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Yesterday was the start of Diwali, so I went in search of some books set in India or by Indian authors to share at storytime and this is what I found. I’ve become a big fan of Anushka Ravishankar’s books, mostly due to the detailed and colorful folk illustrations. The text although imaginative, is pretty flat (possibly something is lost through translation), but they are wonderous to look at.
One, Two, Tree
Excuse me, is this India?
What can you hide in, blow your nose on, make a hammock out of, and still look beautiful in? A Sari, as demonstrated by Sandhya Rao in My Mother’s Sari. And lastly, a Benjali trickster tale, The Ghost Catcher by Martha Hamilton in which an altruistic barber encounters a couple of ghosts after his wife gives him an ultimatum.
Maurice Sendak’s Seven Little Monsters came out in 1975, more than a decade after Where the Wild Things Are but I think the illustrations of the monsters have some of the same flavor. The span of time definitely allowed for his weird factor to get turned way up.
Ever just want to screw off your head?
Margery Cuyler combines the silly with the slightly spooky in Skeleton Hiccups. One day a skeleton wakes up with bad case of the hiccups and tries everything to get rid of them as he goes about the day.
Just in time for Halloween! A fantastic new version of the ever maudlin, I Know An Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly is out and I need to get my fingers on it.
This one comes from Jeremy Holmes at Mutt Ink and appears to be one well designed and beautifully illustrated picture book.
Times are hard, so has been finding cute new picture books. The library’s budget for ordering isn’t what it used to be, so we’ve been receiving fewer and fewer new titles. Not to fear! Regardless of the sinking economy, I have managed to track down a couple of books to make you say, “Awwww!”
First up is for the cat people. Written by Linda Newbery and illustrated by Catherine Rayner, Posy documents the deeds of a playful kitten. It’s short on plot but heavy on the illustrations. Will definitely make you squeal with delight, “KITTENS!” Much like the little girl who stars in the video, “Kittens, Inspired by Kittens” which is totally off the subject but really funny. 
Next up is a picture book that reeks of the amazing, Koko’s Kitten by Dr. Penny Patterson. If you’ve never read this to yourself, make it a priority to pick it up on your next trip to the library. If interspecies love gets your flies a flutterin, then you will go gaga over the TRUE story of a sign-language using gorilla who really, really, really wants a kitten. And when Koko finally coerces her handler to get one, it’s a sweet little tailless thing. I won’t tell you anymore about this emotional rollercoaster of a picture book so you can experience it with unopened eyes.
Now on to the book that shamelessly rips off Koko’s story, but that’s so endearing and well illustrated that I’m willing to overlook it. Anthony Browne starts his story, Little Beauty out much like Dr. Patterson’s telling, but gives it a silly little twist at the end.
This is a biography. Everyone knows biographies are supposed to be dry enough to choke a camel and that biographies are all about the time line and footnotes. A River of Words: The Story of William Carlos Williams by Jen Bryant is an exception. It has all the accoutrements of a proper work of nonfiction for children but with a style done in a lyrical homage worthy of a poet. Unfortunately, I barely noticed any of that since I couldn’t avert my eyes from the illustrations to read the actual text.
Illustrator Melissa Sweet created playful mixed media collages using recycled book covers that incorporate drawings, watercolor, and replicas of drafts of William Carlos Williams actual work. To distract me from learning much of anything about WCW, bold colors mix with vintage paper to form word art fragments using actual poems. I find a recurring element in the design similar to the happy and totally circulated around the internet Spam One Liner series by Linzie Hunter.
My friend Tracy just shared this storybook inspired fashion spread from Blaze Danielle: A Creative Companion with me, it’s so fantastic!
A Secret Garden is/was one of my favorite children’s books, so why not get dressed up in it’s imagery? Victorian playwear, mystery, lush green lawns, rows of delicate flowers… sounds like the perfect inspiration for a romantic spring day.
