No Kiss for Mother

No Kiss for Mother
Tomi Ungerer ~ Delacorte Press, 1973

Rarely do children's books illustrate how truly rotten kids can be sometimes. For any mother who's had to love a spoiled brat despite his brattiness, this cat's for you. The pencil drawings are the perfect pairing for this story of a cat gone bad and the mother who puts up with him.

"Time to get up, Honey Pie," calls Mother Paws as she bends down to wedge a kiss in Sonny's ear.

And THAT wakes Piper up.

Piper hates to be kissed and to be kissed out of such a captivating dream is just about the most annoying thing in the whole world.

This after destroying his alarm clock and before faking brushing his teeth. The wretched, little feline then proceeds to mess up the clean and pressed clothes his mother laid out for him, metaphorically spit on the food she serves him and get into a debate as to whether or not a "Honey Pie" is an actual dessert. No surprise to find out that he is "known as a rowdy at school" setting off stink bombs and getting into cat fights. When spoiling mommy finally gets fed up and socks him one, you can hear mothers the world over cheering that the wee toot finally gets what's coming to him.

Not to fear, the book ends on a happy note, with the kitten turning a new leaf and gifting his doting mother flowers. But still... no kiss for mother. Ugh. I'm dreading the day, my friends, if and when my boy refuses my affections. Shoot me now.

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

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Arm in Arm

Arm in Arm
Remy Charlip ~ Parents' Magazine Press, 1969

Only in our possession a few days, and already it's risen to the ranks of one of my all time favorites. My son gets wildly tickled by the word plays and the line and ink drawings, and the innocence and sweetness of the whole affair takes my breath away. Subtitled "A Collection of Connections, Endless Tales, Reiterations and Other Echolalia", there should be more and more and more books in the world as dear and thoughtful and silly as this one. Remy Charlip never ceases to astound me.

TWO OCTOPUSES GOT MARRIED AND WALKED DOWN THE AISLE ARM IN ARM IN ARM IN ARM IN ARM IN ARM IN ARM IN ARM IN ARM IN ARM IN ARM IN ARM IN ARM IN ARM IN ARM IN ARM.

Also by:
What good luck! What bad luck!
Mother Mother I Feel Sick Send For the Doctor Quick Quick Quick
The Dead Dird

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Great Monday Give: The Dwindling Party

Feeling fabulous this morning, so I'm going to use this Great Monday Give as the big Halloween give by running it for two weeks instead of one and by sharing a special I duplicate I found a while back. The Dwindling Party Pop-Up by Edward Gorey. It's in fabulous condition with only one popup unhinged, but I'm going to try a wee bit of glue tonight and see if I can get it working again, so by next week it might be in a near perfect state. A 99 cent find that's worth way more and now I'm passing it on to you! All you have to do to be entered to win is comment on this post between now and October 24, Sunday at 11:59 PM. A winner will be selected the next morning and announced post haste. Do not miss this one kids!

The winner of last week's Gus Was A Friendly Ghost give is wmmahaney. Send me your info to webe(at)soon(dot)com and I'll hook you up in the next week or so. Have a great one guys and do be sure and check out my new tumblr site!

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Other Stuff My Kid Loves

Since I love confusing you all, the experiment I mentioned last week has taken on another format because I am all about dabbling in social media of all sorts. That said, Other Stuff My Kid Loves is now a tumblr site.

Check it.

No reading almost ever.

Update Friday: Little Black Goes to the Circus!

I picked this book for an update for no other reason than that it was sitting on my desk this morning and I'm too swamped with things to do to walk into my son's room and select a fave. But this was one of the first vintage books I bought him way back when, so it's due for an update. Man oh man, do I still love the color in this book. So, it's Update Friday and I'm dusting off this post from 2007 and giving it some new scans.

Please enjoy the incomparable Walter Farley's Little Black Goes to the Circus!.

BTW: Having fun reading the online chatter about the recent New York Times article. I'm always up for a passionate debate over children's books. With a headline like "Picture Books No Longer a Staple for Children" there was bound to be some hoopla.

LONG LIVE PICTURE BOOKS MY FRIENDS!!!!!!!

The Land of Lost Buttons

The Land of Lost Buttons
Kayako Nishimaki and Shigeo Nakamura
Originally published in Japan as Botan No Kuni
English version by Alvin Tresselt
pictures by Kayako Nishimaki
Parents' Magazine Press, 1970

Ever wondered where all the lost buttons end up?

Here we meet the right eye of a stuffed rabbit as it falls off and rolls into the unknown, a strange and wonderful place where all the lost buttons gather to hang out and get their groove on.

He came at last to an open meadow, and there he met five yellow button sisters.

"Hello," they said. "Where did you come from?"

"I was the eye of a rabbit," Red Button answered, "but I fell off and have run away."

"Welcome to the Land of Lost Buttons," said one of the sisters. "We fell off a yellow sweater and that's why we are here."

Ah well, all seems fun until the rabbit sends a note to the King of Buttons, writing of his heartache over losing an eye. And the button realizes life isn't half as much fun unless you have some bunny to love. Done and done.

The Bird of Time

The Bird of Time
Jane Yolen ~ Mercer Mayer
Thomas Y. Crowell, 1971

When I hear about a book I might like to have, the first place I look is the library. If the library has it, I'll spin it around the block a few times and if it's a must-have, I'll either wait to find it by chance or buy it online. So when Chandra mentioned a Mercer Mayer I'd never seen before, I immediately hit the online catalog at our library looking for it. Unfortunately, it's quite a collectible and Herbert the Timid Dragon is long gone from the shelves, but I did see one in the listings I'd never seen before. (Oh, what would I do without online card catalog searches!?!) And it's about a bird!

Written by Jane Yolen, it's the folk tale of a young dreamer named Pieter who leaves his home to seek his fortune and, ultimately, impress his father, the simple miller.

He had traveled only two days and three nights into the wide, wide world when he heard a weak cry. It sounded like a call for help. Immediately, and without a thought for his own safety, Pieter rushed in the direction of the sound and found a tiny brown bird caught in a trap. He opened the trap and set the bird free. But the bird was so weak from lack of water and food that it only had time for a few faint chirps before it folded its tired wings and died.

Thankfully, Pieter could speak the language of the birds and in those short chirps, the bird told of a magical egg that contained a bird that could make time speed up or slow down or stop completely. Adventure ensues. There's a princess, a giant, a wedding and an impressed father all wrapped up nicely with a secret kept. The tempera paintings are gorgeous, as would be expected, and the tale exciting yet romantic at the same time. Here's hoping this one finds me on the thrift shop shelves sometime in the near future. I'm behind on my mortgage because of all the books I've shopped for Christmas already!

Also by:
Liza Lou and the Yeller Belly Swamp
One Monster After Another
Professor Wormbog in Search for the Zipperump-A-Zoo
Me and My Flying Machine
Beauty and the Beast
A Special Trick
Bubble Bubble
OOPS
One Frog Too Many
How the Trollusk Got His Hat
Little Monster at Work
AH-CHOO

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