Vintage Kids' Books My Kid Loves

Rain Makes Applesauce

2012-01-26T11:29:00.007-06:00

Rain Makes Applesauce
Julian Scheer ~ Marvin Bileck ~ Holiday House, 1964

Penned by famed NASA man and sometime children's book author, Julian Scheer, I always avoided this book until I found a first edition hardcover, recently. I'm not sure why I avoided it. Sometimes, if I see a book too often in too many places, I never bother to crack the spine. In this case, I used to see it all the time but never opened it up. Then a few readers mentioned it, and as soon as I started looking, it stop appearing. But I figure, there was a reason why I waited this long to fall in love. There always is.

It helps that I have a thing for old books with author photos on the jacket. Who wouldn't love this man flanked by so many adorable kiddies!?!

AWESOME!

Enter a lyrical little poem about dreams and love and the fantastical nature of life itself, illustrated in a style as whimsical as the theme.

The stars are made of lemon juice
and rain makes applesauce
I wear my shoes inside out
and rain makes applesauce
My house goes walking every day
and rain makes applesauce
Dolls go dancing on the moon
and rain makes applesauce

It's exactly this sort of "silly talk" that helped Rain Makes Applesauce win a Caldecott Honor Award in 1965, and made it a classic that remains in print today. So glad it finally found me.

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Pumpernick and Pimpernell

2012-01-25T22:09:00.008-06:00

Pumpernick and Pimpernell
Lilo Fromm ~ Doubleday, 1967

Sorry I was out for a day, but my scanner was down... until tonight! Up late to bring you a sweet and crazy story about two friends who have a lovely little life together. A garden. A wee little house. An adorable doggy. Until one day...

...something strange happened. A noise they had never heard before was coming from the house. It was like the breathing of a horse with a bad cold. They all jumped up to see what it could be. And what did they see but a great huge mouse asleep on the roof, snoring so hard it made the whole house shake!

Just when you think that a giant blue mouse on the roof was weird, Pete the Drifter shows up, laughing and shouting with a rooster under his arm. Next, the Noise Man arrives with his junk cart. And yes, as you might imagine, a fight ensues between the mouse, the drifter and the Noise Man... leaving Pumpernick and Pimpernell to clean up the mess.

Brought to us by the artist Fromm who also illustrated the German classic The Golden Bird, I've read this book again and again, searching for what the moral might be, but alas... who cares! She created a story so rad and strange and colorful that it doesn't need to teach us anything except that weirdos will steer clear of your house if you put up a sign that reads "Keep Out! Biting Dog!"

Ten kinds of AWESOME!

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Great Monday Give: 25 Mystery Books

2012-01-23T13:46:00.005-06:00

In anticipation of spring cleaning here in Texas, I am going to be hosting the biggest, baddest Great Monday Give EVER.

I actually need to make room on my son's shelves, so I am offering up a mystery box of 25 books. I'm not yet sure what they'll be, but rest assured, the package will be awesome. The best part is, you'll have three ways to win.

One... Comment on this post as usual.

Two... Follow me on Twitter and then post about the Giveaway using the hash tag #vintagekidsbooksrule.

Three... friend me on Facebook and post a comment saying you want to win on my wall.

I'll pick one name from each of these avenues (could be the same person) and then randomly pick a winner from the three. By entering the give all three ways, it ups your chances of winning.

The give will run for two weeks, so you have plenty of time. Enter between now and Sunday, February 5 at 11:59 PM. A winner will be announced the following day.

I promise the box will be filled with all sorts of vintage goodies! Good luck, gang.

(If you are outside of the US, you can still enter to win, but if you win, I would ask that you cover shipping. Fair?)

(And the winner of last week's give is Patricia! E-mail me at webe@soon.com with your info.)

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Nils

2012-01-23T10:18:00.010-06:00

Nils
Ingri & Edgar Parin d'Aulaire ~ Doubleday, 1948

The dynamic duo of the d'Aulaires created countless classics and two children, Ola and Nils, and (I'm assuming) each child, in turn, received a book named as such.

Or was it the other way around? Hmmmmmmm.

No matter. With illustrations lithographed directly on stone and printed in four colors, I can never turn down one of their books so lush in tone and rich in personality. Here, we have a strangely-timely tale of bullying, 1940s-style.

There once was a boy and his name was Nils.
He was longlegged and gay and his schoolmates called him a regular fellow.
He had a pony all his own.
He was going to be a cowboy when he grew up.

From Norwegian blood, the young Nils loved to ride his horse and tell tall tales. But when he's given a pair of woolen stockings from his grandmother in the old country, he's teased mercilessly and throws them away, fearing he'll never be a tough cowboy in long stockings.

That is until he meditates of the story of Peer Gynt, riding his reindeer and generally being manly, and decides he can be a Norwegian cowboy no matter what anyone thinks of his long, knitted stockings.

My copy is an ex-library book from the Fort Wayne and Allen County, Indiana Public Library with possibly the prettiest end papers and card pocket I've ever seen.

Not to mention I've never noticed the delightfully romantic and intertwined signature at the bottom of some of their illustrations. Ola and Nils were lucky kids to have parents so talented and full of color. Love it when couples create together.

Ten thumbs up!

Also by:
D'Aulaire's Book of Animals
D'Aulaire's Book of Greek Myths
The Terrible Troll-Bird
Benjamin Franklin
Don't Count Your Chicks
Ola

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Update Friday: Learning About Sizes

2012-01-20T11:10:00.003-06:00

Taking today to enjoy Update Friday, the day where I pick a post from the archives, back in the day before I showed loads of scans and such, and make it all shiny and new with scans and additional commentary.

Please welcome, Learning About Sizes.

Enjoy!

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Ann Can Fly

2012-01-19T10:12:00.005-06:00

Ann Can Fly
Fred Phleger ~ Robert Lopshire ~ Random House, 1959

In keeping with the theme of Robert Lopshire from yesterday, I offer up this snapshot of 1950s stereotyped perfection.

This is a big day for Ann. Her father will take her to camp in his new airplane. Ann has never gone up in an airplane. "Will it be fun?" she asks. "Will I like it?" Her father laughs.

Will she like it? D'uh. Notice the doting look she gives her handsome father throughout the story. As he teaches her to read the air map. As he casually looks the plane over before take off. As he teaches her about gauges and wheels and whatnot. His faint smile in the eye of the storm.

Gee, isn't he proud of her? And isn't it every girl's dream to have a pops who can fly you into summer camp and land you on the lake in front of your girlfriends, all while looking so dashing?

All kinds of awesome.

I love the angles Lopshire took in these drawings, showing the plane from so many different perspectives, giving the reader a feeling of always being above or below the action.

Really, I love this book for so many reason, it's hard to quantify. The colors. The happiness. The sky. If all father/daughter relationships were this genteel and trusting...

Oh, what a wonderful world.

Also by:
Red Tag Comes Back
How to Make Flibbers
A Beginner's Guide to Building and Flying Model Airplanes

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A Beginner's Guide to Building and Flying Model Airplanes

2012-01-18T10:25:00.008-06:00

A Beginner's Guide to Building and Flying Model Airplanes
Robert Lopshire ~ Harper & Row, 1967

Now that my son is of a certain age, I'm beginning to dig back in the archives of our collection and pull out books I bought years ago expressly for this era of his childhood. In the digging, I uncovered this little jewel and thought I'd use it as an opportunity to give props to Mr. Lopshire, who passed away in 2002 and was best known for his book Put Me in the Zoo. A while back, I was looking for information on him and 10 Engines was kind enough to send some back story along, including this quote...

Thirteen years after the it's publication, Lopshire explained how the book (Put Me in the Zoo) came about: "I came to write my first book because, at the time, I was employed as creative art director on the 'Beginner Book' project at Random House, the first of the truly planned assaults on young minds."

Later, he explained, "Ted Geisel (Dr. Suess) said that the old 'Dick, Jane and Spot' concept was horrible, and that no one could ever do anything more with the three--he bet me on this. . . . Put Me in the Zoo uses Dick, Jane and Spot and I won the bet."

More recently, I found Robert's obituary from the Herald Tribune.

Lopshire, 75, a resident of Gainesville, died May 4, 2002, of emphysema and congestive heart failure in the North Florida Regional Hospital there.He was born April 14, 1927, in Sarasota and graduated from Sarasota High School in 1944.

"The nurses brought in Bob's books for him to autograph during his last days at the hospital," his wife, Selma, said. "They said they had memorized many of them as young children and were now reading them to their own children."

Lopshire had his pilot's license by the age of 15 and after graduating from Sarasota High School, served aboard assault landing ships in the Pacific Theatre. After the war ended a year later, he worked as an illustrator in studios in Boston and Philadelphia, and was a member of the Illustrators Group in New York.

When Lopshire was creative art director during the earlier stages of the Beginner Books series at Random House, his illustrations for Ann Can Fly, published in 1959, caught the eye of Theodore Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss of the famous Dr. Seuss Beginner Books series, also at Random House.

Lopshire created other favorites for young children such as New Tricks I Can Do! and It's Magic! all for prominent publishing houses. Lopshire loved airplanes and amused himself and crowds before baseball games at Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia with synchronized take-offs and landings of radio-controlled Snoopy and the Red Baron model planes. In addition to illustrating and drawing blueprints for building models, he also wrote Radio Controlled Miniature Aircraft for Macmillan, and A Beginner's Guide to Building and Flying Model Airplanes for Harper. He also contributed a section on model airplanes for the World Book Encyclopedia.

"He never retired," his wife said. "Bob had a massive imagination. Right up until the end, he had intricate model airplanes on one table and was working on another book at his desk."

Now, this is one man I'd have loved to interview. The dust jacket of this book mentions that Robert was a member of the Academy of Model Aeronautics and a combat photographer during WW II. My son adores the illustrations he did for the Big Max books and thrives on How to Make Flibbers projects, so I'm hoping he takes to the wings so we can get some play out of this comprehensive volume.

The book is so lovingly constructed, diagrammed, researched and explained, that it's hard not to get swept up in the romance of the hobby. I can only imagine how many wee aviators were inspired by Robert's infectious joy of the sky.

Dedicated up front to: Wilbur and Orville Wright for having started something wonderful. One could say the same about good 'ole Bob.

RIP, amazing fly guy.

Also by:
How to Make Flibbers
Ann Can Fly

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Tag-Along

2012-01-17T23:57:00.005-06:00

Tag-Along
Bernice Frankel ~ Alex Kenné ~ Parents' Magazine Press, 1962

Another one from the vast and fascinating archives of Parents' Magazine Press, the mail-order book company from the 60s and beyond that published all kinds of awesome. In this story of "never underestimate the slow and timid guy", we meet unlikely four friends...

...who always met after breakfast at a fern hill in the forest.

Sometimes Crow came first, winging along.
Sometimes Goat came first, trotting along.
Sometimes Rat came first, scampering along.

Only turtle never came first. Or second. Or even third. Turtle always tagged along last.

When a hunter begins sniffing around their neck of the woods, all the animals fear for Tag-Along's safety. After all, the slowest and most vulnerable can't possibly protect himself, right?

Of course, you can count on little Tag-Along to rise up and save the day, not just for himself, but for all his furry and feathered friends.

I could find nothing online about the illustrator and author, though the dust jacket points out that Bernice was also the author of Timothy and Alexander the Great as well as Half-As-Big and the Tiger -- and the illustrator, Mr. Kenné, insists that "by the time this book is published he expects to have a show in New York."

Anyone have any info, kids?

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Great Monday Give: Cat in the Hat

2012-01-16T22:06:00.001-06:00

Welcome to Monday, kids! For the Great Monday Give today, I have a good vintage, hardback copy of The Cat in the Hat. All you have to do to be entered to win is comment on this post between now and January 22nd, Sunday, at 11:59 PM. A winner will be selected via the "blind scroll and point" method and announced the next day.

Speaking of which... the winner of last week's give is Christina. Email me at webe(at)soon(dot)com with your info and congrats.

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Our Veronica Goes to Petunia's Farm

2012-01-13T11:10:00.001-06:00

Our Veronica Goes to Petunia's Farm
Roger Duvoisin ~ Alfred A. Knopf, 1962

Headed to the Pumpkin's farm for Friday, the place in Duvoisin's imagination where Donkey romped, Petunia preened and Veronica lumbered along smiling. Here, we meet the aforementioned hippopotamus when she arrives at the farm for the first time and falls in love.

It was on a sunny morning that Veronica arrived at Mr. Pumpkin's farm. At once she saw it was a lovely place. Just right for a hippopotamus. There was a little pond to splash and turn somersaults in -- just the right size for one hippopotamus. There was a mud puddle at the end of the pond -- just the right mud for wallowing. There was a beautiful meadow -- just the right grass for eating.

And there were many animals to gossip with: Petunia the goose, Straw the horse, Cotton the cat, Clover the cow, Noisy the Dog, Charles the gander, Ida the hen, King the Rooster, and Donkey, Goat, Sheep, Pig, Piggy, Duck, and others.

Truly, thought Veronica, a hippopotamus's paradise.

Not so fast there, lady. When the rumor mill gets stirred up and the farm animals shun the poor, dear hippo, she slips into a deep depression that only the glow of true friendship can break her free from.

