Too Much Children's Book Goodness in One Place

I posted this on Ancora Imparo as well. But just in case you were curious about the power and weight of children's books. ;-)

I've finally managed to do it. I broke a bookcase. I knew it was just a matter of time. I'm nice to my books, hard on my cases.

I have five bookcases in my library: one for books I still have to read, one and a half for fiction, one and a half for nonfiction, and one for children's books. My children's book bookcase decided that it had had enough this past week. The second shelf, which holds picture books, broke and dropped its contents to the floor. Jeff was watching TV on Friday when he heard a loud crash and the cat come running down the stairs. He went upstairs to find my books all over the floor.

Here you can see where the shelf had been

He piled my books up on the bed we have in the library and called me. So now I have to go out and find a new bookcase. My idea is that this next one will be a quality case. Something that will move with me from house to house. Something I can show off. Not the cheap plyboard ones I bought from Target years ago. They've held up, but my bookcases have to be strong. I finally pushed one to the breaking point. Who knows how long the others will last. Particularly with this load.

Crispin

We all know that the best part of a gift for most kids is the box. That's the premise of Ted Dewan's book Crispin: The Pig Who Had It All. I picked up the book at the prompting of the 1001 Books Challenge and am so glad I did. This might be my new favorite picture book.

When Crispin receives an empty box for Christmas he's disappointed. After all the amazing technological marvels that he's received (and broken) over the years, the box is nothing. He's particularly sad since the tag had said that "it was the very best thing in the whole wide world". Crispin is so disappointed that he drags the box outside to the trash. That's when two kids come along and ask to play with it. After some prodding Crispin finally lets them play and all together they have a ball playing make believe in the empty box. After the box gets rained on and collapses, Crispin takes his friends inside to play with his old broken toys and the new refrigerator box. He finally learns just how much fun friends (and imagination) can be.

This book had the absolute cutest story from beginning to end. Crispin is spoiled, and portrayed that way. In the beginning he's sitting in front of the TV slurping down ice cream and sugary drinks while his broken toys lay piled on the floor. He's whiny and lazy and destructive. At first when the kids try to play in his box, Crispin is furious. Finally they drag him into the game and from there on we see a completely different kid. The energy in this book was just so much fun. It's imaginative but very true to how some kids can be. Dewan throws in a ton of fun pop references so be on the lookout for Dr. Seuss, tomaguchi pets, Piggles (a new Pringles brand perhaps?), and telly-tubbies.

I loved the story but the artwork is just as much fun as the text. Dewan uses bright colors and fun shapes to make every part of the page exciting. Even Crispin's world before he found his friends is imaginative. But once they start playing the pages just light up. I particularly loved the adorable pig and the art deco house. And I love the games that they create. Wonderful colorful images to go with a sweet story.

I was the kind of kid who played for hours in empty boxes. I can make up a story to suit any occasion and often spent many an hour turning a coffee table into a canoe and a canopy bed into a castle. So this book was perfect for me. I'm reminded that with all my glitzy gizmos and entertainment options, friends and imagination are still the "very best things in the whole wide world."

A Challenge

As if I didn't have enough things to take me away from this blog, I've accepted a reading challenge that has taken up the last month and is still nowhere near finished. But this might actually bring me back to the blog. Mostly because this reading challenge is all about some great children's books.

A couple years ago my mother bought me a copy of the 1001 Children's Books That You Must Read Before You Grow Up. I've occasionally gone in to see which books I've read and mark up the pages. A month ago I decided to step up my efforts. I'm going to attempt to read every book in this anthology. I'd only read about 200 so this should be a bit of a challenge. Many of the books are international and might be a bit difficult to find. But a challenge is a challenge, and I've been enjoying trying to satisfy it. I've made five trips to the library in the last month and each trip has included at least a dozen books. I'll post reviews about books I love. I already have a huge stack of my favorites. Simple stories like The Ox-Cart Man. Sweet stories like Crispin: The Pig Who Had It All. Wonderful chapter books like The Naming of Tishkin Silk. I'm going to review my favorites from the list. Stay tuned and I'll keep you posted on my progress. 200 down, 800 to go.

