August Round-up

It is time for our August Roundup!  We'll still be looking at some new releases in the coming weeks, rest assured.  There are lots of books I didn't get to that came out this summer, and pretty soon we'll have the rush of new releases as the end of the year approaches.  Next week I will be doing, along with Stephanie of the great blog Our Little Library, a week of basic concepts (shapes, colors numbers, etc.).  I'm really looking forward to that!  And at the end of September, while I am away at my best friend's wedding, I'll have my first ever set of guest posts on LLB, so I hope you'll tune in then.

August was dedicated to new releases, but I posted a couple of exciting previews as well:

+ 10 is a pop-up book by the brilliant Marion Battaille

+ Zita the Spacegirl is the first full length comic created by my dear friend Ben Hatke.  Read about her, and his work here.  (Bonus: the Zita the Spacegirl Website is back online with 3 mini-web comics!)

Now onto the new releases:

+ One of the prettiest books I've seen in a long time, Farm by Elisha Cooper.

+ Kevin Henkes does it again with his new title, My Garden.

+ We learned a lot about school.  Henry falls in love.  Annalina is afraid of kindergarten.  And then there are always after-school Cookies.

+ It's a Book, by Lane Smith is as good as promised.

+ Dogs, by dear Emily Gravett, is a surprise and a delight.

Finally, I gave you some ideas for decorating your nursery with alphabet posters.  And I told you to read about Unicorns in the garden.  Did you do your homework?

(So long as we previewed some books earlier this month, I wanted to be sure to point out to you Dan Yaccarino's new book, All the Way to America: The Story of a Big Italian Family and a Little Shovel.  I. Can't. Wait.)

Kindergarten Diary by Antoinette Portis

TITLE: Kindergarten Diary
AUTHOR + ILLUSTRATOR: Antoinette Portis
PUBLISHED BY: Harper Collins, July 2010
ISBN:  978-0061456916
PURCHASE: Amazon

Antoinette Portis is quickly becoming one of the most dependable picture book authors: every one of her charming, imaginative narratives belie their happy simplicity.  In this little Annalina is not excited about going to Kindergarten.  She loved pre-school, and would rather stay there than move on to kindergarten. She is afraid mean kids, bigger than her, and of scary teachers (with Medusa hair), but each one of her fears is settled when she sees that the kids are her size, and fun and the teacher is nice (and has blond hair; there is not a green snake in sight!).

This is perhaps her most complicated set of illustrations: she uses collages, mimics kindergarten writing paper in the background of her pages, and uses bright colors and lots of fun detail.  This book will delight many children.  It will certainly help to calm kindergarten nerves, but I have a feeling they will keep coming back to it as the school year progresses too!

The Unicorn is a Mythical Beast

Usually, when I am totally overwhelmed at work, life, etc. I let all my 10KP readers know...But I realized I just have not been sharing the love enough with you guys.  So, dear readers: I am overwhelemed and won't be posting anything creative today.  I'm sorry. 

I know you won't mind, because I am going to tell you to spend your friday reading the James Thurber story, A Unicorn in the Garden instead (from his most excellent work, Fables for Our Time).  It is a family favorite, and very excellent read outloud.  Especially on car rides.  So long as you can ensure the drivier won't become hysterical with laughter and drive off the road, which, thankfully, my father never did.  But boy, did we laugh and laugh and laugh.

Once upon a sunny morning a man who sat in a breakfast nook looked up from his scrambled eggs to see a white unicorn with a golden horn quietly cropping the roses in the garden. The man went up to the bedroom where his wife was still asleep and woke her. "There's a unicorn in the garden," he said. "Eating roses." She opened one unfriendly eye and looked at him.

"The unicorn is a mythical beast," she said, and turned her back on him. ...

See you next week with more new releases from 2010!

Zita The Space Girl now on Pre-Order!

Zita the Space Girl, page 4.

A quick update on Ben Hatke's Zita the Space Girl comic (which I discussed at length last week): It is now available for pre-order on Amazon.  Furthermore, you can read the whole first chapter on Macmillian/First Second's site.  (The book will officially be released in February.)

Cookies, by Amy Krause Rosenthal and Jane Dryer

TITLE: One Smart Cookie: Bite Size Life Lessons for the School Year and Beyond
AUTHOR: Amy Krause Rosenthal
ILLUSTRATOR: Jane Dryer & Brooke Dryer
PUBLISHED BY: Harper Collins, June 2010
ISBN: 978-0061429705
PURCHASE: Amazon

I'm not much of a fan of books that say things like "bite size life lessons" on their cover, but, the retro See-Dick-and-Jane style illustrations, and the fact that this book was written by an old favorite, Amy Krause Rosenthal, made me curious, and I picked up One Smart Cookie to investigate.  I am so glad I did.