Love, love, love the animals on Roger's farm with their wispy tufts of hair and glowing eyes.

Always a pleasure to read.

Also by:
Petunia
Petunia, Beware!
The Rain Puddle
A Child's Garden of Verses
Veronica and the Birthday Present
Donkey Donkey
Petunia's Christmas
The Old Bullfrog
Petunia Takes a Trip

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James and the Giant Peach

2012-01-11T09:36:00.004-06:00

James and the Giant Peach
Roald Dahl ~ Michel Simeon
George Allen & Unwin, first UK edition published 1967

Since we've been talking of Dahl, I thought I'd share this that I unearthed at the library. I do love the gorgeous original American edition of James and the Giant Peach drawn by Nancy Ekholm Burkert (of which I sadly only have the paperback, non-color version), but the first British edition ran with different illustrations by an artist named Michel Simeon.

I'd never seen them until last week. They don't quite have the effortless flow of Nancy's delicate drawings, but it's still fun to see the evolution of one of my son's favorite novels. Others went onto illustrate the classic (Lane Smith and, of course, Blake), and each artist's interpretation brings something different to the story.

Until he was four years old, James Henry Trotter had a happy life. He lived peacefully with his mother and father in a beautiful house by the sea. There were always plenty of other children for him to play with, and there was the sandy beach for him to run around on, and the ocean to paddle in. It was the perfect life for a small boy.

Then, one, day, James's mother and father went to London to do some shopping, and there a terrible thing happened. Both of them suddenly got eaten up (in full daylight, mind you, and on a crowded street) by an enormous angry rhinoceros which had escaped from the London Zoo.

Isn't that always the way it goes? Poor little orphaned James with his sweet spirit and giant heart. The wretched aunts, Sponge and Spiker. The man with the bag of mystery. The grasshopper as large as a dog. The giant ladybug with nine black spots. The glow worm. And of course, the giant peach that brings them together.

A classic tale of fantasy and adventure told through the eyes of the amazing boy who lived it.

Seriously.

Also by:
Dirty Beasts
The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me
Fantastic Mr. Fox
The Magic Finger
Danny Champion of the World

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Great Monday Give: Tiffky Doofky

2012-01-09T09:04:00.008-06:00

Welcome to Monday, kids! For the Great Monday Give today, I have a good ex-library edition of Tiffky Doofky by William Steig, a household favorite around these parts. All you have to do to be entered to win is comment on this post between now and January 15th, Sunday, at 11:59 PM. A winner will be selected via the blind scroll and point method and announced the next day.

Speaking of which... the winner of last week's give is nopinkhere. Email me at webe(at)soon(dot)com with your info and congrats.

Yay Monday!

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The Amazing Voyage of Jackie Grace

2012-01-06T12:53:00.000-06:00

The Amazing Voyage of Jackie Grace
Matt Faulkner ~ Scholastic, 1990

Comic books. Graphic novels. The funnies. My son is gaga for anything that looks like a comic strip. Currently he obsessed with Tintin (still holding as his number one Halloween choice with 10 months to go - even beating out Captain Rex, thank God), Sidekicks, Meanwhile and anything else with word bubbles and action panels.

Even though Jackie Grace is just barely 20 years old, he's still old enough to be considered here, and he's certainly cartoony enough to count.

Hey, what's going on?

SORRY, LADDY. THERE'S A BIG BLOW COMING IN AND MY CREW AND I ARE STRANDED. AND YOUR MOM SAID WE COULD USE THE TUB.

My Mom?

HERE'S MY CREW NOW! MOVE YOUR DUFFS, YOU LAZY OAFS!

When a young boy's bathtub gets hijacked by a a band of salty seadogs, it's up to Jackie Grace to keep the men afloat and outwit a boatload of perilous pirates.

Filled with wonderful images and a steamer ship full of fantasy, I never tire of sitting back and enjoying the ride when a boy's imagination is at play.

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The Wartville Wizard

2012-01-04T09:34:00.004-06:00

The Wartville Wizard
Don Madden ~ Macmillan, 1986

Sometimes I stay away from books that I consider too mainstream or too in-print to focus on books that have faded out of view, assuming that just because it's in-print and still available that everyone knows about it. Then I remember that not everyone knows every book and I should still give the classics props even though they might be household titles. So here, for your viewing pleasure, is a post on my second favorite book for children with an environmental message. (Like I even have to mention what the first is?)

When I was little, I felt empathy for litter. Anytime I'd find myself walking down the street and leaving behind a candy wrapper, I'd inevitably feel sorry for it (being left behind and all) after a few yards and turn around to retrieve it. When I was in grade school, the anti-envronmental sentiment surrounding styrofoam was just beginning to surge, and I remember having the thought that people would use less of it if they were responsible for keeping all the styrofoam they ever used. That if they were saddled with their un-biodegradable garbage for the rest of their days, they'd be less likely to buy something in a styrofoam container. I imaged homes with huge piles of the stuff collecting in the garage and thought they should definitely make that a law.

Ends up, Don Madden had the same idea.

Meet the Wartville Wizard.

Every morning the man looked out his window and watched the birds playing in the birdbath. He saw the flowers dancing in the sunlight and the trees waving in the breeze. From inside, it seemed a perfect place. But when he went outside, he saw that it was not. Under the beautiful flowers he found soda bottles thrown from cars during the night. By the mailbox he saw juice cans, plastic cups and straws. Along the road he spotted more litter: empty cigarette packs, newspapers, candy wrappers, all kinds of trash. Once he found a worn-out baby buggy full of pacifiers. Another day he discovered a broken toilet seat leaning against a garden gate.

Every day the old man became angry. The more trash he saw, the more angry he got.

Well, eventually the man grows tired of picking up after his neighbors and whining about what slobs they all are, but it is when Mother Nature bestows upon him the power over trash that the story catches fire. With his new found wizard-tendencies, every bit of litter he spies, he sends right back to its maker, sticky-style.

Hilarity ensues when candy-wrappers soil the faces of every brat in town, cigar butts adhere to rich old men, and fancy women find garbage bags stuck to their butts. The moral of the story arrives swiftly, and soon the town of Wartville has learned a timely lesson in the art of picking up after yourself. Excellent read!

Also by:
Is There Life in Outer Space?
The Daddy Book
One Kitten for Kim
Oxygen Keeps You Alive

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Danny the Champion of the World

2012-01-03T15:45:00.017-06:00

Danny the Champion of the World
Roald Dahl ~ Jill Bennett ~ Alfred A. Knopf, 1975

I'm going to lay it on heavy for this one, and call it one of the best books I have ever read.

Period.

Adult or for children.

I know that's a tall order, and if I waver a bit in that description I can at least say, for sure, that it's my favorite Roald Dahl, ever.

Lacking the fantastical angle of his other books for kids, this story reads how a good book should. It's perfect. The simple tale of a man and his son and one fantastic hobby.

The book has been reillustrated several times (most recently, of course, by Mr. Blake), but the original pen and ink drawings by Ms. Bennett really stand out as particularly whimsical. I don't know why the first image was (and still is) a photograph of a baby instead of a drawing, but how cool is that!?!. Does anyone know if it's, in fact, a picture of Dahl or one of his children?

I had no brothers or sisters.

So all through my boyhood, from the age of four months onward, there was just us two, my father and me.

We lived in an old gypsy caravan behind a filling station. My father owned the filling station and the caravan and the small meadow behind, but that was about all he owned in the world. It was a very small filling station on a small country road surrounded by fields and woody hills.

While I was still a baby, my father washed me and fed me and changed my diapers and did all the millions of other things a mother normally does for a child. That is not an easy task for a man, especially when he has to earn his living at the same time by repairing automobile engines and serving customers gasoline.

But my father didn't seem to mind. I think all the love he had felt for my mother when she was alive he now lavished upon me.

I don't wanna give too much of the story away as it's marvelous, but know there are good guys and bad guys and illegal goings ons and little guys defeating big guys and pheasants.

Lots and lots of pheasants.

Not only is it a fascinating - mysterious - scary - loving read, but one of Dahl's most famous characters, The BFG, first appears here as a story the father tells. Dahl later went on to give the big friendly giant his own book, but it's here that the importance of oral story-telling is really felt.

My only regret is that I read this book to my son. I wish my husband had read it to him because when you cry at the end (and believe me, you will), it really is the father/son connection that is being celebrated. A breathtaking sentiment, indeed.

Also by:
Dirty Beasts
The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me
Fantastic Mr. Fox
The Magic Finger

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Great Monday Give: Early Readers

2012-01-02T09:28:00.005-06:00

Happy 2012, all! This holiday felt like it lasted forever. We were so busy, I think in the two weeks off from school we read about five picture books, and that lack of reading is saying a lot for this family.

It was a great one, but I really missed being here and the beauty of everyday ho hum.

That said, I finally bit the bullet and gave up my trusty Android for an iPhone, for the main reason that I've been dying to try Instragram. So, for all you iPhone users out there, check me out at @vintagekidsbooks where you'll see images like the above.

Speaking of which, before the holidays I was gifted a large stack of very-much-loved vintage early readers, and for this week's give, I'm passing along five of the paperbacks to one of you (not necessarily those in the picture, though). All you have to do to be entered to win is comment on this post between now and Sunday, January 8 at 11:59 PM. A winner will be selected at random and announced the following day.

For those of you not on Instagram, you can continue to read along here or at burginstreetman.com or on Facebook, tumblr, Twitter and Etsy!

Welcome back to routine, world!

Cranberry Christmas

2011-12-28T09:36:00.013-06:00

Cranberry Christmas
Wende and Harry Devlin ~ Parents' Magazine Press ~ 1976

Christmas in this house doesn't end until the 12th night, so I won't feel guilty dragging you off to Cranberryport even though the holiday has technically come and gone. As such, the Devlins were mainstays in children's lit throughout the 60s and 70s, illustrating and authoring two of my childhood all-time favorites, How Fletcher Was Hatched and Old Black Witch.

I'm not the number one fan of their Cranberryport stories, but it's hard to deny that the little town with the big bog has made a lasting impression.

Starting with Cranberry Thanksgiving in 1971 and spanning through nine books and six "Tales from Cranberryport" follow-up paperbacks in the 90s, this one chronicles a Christmas when an old grump almost spoiled the day.

Christmas was coming! Snow was on the cranberry bog, the smell of pine in the wind, and the fresh water pond frozen smooth. Mr Whiskers, looking out from his kitchen window, was deep in gloom. Christmas was only three days away and his pond should have been filled with skaters--skaters in bright sweaters, laughing, with their scarves flying in the wind. And he should have been there teaching them all to twirl and do figure eights.

But old Cyrus Grape had changed all that. He had moved next door to Mr. Whiskers, into the stone house on the rise, and claimed that the pond was on his land. Cyrus didn't like children. Whenever he saw them on the pond, he would hop on his sled and slide bumpily-bump down the hill. "Scat! Off my pond or I'll have the sheriff after you!" Cyrus would shout as he shook his cane and chased the skaters to the snowy banks.

What a spoil sport! Not only that, but Mr W's sister thinks he's unfit to live by himself and is coming to take him away for good. Mr. W enlists the help of the ever-faithful duo of Grandmother and Maggie, and together, they fix the sister problem and find the proof they need to get the town's children skating again.

Even though the book is out of print and often can't be found without a bloated price tag, you can still find Cranberry Christmas on TV, narrated (and sung) to saccharine perfection by the one and only Barry Manilow. Ho ho ho, friends.

Also by:
How Fletcher Was Hatched
Old Witch Rescues Halloween
Old Witch and the Polka Dot Ribbon
Old Black Witch!
The Wonderful Tree House
Cranberry Thanksgiving

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The Adventures of K'Ton Ton

2011-12-27T10:16:00.002-06:00

The Adventures of K'Ton Ton
Sadie Rose Weilerstein ~ Jeannette Berkowitz
National Women's League of the United Synagogue, 1935

Hope everyone is enjoying their holidays. With two days of Hanukkah left, let's celebrate with a book selected by one of my favorite children's book bloggers, Ariel S. Winter, author of the fab We Too Were Children, Mr. Barrie and the forthcoming picture book, One of a Kind.

With so many excellent Jewish American children's books now available--many of which have even crossed over to a popular audience like the works of Maurice Sendak and Uri Shulevitz, or Caldecott winners such as Simms Taback's Joseph Had a Little Overcoat or David Wisniewski's Golem--it's hard to imagine a time when American Jewry had no works available for children in English. That changed with the birth of K'Tonton, the Jewish Tom Thumb, who first appeared in Outlook, the magazine of the National Women's League of the United Synagogue in 1930.

Written by Sadie Rose Weilerstein, daughter of immigrants and the wife of a conservative rabbi, K'Tonton (the name means "very small" in Hebrew) is a thumbling who gets into all of the predicaments thumblings get into: carried off by birds, riding on an arrow, dining with bugs. But K'Tonton also has adventures that only a Jewish thumbling could have: riding on a lulav (a palm frond) at Sukkot, getting closed in a hamentaschen (a filled traingular cookie) at Purim, and most pertinent here, going for a spin on a dreidel (a four-sided top) at Hanukkah.

