July Library Books

[I'm starting to draft answers to your great questions and I still want to talk about post-9/11 changes as seen by an ex-pat journalist, but I have a library-books backlog, so I'm going to do this today.  The kids are sick, I'm sick -- stuffed nose, achy throat -- I just have no energy for more demanding writing.

Someone explain why I keep alternating between 8pm and 1am bedtimes.  How is that healthy?

Except: after typing this post up, I'm inspired to go to the library later and track down more of the NY Public Library Top 100 Picture Books.  I can't manage lists as well when the kids are with me.  And I want to finish the list, already.

Oh, also: I read somewhere (don't remember where) that the essence of blogging is the dashed-off, barely edited post.  I never, ever do that sort of post.  Alas, I persist in seeing my blog as my own personal Erma Bombeck column.

Oooo!  Erma, I've been reading some good Erma.  I'll have to type that up, too.  And I am totally on board with Phantom and Naomi's idea of making February 21st Erma Bombeck day in Blog-land.

What?  I'm not avoiding my dissertation.  What gave you that idea?]

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We returned all our library books before leaving for Minnesota in July, and then went back to borrow more a few days after we returned.  I didn't take any lists -- no suggestions from blog readers, no recommended summer reading, no Children's Choices -- we just went.  Here's what we chose:

• Arthur Goes to Camp by Marc Brown
• Arthur's Baby by Marc Brown
• Arthur's Eyes by Marc Brown
• Brother Juniper by Diane Gibfried; illustrated by Meilo So
• Commander Toad and the Big Black Hole by Jane Yolen; illustrated by Bruce Degen
• Commander Toad and the Space Pirates by Jane Yolen; illustrated by Bruce Degen
• Do Like a Duck Does! by Judy Hindley; illustrated by Ivan Bates
• An Egg is an Egg by Nicki Weiss
• Farm Friends Clean Up by Cristina Garellie; illustrated by Francesca Chessa
• The King Who Tried to Fry an Egg on His Head by Mirra Ginsburg; illustrated by Will Hillenbrand
• Leo the Late Bloomer by Robert Kraus; illustrated by Jose Aruego
• McElligot's Pool by Dr. Seuss
• On a Hot, Hot Day by Nicki Weiss
• Pinkerton, Behave! by Steven Kellogg
• Prehistoric Pinkerton by Steven Kellogg
• Sylvia Jean, Drama Queen by Lisa Campbell Ernst
• There is a Flower at the Tip of My Nose Smelling Me by Alice Walker; illustrated by Stefano Vitale
• This Land is Your Land by Woody Guthrie; illustrated by Kathy Jakobsen
• Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star: A Traditional Lullaby by Sylvia Long
• We're Going on a Lion Hunt by David Axtell
• Who Invited You? by Candace Fleming; illustrated by George Booth
• Wombat Goes Walkabout by Michael Morpurgo; illustrated by Christian Birmingham
• Zinnia and Dot by Lisa Campbell Ernst

Wow.  That was a lot of books.  Let's see if I can break them down.

Books we chose first, because they were familiar: the Commander Toad and Arthur books.  Susoz once mentioned that she borrowed an Arthur book on the strength of his popularity in our house.  Her son wasn't wild about it.  Is "Arthur" on TV in Australia?  I don't think Elba and Gemma and Wilder would like the books so much if they didn't watch Arthur on TV.

[While we're on the subject, why oh why do PBS stations persist in switching their late-afternoon broadcast schedules each autumn?  "Clifford the Big Red Dog" does me no good at 3pm -- we are pre-dinner TV watchers here -- and no, I don't have TIVO, and no, I can't record it because I forgot to hook up the satellite feed through the VRC two years ago and I never got around to fixing it.]

Books Wilder pulled off the shelf, carefully examining book covers and rejecting or accepting books according to some internal calculus I can't decipher: the Nicki Weiss books; Farm Friends Clean Up; Twinkle, Twinkle (which we own already but Wilder refused to leave it behind); Who Invited You?; and Wombat Goes Walkabout.

Books Elba, and Gemma to a quieter extent, demanded from the top-of-the-shelf displays: Brother Juniper, Do Like a Duck Does, There is a Flower, and We're Going on a Lion Hunt.