One Smart Cookie, it turns out, is part of a series of collaborations between Ms. Rosenthal and Ms. Jane Dryer.  (The others, which I cannot vouch for as I have not read them, are Cookies, Sugar Cookies, and Christmas Cookies; they are about life, love, and Christmas respectively.) In these "cookie" books, Rosenthal uses the baking, decorating, enjoying and sharing of cookies to teach practical "life lesson" vocabulary. The choice of words was, in fact, my favorite part of the book; she didn't choose boring words or words any kids knows, she challenges them with bigger better words, like "prompt" and "ponder" and "curious"

There is nothing preachy about this book.  It is, in fact, charming and sophisticated and very enjoyable.  The illustrations are charming--though at times a little odd; the animals in the background sometimes become the subjects. That is, instead of watching the children bake, suddenly they are the bakers.  Which is odd.  But still, the illustrations are charming, and illuminate the cookie-centric definitions nicely.

If you have a kindergarten to say third grade child, I think One Smart Cookie will be a lovely addition to their library.  And, there is a recipe in the back for...you guessed it...one smart cookie!

Dogs, by Emily Gravett

TITLE: Dogs
AUTHOR + ILLUSTRATOR: Emily Gravett
PUBLISHED BY: Simon & Schuster
ISBN: 978-1416987031
PURCHASE: Amazon

Emily Gravett's The Odd Egg is still one of my very favorite books of 2009.  Her new title, Dogs, might just be my favorite so far of 2010.  This book is squarely in the absolutely delightful and silly category of  picture books.  Best for advanced toddlers and pre-schoolers, its text teaches wonderful words and shows some pretty funny opposites/contrasts between different types of dogs.   And, as with The Odd Egg, there is a perfect, laugh out-loud surprise ending (that I did not at all expect!).

Hmmm...how many times can I say delightful in this review.  The pencil/watercolor drawings are delightful.  The expressions on the dogs faces are delightful.  The words are delightful.  The colors are delightful.  EVERYTHING IS DELIGHTFUL. 

I love big dogs and small dogs.

I love stroppy dogs, and soppy dogs.

P.S. Be sure to read Jules' interview of Gravett at 7Imp!

It's a Book, by Lane Smith

TITLE: It's a Book
AUTHOR + ILLUSTRATOR: Lane Smith
PUBLISHED BY: Roaring Brook Press, August 2010
ISBN:978-1596436060
PURCHASE:  Amazon

Remember this preview:


Well, the book is as good as expected. Better, even.

Reclaiming the Imagination

André Kertész, Esztergom, Hungary, 1917

Monday, in the New York Times, there was an excellent opinion piece on their philosophy blog, The Stone, about "Reclaiming the Imagination"--and I simply must share it with you.  Timothy Williamson, an Oxford don, examines the tie between reality and imagination:

On further reflection, imagining turns out to be much more reality-directed than the stereotype implies. If a child imagines the life of a slave in ancient Rome as mainly spent watching sports on TV, with occasional household chores, they are imagining it wrong. That is not what it was like to be a slave. The imagination is not just a random idea generator. The test is how close you can come to imagining the life of a slave as it really was, not how far you can deviate from reality.

...Constraining imagination by knowledge does not make it redundant. We rarely know an explicit formula that tells us what to do in a complex situation. We have to work out what to do by thinking through the possibilities in ways that are simultaneously imaginative and realistic, and not less imaginative when more realistic. Knowledge, far from limiting imagination, enables it to serve its central function.

I must admit, I never thought of the imagination in those terms exactly, but I do see his point.  And I think this is part of what is unappealing about books like The Wonder Bear, which I reviewed last year.  Their "richly imagined" world has nothing to do with reality, and has nothing giving it order and intelligibility.  It doesn't seem to me that books of that sort are very good for forming the imagination, reason, and will, of our children.

And, indeed, the imagination must be formed and disciplined, like anything else in our growing bodies and minds.  Williamson notes the various ways in which we use our imagination in daily life, as adults:

Those who downplay the cognitive role of the imagination restrict it to the context of discovery, excluding it from the context of justification. But they are wrong. Imagination plays a vital role in justifying ideas as well as generating them in the first place.

