Library Haul

Goldie and the Three Bears

Tonight my daughter selected the traditional take on the story ofThe Three Bears for her bedtime read, and I wished instead that we still had Goldie and the Three Bears checked out from the library. Not only does Goldie have curly hair like Annabel, she also doesn't like it when her swing is pushed too high, or when her bath water is too cold. She likes things just right according to her own particular likes and dislikes, which is something that holds true for just about everyone on the face of the planet but is especially pronounced in children, I think. No crusts, no peanut chunks in her peanut butter, and a sandwich cut on the diagonal-that is certainly something that my daughter and I can both identify with from our respective roles. As can so many other parents and children, I'm sure.

Another likable aspect of this modern retelling is that the story does not end with "and she ran away and never again entered the woods." That sort of "lesson" or mentality is not something I wish to instill in my not quite 3 year old. While it's wise to be wary of strangers, I'm much more keen on Diane Stanley's version which has Goldie befriend the wee bear in the end. She just so happens to have tastes that run similar to Goldie's, and they become playmates and good friends, fur and all.

The pictures in the book are sweet and fresh. This adaptation is a welcome new take on the old, stale classic. Diane Stanley trims all of the fear and "oh dear"'s from her tale and embellishes the bare bones of the tale with revelatory PBJ, understanding, and friendship. Five stars for sure.

Most Perfect Spot

5 out of 5 stars.

As a child, I always loved a book with two narratives to follow, observing how the plot and subplot intermingled and influenced each other. Most Perfect Spot, written and illustrated by Diane Goode, the Caldecott-winning illustrator of When I Was Young in the Mountains, is comprised of two tales and an amusing dose of dramatic irony. The story is set in the early 20th century in Brooklyn. The watercolor illustrations are sweet and old timey and match the mood of this delightful book.

Little Beauty

In the interest of keeping this up, I’m going to ease back into book reviews using a star system and limiting the review to a few words. So:

5/5 stars or *****

gorilla! kitten! friendship! emotions! floral upholstery! beautiful style and illustrations! sweet message! and hidden faces in roses!

Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?

On nights when I'm stretched for time, but still wish to write a blurb about a beloved book, I turn to my stash of board books.

And I would be remiss not to include an Eric Carle picture book among my first twenty posts. Add Bill Martin Jr. taking care of the words, and what do you get?

A brown bear, red bird, yellow duck, green frog... Yes, the classic Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?



I'm not sure if this picture book was written with the intent to be sung, but I have never been able to read it without adding a musical lilt to the words. Or peppering it with animal sounds, especially if someone is especially squirmy or sleepy-eyed. I would read this to my daughter when she was wee as a bedtime story. It is one of a number of books that will always bring her babyhood to mind.

Eric Carle's signature tissue paper collage is beautiful as always. After writing a number of these reviews, I'm finding that I'm especially drawn to collage-style illustrations. And Carle is certainly a king among collage artists.

This book is a classic and ought to be on every child's bookshelf, well-worn and much-loved.

A Good Day

The powerful message of this optimistic book, intended for toddlers, is ageless.

Told simply through the stories of squirrel, bird, fox, and dog, who suffer various losses and pitfalls, the message that an unfortunate situation can improve hinges on a simple, decisive "but then...". Mindful living, a buoyant spirit-these are the qualities that will turn bad into good.

As a mother, what I take away from the book is that there will be meltdowns, for example, but they should not, need not, dictate the course of the day. The story perfectly complements mothering at its best.

And it doesn't always take a larger nut, in the case of squirrel, to turn the day around-it could simply mean having a greater appreciation for the small, everyday things we take for granted, or surprising someone with an unexpected treat. Or giving extra hugs.

Making a determined, honest effort to turn a "bad day" into a good day is an invaluable lesson that even the oldest among us
will appreciate.

My Little Matryoshkas

There is much to love about this book.

Firstly, the subject matter: matryoshkas- Russian nesting dolls!

Second, they pop out of the book and can be played with! And then put back inside as a puzzle.

Third, the illustrations are delightful, from the eye-catching patterns on their shawls to their perfectly round, sweet pink cheeks. I love them as individuals.

Fourth, this book introduces children to the Eastern European palate-cabbage, borscht, apple dumplings. How do you say “yum” in Russian?

Fifth and finally, the text is very simple and rhythmic. One food is shared on Monday, another on Tuesday, and so on. All you hungry little matryoshkas, come and eat it up!

My Little Matroyoshkas is inventive, fun, and eye-opening. And, as a bonus, it’s quite pretty as well thanks to Tanya Roitman’s artistic talents.

