Farewell to Summer
September 2, 2012 § 4 Comments
I have admittedly failed in the creation of baby books for my children. JP’s baby book never got past the “birth story” page, and Emily’s never began at all. But photos—well, on that front I have delivered. And there’s something else I do to celebrate milestones in my kids’ lives: I’ll purchase a picture book that resonates with a particular memory or moment, and then I’ll inscribe it to JP or Emily with an appropriate sentiment.
In our family, this past summer goes down as the summer that Emily finally found her beach feet, so I could not resist buying Kiyomi Konagaya’s new Beach Feet (Ages 2-4) when I came across it at a bookstore in Cape Cod. For Emily, it has been hard to be the little sister of a boy who would prefer to spend his every waking moment of vacation on the beach. A few months earlier, vacationing in Florida, Emily would hold her hands up and scream “uppy-uppy” as soon as we put her down on the sand. And just a few weeks prior to our vacation on the Cape, while we were at my grandmother’s lake house, she would tolerate the feel of sand on her bare feet for only a few minutes at a time, still too tentative to embrace the beach as her playground.
Every Day is Pizza Day
August 26, 2012 § 1 Comment
My having eaten a slice of pizza every day for lunch while I was pregnant may have something to do with the fact that my nearly two-year-old daughter is very, very obsessed with Pizza at Sally’s (Ages 2-4), by Monica Wellington. But given that my son was equally obsessed at age two with Truck Driver Tom, by the same author, it’s perhaps more probable that Wellington knows a thing or two about how to talk to kids.
At first glance, Wellington’s books might be quickly dismissed: the gouache, brightly-colored, and largely two-dimensional paintings could come off as a bit juvenile, perhaps not of the same artistic caliber as what I normally review here. But it would be a mistake to pass up these books. At closer inspection, the illustrations are packed with visual gems, including (in the case of Pizza at Sally’s) tiny photographs pasted in for fresh ingredients and even for the finished slices of pizza themselves.
Hoot Hoot
July 24, 2012 Comments Off on Hoot Hoot
As a city girl who spent her summers in the country, I was easily awed by how pitch black the night could get in the absence of city lights. My kids are similarly fascinated and spooked by the Darkest of Nights, like the ones they recently experienced while vacationing at my grandmother’s lake house in Ontario. Especially on cloudy nights, with the lake on one side and the woods on the other, everything becomes enveloped in pure blackness—and yet the darkness is alive with a chorus of strange and unusual sounds.
I love reading books that infuse nighttime with a dose of friendliness—with delight, if you will—and encourage kids to see the darkness outside their windows as something accessible. I also happen to think that owls in picture books are ridiculously cute (including how my 22-month-old daughter says “hoot hoot” with a perfectly rounded mouth); and, as luck would have it, some of the best books about nighttime happen to star precocious and energetic young owls.
ABCs on the Beach
July 19, 2012 § 2 Comments
We just returned from a week at the beach. I’ve decided that the beach is the Perfect Montessori Classroom. In fact, if someday the public school system fails me, I may just throw my kids on a beach all year long and be done with it. What can’t you learn while playing on an ever-changing natural landscape with a bountiful array of tactile materials and a giant open space in which to explore them? (After all, doesn’t Montessori teach kids with sandpaper letters?)
Our particular beach, beautiful in its rawness, is on the Ontario side of Lake Erie; it’s a piece of property that has been in my family for generations. It’s also just about the “dirtiest” beach you’ll ever find—full of sticks, stones, seaweed, and (yes) even the occasional dead fish carcass—which makes it disappointing for sunbathing teenagers but paradise for intrepid little explorers. This past week, JP spent every morning and afternoon on the beach, digging and dumping and filling and building (all the time engaged in an excited and not always coherent dialogue with himself.)
Show Me the Moon
June 28, 2012 § 1 Comment
“Moon” was one of the very first words uttered by both of my children. When they’re playing outside at dusk, they will shriek at the top of their lungs—“MOOOOOOON!”—upon catching sight of it emerging in the still-blue sky.