...To change the example, what would happen if all NATO forces left Afghanistan by 2011? What will happen if they don’t? Justifying answers to those questions requires imaginatively working through various scenarios in ways deeply informed by knowledge of Afghanistan and its neighbors.

 Do read the entire article.  I found it most compelling.  (N.B. I couldn't resist posting that adorable picture of the boy and his lamb.  So dear!)

Blog Break + Eileen Spinelli!

Sophie's Masterpiece

Well, I had a very full weekend, and feel called to take a quick little blog break to refresh my mind (and give me the chance to get my laundry done).  So, I am just popping in briefly to say that I'll be back with new posts on wednesday.  And, that it is Eileen Spinelli's birthday.  My favorite of her books is Sophie's Masterpiece, but I also highly recommend all her other work.  She also just released Buzz, and I am eager to get my hands on a copy.  Anyway, celebrate the day by checking out her wonderful work!

Alphabet Posters

Sycamore Street Press (comes in many colors)

Little Korboose

Jennifer Ramos (customized with baby's name)

Henry in Love, by Peter McCarty

TITLE: Henry in Love
AUTHOR + ILLUSTRATOR: Peter McCarty
PUBLISHED BY: Balzer and Bray, 2010
ISBN: 978-0061142888
PURCHASE: Amazon

My dear friend E, mother of two feisty boys, recommended Henry in Love to me.  I'm not sure how she discovered it, but she bought it instantly because, you see, her youngest is named Henry.  And most of the "Henry" characters out there are non-anthropomorphized animals (Harry the Dog, for example.)  So she bought it instantly, and called me, sighing over this sweet story.

Henry is your typical school boy (errr...cat), and he's smitten with Chole, the most beautiful girl (errr... rabbit) in the school.  He tries to impress her with somersaults, but she just responds with a cartwheel.  When snack time comes around, though, Henry has the trump card: a beautiful home-made blueberry muffin.  Chole gets the muffin; Henry gets love.

Henry in Love received a starred review from School Library Journal, and there has even been some talk of a Newberry shortlist.  Needless to say, it is a keeper.

My Garden, by Kevin Henkes

TITLE: My Garden
AUTHOR + ILLUSTRATOR: Kevin Henkes
PUBLISHED BY: Greenwillow Books, April 2010
ISBN: 978-0061715174
PURCHASE: Amazon

Ah!  Kevin Henkes has done it again: produced a lovely and imaginative book that perfectly captures the imagination of a little girl.  Our heroine helps her mother in the garden--weeding and chasing away rabbits--but wishes for her own garden where: rabbits wouldn't eat the lettuce because the rabbits would be chocolate and I would eat them."  (And...charmingly: "carrots would be invisible because I don't like carrots!")  There would be a jelly bean tree (see below), and huge tomatoes, and everything that will delight her heart.

As usual, Henkes illustrations are, well, perfect: pastels (one reviewer described them as "ice cream parlor colors") add just the right buoyancy to the images--rendering them joyful and sunny but not too vibrant or wild.  I'd go to any garden Henkes creates, but this one is especially wonderful.

Farm, by Elisha Cooper

TITLE: Farm
AUTHOR + ILLUSTRATOR: Elisha Cooper
PUBLISHED BY: Orchard Books, 2010
ISBN: 9780545070751
PURCHASE: Amazon


Elisha Cooper has some of the most wonderful watercolors.  At times, incredibly detailed, other times simple and lucid, he gives life to a large working farm in the mid-west, showing the entire cycle of the year, in this wonderful book.

Both Publisher's Weekly and  The Horn Book gave it a starred review.  Here's what Publisher's Weekly said: 

Cooper creates a joyful tribute to family farms in this luminous and lyrical picture book. The text is stately, quiet, and poetic ("Morning chores would be better if they didn't happen every morning"), and the book slowly takes readers through a year of planting, good and bad weather, and ordinary details about farm life.

Cooper is an underrated artist and author: everyone should have one of his delightful books.  He has also released Beaver is Lost, but I have not read it yet, so hopefully I'll review it later this month.  Also, be sure to check out his interview on Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast.  And read Jules' followup post about Farm here.

Despicable Me

Briefly (I have so much to catch up on after being sick in bed for two days): have any of you seen Despicable Me?  Thoughts?  I am dying to see it, though I am sure it won't be as good as Toy Story.  But will anything?

Ben Hatke and his First Full Length Comic

Ben Hatke's Zita the Space Girl

Ok, ok.  I promise, I will get to 2010 books that have already been released, but today I want to share with you news of another upcoming book--one that I have been waiting for for oh-so-long.  My dear friend Ben Hatke has written a full length comic for the spunky and wonderful Zita the Spacegirl, and it is set to be released sometime this winter (apparently, you can pre-order now!).  It seems ages, I know.  But I am so excited about it, so I really had to share.