Daisy Gets Dressed

Sometime last week Annabel decided she would take over the matter of picking out her clothing and, even more importantly, that she would no longer require my help when pulling on her pants or finding her way through a shirt. Every morning she carries her bathroom stool over to her dresser and peers into the top drawer containing shirts, socks, and pants. She will pull out various articles that are to her liking and arrange them on the floor: one sock placed beneath each pant leg and a shirt above the pants, just so. It is quite sweet, but bittersweet for me as well. She has always had a choice between this and that, but maybe Daisy Gets Dressed inspired her to take matters of the wardrobe- the picking, choosing, and dressing-entirely upon herself.

This rhyming story is a unique visual delight. Instead of your run-of-the-mill watercolor or pen and ink, Clare Beaton uses fabric, thread, beads- all manner of textiles, really- to create a memorable seek-and-find book. Where can Daisy’s skirt be?, and how many wavy things can you see? Along with the skirt decked out in ric rac, an octopus, spaghetti, and a wriggly snake are stitched onto the page.

The book continues on in this manner with successive pages devoted to striped, starry, and swirly patterns, to name a few. When it’s all said and done, Daisy is decked out in an eye-catching ensemble, from boots to umbrella.

Daisy Gets Dressed is part how-to, part seek-and-find, part pattern recognition, and wholly delightful.

Froggy Bakes A Cakes

t was my birthday yesterday. We celebrated with vegan carrot cake, but I would have been touched if my little frog-loving Annabel had surprised me with a mud pie cake as the green protagonist does in Froggy Bakes A Cake.

Froggy happens to be a very do-it-yourself frog who wants to make his mother’s birthday cake all by himself, something any toddler can appreciate.

The language used in the story is pure fun- onomatopoeia abounds. Flop, flop, flopping, glubbing, blupping, plopping, and one final big shloop seals the fate of the cake. Annabel enjoys the fun little song Froggy sings that goes something like this: Oogelly boogelly burbly bake. I make and I bake and I wait for the cake.

This fun book, one of many in a series, is filled with likable characters and colorful language. And mud pie!

Doggies

I’ve thought long and hard about my favorite Sandra Boynton book...and I’ve chosen Doggies.

True, I love the rhythm, cadence, and pure fun of Barnyard Dance, the silly turkey in Red Hat, Blue Hat, and those party-loving hippos of Hippos Go Berserk. But Doggies it is.

Why?

Well, maybe it is for the purely sentimental reason that this board book was one of my daughter’s first. Or, perhaps it is because I enjoy the chance to sound like a dog ten different ways.

It is uncanny how accurate she has managed to match up specific barks with particular breeds of dog. I suppose it only takes a little research and observation, but I remain in awe. “Ar-roof!” says the Afghan dog seven times, and I buy it. ”Ruff ruff, ruff ruff” says a perky shepherd, and I nod, yes: the bark fits the dog.

If you’re willing to woof and yap your way through the entire book, a total of 33 barks plus a howling session, thank you, then you really are due for a treat of some sort. Of course, there is no better prize than a child’s admiration and giggles at the story’s end, but I wouldn’t pass up a glass of water after all of that doggie fun.

Alphabet Eye Candy

Admit it: sometimes all you really want it eye candy. And Ida Pearle delivers with A Child's Day: an alphabet of play. Page after page of her beautiful collages dazzle the viewer, er, reader.

What, you say? People are lovely and all, but you’d rather gaze at an alphabetical array of animals?

Okay. Then Charley Harper is surely your man. His sturdy little board book is chock full of graphic depictions ranging from blue crab to shaggy yak.

And if you have a little person who has graduated beyond the board book, check out Animalia. It is breathtaking.

If Ida Pearle’s book is a licorice allsort, and Charley Harper’s is a peppermint swirl, then Graeme Base’s picture book is definitely a true-to-life, sparkly marzipan fruit.

Delicious reads, all three.

The House in the Night

To put it simply, this is a beautiful book. It will easily find its way onto your child’s nightstand, tucked into the sliver of space between bed and wall, or lovingly stowed beneath a pillow.

The prose is modeled after nursery rhymes of yore, with each word building on the next. It flows and has a calming, hypnotic effect, perfect for lulling a child to the sleepy land of nod.

The black and white scratchboard pictures perfectly complement the text. Full of details, light and darkness are crosshatched and configured to reward the reader with a keen eye. Do you see the whale? Oh, look a fox in the distance! Is that her house with the swing? Moreover, certain elements within the pictures are highlighted in marigold adding light and warmth to the story.

This is a comforting book perfectly suited to be read in a bed in a house, at night.