You can also watch my progress at LibraryThing. I'm CatB. It even has a book list that automatically tracks my progress.

Library Lion

As a librarian, I love books about libraries or even books about books. The same way I'm drawn to art about reading or books, I'm drawn to books that talk about libraries. So the moment I saw Library Lion, written by Michelle Knudsen and illustrated by Kevin Henkes, I knew I was going to own it eventually. Then I read the story and saw the illustrations, and I bought it immediately.

Library Lion tells the story of a lion who wanders into the public library and decides to stick around. The librarian, Miss Merriweather is okay with the lion staying as long as follows the rules: no running and especially no loud noises. The lion can visit as long as he stays quiet. The lion loves story hour and in the morning he helps Miss Merriweather around the library. Everyone loves the lion expect Mr. McBee. One day, Miss Merriweather falls and hurts herself. The lion runs for help but the only way to get attention is to roar. He roars loudly causing Mr. McBee to go searching for Miss Merriweather to tell on the lion. But the lion knows he's broken the rules. He leaves the library. When Miss Merriweather returns to work and notices that the lion is missing, she becomes depressed. So Mr. McBee goes out to find him and return him to the library.

I tear up every time I read this story. It's at the end when Mr. McBee invites the lion back to the library. And then when Miss Merriweather runs down the hall to greet him. I am so in love with this story. It's not just sweet pages like this: "Soon the lion began doing things without being asked. He dusted the encyclopedias. He licked the envelopes. He let small children stand on his back to reach books on the highest shelves. Then he curled up in the story corner to wait for story hour to begin." The image at the bottom of the page is of the back of the lion when he's sleeping. A young boy is gently resting against the lion's back while reading. It's just a perfect pairing of words and picture. Knudsen's story makes me cry and laugh and smile and cheer. That's an awful lot for a 32 page book to do.

As if this story couldn't get cuter, Henkes' illustrations will make fall in love all over again. His acrylic and pencil images use subdued colors to create the kind of library you would want to visit, and a lion you would want to curl up with. I'll even forgive him for making Miss Merriweather wear a bun. The lion is imbued with so much emotion. You quickly fall in love with him. The image of him sprawled across a pillow in the children's section with a slight smile on his face, is so wonderfully sweet. The humans are all well created but it's the lion that will make this book a favorite for children. He's realistic but not scary. Beautiful images and a sweet story. A must have.

The Duchess of Whimsy

I make it no secret that I adore the artwork of Peter de Seve. Ever since I first saw one of his New Yorker covers, I've been fascinated by his work. So when I found out that he had illustrated a children's book, I knew I had to buy it. The book was written by Peter's very talented wife Randall de Seve and the story is just as much fun as the illustrations.

The Duchess of Whimsy follows a rather steady and some would say dull Duke. The Duke of Norm prefers things to be in order. He's quiet and seriousness and ordinary. And he's in love with the Duchess of Whimsy, a royal who can't stand anything to be ordinary. She loves anything exotic and strange. What she isn't interested in is the Duke of Norm. That is until a royal banquet turns into a catastrophe when the cook becomes ill. All the other royals start making extraordinary dishes, all expect the Duke. He makes a plain grilled cheese sandwich and milk. The Duchess is intrigued and then enamored. That sparks their friendship. The Duke begins to understand how the extraordinary can be fun and the Duchess learns that sometimes quiet and serious can be interesting. And they live happily ever after.

I love this story. It's a simple story but I've known a good number of couples who fit this bill. When I read it I realized how this is not just a children's story. It's a story about relationships, about love, about finding the extraordinary in the ordinary. Randall has a fantastic imagination. I particularly liked her descriptions of the Duke of Norm's attempts to impress the Duchess. "The Earl of Norm composed sugary poetry comparing the Duchess to a squid, a platypus and a penguin...." Or the fantastic dishes that the rest of the royals are making. "The Duke of Dreams made a velvet midnight cake topped with an entire galaxy of spun sugar stars. But first he had to learn how to spin sugar." This is a wonderful story with a fantastic mix of the ordinary and sublime.