Ben has illustrated a lot of projects (including these sweet pious books, Can God See Me In the Dark?, What Can I Give God?, and Will You Bless Me? and Sophia Press' bestselling Angel in the Waters) but his comic work is what really thrills me.  He has also been in several of the Flight volumes of comics (Volume 4 had a Zita Comic, "If Wishes Were Socks"!).  And, thanks to First Second Books, his vibrant heroine is finally being published at book length.  (I've read it; it is grand!)

Zita and an alien, from Flight, Volume 4 "If Wishes Were Socks"

His friend, illustrator Lawrence Klimeki, recently posted an interview of Ben (italics, mine.):

1. Can you tell us a little about your journey as an artist?

Of course, like everybody, I started drawing almost as soon as I could pick up a pencil. From very early on I was interested in drawing the natural world and in cartooning. As a child this meant copying animals from National Geographic (Cheetahs were a favorite) and drawing little newspaper-style comics. In high school I had this amazing artistic “mentor.” He actually taught Latin at the school but he was a tremendous artist and sculptor and stoneworker. He would also go every year to Lourdes to lower the very ill pilgrims into the waters there. And he was tough as nails. He kept on going to Lourdes to haul these sick people in and out of the water even after he had had both his knees replaced. He was the first person who would actually tell me when a drawing was crap. That was huge.  

I drew a lot of comics during college but, on the whole, I didn’t produce a lot of art. What I did do was read a lot of Chesterton and at one point I remember thinking "this is what I want to do. One way or another I want to speak to peoples imaginations." I’m not sure when I started picking up illustration projects but I know that when I was married (very shortly after college) I would stay up after hours with drawing projects. I did this until I was drawing so far into the nights that I was fired from my day job. Luckily at that point I had just enough freelance work to get by. Then, a couple years later I realized that if I was going to do this for real I had better learn to draw properly. By this time I had two little girls. We packed up our house and moved to Italy for a year. I did a little training at the Charles Cecil Studios in Florence, and a lot of reading and studying and working on my own. That year really changed everything for me as an artist.

He goes on to discuss his thoughts on being a Christian artist, and much much more.  Ben never ceases to amaze me, and I hope you'll love his work as much as I do.  (Rest assured, we'll have lots of fanfare for Zita once it finally is released!)  Oh, and be sure to check out his hilarious and harrowing series of comics now being released on his blog of his recent arresting adventure.  Part One, Two, Three and Four have, thus far, been released.  His blog is one of my regular reads, and I encourage you to add it to your feeds, because its grand.  Plus, sometimes, he posts drawings by his daughters.  And they are wonderful.

from Flight Comics, 2006

For a look at his work, check out this hilarious Zita web-comic on First Second's Blog.


And here's a video Ben made flipping through the Zita book:

Zita the Spacegirl 1 Flipthrough from Ben Hatke on Vimeo.

The Cover of the new Zita the Space Girl book

10

You all remember Marion Bataille's awesome ABC3D from Roaring Brook Press (see a video of it here).  Well, Bataille is up to her old tricks again, and this time with a fun, and mind-bending number book:



It'll be out in September, and you can be assured, it'll be added to the pop-up tab in the LLB Bookshop as soon as it's released.  I can't wait!

July Roundup

In the fun of doing a Christmas in July, I forgot all about my July roundup.  So tomorrow I'll start with reviews of 2010 releases (continuing through August), and today I'll round up all the things we discussed in July.

+ We started July with historical picture books, including: Shh! We're Writing the Constitution, The Flag Maker, books about Blessed Junipero Serra, Jack Jouett's Ride, For Liberty: The Story of the Boston Massacre, and an illuminated Declaration of Independence. 

+ Then we got into the problems with young adult fiction: 1) introduction of the question, 2) response from a librarian, 3) Christian Young Adult Novels.

+ Then it was Christmas in July:  Harold and the North Pole, Amahl and the Night Visitors, The Story of Holly and Ivy, The Story of Christmas, Winter's Tale, and Saint Nicholas: The Story of the Real Santa Claus.  Don't forget to find more great Christmas books under my Christmas tab, or in the LLB Christmas bookshop.

Plus: William Stieg's charming and brief Caldecott acceptance speech, a Peter Paul and Mary musical gem, and Toy Story 3.  Seriously.  You haven't seen it yet? GO! GO! GO!