“Mommy, you know what? You know what? You know what?”
November 20, 2012 § 1 Comment
My five year old loves to tell stories. Most of the time, his stories are a blend of autobiographical truth and nonsensical make-believe, and most of the time they are his way of working through whatever he’s trying to make sense of in the world (“There was this hurricane, and the winds were swirling around outside like a tornado, and then the roofs of the houses blasted off to Outerspace, and then…). As a parent, I know that I’m supposed to dedicate my ears to him when he’s narrating life’s inexplicable phenomena, but golly if his stories don’t always seem to come at a time when I’m desperately trying to corral him into putting on his coat or swallowing a few bites of food (the fork goes up, then stops, millimeters from the mouth, then comes down again: “Mommy, you know what?”). But I get it. I do. We all want to narrate our lives, and we all want an appreciative audience.
That’s why I’m not surprised that JP’s sister, now a full-fledged two year old, has decided that she too has verbal musings of her own to share. Suddenly, our family dinners are filled with Emily’s terrorizing screams—“I talking here!”—followed by JP’s despairing moans, “Emil-ee, I haven’t finished my story yet!”
Alas, tonight seemed like a good time to introduce my clan to the latest treasure from Philip and Erin Stead, the husband and wife duo that wrote and illustrated two of my all-time favorites, A Sick Day for Amos McGee and And Then It’s Spring. Their newest gem, Bear Has a Story to Tell (Ages 2-6), has all of the subtle charm, all of the understated quietness, of their earlier works, and this makes it perfectly suited for the subject at hand: hibernation.
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.
