Dear Jon Stone and Michael Smollin,

There’s Another Monster at the End of This Book – Jon Stone, illust. Michael Smollin – 32 pages

“In this vibrantly illustrated sequel to the much-loved The Monster at the End of This Book, Grover, now accompanied by Elmo, has heard that there’s something lurking on the last page of the book. Grover invents all sorts of hilarious ways to stop the reader from turning the pages. But Elmo is curious, and he slips by every wacky barrier in his quest to see what he might find.”  –from RandomHouse.com
As almost any kid will tell you, Grover is impossible to resist.  I’m a big fan of There’s a Monster at the End of This Book, which never fails to make me giggle, and of course you can never have too much of a good thing, which is why I was delighted to see There’s Another Monster at the End of This Book.  As in the original, you’ve got a very meta experience going on here, with Grover trying to convince the reader not to turn the page because the monster might be scary.  This time there’s the added layer of Elmo, adding some mischief and acting as a foil for all Grover’s efforts.

They’re both quite funny, and the text is true to the way they each speak on Sesame Street, though I did find myself thinking that perhaps Elmo’s interference took something away from the experience by the end of the book.  Elmo is cute, and his constant ability to find a way around Grover’s preventative measures is funny, but it removes some of the agency that a reader has in the original book, when it’s just Grover and the reader playing against each other.  With Elmo already sneaking past Grover’s walls of blocks or steel, there’s less satisfaction in actually turning the page and thwarting Grover oneself.  My favorite part of the first book is Grover’s harried state when I, by turning the page, knocked down his brick wall, and he told me I was “very strong.”  That interplay is missing here, I think, and by the end of the book, it’s Grover and Elmo talking to each other, rather than either of them talking to the reader.

Still, it’s fun and sweet, and the illustrations are just as fantastic as the original book, with great lettering and cool visual illusions every time Elmo pulls back the corner of a page, inviting the reader to turn.  Four stars for adorable effort!

Love,

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Dear Heather Henson and David Small,

That Book Woman – Heather Henson, illust. David Small – 32 pages

“Cal is not the readin’ type. Living way high up in the Appalachian Mountains, he’d rather help Pap plow or go out after wandering sheep than try some book learning. Nope. Cal does not want to sit stoney-still reading some chicken scratch. But that Book Woman keeps coming just the same. She comes in the rain. She comes in the snow. She comes right up the side of the mountain, and Cal knows that’s not easy riding. And all just to lend his sister some books. Why, that woman must be plain foolish — or is she braver than he ever thought?”  –from Books.SimonandSchuster.com

When I saw the cover of That Book Woman and recognized that lovely loose artistic style, I just had to pick it up.  Mr. Small, I’m a huge huge fan of your art, which I’m sure I’ve said before, because I’ve reviewed others of your books on this site.  Still, can’t hurt to say it again–your art, particularly the picturebooks, make me giddy with joy and extraordinarily jealous of the way your style makes it look so easy.  I know most good artists make their work look easy, but for some reason the kind of line you have and the way it flows makes me imagine that you just touch pen to paper and suddenly amazing things happen by some sort of crazy magic.

With the fangirling out of the way, now I can get on to what a visual pleasure this book is for me just in its own right.  The composition, full of wide pulled-back shots and extreme close-up foregrounds, keeps every page fresh and makes me really feel the wide open space, the distance from this hilltop cabin to any other kind of civilization.  The colors are understated and used in unexpected ways to great effect, and the overall messy sort of look is really endearing and evocative.  It matches the text, the pleasantly messy dialect, to a T.  (What a weird phrase, to a T.  Where on earth does it come from?  Hmm, I sense internet research in my future.)

Of course, the words are entirely brilliant too, Ms. Henson–it’s fairly rare to see a picturebook that’s written in free verse, when so much poetry for children is rhyming.  I love the measured way you and Cal tell his story, the gentle rocking flow that, in my head, mimics the trusty, steady motion of the Book Woman’s horse.  And what a truly fantastic message!  That books are as necessary for living as food and shelter, that encouraging a reader is worth such effort through hardship and the elements, and that a reader can be made out of anyone, if they only want to try it.  I want to meet the Book Woman, and have her bring books like this one to me.