I chose everything else: Leo from the top of the shelf because I'd heard of it; the Suess book because we hadn't read any Suess in a while and it's a book about fishing; the Pinkerton books because I like Steven Kellogg and I'd heard of the Pinkerton books (their titles jumped off the shelf at me); the Ginsburg book because a whole group of her books were lined up on the highest shelf as I stood idly watching Wilder, and this one looked good; the Lisa Campbell Ernst books when we first arrived, because I didn't know if we'd find enough books to justify the trip and was trying to think of good choices (because book volume turned out to be a real problem this trip); and This Land is Your Land because I happened to see it on the shelf and the kids had loved singing along at our best friends' house.  (I adore S, the kids adore her daughters H and S.  Nice trick, eh?)

Wilder had the habit, during the last part of the summer, of taking one or more of these library books (usually Commander Toad) into his bedroom to read.  He'd close the door behind him and disappear for ten or twenty minutes at a time.  I think he was just overwhelmed by all that sister time, because the kids have been playing together pretty intensively whenever they're not in school now.  Whatever the motivation, I thought it was adorable.

We seemed to read these books mostly at meals.  We were reading chapter books at bedtime, so most of these (with the exception of the Commander Toad books) just never migrated upstairs.  The books the kids would request, demand, beg to have read were, in just about this order:

• Do Like a Duck Does!
• Who Invited You?
• The King Who Tried to Fry an Egg on His Head
• Wombat Goes Walkabout
• Arthur Goes to Camp

I recommend all but the Arthur book, because I'm sick of Arthur.  The King Who Tried has that unfortunate "daddy is the only idiot in the family" vibe going against it, but I like non-French/German fairy tales and this one made the kids laugh out loud.  (Unfortunately, every time I read a Russian or Ukrainian fairy tale -- almost all of which I adore, because they are unfamiliar and thought-provoking -- I get this uncomfortable "I love this story but cannot stop thinking about pogroms" vibe that is both weird and a little unfair.)

I loved reading Brother Juniper although the kids were not as enthusiastic.  They liked it fine but there were other books they wanted to read first.  Brother Juniper is an invented story about one of Francis of Asissi's actual followers, who was known for his generosity.  In the story, Brother Juniper is left in charge of the church one day, and ends up giving away everything to people in need -- the collection baskets, the altar cloth,the candlesticks, the walls and doors, his broom, and finally his robe.  Of course the other Brothers are furious.  There's a very funny illustration of them staring down at Brother Juniper, naked on the sunken foundation of the torn-down church.  "You have ruined our church!" another Brother yells.  But on Sunday, after Brother Juniper calls the community to mass (by shouting "Ding Dong, Ding Dong" because he has given away the bell), everyone who received Brother Juniper's gifts climbs the hill and Father Francis says, "Look, Brothers, at the fine church that Brother Juniper built."  Fantastic.

I borrowed Saint Francis by Brian Wildsmith from our church library the next week.  I happened to see it on the shelf, a perfect piece of serendipity (well, not entirely -- it was a church library after all) because Gemma and Wilder and Elba hadn't yet heard of Saint Francis.  I was intrigued to discover that all they liked this book better than Brother Juniper, even though it's told in a definitely-not-our-time first-person voice and has stylized illustrations of definitely-not-our-world events and places.  You can play spot-the-angel on every page and, once again, it features a guy handing over his robe to run naked.

It occurs to me that the naked part of both books was probably the highlight for my five-year olds.  Hmmmm.

The books I returned early:

• The Pinkerton books -- ack.  The first-person narration/dialog didn't work.  It was hard to read out loud, I had to keep explaining the action.  Maybe this book is better for early readers who can spend lots of time examining the pictures after they read the words themselves?
• On a Hot, Hot Day -- better for older toddlers, I think.  A good book to introduce the seasons, set in the big city (not always the case with these "seasons" books), but probably best for the under-threes.
• Farm Friends Clean Up was another Wilder-selected book with not enough words to hold the kids' (or, lets face it, my) attention, and even though they liked it enough to request it at lunch, I returned it early, and no one noticed.  The sentences just didn't have quite the right rhythm -- but it's another one of those good books for toddlers who should be amused by animals who resist basic grooming.
• Arthur's Baby -- Arthur sometimes irritates me, and this book really irritates me.  Why does the baby have to be bottle-fed?  Can't we come up with good "older children taking care of baby" stories that don't involve bottles?  Argh.  Also: I hate the hegemony of anxious older siblings in children's literature.  Did Dora and Franklin really need to acquire siblings?  Are there not enough "this is the next big transition in your life" books out there already?  Can't some well-loved characters be and remain only children?  In fact, never mind the only children, why are there not more stories told from the point of view of middle children?  Youngest children?  Why do the first-born kids get all the attention?  Phooey.  [I can write this, I'm an oldest child.]
• Leo the Late Bloomer -- Elba and Wilder didn't particularly get it, and Gemma was positively disturbed by poor speechless Leo.  I didn't especially appreciate the "let the kid who doesn't say a single word or know how to draw even a basic shape develop in his own good time" message.  I mean, yes, it's very important for kids to hear that it's okay to develop at their own pace (and in fact, Leo is one of the books the kids are all reading in their kindergarten classes this week) but Leo wasn't even remotely hitting his milestones for typical development.  Early Intervention, anyone?