If the sheer volume of children’s storybooks dedicated to this subject is any indication, my children are not alone in their enthrallment with the moon. It’s nearly impossible for me to choose one favorite story to profile here (see my lengthy list below), so I will simply go with the newest addition to this already impressive repertoire: Red Knit Cap Girl (Ages 2-5), written by first-time author Naoko Stoop. I’ve mentioned before my weakness for Japanese-influenced picture books; and, like so many of her predecessors, Stoop (who grew up in Japan and now lives in Brooklyn) has created a work that holds together like a perfectly wrapped present: each word is chosen with the utmost care, each picture serves a clear purpose. In a wholly original move, Stoop’s expressive, whimsical watercolors of a little girl and her woodland friends, on a quest to speak to the moon, are painted on pieces of plywood; children can actually see the grain of the wood shining through the paintings, an effect which is especially fitting for a story set in the forest.
Siblings Being Siblings
June 26, 2012 Comments Off on Siblings Being Siblings
It wasn’t until I had more than one child of my own that I began experiencing what I’d so often heard other parents remark upon: that children raised in the same family, under seemingly identical conditions, can have completely different personalities. These differences in personality—and the interesting dynamic they create in the relationship between the siblings themselves—is beautifully captured in The Puddle Pail (Ages 3-6). This book was published in the late 90s by the supremely talented and often-overlooked author-artist Elisa Kleven (who also wrote my favorite picture book of all time: The Lion and the Little Red Bird).
Far too few children’s books showcase the natural, everyday interactions between siblings—or, more poignantly, the surprising discoveries that can emerge even amidst the competitive banter and indignant bossiness. The Puddle Pail stars two young crocodile brothers who set off for the beach, armed with empty pails. Sol, the older brother, might as well be my almost five-year-old son, JP. Both are realists and see the world in precise, everything-in-its-place terms. When it comes to filling his pail, Sol (a.k.a. JP) can’t pass up a shell or a feather or a rock without dropping it into his pail for one of his “collections” (currently in our house the window ledges are piled high with JP’s rocks, which seem less like a discriminating collection of stones and more like a dumping ground for any grey rock he steps over on the street).
Rain, Rain, Here for a Day (Or Two…)
May 14, 2012 § 1 Comment
As a mom of young children, I will admit to feeling a little dread, even a touch of panic, when I wake up and it’s raining. Trapped inside with my kids? Anything but that! Naturally, my kids think it is a treat, since they have activities reserved for rainy days (“Pillows off the couch! Pillows off the couch!”). Over time, I’ve discovered that if I can live in the moment and give in to the calm and quiet of a rainy day (and, yes, the subsequent moments of cooped-up mania), then there is much to be gained for me as well.
And if not, well, there are always rainy day books to read inside our blanket forts! A good rain book should make you feel wet and cozy at the same time. Uri Shulevitz does this to perfection in his 1969 gem Rain Rain Rivers (Ages 2-6), where pen and ink drawings mix with watercolors in an almost haunting monochromatic exhibit of rain, first falling outside a little girl’s bedroom window, then (as she imagines it) trailing through the city streets, out into the countryside, and into the open, swelling oceans.
Your Budding Naturalist
April 28, 2012 Comments Off on Your Budding Naturalist
Right now in preschools across the country, little eyes are glued to screened containers perched on shelves, waiting to behold one of nature’s most wondrous life cycles: the caterpillar’s transformation into a butterfly. (“Mommy, when the chrysalis shakes, that’s how you know there’s a lot of action going on inside!”)
I grew up reading Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar (and really, who doesn’t love a book with holes for sticking tiny fingers through?); but in my opinion, Ten Little Caterpillars (Ages 2-6), written by Bill Martin Jr. and illustrated by the great collage artist Lois Ehlert, has topped this subject matter.
Apart from its stunning visual feast for the eyes, the book speaks to children on a multitude of levels. First, there’s the simple rhyme, each double-page spread focusing on a single caterpillar’s unique journey: “The first little caterpillar crawled into a bower./ The second little caterpillar wriggled up a flower.” A few of the caterpillars don’t fare so well (it’s a dog-eat-dog world, after all): one meets with a “hungry wren,” another is “frightened by a hen.” It’s the tenth caterpillar that we get to watch hang patiently among the apple blossoms for three pages, until her chrysalis hatches to reveal a stunning orange-and-black “tiger swallowtail.”
Alison Jay, Cloud Creator
April 25, 2012 § 3 Comments
If you haven’t discovered the amazing British children’s artist Alison Jay, you’re in for a real treat. Or, if you’re as obsessed with her as I am, you’ll love her latest masterpiece, a fairy tale of sorts titled The Cloud Spinner (Ages 3-6), by Michael Catchpool (a fellow Brit).