When this book came up in mock Caldecott discussion with my book club last year, there were a variety of reactions–perhaps it isn’t everyone’s style–but I think it’s lovely and brilliant, and every time I re-read it I’m struck in some way by a detail of the art or by a turn of phrase that makes me glad I have it on my shelf.  Five stars from me, hooray for books!

Love,

Wanna check out this title for yourself?  Try the Indie Bound or ABC bookstore finders!

Dear Karla Kuskin and Marc Simont,

The Philharmonic Gets Dressed – Karla Kuskin and Marc Simont – 48 pages

“‘It is almost Friday night. Outside, the dark is getting darker,’ and here and there around the city ninety-two men and thirteen women are getting dressed to go to work. First they bathe and put on their underwear. Then they don special black-and-white apparel. Then when the one hundred and five people are completely ready, each takes a musical instrument and travels to midtown. There, at 8:30 tonight, they will work together:  playing.”  -from HarperCollins.com

The Philharmonic Gets Dressed is one of those oldies-but-goodies that I never read as a child, but wish I had, because I adore it so much as an adult.  As a bookseller, I appreciate it because it’s one of my go-to handsells when someone asks for a book about musical instruments (even though it’s not the “this is a cello, this is an oboe, this is a piccolo” sort of musical instruments book, it’s so charming that I always suggest it anyway).  As a reader and a children’s lit enthusiast, I love this book because it’s one of those classics that will never get old.  Unless, you know, hundreds of years from now the NY Philharmonic, or perhaps orchestras in general, have been replaced by robots or maybe just at-home digital/virtual concerts.  Let’s hope, though, that live orchestral music never becomes obsolete.

But I digress (as usual).  Ms. Kuskin, it pains me that I’m a couple of months too late for you to somehow read this, though I’ve no doubt you heard every kind of praise for this book and mine couldn’t possibly be anything new.  That won’t stop me from trying, though!  What’s so special about you, and your work on this book, is the crafted feel of the text.  You’ve written one of those perfect books, the kind that I could read again and again and never find any fault with.  Your prose is simple and spare, giving just enough information without clogging things up, and there’s a really beautifully understated rhythm and flow that just makes me giddy with happiness.  Perhaps it’s because you were also a poet–your skill in carefully choosing and molding words into verse served you equally well in creating exceptionally fine prose that looks easy, but undoubtedly wasn’t.

The other great thing about the text of this book is the story itself–you capture that lovely anticipatory feeling of preparing for a performance (a thrill I always look back on fondly), while also tapping into the natural curiosity of children, and people in general, about the offstage doings of onstage performers.  As if that wasn’t enough appeal, you also satisfy young children’s love of routine with this book–bathing, getting dressed, putting on coats and scarves and gloves, commuting, all things children and their parents do every day, but with the added intrigue of night-time, when most children are getting ready for bed.  How unusual, then, for these characters to be leaving their families at home and heading out into the dark to go to work!

And then, of course, there’s the brilliant art, telling the bits of the story the text doesn’t.  Mr. Simont, I’ve always loved your illustrations, and this book is no exception!  The clever hints of personality you inject into the orchestra members, and the delightful variety you manage to portray among a whole bunch of people all dressing to match each other makes every page something to pore over to catch all the details.  Your style is so fluid and charming, too, and the humor and visual variety of the musicians reminds me pleasantly of 101 Dalmatians and the procession of people who look like their dogs (at 4:52).  Your illustrations are busy without being at all overwhelming, frank and funny in your depiction of diverse bodies, bathing, and the hassles of underclothes, and evocative of the text in a way that makes me convinced your art was the perfect choice for Ms. Kuskin’s words.

The Philharmonic Gets Dressed is a fantastic blend of elements that will never lose it’s appeal for me, and hopefully will never lose it’s appeal for children, either.  You both made something wonderful here, and I’m so glad you did!  Five stars and a standing ovation.

Love,

Wanna check out this title for yourself?  Try the Indie Bound or ABC bookstore finders!

Books this year: 101

Pages this year: 20,330

Dear Mem Fox and Leo and Diane Dillon,

The Goblin and the Empty Chair – Mem Fox and Leo & Diane Dillon – 32 pages

The goblin hides his face and keeps to himself, so as not to frighten anyone–but when he stumbles upon a suffering farm family, he helps ease their load by night, in secret.  The goblin doesn’t realize that the family has seen his efforts until they offer their thanks in the best way they can.

