A (Literal) Train of Thought
May 11, 2023 § 2 Comments
When I was almost ten, our family moved from a large, ramshackle house in the lush green suburbs of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to the fifteenth floor of an apartment building in Manhattan, and I did not handle it well. My parents adored New York City—they had lived there before having kids and couldn’t wait to return—but all I saw was no backyard, a shared bedroom with my younger sister, and more people and noise in a single day than I’d known in the decade I’d been alive. In a memory that still makes me cringe—though I was a deeply feeling child I prided myself on my poise—I pitched a fit in front of our realtor, yelling to my parents about how dirty and smelly and noisy the city’s streets were, while we rode an elevator to another prospective apartment, from which the sounds of car horns and ambulance sirens and buses pulling away from the curb would only be slightly dampened.
Kids generally underestimate their ability to adapt, and I quickly grew to love the city. But I never entirely shed the feeling that I was an outdoor kid living in an indoor city, and I sought out changes of scenery whenever I could. Sometimes, the escape was literal, like the summers I spent at sleepaway camp in Vermont. Mostly, I escaped through books—or through my imagination, spurred on by the stories I read. A handful of tap water before bed was the icy, life-saving stream water from My Side of the Mountain. The six-block concrete walk to school was an enchanted yellow-brick road, visible only when I looked down at my quickly advancing feet. I was a dreamy child, something I’ve never been sorry about passing along to my daughter, even when her liberal interpretations of reality have been known to try my patience.
With it being Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month, the timing seems perfect to share one of the most beautiful picture books of the year, as it is both written and illustrated by Dan-ah Kim, born in Seoul, South Korea and now living in Brooklyn, New York. I dare you not to gasp aloud as you page through these glorious spreads. But I don’t only adore the book for its artwork. Its story speaks directly to that child I once was, the one who never kicked and screamed in an elevator again but definitely felt like it, even as she found love and belonging and wonder in city life. That the book is inspired by real subway stops in New York City doesn’t hurt, either, though its message of creativity and imagination is undoubtedly universal.
The Train Home (ages 4-8) is an inventive story about a girl who conjures up a train for a magical journey away from the noisy reality of her city apartment. Along the way, amidst the alluring, refreshing, fantastical scenery of her imagination, she surprises herself by yearning for the home she has left behind. Ultimately, like the dichotomy that exists in the art—some spreads fancifully populated, others pared way back—the story is a reassuring validation that the desire to escape and the desire to return home are never mutually exclusive. Rather, they exist in a tug-of-war dance alongside our own journeys of growing up.
« Read the rest of this entry »A Tribute to Those Behind the Scenes
May 20, 2021 § 1 Comment
After thirteen months, tomorrow we will begin the process of moving back into our renovated house. It’s not completely finished—the punch list is long—but we are more than ready to bid goodbye to our temporary digs and move more easily around one another in fresh, open spaces. It feels like we are reuniting with a dear old friend, while at the same time embarking on a new chapter.
Nearly every expectation we had going into the renovation process—the good and the bad—was exceeded. It was more expensive. It was more stressful. It was infinitely more fun.
What we vastly underestimated was how many hands would go into creating our dream home. Our core team of superstars—two architects, two carpenters, a project manager, and an interior designer—will draw most of the well-deserved recognition from our community. But their vision would never have been possible without the hard work of many, many others—some of whom I know by name and many of whom I never will.
We had a crew who showed up the first week for demolition—and returned months later to frame out the addition. We had arborists who took down trees and fought to save others. We had electricians, plumbers, house painters, and heating and cooling teams. A mason and his son poured the foundation, then came back to do the stone work for our patio. We had glass specialists and specialty painters, a shop of carpenters who built our kitchen cabinetry, and another who built bookcases and window seats. We had wizards who carved intricate backsplashes out of marble and others who created a beautiful bar top from a single tree in Maryland. We had a magician of a wallpaper installer and another who installed handmade, irregular tile so seamlessly around a new fireplace that you’d think it had been there all along.
