wiesner has such a great sense of the absurd. A wonderful book, and I'm not just saying that because it is filled with food. Silly and fun.