Whew, it was hard to summarize this book without giving too much away.  The Goblin and the Empty Chair is just the sort of evocative story I’d expect from this particular collaboration, and the perfect book to get me back into the swing of regular reviewing.  The prose is masterful, simple and repetitive without being boring or babyish, with an air of mystery and a lot of subtlety; the art picks up all sorts of hints and cues from the text and brings them fully to life, while adding story of its own.  A really good picturebook is a mixture of art and text that don’t tell the whole story when separated, and you’ve created a perfect example of that!

Of course, it helps that I’m a sucker for stories about humble tragic heroes and human kindness, which is just what this one is, and I’m also a huge Dillon fan.  The little girl reminds me pleasantly of Wise Child, and I love the little friezes along the tops of the illustrations, and the whole thing is just an achievement in visual/textual storytelling.  You all rock my socks.  Five stars!

Oh, and this reading of the book is just AWESOME–but I wish those great friezes were shown along with the main illustrations!  This would have made a great Reading Rainbow book.  (LeVar, I miss you on tv.)

Love,

Wanna check out this title for yourself?  Try the Indie Bound or ABC bookstore finders!

Books this year: 99

Pages this year: 19,962

Dear Louise Yates,

A Small Surprise – Louise Yates

A sign reading “Small Animals Need Not Apply” can’t deter this determined little rabbit, who applies for a job with the circus anyway.  The other animals are in for quite a surprise–and they’ll quickly learn that small is special, too.

A Small Surprise is one of those picturebooks that isn’t the most outstanding thing ever at first glance, but it’s really stuck with me.  I read it in the store quite a while ago, and I’m still smiling about the gentle humor of the art, the cleverness of the endpapers (which are part of the story) and the plucky personality of the rabbit.  You’ve taken the aesthetic of old circus ads but softened it with a lighter color palette, and you’ve struck a really nice balance between cartoony humor and sweetness in the animals.  The text is great, too–declarative, amusing, and an excellent candidate for reading aloud.  I think you’ve written an ideal book for very young children and their parents–the talents the little rabbit displays might seem unimpressive to a five- or six-year-old, but a three-year-old would probably be delighted, and the palpable youngness of the rabbit can’t be anything but adorable to the adult reading!  Four small stars and one big smile! 

Love,

Wanna check out this title for yourself?  Try the Indie Bound or ABC bookstore finders!

Dear Natalie Russell,

Moon Rabbit – Natalie Russell

Little Rabbit loves her life in the city–there’s a park to play in, and her favorite café, and her cozy little home.  Still, sometimes Little Rabbit gets lonely, and she wonders if there’s a little rabbit like her out there.  Then one moonlit night she travels out to the country, and meets Brown Rabbit, playing his guitar.  They spend wonderful days together, but soon Little Rabbit starts to think about her cozy city home, and she knows it’s time for her to leave.  But it’s okay–now she knows there’s another rabbit like her out there.

Moon Rabbit is already intensely beloved by my coworkers at Curious George, and by me too!  It’s so gently sweet, but not in that saccharine way–you have an eloquent, poetic text here that’s simple but really honed.  It’s just beautiful!  Of course there’s the artwork, too–the delicate flowers in the country, the soft shapes of Little Rabbit and Brown Rabbit, the patchwork moon, it’s all lovely and soothing.  You’ve captured the sweetness and comfort of friendship, and you’ve also given Little Rabbit an independent life.  You’d be surprised how important that is to me in my love for this book; Little Rabbit doesn’t mind being alone, and loves her city life, but now can look forward to visits with a friend.  It’s just the way I want to be.  Five stars!

Love,

Wanna check out this title for yourself?  Try the Indie Bound or ABC bookstore finders!

Dear Teruyuki Komiya, Toyofumi Fukuda, Makiko Oku and Kristin Earhart,

Life-Size Zoo – Ed. Teruyuki Komiya, photographs by Toyofumi Fukuda, Japanese text by Makiko Oku, English translation by Kristin Earhart

This oversized picturebook takes you up close and personal with zoo animals through photography, cartoons and fact-filled sidebars.  Learn about each creature and see it at life size!

