A Bouquet of Picture Books

Spring is heading towards summer now. The jacaranda are starting to bloom here in Los Angeles, and you really should check out some of the picture books that have come out in the last few months. Here's a sampler:


All the Water in the World by George Ella Lyon, illustrated by Katherine Tillotson

I didn't get this one in time for Earth Day, but it ends with a "Keep it green" message that makes it a good pick for anyone's Earth Day collection. Mostly, though, it's a science lesson about the water cycle, told in Lyon's beautiful poem and illustrated flowingly by Tillotson. We're told that water "wobbles in blue pools" and "fills your cup up." Best of all is the author's simple, focused description of the way water leaves an ocean or lake and moves cloudward: "Thirsty air/licks it from lakes/sips it from ponds/guzzles it from oceans," and then we're shown with text moving up the page that "this wet air/swirls up...."

Tillotson's illustrations are rendered digitally, but they have the feel of watercolor, appropriately enough. White backgrounds heighten the effect of strong blue water moving across the page, pouring in simple, graphic-style illustrations from grass-green hoses and grape-purple taps. Yet the real strength of this book is the clear lines of poetry that take us on a journey through the water cycle and show us the importance of water for the living things on our planet. An effective work of nonfiction poetry and a lovely book for your collection.


The Loud Book! by Deborah Underwood, illustrated by Renata Liwska

If you're like me, you fell in love with The Quiet Book and made a point of getting your hands on this follow-up volume by the talented Ms. Underwood. In the previous book, the author listed different types of quiet, but now we find out about the varieties of loud. I won't give away too many, but a few of my favorites are "last slurp loud," "crowded pool loud," and "deafening silence loud."

Liwska's cast of soft-looking animal children enact the different louds with panache. Underwood takes care to set many of her loud moments at school and at home so that they will be familiar to young readers. I especially like the surprising ones, when the bear and the rabbit and their other friends are caught with their eyes wide and their mouths round.

This is a simple book, but a satisfying one, the kind you and the kids can savor and reference long after you close the cover. It would also make a good writing prompt, since children would no doubt enjoy making up their own kinds of loud. Like its predecessor, The Loud Book! is well worth adding to your library.


Rapunzel, retold and illustrated by Sarah Gibb

Fewer of these long picture book fairy tales are being published these days, so I was happy to see a new version of Rapunzel hit the market. Perhaps it was spurred on by last fall's Disney movie, Tangled... At any rate, Gibb's illustration style is markedly different from the style of what I consider the best-known version, Paul O. Zelinsky's 1998 Caldecott-winning book. Gibb's artwork is relatively flat, in some spots resembling silhouette art, though with color. On other pages, Gibb goes all out with black silhouette figures. The art is also rather decorative.

This romanticized approach comes together nicely, however, and I think it will appeal to the target audience. The way I see it, it's all right to go a little prissy/girly with this stuff as long as you do it beautifully, and this illustrator does a fine job. There's an almost theatrical feel to the page spreads. I particularly like the one of the prince riding through the forest, with the tower glimpsed between the trees up ahead and his dog looking back to see if the prince is coming. (I'll show part of that spread here.)

The retelling, while detailed, is clear and moves along at a good clip. I was only occasionally distracted by clichés, as in the description of Rapunzel: "Her long hair was a shining waterfall of gold, and her eyes sparkled like twin stars."

Speaking of stars, your starry-eyed princess-mad 7- to 9-year-old might like Sarah Gibb's Rapunzel very much.


When a Dragon Moves In by Jodi Moore, illustrated by Howard McWilliam

What's really fun about this book is that the dragon moves into a small boy's sandcastle at the beach. I don't know that I've ever seen a dragon at the beach in a children's book before, although I have seen bats. There's a bit of a secondary, symbolic story here when the dragon represents the boy's apparent frustration with his family, who won't pay attention to him and his talk of dragons. I was more interested in the dragon's mischief for its own sake, however, and that's most likely what young readers will get out of the story, too.