Growing Vegetable Soup

After living in cities for many years, this summer marks the first time my family will have a chance to grow a vegetable garden of our own.

I am Excited. Super excited. I have a long list of vegetables I’d love to grow, even though I know in my heart of hearts that we will not have the space for, say, four different varieties of tomatoes, plus three types of melons, not to mention summer and winter squash.

When I saw Growing Vegetable Soup at the library, I thought, “Perfect.” I want Annabel to be just as excited about the possibility of growing food at home as I am. And though Leo is too young to fully grasp the concept of the book, he will certainly reap the benefits of homegrown goodness being made in purees and mashes for his small self. I know he likes Lois Ehlert’s pictures.

And who couldn’t? They’re bright and punchy, ripe and delicious. The entire book is one beautifully vivid ode to the garden grown by a father and his child. For the purpose of making vegetable soup, of course. The reader is taken through the entire cycle of a plant’s life, from seed to soup.

I love that an actual recipe for vegetable soup appears on the back flap. And that Ehlert included a worm on her broccoli plant. And that her sliced carrot features a pale core.

We own Ehlert’s Eating the Alphabet, which I love, and we have read other stories from her prolific body of work. Her illustration style is clean and bright, appealing to young eyes drawn bold, graphic shapes. Growing Vegetable Soup is as informative as it is fun- worms, weeds, and all. Just the way it is outside of a book.

Now to try out that vegetable soup recipe…

Hairy Maclary Scattercat

Read this story not just for the rambunctious dog who wants to have a bit of fun hustling and bustling neighborhood cats, but for the cats’ names, too: Greywacke Jones, Butterball Brown, and Slinky Malinki to mention a few. My daughter Annabel is smitten with no-nonsense Scarface Claw, a big black tomcat with tattered ears, who gives Hairy a taste of his own medicine at the end of the tale.

Hairy Maclary Scattercat is a fun, easy read. Toddlers will enjoy spotting Hairy hiding behind a bush as well as seeing him scamper about chasing cats hither and tither.

Hairy doesn’t mean any harm, he’s only having a lark (I know, tell that to Mushroom Magee), much like little people with their boundless energy and appetite for fun. And Scarface Claw is not a heinous bewhiskered character which is important. He isn’t over-the-top mean and aggressive when confronted- sure, he’s a little rough around the edges- he is ultimately asserting his right to live a life unharried. And I certainly endorse that.

Props to S. Claw, but much love for Hairy M. And Slinky Malinki. And Butterball Brown. And Greywacke Jones, too.

Peek-a Who?

It took a whopping hour and half for Miss Annabel to fall asleep ; suffice to say, I am not much for blogging tonight. I did, however, feel it was necessary to update as my mind overfloweth with books for small people.

Case in point: my seven month old son Leo loves this book, Peek-a Who? as did his sister before him. His favorite part? The end. He smooshes his face against the mirror on the last page and giggles at his reflection.

It’s a brief, graphic read full of colorful woodcuts with a surprise on every other page. The text is a play on the title words: Peek A -waitforit, flip to the next page- BOO! And a page filled with eyes is flipped to reveal a green ghost with the very same googly eyes.

Short, simple, sweet. Just like this entry brought to you by one tired mama.

Tiny's Big Adventure

If my two and a half year old daughter Annabel were to have her own blog of books favored by her at the moment, this would surely make the list. When asked what she liked the most about this book, she responded with glee, “They play in a boot!”

Indeed, the brother mouse, Tiny, and his older sister, Katy, do play in an abandoned boot they come across in a wheat field, fixing it up as a mouse playhouse with the help of a shiny shelled snail. The thought of being small enough to play in a shoe absolutely tickled my daughter. I can certainly see the appeal, remembering a fondness for the movie Honey, I Shrunk the Kids and recalling a childhood photo snapped at an amusement park, my sister and I seated in an enormously oversized chair, effectively dwarfed and loving every minute of it.

This vibrant picture book is full of imagination, adventure, and fears commonly experienced by mice…and little men and women. Annabel had such empathy for Tiny mouse, tremoring at the shadow of an unknown insect and shaking at the sight of yet another unfamiliar creature walking through the grass. Like his older, reassuring sister Katy, Annabel sought to appease the little mouse’s fears (“Is it a cat?”) upon spying a fluffy white tail, shouting out, “It’s just a rabbit!” before we could get to the next page. This book is undoubtedly in tune with both a child’s sense of adventure and fear of the unknown.

The beautiful woodcuts are a pleasure to behold. They’re bright and warm, deep and dark, linear, crackly, curvy. Aqua, indigo, gold, strawberry red, celadon green, and a nutty brown are used to great effect. The pictures pop and dazzle.