The Brits have an unparalleled knack for creating books that feel Quintessentially Childlike, seamlessly blending fantasy with realism, and sprinkling on a quirkiness that makes these stories memorable for a lifetime. Alison Jay’s artistic signature, which she employs in all her work, is a “crackle finish” layered over her paintings, a technique which gives them a vintage look. In contrast, her animals, landscapes, and people feel anything but old-fashioned (here’s where that endearing quirkiness comes into play).
It seems that Jay’s artistic style has not gone unnoticed by JP, my four year old. Our favorite alphabet book is Jay’s ABC: A Child’s First Alphabet Book, which I’ve been reading to him since he was a baby (and which is jam packed with hidden surprises), along with a handful of her other storybooks (see my list at the end). A few months ago, while perusing the shelves at our local library, JP stumbled upon an Alison Jay book he’d never seen before (William and the Night Train), and he called out, “Look Mommy, it’s one of those books with the crazy clouds!” I had never thought of it that way before, but he was right: Alison Jay does have a very specific way of painting clouds.
Leaving the World a Little Bit Greener
April 22, 2012 § 3 Comments
Happy Earth Day (or, as my very astute 4-year-old pointed out this morning, “Aren’t we supposed to care about the earth every day?”)! Oh right, yes.
Ironically, with all the increased mobilization around Going Green in the last several decades, the member of our family who actually most fully embodies and preaches a love for the planet is my 94-year-old grandmother, referred to affectionately by her grandchildren and great-grandchildren as Noni. As a child, I spent my summers at my grandparents’ farm house, on the shores of Lake Erie, getting lessons on the value of spiders (you never kill a spider, we were told, even if it is sitting on your toothbrush), the conservation of water (why shower when you can swim in the lake?), and that sometimes leaving trees and wildflowers right where they are makes the best kind of landscaping.
Today, one of the highlights of my son’s summers is the week he spends with Noni up at this same spot, where the house has been modernized but the land has not. These days, Noni’s mostly sedentary, but by golly if she doesn’t still go out with her hose to water her garden, and JP loves to trail behind her, occasionally earning a turn with the hose, but mostly getting an earful on “dead heading” flowers, which weeds are “not worth your time,” and how to grow the oldest and biggest Hibiscus plant in the history of time.
Perhaps this is why he (and I) respond so wholeheartedly to Grandpa Green (Ages 4-8), by the supremely talented (and deliciously quirky) Lane Smith. Through the simple and admiring words of a little boy (armed with his own watering can), we learn about his great-grandpa, a masterful hedge trimmer, who transforms ordinary garden hedges into dragons, elephants, wedding cakes–even the cast of “The Wizard of Oz” and “The Little Engine That Could.” As the boy explores his great-grandpa’s garden, we realize that every “milestone” of the latter’s life has been remembered in one of these stunning green creations.
Spring is Here!
April 21, 2012 § 1 Comment
Perhaps at no other time in our lives than when we are parenting young children are we more attuned to the changing of the seasons. Seen through our children’s eyes, it’s positively magical, nature unfolding in all sorts of surprising ways. Regardless of our “mild” winter, on March 1 our family had a March into Spring around our living room, started giddily discussing planting vegetables and riding bikes to school without jackets–and started reading Spring Books. In my opinion, a picture book about spring should capture the anticipation, the wonder, the thrill, and the hope we feel at the beginning of the season.
Get ready to open your hearts to And Then It’s Spring (Ages 3-6), a 2012 picture book by newcomer poet Julie Fogliano and one of my favorite contemporary illustrators Erin E. Stead (side note: if you don’t already own her zoo-animal masterpiece A Sick Day for Amos McGee, do not delay a second longer). And Then It’s Spring is one of those perfect marriages of words and pictures, where the end result is more than the sum of its parts. Without any illustrations, it’s simply a lovely free verse poem about “first you have brown/ all around you have brown/ then there are seeds/ and a wish for rain” and more waiting and “you worry about those seeds” but it’s still brown—until you wake up one morning and suddenly “it’s green/all around you have green.” Now add to this verse subtly stunning pencil and woodblock illustrations, and suddenly you have a little boy, his dog, a bunny, a bird, and a turtle (sporting a red wool cap)—all moving around a backyard that gets a little less brown every day.
What to Read to Your Kids 