In K'Tonton Takes a Ride on a Runaway Trendel (alternate Yiddish word for dreidel), K'Tonton is sad because his aunt and uncle and "Bobe" (the woman who predicted his birth) have come to visit but none of them, nor his parents, have remembered to give him any Hanukah gelt (coins). K'Tonton doesn't want gelt for himself, but to fill up his Palestine Box (this is well over a decade before the establishment of Israel), "to buy land, you know--for the Jewish farmers, the Halutzim." Knowing that he can't outright ask for gelt, he mopes. His uncle, wishing to cheer him up, sets him on a dreidel and sends him spinning, a merry-go-round for one. Soon the dreidel has spun off the table, out the door, and into the street. The whole family chases after the runaway dreidel and it's rider. They call to a policeman to stop him, "but the policeman was an Irishman and didn't know what a trendel was." Eventually, K'Tonton comes to rest beside a "A BIG ROUND SHINING QUARTER!" The coin reminds the whole family about Hanukah gelt and they pour all of the change in their pockets into K'Tonton's Palestine box.

This story is typical of the K'Tonton oeuvre, a small adventure that teaches a lesson about a holiday or a Jewish value. K'Tonton is the most pious, happy-go-lucky child imaginable, who never laments his diminutive size. It is just that size, and the black and white morals, that appeal to a young child, and it is no wonder that the first English language Jewish children's work is still the earliest memory I have of Jewish literature and will no doubt be one of my daughter's as well, seventy years after his first appearance.

There are some really nice essays online about K'Ton Ton and Sadie Rose Weilerstein that I consulted: K'Tonton Time by Marjorie Ingall and Sadie Rose Welerstein by Lisa Kogen. I've posted all of the full-page illustrations by Jeannette Berkowitz from The Adventures of K'Ton Ton on my Flickr as well as the complete text of K'Tonton Takes a Ride on a Runaway Trendel.

Happy Hanukkah.

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Books Are Love

2011-12-21T21:30:00.001-06:00

I know I've been in and out pretty erratically for the last few weeks, but family duties are heightened around these parts as of late. That said, you live life one day at a time, and you get out of it what you put into it.

Books make the world better and every minute you spend with your nose in one is a minute when you are learning and growing. And that's all we can do. Try to live better. Try to be better.

In the time it takes to read those 32 pages, you can travel to another world and take a little one along for the ride. If you allow those lessons, those little moral poems that picture books provide, to guide you through your days, you'll do nothing but bring joy to the people around you. Stories. Pictures. Words. The stuff of life itself. Happiness.

This will be my last post until after Christmas. I'll be back next week with more regularly scheduled programing. Until then, I hope everyone travels safe, has a great holiday and gets loads of books from the jolly 'ole elf.

(picture from The Great Songbook illustrated by Tomi Ungerer)

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The Selfish Giant

2011-12-20T10:48:00.004-06:00

The Selfish Giant
Oscar Wilde ~ Gertraud and Walter Reiner ~ Harvey House, 1967

The Selfish Giant was originally published in 1888 as part of Wilde's beloved The Happy Prince and Other Tales. This illustrated version is lifted from the prize-winning film by Austrian/German animators and filmmakers, Gertraud and Walter Reiner. I was unable to find much online about the filmmakers or the film (it's not the Oscar-nominated version created in 1971 by Micheline Lanctôt), but I expect any info that exists might be in German in reference to when it was originally published in 1694 as Der selbstsüchtige Riese.

Anyone else know anything, please chime in!

Written by Wilde expressly for children, the story begins with a mess of them having a grand old time in a lovely garden.

Every afternoon, as they were coming from school, the children used to go and play in the Giant's garden.

It was a large lovely garden, with soft green grass. Here and there over the grass stood beautiful flowers like stars, and there were twelve peach-trees that in the spring-time broke out into delicate blossoms of pink and pearl, and in the autumn bore rich fruit. The birds sat on the trees and sang so sweetly that the children used to stop their games in order to listen to them. "How happy we are here!" they cried to each other.

When the giant returns after a long absence from home, he is angered to see someone enjoying his spread other than himself, and proceeds to build a wall to keep the children out, thus creating a perpetual winter in the garden.

After a few seasons of chill, the giant sees the error of his ways, befriends a small boy and breaks down the wall and the children become his most beautiful flowers of all.

As Wilde was prone to do, he interwove a religious metaphor with the end showing the giant's death many years later. A vision of the same little boy appears to him as the Christ child bearing the stigmata, and in a rage the giant roars...

"Who hath dared to wound thee?" cried the Giant; "tell me, that I may take my big sword and slay him."

"Nay!" answered the child; "but these are the wounds of Love."

"Who art thou?" said the Giant, and a strange awe fell on him, and he knelt before the little child.

And the child smiled on the Giant, and said to him, "You let Me play once in your garden, to-day you shall come with Me to My garden, which is Paradise."

Man, is the library full of forgotten treasures...

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The Night Before Christmas

2011-12-16T17:59:00.006-06:00

The Night Before Christmas
Clement C. Moore ~ Gyo Fujikawa ~ Grosset & Dunlap, 1961

At last my room mother duties are done, and the best part is... no more homework for two weeks! YAY! To celebrate the home stretch, let's crack out the Gyo and head into the last week with happy hearts and stress levels that will soon be stabilized.

Let the holiday fun officially begin!

'Twas the night before Christmas when all through the house
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that St. Nicholas
soon would be there.

Happy, happy, joy, joy... and all the wonders that fall in between. As adorable as the holidays get. A dream of a Santa all jolly and quick as only Gyo could draw. One of my all time favorite versions of the classic Christmas story.

Originally published in 1961, I own the '04 Backpack edition, but it has since be re-released in a new edition by Sterling. Love it when everything old gets new again.

Also by:
A Child's Garden of Verses
A Child's Book of Poems
Let's Grow a Garden
Baby Animals
Oh, What a Busy Day!
Our Best Friends
Come Follow me
Fairy Tales and Fables
Christmas Nutshell Library ~ Hilary Knight version
The Night Before Christmas ~ Weisgard version
The Night Before Christmas ~ Charles Clement version
The Night Before Christmas ~ Corrine Malvern version

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RIP Mr. Hoban

2011-12-15T14:52:00.002-06:00

Heartbroken, truly.

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I Want My Days Back

2011-12-14T20:17:00.004-06:00

I am so sorry I've been MIA. I keep thinking I'll even steal away from my day for 30 minutes to update, but goodness, do the holidays consume loads of time.

Just know, my son is getting Brixton Bros book three, more Tintin and I Want My Hat Back for Christmas. And we are in the middle of reading The Witches! Yay for yay! Hopefully I'll pop in tomorrow with a review. Until then...

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The Little Match Girl

2011-12-12T11:27:00.003-06:00

The Little Match Girl
Hans Christian Anderson ~ Blair Lent ~ Houghton Mifflin, 1968

Sorry I've been erratic in posting, but that's what happens when you are room mom to 24 first graders in the weeks leading up to Christmas. To make up for it, I thought I'd highlight the most depressing (yet strangely uplifting) children's Christmas story of all time. Hans Christian Anderson's timeless tale has all those feel-good components you expect out of the holidays. Poverty. Starvation. Death. When the warm around us is snug and glowing with holiday cheer, it's always good to step outside and remember that not everyone is lucky enough to write and read blogs and enjoy children's books.

Originally published in 1845, it's the story of a little girl wandering the streets, selling bundles of matches. Or, at least, trying to sell matches. When no one buys her wares and she loses her shoes in the snow...

The little girl found a corner where one house projected a little beyond another and she crouched there, drawing her little feet close under her. But she was still cold. She did not dare go home, for she had sold no matches, nor earned even one penny. If she should return home her father would surely give her a beating. And besides it was almost as cold at home as it was here, for they had nothing over them but a roof through which the wind whistles, even though the largest cracks had been stuffed with straw and rags.

It gets worse from there on out. To stay warm, she begins striking the matches and in each one, she sees a fantastical vision. A blazing fire. A turkey dinner. An enchanting Christmas tree. Until at last a star arrives bringing her long-dead grandmother along who "took the little girl in her arms, and they both soared in brightness and joy above the earth, very, very high; up to where neither cold nor hunger, nor fear is ever known."

I remember crying buckets at this story as a child, and vowing always to help those less fortunate than me. Beautifully illustrated by the artist who brought us the always awesome Tikki Tikki Tembo, it's a great one to read during the holidays to inspire empathy and build traditions of giving. A heartbreaking lesson that every child should learn. (Check out Tomi's version if you've never seen it before...)

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Watchwords of Liberty

2011-12-07T09:00:00.003-06:00

Watchwords of Liberty
Robert Lawson ~ Little Brown, 1943

As today is the date that will live in infamy, I thought I'd share a bit of Americana I picked up at the library yesterday. Written and illustrated by Robert Lawson (the man behind The Story of Ferdinand), Watchwords of Liberty is a collections of essays written around famous quotes from American History. Chock full of inspirational battle cries and momentous moments in the founding of our nation, the book is also sprinkled with all sorts of interested yet dated political agendas. When Lawson writes on REMEMBER PEARL HARBOR, it's obvious the man was NOT a FDR fan.

In doing a wee bit of research of Lawson and the book, I read that he (along with a medley of famous and later-famous artists) were camouflage painters in France during WWI, and that strand of Internet wisdom led me to the fascinating art of "dazzle painting" ships during war.

But, of course, I digress.

Here you will find eloquent observations (accompanied by Lawson's stellar pen and ink drawings) on such illustrious quotes as...

We hold these truths to be self-evident, -- that all men were created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. ~ Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence, 1776

I would rather be right than president. ~ Henry Clay, 1850

That these dead shall not have died in vain... that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. ~ Abraham Lincoln from the Gettysburg Address, 1863

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. ~ Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1933

What strikes me about this book is really the idea of saying something important and meaningful in a time of need, and this is expressed beautifully in the forward where Lawson writes:

In searching through the words of our great men we find that one fact stands out strikingly. Though many of their sayings were born of war, nowhere in the words of our most honored fighting men does one find a trace of hate or venom. There is determination, but behind it lies sorrow and regret. Grant, the ruthless bulldog in combat, gave Lee's defeated armies the most generous and kindly terms; said, "Let us have peace." Sherman, who blazed a path of desolation from Atlanta to the sea, said, "War is hell." Lee, whose magnificent generalship tore the Union armies into bloody distraction, prayed for the enemy each night, counseled his ruined and embittered people to "bury contention with the war".

Men of smaller mind, in both war and peace, have screamed bitterness and vengeance-- their words and their memories have died away. The words that speak sublime courage, sacrifice, devotion to the right, live on.

Words to live by in every situation. And though every country's history is often distorted in the eyes of those remembering, one thing is clear. If you say one, true thing in the moment, the meaning will last.

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The Donkey Ride

2011-12-06T10:00:00.002-06:00

The Donkey Ride
Jean B. Showalter ~ Tomi Ungerer ~ Doubleday, 1967

An Ungerer take on the classic tale of the miller, his son and the donkey. Wherein a miller and his son toting a load to market on their trusty ass meet stranger after stranger with no qualms about making their load weightier with criticism.

This morning, after they had been walking along the road for an hour or so, they passed a woman standing in her yard with a fat little baby.

"Good day, madam," said the man. "It is pleasant with the sun melting the dew, is it not?" He tipped his hat most cordially.

"Good day indeed!" snorted the woman. "Pleasant indeed! The sun is fairly scorching the dew, and here you are making that poor boy walk. Doubtless he is nearly faint with heat and thirst, and you, sir, should be ashamed of yourself!" And the woman stalked into the house.

Next thing you know, the boy is riding. When they happen upon another man who guilts the boy into allowing his father to ride. After another quip, they both are riding, until at last they, themselves, are actually carrying the donkey.

You can imagine that doesn't end well, and the moral is revealed... You can't please everybody, and some people are never satisfied. Here, here.

Also by:
I Am Papa Snap and These Are My Favorite No Such Stories
The Mellops Strike Oil
Zarelda's Ogre
Crictor
Seeds and More Seeds
The Three Robbers
Moon Man
Orlando The Brave Vulture
Christmas Eve at the Mellops'
The Beast of Monsieur Racine
Allumette
Emile
Book of Various Owls
Rufus
Adelaide
The Hat
Beastly Boys and Ghastly Girls
The Mellops Go Spelunking

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The Great Holiday Give winners

2011-12-05T10:23:00.005-06:00

I want to thank everyone again for commenting and going out for The Great Holiday Give. Unfortunately, there can only be five winners, so here goes!

Time at the Top & All in Good Time goes to Katie

Something for Christmas goes to Meghan

Kangaroo for Christmas goes to HEC

Professor Wormbog goes to karichuckroryskylar

Christmas Eve at the Mellops goes to Elizabeth

Congrats everyone and send me your info to webe(at)soon(dot)come so I can get them out to you right away!

I am taking a break from the Great Monday Give until after Christmas, so it will return on Monday, January 2. Simply too much to do in the meantime. That said, if you haven't yet read enchanting The Invention of Hugo Cabaret to your child, get cracking. It's the first novel to have ever won a Caldecott Medal, and it is a masterpiece. Then see the movie. It was lovely, and preceded by an advert for my son's new favorite thing, Tin Tin. We are starting on volume four now, and the boy is mad for it... Perfect timing.