The book has a great first line, by the way: "If you build a perfect sandcastle, a dragon will move in." We see the boy putting the finishing touches on one side of the castle as the dragon ducks his head to move in, suitcase in hand, on the other side of the castle. (A suitcase covered with travel stickers, mind you, one of them clearly reading "Route 66.")

The dragon is a pleasing shade of red, and all that fieriness makes a great fit for a July/August beach beast. McWilliam's slightly cartoonish artwork is rendered in vibrant colors, beginning with the yellow of the sand. I especially like the early scenes, when the boy plays with the dragon, using it as a raft, a kite, and a bully deterrent, among other things. After an interlude in which his family won't believe in the dragon and the boy starts acting up, we get a nice ending with still more dragons showing up to inhabit still more sandcastles.


A Butterfly Is Patient by Dianna Hutts Aston, illustrated by Sylvia Long

The team is back! In case you haven't cast your eyes upon An Egg Is Quiet or A Seed Is Sleepy, get a move on—and check out this new book while you're at it.

Much as I love the interior text and illustrations, my favorite thing about the duo's books is matching up the endpapers, which in this case are set one page in (not sure what the name for that would be, exactly!). In An Egg Is Quiet, one set of endpapers had eggs, while the other set showed what the eggs would hatch into. In A Butterfly Is Patient, you can look at the caterpillars in a spread at the front of the book and then find their matching butterflies in a spread at the back. (Though I did find two extra butterflies, ones whose caterpillars aren't shown in the front!)

The large text in the book, presented in very pretty handwriting, says things like the title phrase, "A butterfly is patient," and "A butterfly is creative." Smaller text explains what the butterflies are up to, elucidating the meaning of the larger phrase. Color-drenched artwork brings all of this to life, sometimes providing special touches like a close-up of a Great Purple Hairstreak's egg on the bottom of a leaf or a whole page of Monarch butterflies on the wing. Butterflies, eggs, and caterpillars are neatly labeled by name throughout. We also learn the difference between moths and butterflies, how butterflies form "puddle clubs," and the identities of the world's largest and smallest butterflies.

I've read reviews of the earlier books in which nonfiction folks criticized the attribution of feelings to natural objects such as eggs because of the use of terms like "patient," but I don't think kids are that easily confused. Their lives are full of metaphors, let alone facts and opinions. Most of them catch on to the difference, even though they may at times use their imaginations rather deliberately to assign emotions to flowers, goldfish, and dolls/action figures.

The bottom line is, these are gorgeous books, and they stand out in the rather large crowd of books on topics such as eggs, seeds, and butterflies. (Besides, you know you want to figure out which two caterpillars are missing!)


Hot, Hot Roti for Dada-ji by F. Zia, illustrated by Ken Min

In this upbeat book, Aneel's grandparents come to visit, and he clowns around with his marvelous grandpa, Dada-ji. With a wink and a smile, Dada-ji tells Aneel of his boyhood adventures—a series of tall tales in which he wrestles water buffalos and hissing cobras, besides working on his parents' farm. What's the source of his youthful strength? Piles of hot, hot roti! Kind of like Popeye's spinach, only resembling pancakes. (Or tortillas, or Navajo fry bread—most cultures seem to have a variation of this one!)

When Dada-ji hints that he's hungry, there's only one thing to do: Aneel starts cooking up roti for his grandfather. After cooking and eating, both are newly energized and go outside in search of adventure.

This book has more flavor and flair than the plot might suggest. For one thing, Zia punctuates her story with energetic expressions like "Arre wah!" For another, Dada-ji is a great character, full of personality, a lot like his favorite side dish, "tongue-burning mango pickle." I like seeing such a solid grandfather-grandson bond, as well.

Ken Min's illustrations capture the story's energy with bright colors and strong lines. His portrayal of Dada-ji is especially effective.

There is a bit of a didactic, meet-the-culture feel to this book, but that's okay: how many picture books about Indian American families have you come across? Have a taste of Hot Hot Roti with Dada-ji to round out your multicultural collection!