Peter is a master of facial expressions and this might be his best medium for those. The book is filled with interesting faces, beautiful details, and fantastic colors. Each page is more like a glorious painting than a children's book. The scene in the kitchen is one of my favorite images. It mixes Peter's humor with his incredible attention to detail. Using just the few words on the page, he creates a scene filled with life and light. This is pure art. A fantastic book that both children and adults will love. Children will love the silly scene, like where the Duke brings a giraffe to the party or where the duchess hosts her party surrounded by fish in balloons. Adults will love the sweet love story and will identify with the duke and duchess. And everyone may want a grilled cheese sandwich.

Children's Classic: The Biggest Bear

There are some stories from my childhood that I remember vividly. That I can conjure up in my minds eye with just a title. Caldecott winner, The Biggest Bear by Lynd Ward is one of the most vivid for me. Ward's story of a young boy named Johnny Orchard who goes out to collect a bear skin for his family's barn and comes back with more than he bargained for is imprinted in my mind.

Johnny lives in a farming community where his family raises apples. Every other farmer has shot and skinned a bear and Johnny feels the shame of not having a bearskin for the family. So one afternoon he sets off with his shotgun to shoot himself a bear. But the only bear he finds is just a cub. And he's hungry. So Johnny feeds him some of his maple sugar. And then takes the bear home. While his parents aren't happy with a bear for a pet, Johnny promises to feed him. The bear can certainly eat. He is quickly eating the family out of house and home. And growing...rapidly. He quickly becomes one of the biggest bears around.

When the bear starts eating the neighbor's food, the Orchards know that they need to do something with him. Johnny takes the bear out into the woods and leaves him several times but the bear always finds his way home. Finally the boy is told that he will have to take the bear into the woods and shoot it. But as Johnny is loading his gun the bear takes off, with Johnny holding on to the leash. He is dragged along with the bear into a humane bear trap where they are found by men collecting bears for the zoo. So the bear goes to the zoo and Johnny goes to visit him. And bring him maple sugar.

This simple and sweet story touched me greatly as a child. I loved the relationship between Johnny and the bear. I loved the way Ward personified the bear. I loved the maple sugar. But mostly I was touched by a story of a boy who went out to shoot a bear and found a friend instead. Ward's pages are sparse and clean with the illustrations done is soft black and white. Ward created the images using woodblock and they stand off the page like nothing I've ever seen.

The early scenes with the bear rival some of the cutest illustrations ever drawn. I would compared Ward's illustrations to Robert McCloskey but these seem a bit softer and even more detailed. The are also not cartoony in any way. The humans look like humans I've known and the bear looks very much like any bear you would find in the woods. The bear is never anthropomorphized but he is imbued with tons of personality. There is not a ton of text in the book (although a lot of pages) but the story is complete, with a bit of humor, a bit of sadness, and a lot of sweetness. This was one of my favorite books from childhood. And even now, it stands the test of time for me.

Cheerios

I've bought three boxes of Cheerios in the last week. Three large family sized boxes. With the knowledge that I'm the only one who'll eat them. And while I'm a cereal fan in general, this might push me to my oat cereal limit. But I simply can't pass up free books.

Yep, Cheerios is again doing their Spoonfuls of Stories giveaway. Each year the company (in connection with Simon and Schuster) gives away millions of free books included as prizes in their family sized boxes. And I have to admit that I'm working to collect all five. This year the company has picked five fun titles to give away. I picked up Scott M. Fischer's Jump! at the beginning of the week. New Years Eve I picked up All the World, written by Liz Garton Scanlon and illustrated by Marla Frazee. When we stopped into Target today I picked up Chaucer's First Winter, written by Stephen Krensky and illustrated by Henry Cole. Three down, two to go.

I love the idea of books as prizes and even more I'm happy to have gotten copies of the books. I already owned All the World but I love the miniature version written in both English and Spanish. What a wonderful idea to promote literacy. I have to admit that while I never ever buy cereal for the cheap plastic prizes, these books get me every year. I simply have to collect the whole set. I'll be eating Cheerios for weeks.