Also, if you weren't around this weekend and didn't get a chance to take a look at my interview with Eric Rohmann, check it out now. Happy Monday, all!

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Meet Eric Rohmann: Part Two

2011-12-04T07:09:00.007-06:00

Meet Eric Rohman continued from yesterday, part of our new weekend contemporary author's series...

VKBMKL: I love that many of your books feature anthropomorphic characters and star animals. My son fell in love with creatures before anything else, as I feel many children do if given the chance. In particular, he’s clung to birds so, of course, he loved your Caldecott-honor winning Time Flies. Is there a personal reason why you turn to animals for inspiration?

ERIC: I have always had a fondness for animals. I had childhood pets, spent a great deal of my time crawling through swamps, turning over logs and watching the sky for any living thing. When I got older, I had the idea of becoming a marine biologist (in Illinois), a zookeeper or a veterinarian. So it makes some sense that animals find their way into my books. Then again, perhaps I make picture books because it allows me to write stories about animals. I mean, what other art form uses animals as characters as much as kids' books?

VKBMKL: Was there a moment when you knew you wanted to draw for children?

ERIC: I have always made pictures that told stories. Not landscapes or portraits, but narrative pictures. When I had the chance to teach kids I knew they were the audience I wanted to work for.

VKBMKL: A few of your books have a spooky undertone, like the delightful Bone Dog and your previous Pumpkinhead. I believe children are naturally drawn to the strange and sometimes macabre, particularly when it is presented with a softer edge, like your books.

What kinds of reactions have you gotten from children about Bone Dog, the story of a friendship that transcends death?

ERIC: Children are such a great audience because they are willing to suspend reality and go along for the ride. With Bone Dog, some adults have commented that it may be too scary for kids--without actually realizing that kids do not share this thought. Kids are willing to suspend disbelief, but they know that it’s still a book.

Besides, I do not leave the reader with the “scary” part but in the end have tried to make them laugh and feel something about Gus and Ella’s friendship.

VKBMKL: You talk about the theme of loss and longing in other interviews, particularly when talking about Bone Dog. For me, what makes people look back so fondly on a children’s book is that nostalgic loss. That feeling of remembering the wonders of childhood and always hoping to return to it, even though you can’t go home again. Is there anything from your childhood that you pine for?

ERIC: I think I feel that way about many things, but as an adult I approach my longing and nostalgia with wariness. When we look back we see what we want to see and so I have a healthy mistrust of memory. Having said that, I tap into memory in every book. I can’t say the events are true, but the feelings are. There is sometimes a difference between fact and truth.

VKBMKL: I often wonder about 40, 50, even 100 years from now, when the world has gone totally digital (ha!) and like-minded people are still scouring the bookshelves looking for lost treasures. When someone picks up Time Flies what’s something you hope they’ll see in it?

ERIC:The books I care most about inspire me to make more books and so I hope that the my books will encourage kids to tell their own stories.

Thanks again for joining us Eric! If you wanna learn more about Eric and his work, read his books A Kitten Tale or The Last Song or read the Seven Impossible Things interview or visit his website. Happy Sunday all!

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Meet Eric Rohmann: Part One

2011-12-03T07:54:00.040-06:00

Thanks to everyone for your enthusiastic comments on The Great Holiday Give. You still have two days to enter all five giveaways, so be sure to get at it before Sunday around midnight.

Now, in keeping up my weekend theme of interviewing contemporary artists about their vintage book influences...

Every once in a while, you come across an author who breaks your heart every time you pick up one of their books. Eric Rohmann is definitely that for me. His images are beautiful and his words come from a place that is sweet and poetic and full of heart, yet equally strange and alluring.

The very first book I gave my son was Eric's haunting Cinder-Eyed Cats. It was a book I had gotten years before he was born, and kept on my bookshelf waiting for a child to give it to. Something about the pictures really spoke to me and the story of traveling to some magic place was sublime with a Little Prince feel. (One of my absolute first loves.)

As chance would have it, I had a child with a sentiment very much like my own. When he was barely one, he'd beg me to read it over and over and over, and soon after, fell in love with Eric's exquisite Caldecott Medal-winning, My Friend Rabbit.

The boy and book adoration was so intense, that I felt compelled to write Mr. Rohmann a letter gushing how my son prized his books. Much to my surprise, a few weeks later, a box arrived on our doorstep filled with books and posters and the dearest handwritten letter.

How could you not love an artist, a stranger, who would do that for your child?

For this reason, Eric Rohmann will always be our favorite author. Always.

That said, when I e-mailed Eric out of the blue a few weeks ago, he was kind enough to agree to participate in my new weekend author series, so please welcome the Caldecott-winning illustrator and the author of his latest, Bone Dog, Mr. Eric Rohmann.

VKBMKL: Welcome. You've mentioned before that you weren’t a big reader as a child, that it wasn’t really until high school that you were drawn to picture books. Do you remember the first picture book you ever saw that sucked you in?

ERIC: I’m sure it wasn’t the first picture book I’d ever seen, but Wanda Gag’s, Millions of Cats has always stayed with me. It’s an improbable story, beautifully made and as a kid I recall it took me away from home and put me in a world where such wonders always happen. Honestly, as a kid I read mostly comic books. I’m sure I read many picture books, but their impact really hit me only when I started to seriously draw. The pictures I made told stories and in the end that is what a picture book does best. The comics led to looking back at picture books.

VKBMKL: In interviews you've suggesting people interested in being children’s book authors should go back and look at vintage titles. Are there any books that you love as an adult and turn to for inspiration? Do you have a collection?

ERIC: I do have some beloved favorites. The Carrot Seed, The Story of Ferdinand, Make Way for Ducklings, The Little House, The Snowy Day, Where the Wild Things Are (or any Sendak from the 50’s and 60’s), Once a Mouse, Lisbeth Zwerger, James Marshall, Tomi Ungerer...

There are so many others, but these are some that I look at again and again to make sense of what I’m doing in the studio. Oh, and I do have a larger collection that follows me wherever I go--the public library!

VKBMKL: Are there any particular images that stay stuck in your head?

ERIC: The wordless double page spreads from Where the Wild Things Are; the way the hills in Millions of Cats lead the eye through the story; Lisbeth Zwerger’s use of space and subtle watercolor; James Marshall’s profound silliness; Robert Lawson’s flawless black ink drawing; the sweetness of Clare Newberry’s cats; the perfection of Kevin Henke’s storytelling.

VKBMKL: Your books have such an innocence. The box you sent us included your book Clara and Asha, the story of a girl and her friend, a giant flying fish. My son loved that book, and wept openly on every read at the point when the fish and the girl say goodbye. (Similarly, he would do this at the end of Danny and the Dinosaur.) All of your characters show a greater empathy about the world that I think children relate to. Each has a larger cosmic meaning than what the simple stories would imply. Is that implicit on your part, or is that something you consciously write into your stories?

ERIC: First off, thanks for putting me in the same group as the splendid Danny and the Dinosaur! And thanks for the kind comments, although I must admit that when I approach a book I’m trying to tell a compelling story first and through the telling, the meaning finds its way. The two themes that seem to emerge in every book are friendship and coming home. I can’t say I ever think of those themes when I write, but they are always there, and so when I work, they bubble up and find their way into the stories.

Continued here...

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Great Holiday Give Day Five: Time at the Top & All in Good Time

2011-12-02T14:16:00.003-06:00

The Great Holiday Give has come to an end. To send us into the weekend properly, the last give comes from the spectacular Purple House Press... Time at the Top & All in Good Time, two novels by Edward Ormondroyd.

For the first time ever, you will be able to read Time at the Top ('63) and its sequel All in Good Time ('75) in a single volume, to get the complete story of time traveling Susan Shaw!

All you have to do to be entered to win this brand new reprint is comment on this post by 11:59 PM Sunday, December 4. A winner will be selected at random and announced (along with all the other winners from the week) on Monday, December 5.

If you missed the past four days of gives, throw your hat in the ring now...

Day One: Christmas Eve at the Mellops by Tomi Ungerer
Day Two: Professor Wormbog in the Search for the Zipperump-a-zoo by Mercer Mayer
Day Three: Kangaroo for Christmas by Jim Flora
Day Four: Something for Christmas by Palmer Brown

This book was sent to me by the publisher to giveaway, but I don't think I need to tell you that this in no way educated my opinion of the publisher or the title in question. I've been bragging on these guys since the beginning of time!

Good luck everyone!

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Great Holiday Give Day Four: Something for Christmas

2011-12-01T09:42:00.002-06:00

Originally published in 1958 by Harper & Row, Something for Christmas is the story of a little mouse’s search for a very special gift for a very special person. Small and sweet and a perfect stocking stuffer for you or some wee one you love. The New York Review Children's Collection sent me this impeccable reprint, and really no other publisher does more to bring forgotten classics back into the fold. The editors there are miracle workers finessing literary Lazaruses back from the dead on a daily basis. I have so much respect for what they do.

All you have to do to be entered to win this brand new reprint of Something for Christmas is comment on this post by 11:59 PM Sunday, December 4. A winner will be selected at random and announced (along with all the other winners from the week) on Monday, December 5.

The Great Holiday Give lasts all week, so be sure and check back each day to find out about a new vintage reprint and enter to win a different book. And if you missed the past three days, throw your hat in the ring now...

Day One: Christmas Eve at the Mellops by Tomi Ungerer
Day Two: Professor Wormbog in the Search for the Zipperump-a-zoo by Mercer Mayer
Day Three: Kangaroo for Christmas by Jim Flora

This book was sent to me by the publisher to giveaway, but I don't think I need to tell you that this in no way educated my opinion of the publisher or the title in question. I've been bragging on these guys since the beginning of time!

Good luck everyone!

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Great Holiday Give Day Three: Kangaroo for Christmas

2011-11-30T09:26:00.008-06:00

As promised, I have a copy of the Enchanted Lion reprint of Jim Flora's Kangaroo for Christmas for day three of the Great Holiday Give. Both Enchanted Lion and Phaidon have done an incredible job of recreating the original look and feel of these old books. Phaidon's Ungerer reprints and Enchanted Lion's Flora titles have that wonderful matte feel that makes such a rich tactile experience to the reader. Love love love.

All you have to do to be entered to win this brand new copy of Kangaroo for Christmas is comment on this post by 11:59 PM Sunday, December 4. A winner will be selected at random and announced (along with all the other winners from the week) on Monday, December 5.

The Great Holiday Give lasts all week, so be sure and check back each day to find out about a new vintage reprint and enter to win a different book. And if you missed the past two days, throw your hat in the ring now...

Day One: Christmas Eve at the Mellops by Tomi Ungerer
Day Two: Professor Wormbog in the Search for the Zipperump-a-zoo by Mercer Mayer

This book was sent to me by the publisher to giveaway, but I don't think I need to tell you that this in no way educated my opinion of the publisher or the title in question. I've been bragging on this book since the beginning of time!

Good luck everyone!

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The Great Holiday Give Day Two: Professor Wormbog in the Search for the Zipperump-a-zoo

2011-11-29T09:40:00.006-06:00

The folks at Premiere Author Publishing sent me a copy of Professor Wormbog in the Search for the Zipperump-a-zoo for the Great Holiday Give. I'd never heard of them before, but they seem to facilitate a sort of self-publishing platform for established authors. Though the format isn't as aesthetically awesome as the original oversized-edition with the matte pages, still, it's back in print which is a zillion times better than having it languish in over-priced eBay obscurity. Plus, the idea of authors having a bit more control over reprinting out-of-print books intrigues me.

I can't tell if these are publicist run yet, but it seems they've gotten Mercer Mayer to sign up for Twitter and Facebook, which is super in its own right.

To be entered to win this amazing reprint, simply comment on this post by 11:59 PM Sunday, December 4. A winner will be selected at random and announced (along with all the other winners from the week) on Monday, December 5.

The Great Holiday Give lasts all week, so be sure and check back each day to find out about a new vintage reprint and enter to win a different book. Throw your name in the hat for the book from yesterday, too...

Day One: Christmas Eve at the Mellops by Tomi Ungerer
Day Three: Kangaroo for Christmas by Jim Flora

This book was sent to me by the publisher to giveaway, but I don't think I need to tell you that this in no way educated my opinion of the publisher or the title in question. I've been bragging on this book since the beginning of time!

Good luck everyone!

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The Great Holiday Give Day One: Christmas Eve at the Mellops

2011-11-28T12:46:00.007-06:00

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. I know I did. The Muppets did not disappoint, though we never did make it out to see Hugo. The turkey was moist. The leftovers abundant. And I just bundled my last relative up and sent her on her way. Good times.

That brings me to...

The Great Holiday Give is here.

Yayyyy!!!!!

I will be giving away a different reprint every day, brand new and ready for regifting to that special someone in your life.

To celebrate Tomi Ungerer's 80th birthday today, I thought we would start off with his holiday classic, Christmas Eve at the Mellops.

Phaidon sent a copy of the reprint, hot off the presses, for one lucky reader. All you have to do to be entered to win is comment on this post by 11:59 PM Sunday, December 4. A winner will be selected at random and announced (along with all the other winners from the week) on Monday, December 5.