(Note: There's a glossary at the back, though what I really wanted to see was a roti recipe. Aha! Here we go; it's found at the Lee and Low website.)


Quacky Baseball by Peter Abrahams, illustrated by Frank Morrison

I really like this author's Echo Falls mysteries for middle graders, so I was curious to see what he would do in a picture book. The answer would be: play ball! It's Thumby Duckling's first day at the ballpark, and he's all thumbs. Erm, feathers. Actually, this little duck is nervous, and he's a thumbsucker.

We begin with a great picture of the two teams all lined up. Somebody on the opposing team is blowing a bubble, and our hero has his thumb in his mouth. Next we jump to the top of the ninth, when outfielder Thumby "makes the catch. Out number three. How about that?"

But then the duckling is up to bat, and he starts striking out...

Yep, Abrahams has written a classic sports story starring the underdog, or rather, underduck. I doubt there's a question in anyone's mind about what's going to happen, but the book is well paced, and you'll probably find yourself cheering for the little ball of yellow fluff in the baseball cap by the time you get to the game's final moments.

The author then throws in a few pithy sports pointers along the lines of "You win some, you lose some" on the very last page.

Frank Morrison's color-saturated illustrations are done in what appear to be acrylic. The sky is so blue, the dirt is very brown, the grass is intensely green, and Thumby's uniform is a hearty orange and blue. The crowd scene when Thumby makes the game-winning hit is particularly good. Morrison manages to combine small-animal cute with baseball gritty in just the right balance.

Go team!


Me...Jane, written and illustrated by Patrick McDonnell

What a lovely, lovely book! The artwork in the full illustrations is simple and well executed, with a quiet beauty that suits its slightly muted palette (colors, but with a hint of old-fashioned sepia tones). The final, perfect touch is the use of faint, lightly tinted "ornamental engravings from the nineteenth and early twentieth century" on the otherwise white text pages. McDonnell even incorporates a few pages from Jane Goodall's childhood journal, her notes from the nature club she formed, The Aligator Society [sic].

This biography focuses on the famous chimpanzee scientist's early days, when, aptly enough, she hauled a stuffed chimpanzee named Jubilee with her everywhere she went. And where she went was out to observe nature—including sitting quietly inside her grandmother's chicken coop until she could see for herself how eggs were laid.

The simplicity of the text belies its efficacy, particularly in association with the paradoxically sturdy-yet-delicate illustrations. Kids who read this book are likely to get a clear picture of how being a curious child can lead to an entire lifetime of scientific study and adventure.

I think you'll appreciate, as I did, the photos of a young Jane with Jubilee in tow at the front of the book and of the adult Jane with real chimps at the back!

The book also includes notes from the author and from Ms. Goodall herself. The primatologist encourages young people to join her international Roots & Shoots program to work on behalf of the environment.

As Jules put it over at Seven Imp, "...McDonnell’s title on Dr. Jane Goodall is one of the best books you’ll see all year. I say that with confidence, even though it’s only March...." Take a look at her post for more illustrations. (Perhaps you've come across McDonnell's work before, since he is also the creator of the comic strip, MUTTS.)

And now that I have the book in my hands, I have to agree with Jules—Me...Jane will be hard to beat!


Note: Quacky Baseball, When a Dragon Moves In, and Hot, Hot Roti for Dad-ji were provided to me by the publishers or PR folks.

Enter Three Witches...

Part One

It's Halloween, so we really should address a burning question: Who are the best—or rather worst—witches of all time in children's literature? Obviously, we have to turn to fairy tales to get started. (Sorry, William! No bards allowed, despite the post title.) This move quickly produces the top two: the nameless Hansel and Gretel witch and the Russian witch, Baba Yaga.