We had graders and drainage trench diggers and even a guy who, according to our contractor, is the most adept person at installing front door hardware that he has ever seen.
And then there were folks we never saw. The ones who went into dilapidated barns and pulled down the hundred-year-old hemlock beams that now grace the ceiling of our family room. The ones who made our gorgeous windows and doors, or worked in the factories that made our appliances, our faucets, our decorative lights. The ones who packed boxes, loaded them onto trucks, and loaded them off.
There was no shortage of things that went wrong. But there were many, many more that went right, including all the creativity channeled into course correction. When new built-in bookcases in the old part of the house didn’t sit flush with the plaster wall, our contractor brought in a plaster expert, who feathered the wall to close the gap seamlessly. When the kitchen cabinets were delivered wrong…and then wrong again…our contractor stopped waiting for a new batch and reconfigured them himself, even though everyone said it couldn’t be done.
As the house nears completion, people stop by to congratulate my husband and me. It feels strange, honestly, and not a little bit disingenuous, to accept praise for something we largely didn’t do. We wrote checks. We worried over people. We made lists and sent emails like it was going to alter the fate of the universe when, in actuality, things would have probably gone along just fine without them. At the end of the day, we are indescribably grateful for the end product. But while we had the initial vision, it wasn’t our sweat equity that built it. The real credit goes to all the folks behind the scenes.
In their new picture book collaboration, Someone Builds the Dream (Ages 3-8), Lisa Wheeler and Loren Long have created an ode to the teams of people who toil behind the scenes to bring about the buildings, bridges, and books that enrich our lives—including and especially folks who are often invisible in the final product. It’s a book that showcases sweat equity. That celebrates trades and crafts. That values hard work and collaboration. It’s a book with perfect read-aloud rhyme, sweeping acrylic paintings, and a whole lotta tools and trucks.
« Read the rest of this entry »Hello, Awards Time!
January 31, 2019 § 1 Comment
This past Monday, I watched and cheered at my computer as the American Library Association’s Youth Media Awards were announced (more fun than the Oscars for #kidlit crazies like me). Most parents are familiar with the Caldecott and Newbery medals, but there are quite a few other awards distributed, many to recognize racial, cultural, and gender diversity. Overall, I was pleased to see many of my 2018 favorites come away with shiny gold and silver stickers. At the end of today’s post, I’ll include some of these titles, along with links to what I’ve written about them.
Today, I want to devote some space to Sophie Blackall’s Hello Lighthouse, which came away with the Randolph Caldecott Medal, for the “most distinguished American picture book for children.” (It’s actually the second Caldecott for Blackall, who won three years ago for this gem). Hello Lighthouse (Ages 6-9) is one of my very favorites from last year; and yet, I haven’t talked about it until now. Why is that? Perhaps because the art in this book is so endlessly fascinating, my observations continue to evolve with every read. I suppose I’ve been at a loss for words. « Read the rest of this entry »
Gift Guide 2016 (No. 4): For the Jet Setter
December 13, 2016 § 2 Comments
Before my kids were in school full time, we used to spend the occasional rainy day at the airport (or, as my son would call it, the “airplane port”). We would drop the car in long-term parking, ride the shuttle bus to the terminal (itself an experience), and enjoy a picnic lunch while pressed against the floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out onto the runway. After a few hours, we’d toss our trash, head back to our car, and return home.