The Great Holiday Give lasts all week, so be sure and check back each day to find out about a new vintage reprint and enter to win a different book.

Day Two: Professor Wormbog in the Search for the Zipperump-a-zoo by Mercer Mayer
Day Three: Kangaroo for Christmas by Jim Flora

This book was sent to me by the publisher to giveaway, but I don't think I need to tell you that this in no way educated my opinion of the publisher or the title in question. I've been bragging on this book since the beginning of time!

Good luck everyone!

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Far Out Isn't Far Enough Kickstarter...

2011-11-23T19:19:00.004-06:00

The Tomi Ungerer documentary Far Out Isn't Far Enough has a kickstarter page. Help these guys! And feliz dia de gracias!

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The Muppets Take Manhattan Comic Book

2011-11-22T08:21:00.001-06:00

Welcome back one of my favorite children's book bloggers, Ariel S. Winter, author of the fab We Too Were Children, Mr. Barrie and the forthcoming picture book, One of a Kind. He's here with more Muppet memories!

Not exactly a "book" book, but hey, it's all good.

The Muppets Take Manhattan Comic Book
Jim Henson's Muppets ~ Star Comics ~ 1984

In my memory, I got this at the movie theater when I saw the movie, but now looking at the issue, I think that's unlikely. In part because I also remember it being the full story, not a single issue, (and there was a full-story special released, so I might have that somewhere, too), but also because it was with a bunch of other random Marvel titles.

My mother had a patient in the early '80s who worked for Marvel, and she'd occasionally bring me large yellow interoffice envelopes, the kind that closed by wrapping a string around a cardboard disc attached with a grommet, stuffed with an assortment of comics. Those were the seeds of my now vast comic book collection. This particular issue's cover is completely separated from the rest of the comic, so I must have looked at it frequently.

However, the thing I remember the most is this Fig Newton maze advertisement (which includes the now defunct and often mourned Apple Newtons, as well). I probably remember the ad best because it was in other comics, as well. As a whole, I found while scanning this issue that the advertisements excited me more than the comic itself. Mario Bros for Atari. Star Wars: The Arcade Game for Atari. The New York Comic Book Convention. And diamond rings sold by Military Diamond Sales out of Malibu, CA. (I don't know who they thought was in the audience reading a Muppets comic that would be in the market for a diamond ring.)

That last is most confusing since these comics were published by Marvel in their Star Comics line, which were comics targeted to a younger audience. That was where the US ThunderCats comic was printed and the US Masters of the Universe comic, and most relevant, home to the long running Muppet Babies comic book. If anyone has the other issues of the mini-series, I encourage you to scan them and post them, so people can enjoy the whole thing.

I've posted a complete scan of the first issue of the comic adaptation of The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984) on my Flickr set, here.

Other Muppet books:
Muppets at Sea
Muppet Madness
The Muppet Movie

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The Muppet Movie

2011-11-21T13:13:00.018-06:00

Happy Thanksgiving week, all you yanks.

But more important than that... it's just two days until The Muppets opens. YAAAAYYYY!!!!!!

One of my favorite children's book bloggers is here today, Ariel S. Winter, author of the fab We Too Were Children, Mr. Barrie and the forthcoming picture book, One of a Kind. A man after my own heart, he's here to talk Muppets, TWICE, so sit back and enjoy.

The Muppet Movie
Steven Crist ~ Abrams, 1979

Burgin has me beat (has all of us beat, really) with her story of getting pulled out of class by her mother the day that Jim Henson died and then going on to work at the Henson Company, but the Muppets (and all of Henson's work) have been extremely important in my life.

That is why perhaps the only children's book that I have from my own childhood is the Abrams photographic adaptation of The Muppet Movie.

I have memories of this book at both my mother's house and my father's house, which means that I treasured it enough to carry it between their homes on visits (and I don't think I did that with anything else other than my He-Man toys and comic books).

I stamped the front flyleaf with a Raggedy Ann/Raggedy Andy "This Book Belongs To" rubber stamp with my rainbow ink pad. The pages, starting with Chapter 2 through the beginning of Chapter 4, are completely loose from the binding. I cut out a corner of one of the pages, but I can't remember why. (I vaguely feel that I used the photo for a school project.) And there was a "Bazooka Joe" comic in Hebrew folded in the middle. (I have no idea why.) Now, with DVD, it seems unlikely that anyone would have interest in a book like this, but at the time, there was no way to rewatch a movie unless you were lucky enough to catch it on TV.

Of course, only a few years later, we were able to record it on VHS from the television, so I saw the movie many times, but I must have paged through this volume even more.

Afterthought by Burgin: I know exactly how you feel, Ariel. Back in '79, I had to special order the LP at our local record shop, and it felt like it took months to come in. Every week before my gymnastics lesson, my mother would swing me by the record shop to see if it was in, and all the cool guys who worked there would laugh at me, and say "Not yet."

When it finally arrived, I remember being so jacked that I slept with the thing. It was the same album I listened to the day Jim died, and the same one I listened to the day I got the job.

I still have it, though I have extra back up copies now for the boy to play.

In a total 180, it took me about three seconds to download The Muppets soundtrack, just now.

Technology. Ha!

Other Muppet books:
Muppets at Sea
Muppet Madness

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Henri's Walk To Paris... coming soon!

2011-11-17T16:22:00.007-06:00

While this is not an official review, I got a few spreads from the forthcoming reprint of Henri's Walk To Paris today and just had to share. I've been dreaming of stumbling across a copy ever since seeing it on grain edit in '07, but it has eluded my grasp with its high vintage price tag.

Thankfully, with the new year comes a brand spanking new Rizolli edition to be had by all! Saul Bass is swinging back into the collective subconscious with the long-awaited book on his life and work (Saul Bass: A Life in Film & Design), and this new edition of his only book for children, originally published in 1962.

I am, literally, salivating as I write this. The reprint hits stores in February, so stay tuned next year when I'll give it its proper do with more gushing and love and ahhhhing.

CAN'T HARDLY WAIT... sooo yummy.

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A Very Young Dancer Lives!!!!!

2011-11-17T11:38:00.006-06:00

Thanks to the reader who sent me this link...

Have you ever wondered what became of the girl in the classic A Very Young Dancer?

Now we know!

Seriously, The New York Times just made my holiday!

Thank you thank you thank, Stephanie, for dancing your way into our hearts all those years ago!

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Lions and Lobsters and Foxes and Frogs

2011-11-16T12:02:00.000-06:00

Lions and Lobsters and Foxes and Frogs: Fables from Aesop
Ennis Rees ~ Edward Gorey ~ Young Scott Books, 1971

Thinking of Aesop's and Gorey, which somewhere in the back of my mind I always am, if you've never seen this charmer, you're in for a treat! I've mentioned before the traveling Gorey show that came through here and how the literature associated with it said Gorey attempted to publish his own books for children, but editors thought his themes too dark.

Thus, the bulk of his children's titles were written by someone else.

Enter Ennis Rees, a fellow South Carolinian and the author of a short series of Gorey-illustrated works from the 1960s: this one along with Brer Rabbit and His Tricks and More of Brer Rabbit's Tricks based on the old southern folktales. Ennis does a wonderful job of retelling the fables of Aesop in rhyme, and Gorey's drawings are simple but perfect in helping to catch the menagerie of mischievous natures inherent in each creature.

The wonderful thing about volunteering in an old school is that they have an old library that is still filled with so many wonderful things. My library card is certainly getting a workout, and hopefully, some of these books still have a chance of being loved before the WITHDRAWN stamp snuffs their influence.

Also by:
Rumpelstiltskin
The Dwindling Party
Sam and Emma
Red Riding Hood
You and Me
The Shrinking of Treehorn

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Becky's Birthday

2011-11-15T10:09:00.007-06:00

Becky's Birthday
Tasha Tudor ~ The Viking Press, 1960

With the holidays close at hand, I turn to the timeless Tasha Tudor, always, to help usher in the season. A Time to Keep was one of my all-time childhood favorites with lessons on how to celebrate every holiday with the proper old-time magic. (You won't find a better present for a baby shower. It's as necessary for a child as Make Way for Ducklings or Where the Wild Things Are, only filled with extra special sweetness.) The birthday chapter with its lighted cake floating down the river is especially enchanting, and here, we see a girl's birthday celebration fleshed out in its all-day grandeur.

The sun shone in at the window and brought Becky wide awake. She sat up in bed. "This is my birthday," she said. "I am ten years old!" She didn't feel any older, but she felt very excited. The birds singing in the lilac bushes seemed to be saying, "Happy birthday!" And the roosters in the barnyard were crowing the same thing. Becky jumped out of bed and put on her clothes.

What commences is the sweetest celebration filled with new skills learned and responsibilities earned, handmade ice cream and chilled ice tea, chickens and cows and kittens, games and a picnic, followed by the familiar floating confection.

A day where the best thrill of all is knowing you are a year wiser.

Tasha truly lived in the enchanted world she created within her books. Each title a reflection of her own experiences and reality.

Sadly, she passed away in 2008.

The world is a lesser place without Tasha's spirit alive within it, but at least her drawings and books will stay around for a while longer. The companion book, Becky's Christmas, has alluding my grasp so far, but I keep hoping...

Also by:
1 is One
A Time to Keep
Pumpkin Moonshine
First Graces
Five Senses
Tale For Easter
Snow Before Christmas

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The Curiously Sinister Art of Jim Flora

2011-11-15T09:05:00.003-06:00

Always a VKBMKLs fave, the Dorian Grey Gallery will host The Curiously Sinister Art of Jim Flora, the first posthumous New York exhibit and sale of Jim Flora original art and prints.

The exhibit opens with a reception on Nov. 19, and runs thru Jan. 8.

The gallery will showcase significant works from the Flora family collection, covering the 1940s to the late 1990s. Offerings include temperas on paper; woodcut prints (vintage and new); medium and large acrylics on canvas; pen & ink drawings on paper; fine art and screen prints, and branded Flora paper merchandise. Many exhibited works have not been previously published in our three Fantagraphics anthologies.

If you kids are in New York, do not miss!

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Great Holiday Give News

2011-11-14T11:54:00.003-06:00

Happy Monday all! The winner of last week's give of Doctor De Soto is Britt. Congrats and e-mail me your info to webe(at)soon(dot)com.

I am taking a few Mondays off from the give to celebrate the holidays with my family, and will be here only off and on next week as my sister and father are flying in for Thanksgiving.

That said, Monday ~ November 28 will start the annual Great Holiday Give Week where I'll be giving away a brand new reprint every day for five days.

Prizes include reprints of Christmas Eve at the Mellops, Kangaroo for Christmas, Something for Christmas and more. Don't miss it!

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Muppet Madness

2011-11-14T10:35:00.007-06:00

Muppet Madness featuring Jim Henson's Muppets
designed by Bruce McNally, Les Skinner, and John Stevenson
Random House ~ 1980

As an unabashed and life-long Muppet fan, ex-Jim Henson company employee, and the mother of a Gonzo-loving six-year-old, to say I am looking forward to the premiere of The Muppets is a massive understatement. Though I know it will never be all the things I want it to be, the ginormous crush I harbor for Jason Segel gives me a small glimmer of hope that it might at least be entertaining. And, of course, the chance for weeping? Likely.

The thing I love most about the old Muppet Show was how Jim and his writing staff always tipped the hat to entertainment of old using skits and music that dated back to the vaudeville days. I play those albums and shows for my son now because a lot of those cultural influences, he won't get elsewhere. What other kiddie show could spoof The Marx Brothers so flawlessly?

Ah yes, the timeless brilliance of The Muppet Show. Really, I can't talk about this stuff without getting goose-pimpled and misty. If the movie stinks, the boy and I can always come home and watch the Star Wars episode of The Muppet Show for, like, the zillionth time. That and pull out all my old Muppet books to read.

Thus, how we arrive at our post for today. Random House published a number of TV tie-ins during the show's six-year run and beyond. This one arriving toward the end.

Technically, it is a rehash of a Muppet Annual from 1979. Featuring photography as well as comic book-style illustration, the book includes stories and games and a huge helping of signature Muppet silliness. Designed by a trio of talented artists (including the Director of Kung Fu Panda), it gives you a taste of what the old Muppet humor was all about, hugely innocent and appealing to children with a good amount of subversive adult humor sprinkled in.

As weird as it sounds, I remember being vaguely attracted to Kermit in the Disco Frog story...

and completely horrified by the Holiday Haunt tale.

What a blast it was being eight! As a girl, I never missed one of The Muppet Show's original 120 episodes, and as a mother, I'm slowing getting through them all again with my son. As for this Thanksgiving, it's, once again, time to play the music... with Kermit, Piggy, Gonzo, Fozzie and the gang ready for their closeup, the 23rd can't get here soon enough. No matter how forgotten the plot of the new movie leads you to believe the Muppets are, the Henson legacy is still alive and well in my house.

My hope still is to leave the world a bit better than when I got here. ~ Jim Henson

Done and done.

Other Muppet books:
Muppets at Sea

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The Real Hole

2011-11-12T12:16:00.010-06:00

The Real Hole
Beverly Cleary ~ Mary Stevens ~ William Morrow, 1960

Sorry I've been missing for a few days, but my allergies are seriously kicking my butt!