Okay, yes, I took a few of these books a little too seriously.

The huge, big, you-must-read-this-book hit was This Land is Your Land.  Our copy included a Woody Guthrie CD, which we played at bathtime (naked dancing, always fun).  The kids could page through the book singing the words and feel like they were "really reading."  The illustrations and all the little details on each of the pages thrilled my history-loving, patriotic, liberal heart to pieces.  Along the margins and frames of the pictures, there were blurbs about Woody's favorite foods and bits of Depression-era history and snippets from Woody's other songs.  Most of the illustrations were of classic 1930s scenes across America.  The very last pages fold out to reveal this enormous map of the United States with all sorts of little vignettes of Americans singing Woody's songs today (at camp, on county fair stages, on city street corners).

The last two verses, before that big fold-out map, made me tear up a little (I know, I'm such a cornball).  First there's a two-page illustration of a run-down 1930s inner-city street for the verse "In the shadow of the steeple I saw my people / By the relief office I seen my people" and then there's a two-page spread of contemporary people fixing up the tenements and planting a community garden and building a playground for "Nobody living can ever stop me / As I go walking that freedom highway."

Come on, who doesn't love that?  Forget borrowing the book, you really need to buy it.

Comments

[Phantom Scribbler]

Good grief! How have we managed to live so long without that book???

LG is a big fan of some other Steven Kellogg books (The Mysterious Tadpole and The Island of the Skog are two of his favorites), but Pinkerton seemed awkward to me, too.

I had a Ukranian friend in grade school. Some of my family is from Kiev, so we had a running joke about how her ancestors killed my ancestors. Ha, ha, no? But yes, it's going to take all the joy out of your readings of any European folktales if you let thoughts of pogroms trouble you...

[Suz]

About the many books featuring the anxious older child, I'm wondering ... have you run across any good children's books featuring multiples? Are WEG interested in them at all?

[SheilaC]

Great post!
Our kids are just getting a little interested in Arthur now, in grade one. I find most of his stories have negative attitudes, teasing and name-calling, and/or school-age situations that we didn't really relate to until this age. And no our kids have never seen Arthur on TV. Some of the books about DW are a little more appealing, and a lower reading level.

We tried a Pinkerton book once and I really disliked it. It was too old for our kindergarteners, and I didn't find it funny.

I have been looking for Commander Toad, thanks to your recommendations, but our branch library only had one of the books. I must do a catalogue search and request them from other branches. Cute and funny.

This Land is Your Land sounds great, but for us it's too American. There is a popular Canadian version of the song, with Canadian place names, but I haven't seen a picture book with it, alas.

Do you like Helen Lester (Tacky the Penguin)? Or Mary Ann Hoberman's editions of folk songs? Or the Toot and Puddle picture books by Holly Hobbie? or Angelina Ballerina by Catherine Holabird? We have enjoyed them regularly.

[susoz]

Yes Arthur is on tv here, it's not been popular with my son either! In fact he once, when he was about four, got quite scared by the plot of one Arthur episode (can't remember what it was about). From the snippets I've seen, it involves a school setting that seems quite 'old', not very relevant to young kids.

I have a MichaelMorpurgo chapter book out right now, having read some of his 'Butterfly Lion' book - he seems a very interesting man.

[Sarah]

I have to comment that Leo is a strange book. My daughter was late talker and that book was read to her on a visit at a friend's house. (with a subtle message to me that I was too worried about hitting the milestones) The people we visited had had a late talker too. And really, early intervention would have been a better suggestion...

Still awed at your library lists. When did you start taking the kids to the library. My youngest is 2.5 and he is still holy hell in quiet places. So we don't go very much.

[Emmie (Better Make It A Double)]

We have "This Land" too, and love the words and the great illustrations. My twins are only 18 mos., but do not (at this point) rip pages, so we can sit through it and sing it to them, then talk about the pictures. They love it already. Their alltime favorite books, though, are the "Lulu" books and the "Daisy Duck" books. It's interesting to me that they both have female protagonists. We try hard to find books with girls in them since so many books have only boys.