Before becoming a parent, I had always done my best to avoid air travel unless absolutely necessary. If you had told me that parenting would drive me willingly into the throes of a cavernous space with crowds of people and humming machines—plus two toddling kiddos in tow—I would have thought, thanks, but I’ll stick with raincoats and a quick jaunt around the block. But I discovered: take away the stress of travel and the cumbersome bags, and the airport is like a built-in babysitter. « Read the rest of this entry »
2015 Gift Guide (No. 4): For the Mechanically Inclined
December 12, 2015 Comments Off on 2015 Gift Guide (No. 4): For the Mechanically Inclined
Today, I want to tell you about a super-duper-awesome new non-fiction book. David Macaulay, who launched the Beast of Gifts in 1988 with The Way Things Work (Ages 10-16), a massive hardcover volume dedicated to demystifying science and technology for children with clear language and beautifully rendered line drawings, has this year created a fully interactive and substantive spin-off. How Machines Work: Zoo Break (Ages 6-9) is targeted at a slightly younger audience and is aimed at exposing specific scientific principles. Here, through a combination of flaps, pop-ups, and inset booklets—as well as a silly story line about a sloth and mouse determined to break free of their zoo enclosure—children are introduced to simple machines. « Read the rest of this entry »
The Richard Scarry Book You Don’t Own (Yet)
September 17, 2015 § 3 Comments
The Greatest Thing has happened. The Richard Scarry book that I most loved as a child is BACK IN PRINT! That’s right, I no longer have to lie awake at night, debating whether to drop $100 on eBay so that my kids can share in my childhood nostalgia. There I was, casually browsing the aisles of my neighborhood bookstore, when I caught sight of a double decker London bus, packed with a menagerie of dressed-up animals. I let out an audible squeal, snatched up every copy on the shelf, and ran directly to the counter to buy them all. (Yes, I have a problem, but there are worse addictions to have…right?)
You might think you already have enough Richard Scarry in your life. Sure, I get it. You might have read Cars and Trucks and Things That Go so many times (like I did, when my son was two and waking up at 5:15am every single day), that you have had to “misplace” it on occasion. Or, you might feel like you have already lost years of your life talking about a certain worm who lives in a Busy, Busy Town and walks upright wearing a single shoe.
But you might also remember that, sometimes, the only reason you can answer your child’s 700 daily questions stems from your proficient readings of What Do People Do All Day? (After all, when you became a parent, you didn’t know you would need a working knowledge of how streets are paved and houses are built and paper is made and a mailed letter gets from one place to another.) You might also take a moment to reflect how, when your children were younger and people commented on their impressive vocabulary, you might owe more than you think to the hours you spent—at their request, of course—pointing at items on supermarket shelves in the Best Word Book Ever.
In the spirit of outing my children’s addiction within my addiction, I am here to confess to you that we own TWENTY NINE different Richard Scarry books (calm down, I’ve only listed my favorites at the end of this post). For the past eight years, Richard Scarry has topped our “most often read” lists more than any other books. I trip over them more than any Lego or baby doll. Yes, I have sometimes buried my face in my hands and lamented to my children that I just don’t have it in me to read another 72-page book that’s heavy on words and light on plot. But, most of the time, I oblige. Because it makes them so darn happy.
And because I remember how much I adored these books as a child.
Which brings me to the recent republication (in honor of its 50th anniversary) of Busy, Busy World (Ages 4-8), one more Richard Scarry title that you ABSOLUTELY WILL NEED TO ADD TO YOUR COLLECTION. As I’ve said, my love affair with this anthology of 33 internationally-themed two-page stories—think of it as Busy, Busy Town goes global—began as a child myself. « Read the rest of this entry »
When Bigger Really is Better
September 25, 2014 § 1 Comment
On a Saturday morning towards the end of summer, on our way to go swimming, we swung by our local bookstore, so that I could run in and grab a gift for a birthday party later that day. My kids waited in the car with my husband, and when I returned a few minutes later, they asked with excited curiosity, “What book did you get?” I told them that I had picked a brand new one, by Kim Cooley Reeder, titled The Runaway Tomato (Ages 2-6). “RUNAWAY TOMATO?!” they shrieked, throwing their heads back in laughter. And thus commenced twenty minutes of their regaling us with their own ideas of where a runaway tomato might come from and what it might do.
Perhaps it’s because our attempt at growing tomatoes this year was such an Epic Failure, that my children think the idea of harvesting gigantic tomatoes is pure absurdity. Or perhaps there is just something innately hilarious about stories starring fruits and vegetables gone rogue (Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs has always been a favorite of JP). Either way, we had to return to the bookstore a week later to get a copy for ourselves. « Read the rest of this entry »