I LOVE the dress and hats and boots, and well the whole thing really. BTW, if you haven’t read any other of Frances Hodgson Burnetts’s books, read Little Lord Fauntleroy and A Little Princess stat! Or just watch Shirley Temple play Sarah Crewe, with her little maid friend who insists, “Oh, no Miss!” when they think Captain Crewe is dead and the mean Headmistress makes Shirley go from riches to rags.
Definitely visit Blaze Danielle and check out her other children’s books outfits, including Nancy Drew, A Wrinkle in Time, Ramona series, The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, and Pippi Longstocking!
Oh, here’s my take on Pippi & and me on a Pinkalicious inspired day. Read the rest of this entry »
Want. A lot. Available in limited edition at http://www.rendij.com
via: http://www.arthurmag.com/magpie/
This book by Eric Carle, (also wrote The Very Hungry Caterpillar) is absolutely fantastic for teaching the phases of the moon to children. It’s about a girl who asks her father to get the moon down, because dammit, she wants to play with it. So pops gets this insane ladder, props it up on a mountain, climbs up to the very tip top… and you know, what baby wants, baby gets.
Speaking of Eric Carle, a few years back, I was all the way in Amherst, Massachusetts and by surprise found the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, got there like 5 minutes before closing time, and I still have no idea what’s inside. Dem folks at the ticket desk said, um.. you’re outta luck.
Some other time maybe?
The book has these wonderful “lift the flap” extenders, so even if you don’t care about expanding your knowledge of the universe, it’s just damned cool to look at while listening.
I’ll start by confessing that I’ve read this book aloud to at least 8 groups of kids in the past two weeks. It’s got that perfect mixture of innocent eerieness and playfulness that’s enough to get a child interested, but isn’t going to have them jumping in bed with you at 2am.
There’s a line there and I don’t like to cross it. This is coming from a 29 year old woman, who in 1982 saw the movie E.T. in the theatre and almost never recovered from it. Seriously, I don’t know what it was about the little guy, but I didn’t eat hamburgers in the lunchroom until I started middle school. It scared me beyond all communication. It was like a bad acid trip, minus the acid, add milk duds.
So yeah, I work with children everyday, and I love, love, love heightening their senses with a little, “there was something creeping out of the dark wood”, but I always make sure that it was really a silly bunny, dressed as the Gila monster to produce some sighs of relief and giggles at the end.
Anyways, back to this awesomest book ever business I was spoutin off about… Once upon a time there a little girl who just moved into a spooky-ooky house (with hardwood floors, high ceilings and everything) but little did she know that along with all of the other amenities, the house came with GHOSTS! Not just one, but a whole extended family of caspers. That might have been a deal breaker for folks like me and you but dood, this wasn’t no ordinary real-estate navigator, this girl, she was a WITCH! Not a scary old hag, but a cute, Fisher Price “Little People” orange and black woodblock print witch.
And what does this little Harry Potter glorifying witchcraft hussy do about these home invaders? SHE PUTS THEM IN THE WASHING MACHINE! HANGS THEM ON THE CLOTHES LINE AND THEN REUSES THEM AS HOME LINENS.
So ultimately this is a book about saving the environment.
No really, I think it’s the bees knees. So, so, cute! Buy it for your children! Or if Daddy Warbucks forgot to leave your allowance this week, go get it from the library.
Oh yeah, it’s called “Ghosts in the House!” and is written by Kazuno Kohadra.
I would say it could appreciated by anyone from preschoolers, through those in an extended adolescence.
But, if you’re looking for a book to appeal to an older child, then I would have to point out the graphic novel “Magic Trixie” by Jill Thompson.
Trixie is your typical big sister agonizing over the loss of attention since losing her “only child” status (a subject, I know nothing about). Well, Trixie’s not that typical, she is a pink-haired witch and she lives in a cafe with her family. She has a cat named Scratches…. and she goes to “Monstersorri” School. Her best friend Stitch is a mini Frankenstein (and it’s important to note that he wears Birkenstocks). She’s also classmates with a super cute Mummy named Nefi and a “catty” Werewolf.
Okay, I’m really just impressed by the nod to Maria Montessori. No, I really like it! Just look at the gap between her teeth on the cover and you’ll know that you will too.
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