Thus, this special Saturday post...

Soooo, today I wanna talk about a short series of picture books by the incomparable Beverly Cleary about a pair of twin preschoolers named Jimmy and Janet. The Real Hole was the first one in 1960, followed by Two Dog Biscuits in '61 and The Growing-Up Feet in '67 (also illustrated by Mary Stevens of Trixie Belden fame), and later followed by Janet's Thingamajigs in '87 (illustrated by DyAnne DiSalvo who eventually went on to reillustrate the whole series). I have to assume these books were inspired by Beverly's own twins, Malcolm and Marianne, born in 1955.

That said, the first story opens with a brief introduction into the minds of the matchmade siblings.

Jimmy and Janet were twins.

This meant they had the same mother, and the same father, and the same birthday, too. Jimmy always had Janet to play with and Janet always had Jimmy to play with. Even though Jimmy and Janet were both four years old, they did not always like the same things. Janet liked to pretend things. She liked to pretend that a block was a cup of tea and that two paper bags were a pair of shoes. But Jimmy-- Jimmy liked real things. He didn't want to play with a toy hammer and toy nails. He wanted to play with a real grown-up hammer and real grown-up nails.

And there's the rub. When Jimmy is inspired to dig a hole, Janet imagines it a fishing hole or a rabbit's lair, while Jimmy insists, no, it is a REAL HOLE. In the end, the hole must find purpose, and it finally ends up the perfect size for a real tree, appropriately decked out for the season.

I doubt there are many children who didn't grow up loving Beverly's world of Ramona, Henry, Ribsy and Ralph, but these books, in particular, make me wonder what a special treat it must have been to grow up with a mother like Beverly, with her boundless imagination and heart.

Thanks for the borrow, Gillian!

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ABC

2011-11-09T10:42:00.004-06:00

John Burningham's ABC
John Burningham ~ Bobbs Merrill, 1967

Already the countdown to the holidays has begun. The handmade calendar on my son's bedroom door is proof enough that you can't keep Christmas from coming. Yesterday, I started The Hunger Games (finally) thus why I was out of commison for a large chunk of the day. But I was also working on pulling together my annual Great Holiday Give, where I have five days of giveaways of brand spanking new fancy reprints of vintage books.

Stay tuned soon for details.

In the meantime, there's always room for more John Burninghan in the collective subconscious. Here is one of his earlier books, lovingly scanned from my friend's dustjacketed American first edition. A brilliant artist with a limitless imagination, I love how he draws animals. So much personality!

Also by:
Cannonball Simp
The Snow
gackern bähen
John Patrick Norman McHennessy - the boy who was always late
Borka

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Aesop's Fables

2011-11-08T21:34:00.004-06:00

Aesop's Fables
Louis Untermeyer ~ Alice and Martin Provensen ~ Golden, 1965

It's getting late here in Texas. I spent a better part of the day volunteering at the library and now my eyes and heart are weary with words. Into the evening, I'm reminded that along with dozens of versions of Noah's Ark, my little animal lover covets the fables of Aesop. And never have morality tales been brought to life with such wry and illustrative inflection than here. Lovingly adapted by Untermeyer and pictured by everyone's favorite kiddie couple, allegories abound from The Ass in the Lion's Skin to The Gnat on the Bull's Horn.

A Tortoise was not satisfied with his life. He wanted to stop being a Tortoise. "I'm tired of crawling along, inch by inch, foot after foot, getting nowhere in particular," he grumbled. "I want to be able to skim and dive and float in the air."

The eagle with the "ace" shirt. Classic.

A Crow had stolen a good-sized piece of cheese from a cottage window and had flown with it into a tall tree. A Fox, who had seen this happen, said to himself, "If I am smart, I will have cheese for supper tonight."

Indeed, he will.

A Boy who was employed to tend sheep was often bored with the task.

Jeez, what an understatement. Awesome, awesome, awesome.

That's a wrap for today, but remember:

Don't count your chickens until they're hatched.
Don't believe everything you hear.

And, most importantly...

It is sometimes safe to be insignificant.

Also by:
The Golden Treasury of Children's Literature
The Golden Book of Poems for the Very Young
A Child's Garden of Verses
Roses are Red. Are Violets Blue??
Funny Bunny
Fireside Book of Folk Songs
The Mother Goose Book
Animal Fair
Our Friends at Maple Hill Farm
My Little Hen

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Great Monday Give: Doctor De Soto

2011-11-07T10:56:00.000-06:00

The Great Monday Give is here gang, and the prize today is a hardcover copy of Doctor De Soto by William Steig. All you have to do to be entered to win this nice almost-vintage book in great condition (though it is inscribed, and the dust jacket has some damage, the actual book itself is almost-brand new) is comment on this post between now and Sunday, November 13 at 11:59 PM. A winner will be selected the next day and announced accordingly. (If you've never listened to the audio book of Shrek, Spinky, De Soto and the gang, Stanley Tucci and Meryl Streep do an amazing job of bringing the stories to life. Ten thumbs up!)

That said, the winner of the last give of Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening is Ms. ∆×∆p×≥h/4π. Congrats and send me your info to webe(at)soon(dot)com.

That's all for now, kids.

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Update Friday: Crictor

2011-11-04T10:09:00.009-05:00

It's always Ungerer time in this house, and I've repeatedly promised to update his most famous and well-loved children's book, Crictor, originally posted in the summer of 2007.

So, here it is kids. Click, love and learn.

(And, yes, for those who were wondering, I did forget about the Great Monday Give this week. Tune in Monday. Sorry. Good thing is, you can still enter!)

As some of you guys already know, Tomi recently received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Society of Illustrators, (along with Robert McCloskey, who got a posthumous nod). Take a few minutes to watch his acceptance speech. The man is a living legend. He designed a cat-shaped kindergarten, for God's sake!

Children can go though the mouth, play in the paws, look out the eyes on the second floor and slide down the tail. How rad is that!?!

I love him so much. Big time congrats, Tomi! Well deserved.

"We'll keep on trucking
and we'll keep on drawing
and that's the way it is until we go."

Right on, man. Right on.

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I Heard Said the Bird

2011-11-03T10:12:00.006-05:00

I Heard Said the Bird
Polly Berrien Berends ~ Otto van Eersel ~ L.W. Singer, 1969

Thursday. Isn't it truly the spiritual "hump day"? Soooooo, I'll make this short. I love the internet. Every day I turn my computer on and creativity and life spill out. Music. Illustration. Inspiration. It makes me so happy to be a teeny tiny part of it. Brilliant. Every single one of you.

That said, here's the original edition of a book that has since been illustrated by the talented Brad Sneed. Similar in theme to the 1949 classic The Box with Red Wheels, it focuses on the idea of animals celebrating the joy of a newborn child. In rhyme. Sweetness and light. Love.

A bird flew into the barnyard.
"I heard," said the bird.
"I heard..."
"What?" asked all the animals.
"What did you hear?"
"I heard," said the bird, "that there's a NEW ONE coming."
Soon the barnyard was bustling with the news.
Everyone began asking,
"What is the NEW ONE going to be?"

The new one. Ha! Bright and shiny...

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The Shrinking of Treehorn

2011-11-02T20:39:00.000-05:00

The Shrinking of Treehorn
Florence Parry Heide ~ Edward Gorey ~ Holiday House, 1971

Florence Parry Heide died this weekend. The New York Times obit on her cites.... "Her best-known book, “The Shrinking of Treehorn” (1971), was about a boy whose parents paid little heed to him, even as he began getting littler and littler, unable to reach familiar shelves, watching as his clothes seemed to grow on him. Its comic, macabre plotline appealed to the artist Edward Gorey, who illustrated it and two sequels, “Treehorn’s Treasure” (1981) and “Treehorn’s Wish” (1984)." She authored tons of books for children including the classic Some Things Are Scary and my childhood favorite, You and Me.

I won't even try and do justice to this book except to quote a few lines and show a few pictures and then send you over to Curious Pages, where Lane Smith asked Ms. Heide the question about Treehorn... Florence, just what in the heck were you thinking?

Something very strange was happening to Treehorn. The first thing he noticed was that he couldn't reach the shelf in his closet that he had always been able to reach before, the one where he hid his candy bars and bubble gum.

Sleep in heavenly peace, Ms. Heide.

Also by:
Rumpelstiltskin
The Dwindling Party
Sam and Emma
Red Riding Hood
You and Me
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Kind Little Joe

2011-11-01T09:15:00.005-05:00

Kind Little Joe
Vera Cerutti ~ Dick Bruna ~ Hart Publishing, 1959

I came to Dick Bruna too late for my son to really fully enjoy his books, but I know he has somewhat of a cult following for his Nordic roots and bold visual sensibilities. Miffy is loved the world over by everyone from Japanese school children to West Coast graphic designers. Jane Foster sings his praises. Drawn gives kudos for the book-cover work he did for his father's publishing house. People like to study how he creates such unforgettable characters with simple lines and primary colors. Still culling through my friend's collection, she offered up this early work written by Vera Cerutti but illustrated by the master at hand. And so...

Here is a boy whose name is Joe.
The kindest boy you'll ever know.

And here's his house, all shiny-new.
Its roof is red, its windows blue.
A great big cupboard, wide and tall,
Stands in Joe's room against the wall.
And when the doors are open wide,
You'll see Joe's toys stacks up inside.

Now, when Joe comes across a bevy of underprivileged children, the kind boy knows just what to do. Gifting each toy to each child by name in a wonderfully selfless act of goodwill. A powerful statement for children to hear leading up to the holidays. From this early on, it's clear Dick's style was already fully-formed, with the bright, alternating-color backgrounds and use of black lines to frame each shape perfectly. So iconic and wonderful.

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It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown

2011-10-31T11:25:00.005-05:00

It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown
Charles M. Schulz ~ World Publishing, 1967

Each year on Halloween night, the Great Pumpkin rises out of the pumpkin patch that he thinks is most sincere and flies through the air with his pack of toys for all the good little children in the world.

I'll let you guys know the winner of the Great Monday Give tomorrow, but in the meantime... Have a happy and safe Halloween and may the Great Pumpkin bring you loads of toys and goodies!

Also by:
Christmas is Together Time
Love is Walking Hand in Hand

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Update Friday: The Funny Thing

2011-10-28T23:59:00.001-05:00

Next up for a dust-off on this fabulous Update Friday is a family favorite and a guest post from 2008, The Funny Thing by Wanda Gag. I've added all new scans and love. Enjoy kids!

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Miss Twiggley's Tree

2011-10-27T11:25:00.002-05:00

Miss Twiggley's Tree
Dorothea Warren Fox ~ Parents' Magazine Press, 1966

Plucked from oblivion a few years back by the ever-amazing Purple House Press, the book spent years on Loganberry's most requested list and was remembered by countless people as a childhood favorite. Though I have not seen the reissue, it includes the story of how Dorthea came to write the book that involves an old willow tree, her children's tree house and a neighbor swinging on a rope. Purple House Press links to an article written in a Connecticut newspaper when the book was reissued, and the American Art Archives has a fascinating biographical piece on Dorthea and her husband, illustrator Charles Fox here. That said...

Funny Miss Twiggley
Lived in a tree
With a dog named Puss
And a color TV.
She did what she liked, and she liked what she did,
But when company came
Miss Twiggley hid.

The rhymes here are so bouncy and fun, you are swept up right from the get go into shy Miss Twiggley's affairs. Roommates with a dog and some bears, she sleeps in her hat and never leaves home and is trifled about by the wicked mayor's wife.

But when the town floods, and its citizens look for higher ground, there's only one place that's nice and dry. An endearing story of overcoming fears and not judging a book by its tree limbs.

The book is dedicated lovingly... To the boys who built the house and my mother who spent one summer drawing the tree. What a wonderful legacy for a mother and daughter to leave behind.

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We Love You Beatles

2011-10-26T10:01:00.003-05:00

We Love You Beatles
Margaret Sutton ~ Doubleday, 1971

There are three musical acts my son can recognize by voice recognition alone, little Michael ala Jackson Five, Johnny Cash and The Beatles. (Notice how I've left Justin Bieber off the list, though grudgingly, he's probably earned a place on there, too, via osmosis. Darn it.)

Another gem snitched from my friend's collection, if you are a Beatles fan and have ever looked for a book that will explain who the Beatles were to your child, this one has it all.

From their meager Liverpool beginnings to art school to the Quarrymen to how Ringo joined the band to The Cavern Club to meeting the Queen and the ultimate British invasion of America. It's the early-complete history of a band every new child should know. Complete with astounding amounts of pictorial grooviness. What child doesn't love the sound of such hits as Rocky Raccoon, Yellow Submarine and Octopus's Garden? Must-have staples on every child's playlist. And so, without further...

The trees were rocking and the clouds were swaying and the flowers were swinging and the birds were dancing to the Beatles sound. "Let's sing about love and people being happy." The Beatles sing songs you can sing in the sunshine. Sing them! Sing the Beatles' songs!"

Now, obviously this book was written one year after the band officially broke up and nine years before... well...