Oh, wait, there's a broomstick jaggling across the sky, writing in hideous smoky letters, and it's not spelling out "Surrender Dorothy"; it's making a bid for number three. Well, the Wicked Witch of the West is number one in American culture, but in children's lit, she has to settle for number three. The movie Wicked Witch of the West is such a powerful image that she seems to have overtaken the print version originally created by L. Frank Baum in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.

Besides, I give you two words: gingerbread house. It's right up there with glass slippers and poisoned apples as a fairy tale icon. The witch's trickery is scary in and of itself, but so is the juxtaposition of two stereotypes, kindly old grandmother who cooks for you with evil old witch who wants to cook you. The best retellings of Hansel and Gretel I've seen are James Marshall's classic and Paul O. Zelinsky's 1985 Caldecott Honor winner. Another intriguing version is Anthony Browne's—he's an illustrator perhaps best known for characters who are melancholy monkeys and gorillas. I also like Michael Morpurgo's lengthy retelling of the folktale, beautifully illustrated by Emma Chichester Clark. Morpurgo is the former Children's Laureate of Britain, and he adds some unusual twists to the story. Another impressive version is Newbery award-winning author Cynthia Rylant's retelling, illustrated by Jen Corace.

Now, some people might argue that Baba Yaga can't snag the number two spot on our list of witches because she's not especially well known, but instead, let's consider the criterion of scariness. Please include the cannibalism factor, which, you will note, is shared by the H&GW and Baba Yaga. Not by the Wicked Witch of the West. She just wants to kill people and take over the world—which happens regularly on prime-time TV, whether you're watching cop shows or the nightly news.

But eating little kids? Let's all shudder in unison!

Though I bow to the familiarity aspect of the witch from Hansel and Gretel, I personally like Baba Yaga for number one. This witch is scary-cool. She has iron teeth and flies around in a giant mortar, steering with the pestle. What's more, she lives in a hut that walks through the forest on chicken feet. When it stays in one place, the fence around her house is made of human bones topped off with skull torches.

For this story, I recommend Baba Yaga and Vasilisa the Brave, a retelling by Marianna Mayer with illustrations by Kinuko Y. Craft. The art's gorgeous, though I have to say, the portrait of the witch is so scary that the artist added a little joke at the bottom to lighten it up. The story basically consists of a wicked stepmother sending Vasilisa into the forest to borrow fire from the witch. Neither the stepmother nor the witch knows that the girl has a magic doll, a gift from her dead mother, that will help her prevail. Mayer's version includes the second part of the story, in which, having escaped Baba Yaga's clutches, Vasilisa makes a shirt for the tsar and ends up marrying him.

Another book I adore is a shorter variation that includes different fairy tale conventions: e.g., kindness to animals—and gates—pays off, and a flung mirror turns into a lake. (The same version of the story is the centerpiece of a 1997 film called Lawn Dogs, featuring Sam Rockwell and a young Mischa Barton.) Bony Legs is the title, and it's also the name of the witch in this easy reader, though the house on chicken feet and interest in eating little girls clearly marks her as Baba Yaga. Kids in K-2 and struggling older readers really like Bony Legs. Part of the fun is that the witch instructs the girl to take a bath so that her dinner will be nice and clean... but the cat helps our heroine trick old Bony Legs.

I also own an out-of-print book called Baba Yaga and the Wise Doll, retold by Hiawyn Oram and illustrated by Ruth Brown. The Vasilisa character in Oram's version is much younger, and she is called Too Nice. By the end of the story, she learns not to be quite such a pushover. [Update: Check out this post by author Lucy Coats about Baba Yaga at Seven Miles of Steel Thistle.]

So the Hansel and Gretel witch, Baba Yaga, and the Wicked Witch of the West are my top three. And, speaking of poisoned apples, Snow White's stepmother is number four. (She should probably be tied for #3, but witches aren't much for sharing.) There are a lot of versions of this one, but I like the one retold by Josephine Poole and illustrated by Angela Barrett. Nancy Ekholm Burkert's version won a Caldecott Honor in 1973. Charles Santore's Snow White is really lovely, too—take a look at the painting of of the princess fallen on the floor of the dwarfs' cottage, for example. The inimitable Trina Schart Hyman has also illustrated Snow White, with the retelling done by Paul Heins.