I was lucky enough to meet with some guys from Seven Footer Press at Book Expo, and they kindly gave me samples of a couple of their new books brought over from Japan.  My favorite of them,  Life-Size Zoo, is both beautiful and hilarious at once.  The photography is absolutely stunning, and so huge that you can’t help but feel you’re standing right next to the animals.  Each page has its own color-coded sidebar with adorable and bizarre informational cartoons, and I particularly enjoyed the little section at the top of each sidebar with a silhouette of the whole animal to show you what bit of it is pictured in the photo.  Every sidebar has a little bio of the animal, too, because they’re all inhabitants of the Tokyo Ueno Zoo.  There are awesome fold-out pages, and a zoo map in the front of the book, and great endpapers…and overall it’s just a fab book.  Well done, to everyone who made it happen!  Five stars!

Love,

Wanna check out this title for yourself?  Try the Indie Bound or ABC bookstore finders!

Dear Peter McCarty,

T is for Terrible – Peter McCarty

Tyrannosaurus Rex is a terrible lizard–but he can’t help it.  It’s in his nature to be enormous, and hungry, and shake the ground when he runs.  But he was a baby too, and had a mother, and doesn’t know how to be anything less than terrible.

Where Little Bunny on the Move was comforting and sweet, T is for Terrible is poignant and a little bit uncomfortable, in a great way.  Just the idea of poor T-Rex as a creature troubled by its own nature is…well, it’s a really fascinating way to look at a ferocious meat-eating dinosaur.  I’m particularly fond of the hopeful sort of way in which he asks “Would I be so terrible if I were pink?” and poses there, looking as smiley as a T-Rex can, the color of bubblegum.  My other favorite bit is when he wishes he could be a vegetarian, “but I am Tyrannosaurus Rex, and I do not eat trees,” followed by a clever spread of T-Rex breaking through the trees with his mouth wide open, and the other dinosaurs scattering in fear.  That spread is so evocative–the reader knows why he’s there, it’s a scene straight out of every other dinosaur book–and yet it’s tinged with this inevitability and sadness.  T-Rex is going to kill and eat other animals no matter what–and if he wonders about his own nature, then clearly the other dinosaurs are also sentient enough to do the same.  Then the whole thing is oddly softened by your sweet, pastel, rounded art style, making it terrible and lovely at once.  What a fantastic way to broach the subject of the food chain, not to mention extending the metaphor to help us all to better understand people who do things we consider to be wrong.  It’s a strange story you’ve created here, but I love it–five stars.

Love,

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Dear Peter McCarty,

Little Bunny on the Move – Peter McCarty

This is one little bunny who knows were it’s going.  Over fields and through forests, past cows and sheep and rumbling trains, the bunny singlemindedly traipses toward its destination.  It won’t stop to talk, or to be someone’s pet, and at last that determination pays off when the little bunny finally arrives at its destination.

There’s something so comforting about Little Bunny on the Move! I think it’s a combination of the art, all pastel and soft-edged and bright, and the story, about journeying until you find the place where you belong, and not stopping to settle for something less.  The little bunny is incredibly cute, like a tiny little marshmallow, and even though the pages often look similar to each other, every new page brings a subtly different leg of the bunny’s journey.  This is the kind of book I take childish glee in paging through, and also the kind of book that makes me proud of that childish glee.    Four fluffy white stars!

Love,

Wanna check out this title for yourself?  Try the Indie Bound or ABC bookstore finders!

Dear Jimmy Liao,

When the Moon Forgot – Jimmy Liao

One day the moon forgets itself and falls to the earth; a little boy finds it, and takes it home.  Factories make other moons, big and small, to shine through the night, but none of them can live up to the real thing.  The little boy and the moon have all sorts of adventures together, until the world needs the moon back, and it remembers how to shine again.

When the Moon Forgot is a fantastic, sometimes-wordless, beautifully illustrated book.  The text is simple and sweet with a heavy helping of whimsy; the art is a little bit Sendak, a little bit Shaun Tan, and a lot of sweetness.  I love the funny manufactured moons, smiling even when they’re being trampled by children or deflating like balloons or abandoned in puddles.  I also love the real moon, so pale in comparison, but so happy with the little boy, and so big and proud-looking when it returns to the sky.  I even love the trim size, nice and small and delicate-feeling.  It’s a beautiful book with a beautiful, subtle message, and it gets five happy stars.

Love,

Wanna check out this title for yourself?  Try the Indie Bound or ABC bookstore finders!