My husband likes to fill my son in on the full history of everything, so at six, the little guy can tell you all about how John Lennon died, where he died and a very rough version of why. As for me, the only thing about John Lennon's murder I remember is watching the media circus on TV with my mother. She cried, and when Paul McCartney came on the press conference I said, "Hey, that's the guy who sings Silly Love Songs". I was eight years old and only knew Paul as the lead singer of Wings. Sad.

My boy will not grow up so culturally naive.

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Never Tease a Weasel

2011-10-25T08:45:00.002-05:00

Never Tease a Weasel
Jean Conder Soule ~ Denman Hampson ~ Parents' Magazine Press, 1964

Much beloved and reissued accordingly a few years ago with new pictures by George Booth, still... nothing beats a classic. Taking a look through its pages, it's easy to see why this one is so well-remembered.

You can knit a kitten mittens
And perhaps that cat would purr.
You could fit a fox with socks
That exactly matched his fur.
You could make a goat a coat with a collar trimmed in mink
Or give a pig a wig
In a dainty shade of pink.
But never tease a weasel;
This is very good advice.
A weasel will not like it
And teasing isn't nice!

So many reasons to love this book in both the words and images. Bold, bright colors and wonderful rhymes that clearly paint a picture of all the reasons why it's fun to be friends with a weasel instead.

And all the incredible animals, each taking on a pun of their own. I couldn't find anything online about this illustrator, so if you knew him or know anything about him, please write in. We'd love to know more about the man who imaged a goat walking upright in a fur-collared coat.

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The One Pig With Horns

2011-10-24T09:53:00.014-05:00

The One Pig with Horns
Laurent de Brunhoff ~ Pantheon, 1979

This weekend, my Texas-best friend's husband went out of town and the two of us had a girl's day out of Ikea shopping, flea marketing and dumpling eating. Now, I call her my Texas-best friend so as to not hurt the feelings of my LA-best friend or my New York-best friend or my childhood best friend. Also, I'm probably not cool enough to be dubbed a best friend to her at all, so I have to add a qualifier. But I digress... Most importantly out of this weekend's tomfoolery, I was able to pillage her family book collection.

Now, this is a book that I'm quite assured you'll all run out and purchase online as soon as you hear about it, as I did. There are certain books too wonderful to wait to find, and in my case, my son is six and his picture book clock is ticking. Shhh.... Listen. Can't you hear it?

TICK TOCK TICK TOCK TICK TOCK

Arrrrrgh!!!!! But I digress... here we have a wonderfully off-kilter story written and illustrated by the son of the genius creator of the Babar series. This man is still rocking at 86 and carrying on his father's legacy. Take a moment to fully understand the awesomenesss of that, and let's move on.

Now, my son's favorite of any of the de Brunhoff books has always been Babar and Zephir, but since this treasure has arrived on the scene, it's been replaced. It's hard to pinpoint exactly what it is about this story that makes it so spectacular, but perhaps if I give you the gist, you'll be able to figure it out for yourselves...

I'm the one
the one pig with horns
strongest of all
handsomest of all
That's how pig talks when he's on top of his garbage heap. Pig has put horns on his forehead so as to be handsome as a bull. Watch out-- when you laugh at him he loses his temper. Watch out-- he's dangerous.

Watch out for the one pig with horns when he's angry!
I hate you all, you pigs without horns, and you cows -- I hate you because you've got horns, and I hate you sheep too, because you've got wool! I hate you all, every last one of you.

Nothing is scarier (or more incredible) that a pig with horns wielding a shotgun in a jealous rage. A cautionary tale of seething envy and furor, no one wants to be (or be near) this puffed up pig when he loses his temper (or his head).

My favorite part might be the funny little illustrated asides from the peanut gallery of pigs, sheep and grasshoppers. Brilliant times a bazillion.

Related:
Travels of Babar
Babar and Zephir
Babar and Father Christmas

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Great Monday Give: Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

2011-10-24T08:32:00.003-05:00

Because they are already selling Christmas stuff at the Target, today's Great Monday Give is the winter classic Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening. All you have to do to win this slightly-used, but almost brand newish not so vintage copy of a vintage classic, simply comment on this post between now and Sunday, November 6.... before the clock strikes midnight. A winner will be selected on Halloween Day as long as I don't get too jammed up with party preparations and forget to blog altogether. Sigh.

That said, the winner of the duo of Lobel books from last week's give is Katie. Congrats! E-mail me at webe(at)soon(dot)com, and I'll get the books out to you sometime in the near future. That's all for now. Stay tuned for a review momentarily...

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Proclamation!

2011-10-21T12:57:00.003-05:00

Click here.

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Update Friday: Liza Lou and the Yeller Belly Swamp

2011-10-21T09:08:00.003-05:00

Hello and welcome to Update Friday, the day when I take a post of yore from back when I only included one scan and minimum commentary and update it for my picture-hungry readers. Today, I'm dusting off a post from October 2007, one of my all-time favorite Mayer stories. It was the very first book EVER from my childhood that I used the magic of the internet to track down the title, way back in 1999, I believe. The dawn of the mainstream electronic age. Ha! So without further waxing of the whatever, please enjoy the fabulous and seasonaly-appropriate, Liza Lou and the Yeller Belly Swamp.

TGIF people!

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teeny-tiny tale

2011-10-20T10:06:00.005-05:00

Teeny-tiny Tale
as told by Jan Sukus ~ illustrated by Terry Rose ~ Whitman, 1969

Whenever I find this particular story, no matter what the version, I always snap it up. The single most frightening tale of my childhood years, looking back it seems so naive to be scared by such a thing. But I was. Big time. As in my childhood version, you never find out what the thing that wants its bone back is. Here, I envision it to be some sort of zombie skeleton, risen from the dead to take back its fibula. And so it goes...

Once upon a time there was a teeny-tiny woman. She lived in a teeny-tiny town with her teeny-tiny cat in a teeny-tiny house.

On her travels one day, the woman spies a teeny-tiny bone and decides to steal it to make some soup for her teeny-tiny supper. Upon arriving home, she's too tired to make the soup and retires to bed early, only to be awakened shortly thereafter by a disembodied voice demanding, "GIVE ME MY BONE!"

A Halloween classic if ever there was one. I've mentioned before the version from my childhood which featured stolen clothes instead of a bone, but still. Even this little retro 60s Tell-A-Tale Book does it for me. Bright groovy colors or not, I still don't wanna find out who's on the other end of the urging. Spooky times five!

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Hosie's Alphabet

2011-10-19T08:59:00.003-05:00

Hosie's Alphabet
Leonard Baskin ~ words by Hosea, Tobias, and Lisa Baskin ~ Viking, 1972

American artist, sculptor, print maker and friend to the Plath/Hughes family, Leonard Baskin was known for his dark and sometimes strange etchings and paintings. Here, at the urging of his family, he created an alphabet book (his first work for children) in collaboration with his wife and sons. A Caldecott Honor book, each spread pictures a single illustration with appropriate alphabetic explanations, as the "mole in a hole" pictured above.

Also featured are such eclectic delights as...

A ghastly garrulous gargoyle

The rhinoceros express

A Scholastic Toad

and the invisible unicorn

Some everyday. Some outlandishly twisted. All very much the sons and daughters of an artist who once said, "Art is man's distinctly human way of fighting death."

Looks like in this case, Baskin's legacy has won the battle for him.

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The Magic Finger

2011-10-18T09:30:00.003-05:00

The Magic Finger
Roald Dahl ~ William Pène du Bois ~ Harper, 1966

Possibly my son's favorite Dahl book, he's spend the last few years enjoying the Quentin Blake illustrations, and it was only recently that we checked the original version out from the library. Now, I love children's things that have a decidedly anti-gun theme. Not to say that I am against guns or hunting as to each his own, but children's stories that show the repercussions of killing living creatures hold a warm spot in my heart. Iron Giant, great anti-gun film for kids. Thus, where The Magic Finger comes in. A story told by a little girl with a magic touch about her gun toting neighbors. So, the story begins...

Now the one thing that Mr. Gregg and his two boys loved to do more than anything else was to go hunting. Every Saturday morning they would take their guns and go off into the woods to look for animals and birds to shoot. Even Philip, who was only eight years old, had a gun of his own.

I can't stand hunting. I just can't stand it. It doesn't seem right to me that men and boys should kill animals just for the fun they get out of it. So I used to try and stop Philip and William from doing it.

And that she does. By putting the magic finger on the whole lot of them. What is the magic finger, you ask?

Well, one time when the girl put the magic finger on her teacher, she turned into a cat. Du Bois created an incredible trick of the eye by taking these two pictures and putting them on both sides of a single page with the instructions HOLD THIS PAGE UP TO BRIGHT LIGHT. I've never seen this done in a book before, but the result is pure genius.... a cat lady!

Once the magic finger touches the Gregg family, they find themselves trading places with a flock of ducks and hilarity ensues.

Never a dull Dahl, I tell you.

Also by:
The Runaway Flying Horse
Lion
Bear Party
Otto in Texas
The Light Princess
My Grandson Lew
Dirty Beasts
The Giraffe and the Pelly and Me
Fantastic Mr. Fox

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The Tall Book of Make-Believe

2011-10-17T06:15:00.014-05:00

The Tall Book of Make-Believe
Selected by Jane Werner ~ Garth Williams ~ Harper, 1950

I have a special treat for you guys today. Way back in 1963, my friend Tonio's mother went to a book signing at our local bookshop here in San Antonio and met one Mr. Garth Williams. She took along a copy of Tonio's favorite book The Tall Book of Make-Believe, thus making this Tonio's most treasured childhood heirloom.

In my five years of buying and looking and learning, no other out-of-print children's book is more loved or more collectible. Not just as a signed first edition in mint condition, but even beat up reprints go for a ton. Not because people want to collect it and put it in plastic on a shelf, but because people want to read it and remember.

Several years ago, I mentioned to Tonio that this book was my thrift shop holy grail, and he said, "Oh, I have that book. And it's signed, too."

Thus how I was finally able to see what all the fuss was about. Now, I did have this book when I was little, but it's long since gone and was long forgotten. But... man.

What I would love to see is Harper reprint this, not is some cheap glossy-paged reprint, but in soft, matte pages exactly like the original. The look. The feel. Everything about this book makes you want to pick it up and pour over it again and again. The stunning pictures and quirky poems and stories. Man. If that happened, I'd buy one for every single person I know. Period.

Every picture has a secret, mysterious feel. And that mermaid. WOW.

It's simply amazing. Every page. Every word. Carl Sandburg's How They Bring Back the Village of Cream Puffs When the Wind Blows It Away. Seriously? Brilliant. There are not enough thumbs in the world to express this book's thumbs up power. Garth Williams was a genius. Nearly 100 pages of absolute joy. I've only included a handful of scans, but you get the idea. If you happen to come across this book, hold onto it for dear life.

It's pure magic.

Also by:
We Like Kindergarten
Wonders of Seasons
Birds
The Golden Bible
Wonders of Nature
Wait Til the Moon is Full
Do You Know What I'll Do?
The Sky Was Blue

Big Golden Animal ABC

The Rabbit's Wedding
Three Bedtime Stories
The Friendly Book
Amigo

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Update Friday: Prehistoric Monsters Did the Strangest Things

2011-10-14T08:48:00.001-05:00

Update Friday takes us way back to September 2007 to the first book in the Step-Up Books series I ever bought, Prehistoric Monsters Did the Strangest Things. I've dusted it off and added all new scans and commentary. Plus, as all you longtime readers know, I am the typo QUEEN, so there are always corrections to be made. Ha!

Anyway, happy friday and enjoy!

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A Thousand Lights and Fireflies

2011-10-13T19:32:00.002-05:00

Thousand Lights and Fireflies
Alvin Tresselt ~ John Moodie~ Parents' Magazine Press, 1965

Online late tonight. The day simply escaped me. To set a calm, relaxing mood into the evening, I'll share some images and thoughts to help close the day.

In the city everything is squeezed together. The buildings are so close they have to stretch up into the sky to find enough room. The streets are full of cars, and the sidewalks are full of people -- hurrying, scurrying - going all the time.

The country is stretched out for miles and miles, rolling over hills and valleys and broad flat farms. The houses sit apart so that they can look at one another. The wind goes where it wants to, and birds fly in all the open space.

But, city or country, children are the same. They all like to play.

Well said Mr. Tresselt, old friend.

Also by:
The Mitten
The Land of Lost Buttons
White Snow Bright Snow
Bonnie Bess the Weathervane Horse

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Me Books

2011-10-12T09:28:00.011-05:00

While I don't usually do this sort of promotion on my site, I got an e-mail this morning touting Me Books, a company that has teamed with Penguin to turn vintage Ladybird Books into an iPad app. OMG! This is beyond cute. I have a small collection of these books I keep on my desk. The man who contacted me said when they scanned the books, they kept dog-ear marks and everything. Delightful! Why I still don't have an iPad yet is beyond me, because I would have downloaded this app, like, ten minutes ago. More people need to do MORE stuff like this.

Great work you guys!

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How to Scare a Lion

2011-10-12T09:05:00.001-05:00

How to Scare a Lion
Dorothy Stephenson ~ John E. Johnson ~ Follett, 1965

I've only seen this man's work once before in What's in the Dark. I originally picked it up because I thought it was Don Madden, but then fell in love all the same. I bought this title recently at a library sale and was glad to be reminded of an illustrator I know exactly zero about. Digging a little deeper, it seems he did another book with Ms. Stephenson entitled The Night It Rained Toys, and judging by the price tag it sports online, it must be pretty memorable. Anyone out there have a copy of this Christmas mystery they wanna guest post about? Now, I'm totally intrigued.