Tiny and Katy mouse, bright eyed, daring duo, done captured my daughter’s imagination and heart. And I, of course, loved the pictures.

Flannel Kisses

Sweet is the first word that comes to mind when I think of this book. In truth, the other words that come to mind are Marshmallow Kisses, a Summer companion to this book which deserves its own review (in due time) and not a mere mention.

Linda Crotta Brennan’s words are simple, spare, and set in rhyme. She sing-songs her way through a perfect snowy day: crowning a snowman with a woolly cap, coming inside to eat freshly baked bread and warm stew pulled from a toasty oven, nearly falling asleep to fireside stories told at the end of the fun-filled day.

But it is Mari Takabayashi’s illustrations that drew my attention to the book in the first place. Her rooms are full of delicious detail, pattern, color, comfort, and life- each room tells a story. Socks are drying in front of the fireplace; an accordion is strewn upon a carpet; in the corner, a child’s easel displays a painting of a house with red shutters; a granny square blanket is draped over the back of a sofa covered with books while the father reads to his children in pajamas, seated on his lap; the dog sleeps curled up at his feet with a train set in close proximity; the mother places a hand on her baby in stripes enjoying a ride on his rocking horse.

In contrast, the wintery white outdoors are the majestic, magical blank canvas for the brother and sister to bring their snowy day fantasies to life: a nubby teddy bear, a woodland squirrel, and a snowman are seated for tea round a tree stump in the middle of a white blanketed wood; the children slide down mounds of hard packed snow; snowballs fly between the snow-suited siblings while a bird with a yellow breast perched on a tree branch looks on.

Her people are painted simply, sweetly, with a studied, child-like hand. Rosy cheeks, pink mouths, black dots for eyes. They are charming players in a snowy day play, book-ended by a flannel morning and flannel nighttime farewell.

Flannel Kisses is a warm and fuzzy winter read- sugarplum sweet, filled with memorable pictures, sure to remind you of your own snowy childhood memories, and quite possibly inspire you and your little ones to get out into the snow and make some more.

The Sounds Around Town

My daughter was born in New York, and during the first year of her life we would go on a walk each and every day. We moved a few days before her first birthday, and it wasn’t long after that that I came across this book at the local library. It gave me such a fit of nostalgia for city life: the sights, the sounds, the people.

This vibrant, engaging book is a feast for the eyes. Maria Carluccio has illustrated other authors’ tales publishing with Barefoot Books, one of my favorite publishers, but in Sounds Around Town both her pictures and story take center stage as a mother and daughter stroll around their colorful city neighborhood, soaking up the world around them.

Carluccio’s collages are full of details familiar to any city-grown toddler, but you don’t need to have lived in one of New York’s five boroughs to truly appreciate this lovely book. And, as I can attest to, you don’t need to be a toddler to get a kick out of this story either.

What Pete Ate from A-Z

A colorful, kooky Kalman take on the alphabet, What Pete Ate from A to Z is a story both adults and the sophisticated small set will appreciate.

Along with authoring and illustrating children's books and designing quirky umbrellas and watches, Maira Kalman is renowned for her NY Times blog and illustrations in The Elements of Style. Matisse-like renderings and inimitable wordplay are combined for a truly fun tale following a dog with an appetite that strays far from the norm. Both young and old will enjoy the DaDa-like delivery and her exuberant expressionist style of painting.

Seuss's Uncle Ubb, with his umbrella, would surely get a kick out of this story, though he better beware: unconventional eater Pete has an appetite for underwear.

The Snowy Day

The quintessential winter book, The Snowy Day is the perfect read post record-breaking snow storm. Or pre-mug of hot cocoa.

My little one grinned at the thought of thumping a stick against a snow-covered tree only to have it plop! on her head, and she made a sorrowful face when the secret snowball Peter slipped inside his pocket melted at the day’s end.

The language is kept simple, but I like it that way. So do two year olds. The story line is full of adventure, but it is the illustrations that truly capture the imagination. The award-winning, bright, graphic gouache and collage pictures are just as fresh, modern, and memorable now as they were in 1963.

Father Fox's Pennyrhymes

Oh my goodness, oh my dear
Sassafras and ginger beer
Chocolate cake and apple punch
I’m too full to eat my lunch!

I’m quite smitten with this sweet book full of punchy rhymes and funny, wonderfully detailed ink and watercolor illustrations. Written and illustrated by sisters back in 1960s, it is a little-known, and sometimes hard-to-find, gem of a book deserving of being added to a library hold queue, or purchased for a pretty (reasonable) penny. It is ripe for a reprint!