Number five is probably the witch in Rapunzel, who confiscates the baby of a salad thief. When the child is older, the witch imprisons her in a tower, with the only access the girl's long braid. Upon discovering that a prince has been visiting her charge, the furious witch dumps Rapunzel in the desert and then ambushes the girl's suitor, pushing him from the high window. He ends up being blinded on the brambles at the foot of the tower. Eww. See Paul O. Zelinsky's Caldecott-winning edition. (Or try a spoof, Leah Wilcox and Lydia Monk's Falling for Rapunzel. No witch, but very funny!)

For number six, let's say the sea witch from Hans Christian Anderson's story, The Little Mermaid. I don't have a favorite edition, though Charles Santore and Lisbeth Zwerger have both illustrated it.

Since I felt the ghost of Walt Disney breathing down my neck with numbers four and six, for number seven I'll pick an obscure witch from the Brothers Grimm tale, "Jorinda and Joringel." The crone hobbles around the forest turning young girls into birds, which she collects in cages in a huge room inside the tumbledown castle where she resides. When a courting couple walks too close to the hag's lair, Jorinda is turned into a nightingale while Joringel is frozen helplessly in place till moonrise. It is only by means of a dream that the boy eventually finds the key to freeing his love—and all of the other girls trapped in the castle. ("The Blue Light" or "The Tinderbox" is another Grimms' story with a witch in it.)

For number eight, how about a witch from Isaac Bashevis Singer's original Jewish folktale, The Fearsome Inn? Doboshova is an innkeeper who, with her devilish husband, enchants and robs travelers. She also keeps three young girls prisoner to serve guests. But the new guests are no ordinary youths... This story, illustrated by Nonny Hogrogrian, won a Newbery Honor award in 1968.

I'll admit I'm partial to wicked witches, but the good ones deserve a turn here, too. Number nine can be Strega Nona, Tomie DePaola's cheery Italian creation.

Witch number ten is another nice one. We meet her in The Talking Eggs: A Folktale from the American South, retold by Robert D. San Souci and illustrated by Jerry Pinkney. I read all the great picture books I could get my hands on to a first grade class one year, and I kid you not: This 1990 Caldecott Honor book beat out every single one of the others. Maybe it's because the strange old woman in the woods is able to take off her head and set it on her lap to comb her hair, or because the eggs out in the henhouse can talk. Also, the mean sister gets her comeuppance. (The original Grimms' tale is "Mother Hulda," by the way. Since the woman in that story is in charge of snowfall, she strikes me as a minor deity as much as a witch.)

And because every Top Ten list should have a number eleven, I'll add Audrey and Don Wood's Heckedy Peg to my collection of witches. She's the title character in an original "folktale" that involves—you guessed it, a cannibalistic witch. As is typical of the Woods' collaborations, the illustrations in Heckedy Peg are simply glorious. A witch kidnaps seven children while their mother is away and turns them into food. She is just about to start her feast when the mother shows up. Then a rather unusual guessing game begins.

Part Two

Of course, other than The Wizard of Oz, I haven't even touched on middle grade fiction, where we find countless wonderful and horrifying witches. I'll mention several, though I'll stop with the rankings already. To begin with, pointy black hats off to the witch from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis. The White Witch is a standout, not only because she stars in a classic, but because she memorably uses Turkish Delight to bribe young Edward into treachery. (She is also reminiscent of Hans Christian Anderson's cool-as-ice Snow Queen, a witchy character I probably should have listed above.)

My own favorite witch in middle grade fiction is Tiffany Aching from Terry Pratchett's The Wee Free Men, A Hat Full of Sky, and Wintersmith. Pratchett's best witch ever is actually from his Discworld books for grown-ups, and Granny Weatherwax makes cameo appearances in the Tiffany Aching books. Tiffany seems like a young Granny Weatherwax at times, but I do think she holds her own in these books for young readers, a strong character in her own right.