That's said, when a beloved circus lion gets the hiccups from eating too much cotton candy...

Now Fearless Fredrick was not afraid of lions or tigers or leopards. But he was afraid of Leonard's hiccups. Whenever a hiccup came along, Leonard's jaws closed with a loud bang. Frederick was afraid that one of Leonard's hiccups might chop off his head. Something had to be done.

Man, I'd be freaked, too, if I had to stick my head in the mouth of a lion like that. They try everything to get rid of his hiccups. Blowing up balloons, headstands, holding his breathe til his lion face turns blue.

Finally, it's decided that the only way to rid the beast of his problem is to scare the daylights out of him. Shooting him through a cannon? Making him walk the high wire? A very big hiccup needs a very big scare, and sometimes a fear that big can only come from within. Very cute story made all the more adorable by Mr. Johnson's drawings.

If you're out there Purple House Press, hook us up with The Night It Rained Toys... pretty please!

Also by:
What's in the Dark

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Borka: The Adventures of a Goose with No Feathers

2011-10-11T08:41:00.003-05:00

Borka: The Adventures of a Goose with No Feathers
John Burningham ~ Jonathan Cape, 1969

John Burningham's first book for children only recently came into our possession, and yet it feels as if it's always been here. Birds are my son's first love, so despite all the Harry Potters and Captain Rexs that might come into his life, nothing warms his heart like a water fowl. On page one, we meet a pair of geese named Mr. and Mrs. Plumpster. Shortly thereafter, they hatch out some goslings, and the story really begins.

Now, all geese look very much alike when they are young, but right from the start there was something odd about Borka. Borka had a beak, wings, and webbed feet like all her brothers and sister, but she did not have any feathers. Mr. and Mrs. Plumpster were very worried about this. They called in the doctor goose, who came along with his little leather bag. The doctor examined Borka carefully and said there was nothing wrong with her except that she did not have any feathers. "A most unusual case," he went on, and he thought for a long while. Then he told Mrs. Plumpster that there was only one thing to do. She must knit some feathers for Borka.

Momma does just that, but despite his woolly demeanor, Borka is outcast and gets left behind come migrating time. Weep not for Borka, though. She stows away on a ship, makes friends with a dog and a fishing boat captain, becomes a first-rate first mate, falls in love and lives happily ever after in Kew Gardens. A excellent Ugly Duckling-ish tale proving that if you seem different or odd in your own home town, there's sure to be a place for you in the city where "already so many strange kinds of birds" flock together.

Charming illustrations introducing the man who would marry the equally awesome Helen Oxenbury and become one of Britain's most renowned children's book authors. Excellent.

Also by:
Cannonball Simp
The Snow
gackern bähen
John Patrick Norman McHennessy - the boy who was always late

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Great Monday Give: Small Pig & Owl at Home

2011-10-10T16:51:00.002-05:00

Great Monday Give is here with not one, but two Lobel classics to brighten your day. Owl at Home and Small Pig. To be entered to win these almost-brand-spanking-new paperbacks, please comment on this post between now and Sunday, October 23 at 11:49 PM. A winner will be selected at random and announced the next day, right like this...

And the winner of last week's give of Wildsmith's Squirrels is..... Stephanie! E-mail me at webe(at)soon(dot)com with your info... And the rest of you, don't forget to check out my two-part interview with Carson Ellis.

Bye!

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Meet Carson Ellis: Part Two

2011-10-10T09:40:00.009-05:00

(interview with Carson Ellis continued from yesterday...)

VKBMKL: Any children's book illustrators that you love that you discovered as an adult? Or is there a book you find yourself buying over and over again to give to your son's friends?

CARSON: I discovered Alice and Martin Provensen five or six years ago and I couldn't believe I hadn't known of them before. I feel so kindred to them - it seemed impossible that they hadn't been influencing me my whole life. Also, Taro Gomi, Mitsumasa Anno, Miroslav Sasek, Ivan Bilibin, Wanda Gag, Tove Jansson, and Tomi Ungerer, who I didn't truly discover as an adult - I read Crictor and Flat Stanley as a kid - but I don't think I really understood what an amazing, weird genius he was until recently.

As for oft purchased books, I've bought a lot of copies of both Little Fur Family by Margaret Wise Brown and Garth Williams and My Friends by Taro Gomi. They're two of my favorite board books and board books are my favorite gifts to give to new parents.

VKBMKL: Did you go into illustration with children's books in mind or is that something that came about later on?

CARSON: I've wanted to illustrate children's books since I was a kid but I didn't study illustration in college. I grew up in New York but was strongly, mysteriously drawn to the University of Montana, where I got a painting degree because they didn't offer illustration classes. I assumed it would be more or less the same idea. It wasn't. I graduated knowing nothing about illustration - not what an art director does, nor how to use a computer, nor what the term "editorial illustration" means. After college, I was a painter and I worked a lot of cocktail waitressing and bartending jobs. My first illustration gigs were the work I did for The Decemberists - album art, flyers, drawings for t-shirts and websites. More and more people saw that stuff and it led to editorial work, which eventually led to book work. So it was always the goal to illustrate books but I came to it in a long, roundabout way.

VKBMKL: As the subject matter hits home for this blog, can you tell me how the idea for the "Reading Frenzy" print came about?

CARSON: My friend (and fellow vintage kids' book enthusiast) Chloe Eudaly owns an awesome little bookstore in Portland called Reading Frenzy. I made the print for her to sell there. It's a portrait of Hank who really exists in a perpetual reading frenzy, though this illustration is a bit staged. If this was an actual portrait of my son reading, half the books in this pile would be Eyewitness Books. It's an ode to Hank and his love of reading but equally to the books I especially love.

VKBMKL: I've always been fascinated by married couples who work together in children's literature: Ruth Krauss and Crocket Johnson; Leo and Diane Dillon; Martin and Alice Provensen. How has working on The Wildwood Chronicles with your husband changed your home life and how has it affected you as an artist?

CARSON: It was fun and challenging. In general, I've found there's not a lot of collaboration happening between authors and illustrators of books these days. Illustrators are typically handed finished manuscripts and there's not really an invitation to offer criticism or feedback. And, in my experience, it goes both ways - I've never gotten feedback from an author on my sketches and, in a couple of cases, the author didn't even see the illustrations until the final art was all done. So, of course, working with Colin was really different. We thought about Wildwood, talked about it and worked on it around the clock. Creative collaboration can be a messy and painful thing though, especially when undertaken by people who love each other and who are comfortable being honest with each other about what they like and don't like. We fought over things in a way I never would with another author. There's something to be said for having an editor as a diplomat and go-between. That said, we've been collaborating for over ten years on all things Decemberists so we're not strangers to that process; to hurting feelings, melting down and then somehow, in the end, coming to accord. Disagreeing seems an inevitable part of the process for us but I think we've gotten pretty good at it. I also think there's a sort of telepathy that happens between married couples that really streamlines creative collaboration. I can often picture what Colin is envisioning when he writes a passage and he can often picture what the illustration will look like when I draw it. In this way, once we settled on how Wildwood would look - it's medium and palette - the interior illustrations came really easily and peacefully.As for how it changed our home life, I'd say, occasional bickering aside, it was very sweet. We're both always working on something - each of us knee deep in some all-consuming project - and it was fun to have that project be the same thing for both of us this time. Our household revolved around Wildwood for a couple of years. We were always thinking and talking about it; Colin read Hank and I new pages at the end of every day; Hank was totally wrapped up in it. We were really immersed in that world.

VKBMKL: And one silly question about your husband. In his music, as in what I've read so far of the book, he's a very lyrical writer. He often uses dated phrasing and words, and I wondered if he talks like that in real life or if he keeps note books where he collects words that strike him?

CARSON: Ha! No, he doesn't talk like that. He's an articulate guy and an eloquent speaker when he wants to be. He loves lyrical, multi-syllabic words and I guess he'd use words like palanquin and bombazine and arabesque if they came up in conversation but, really, how often do they come up in conversation?

Thanks Carson. My husband and son have been reading a chapter a night of Wildwood for the past few weeks, and it's right up my son's alley. Nature and fantasy combined is his perfection.

For more on Carson, check out her books, her blog and this interview with Seven Impossible Things. Thanks for reading kids!

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Meet Carson Ellis: Part One

2011-10-09T20:36:00.009-05:00

As previously mentioned, I've started a new weekend series on VKBMKLs wherein I'll interview contemporary children's book authors and illustrators, particularly those with a love of all books old. Following last week's interview with Lane Smith, meet Carson Ellis, artist and illustrator of such awesome works as Lemony Snicket's The Composer is Dead, The Mysterious Benedict Society series by Trenton Lee Stewart, and her latest, Wildwood, authored by her husband and lead singer of the band The Decemberists - Colin Meloy. And although tomorrow is technically a weekday, it is a holiday, so this interview will spill into Monday as well. Enjoy part one!

VKBMKL: On your blog and through your work, it's obvious you have such a classic and wonderful style, and I have to assume that translates into your personal book purchases. Do you collect vintage books for your son or do you prefer to buy your classics new?

CARSON: Thanks! Yes, I do buy mostly vintage books, though, they're mainly for me. I buy plenty of new books too but for every new book I probably buy five old ones. I spend a lot of time at Powell's, a massive Portland bookstore and treasure trove of old children's books. There's always something to find there.

VKBMKL: As a parent, I am always interested in the reading choices parents make for their children. How are books a part of your family, and as a parent, what are the type of books you are drawn to when it comes to buying for your son?

CARSON: As a family, we're obsessed with books. We live in a house overflowing with them. Both my husband, Colin, and my five-year-old son, Hank, can spend the better part of a day reading. Myself, I don't read nearly as much but I'm always amassing books, especially illustrated ones. In fact, I buy as many children's books for myself as I do for Hank. I guess ostensibly they're for both of us but I love picture books and he, sadly, is mostly over them these days. He likes nonfiction - books about Egypt and Astronomy and the Ocean and what-have-you - and he likes Star Wars and books about Legos. But there are lots of things we both love - The Chronicles of Narnia, The Brixton Brothers by Mac Barnett, Harriet the Spy, The Neverending Story. We read chapter books before bed lately and, man, there have been so many brilliant novels written for kids, we're never at a loss for what to read him next.

VKBMKL: Do you find that your son has grown into liking the same types of books that you do, or is he beginning to find his own way? I know that having a son has completely altered the connection I have with children's books, so how has having a child inspired you?

CARSON: Hank's a pretty idiosyncratic and headstrong reader. He has Asperger's and he's hyperlexic as a consequence, which means he was an early reader who now reads at a really unusual level for his age. He was reading by his third birthday and, once he started, he didn't want us to read to him anymore. This phase lasted a couple of years and he was adamant about it - he'd cover his ears and tell us to stop if we tried to read aloud. At three, he was pulling all kinds of crazy things off our bookshelves. I've walked in on him reading home improvement manuals, dictionaries, Shakespeare, The Koran. Very early on, even before it was clear he could read, he gravitated towards non-fiction, especially visual dictionary type things like those Eyewitness books. And he wasn't really interested in a lot the books I wanted him to like, which were mostly - yes - vintage picture books. I think he had just outgrown them. But then one day he did want us to read to him again. He let us start reading longer books to him before bed, and so began a new chapter in our relationship to books and their place in our family. We started reading him the novels that we loved as kids and he's been open-minded about them and excited to come back to them each night. It's awesome.

VKBMKL: Were there any picture books that inspired you as a child to eventually become an illustrator, and are there any particular images that have stuck with you through the years?

CARSON: I don't remember being so consciously inspired by picture books as a kid. I was always drawing and illustrating my own stories but if I was emulating anything I probably wasn't aware of it. I did pore over Pauline Baynes' illustrations for The Chronicles of Narnia because I just loved those books so much. And the illustrations from a picture book called Hugo and Oddsock are etched forever into my memory though, for some reason, I've never bothered to seek out a copy of it as an adult. Later, as a teenager, I became more wittingly interested in and inspired by book illustrators. I dug Maurice Sendak's books out of the basement and studied them. I discovered Arthur Rackham and Aubrey Beardsley.

(endpaper map by Pauline Baynes for Prince Caspian)
(Carson's endpaper map from Wildwood)

VKBMKL: How have your own childhood experiences influenced you as an artist who often draws for children?

CARSON: I was a loner as a kid. I loved to be in the woods, to hunt for bugs and salamanders, catch crayfish in the stream behind my house, climb trees, dig up seedlings and put them in pots, draw and make up stories. And actually my life today isn't that much different. Sometimes I feel like I'm mining those childhood experiences when I make illustrations but other times it feels like I just never grew up.

(Read part two, here.)

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How to Make Flibbers, etc.

2011-10-07T23:32:00.005-05:00

Update Friday (where I take a post of old and update it with new scans and fun) is the wonderful Lopshire craft book, How to Make Flibbers, etc.

Updated from the original post back in 2008. Enjoy!

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