Another notable witch in middle grade fiction is Mrs. Coulter from Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. The woman is eventually revealed to be the mother of our heroine, Lyra Belacqua. Mrs. Coulter's greed and evil are only tempered by her secret love for her child. (I'll admit that Mrs. Coulter may not technically be a witch, but she is awfully witchy!)

And who can forget the title characters from Roald Dahl's book, The Witches? Dahl does something fresh with the idea, of course, giving us witches who can smell children—and hate the smell. The witches have no hair, so they must wear wigs, and they wear gloves to disguise their clawed hands. They have no toes, either. Perhaps most deliciously creepy of all, witches have bright blue saliva. As a group, Dahl's witches are dedicated to destroying as many children as they can, in an organized campaign.

Considering the Harry Potter books have been vilified for having witches in them, I can hardly neglect to mention them. Not counting talented young witch Hermione Granger, the best of the good witches is no doubt Minerva McGonagell, with Sirius Black's evil cousin Bellatrix Lestrange "winning" as the worst of the bad witches in the series.

A book that should make you laugh is Eva Ibbotson's Which Witch, about a wizard named Arriman the Awful who is in need of a wife. What follows is a mixed-up version of the Dating Game, complete with magic, cheaters and nefarious behind-the-scenes plotting.

Eleanor Estes' The Witch Family is a cackling classic. Though bits of it may seem cloying to today's readers, the good parts are really good. In other words, certain second and third grade girls will eat this up. It's the story of two girls inventing an old witch who is so scary that she takes on a life of her own, but eventually she is tamed by the addition of a witch girl and even a witch baby to her household. This one's just plain cute!

I might as well throw in Elizabeth George Speare's The Witch of Blackbird Pond, which won the Newbery in 1959. Even though the book is only about an accused witch, it skillfully raises the specter of the Salem Witch Trials, showing us how easily someone who's a little different can be flagged as a witch. Plus it's a really good story, albeit a little dense for today's rush-rush young readers.

And let's not forget the Witch of the Waste from Howl's Moving Castle, a book I talked about in last week's post on Diana Wynne Jones.

A few more witchy picks, mostly picture books: editor Daisy Wallace and Trina Schart Hyman's Witch Poems, The Witches' Supermarket and The Witch's Walking Stick by Susan Meddaugh, Guess What? by Mem Fox and Vivienne Goodman, and Shake Dem Halloween Bones by W. Nikola-Lisa and Mike Reed. So there you have it, a cavalcade of witches plus a non-witchy bonus (Shake Dem Halloween Bones, a very fun read aloud). Please feel free to suggest other good witch books in the comments section!

By the way, I spent this morning carving pumpkins with my students, a thoroughly satisfying endeavor. The kids are planning to be zombies, vampires, and green Barneys for Halloween. Their favorite candy seems to be a tie between Reese's and Snickers.

Here's witching you a Happy Halloween!

Note for Worried Parents: If witches are offensive to you for religious reasons, then this post simply isn't for you. If they aren't, you may still find some of the books a little alarming. For example, the other day I overheard a parent worrying that Hansel and Gretel might be too scary for their child. What I've found, say, in reading Bony Legs to first graders, is that they just peg the witch as a bad guy and cheer for the girl as she makes her escape. I guess my point is, most kids don't seem too concerned that tomorrow they will run across a house on chicken feet inhabited by a cannibal witch. But if your child is very sensitive, you know best! (I would say that if the Disney witches scare your child, then so will these books. If not, then not.)

Update: Two more classic witches in the picture book category are Patricia Coombs's Dorrie and The Witch Next Door by Norman Bridwell, the creator of Clifford, the big red dog. Patricia Coombs is no relation, though I was once mistaken for her! I also read a review that reminded me of a middle grades classic, The Wednesday Witch by Ruth Chew, so look for that at your library.