Tag Archives: Americana

Top 10 Summer Family Read Alouds

While picture books are my bread and butter, all families should be reading aloud longer chapter books with their children.  With summer peeking over the horizon now, it’s a good time to plan out your summer read-aloud(s).  Reading as a family, morning, noon or at night, is an excellent way to stay connected with all the activities of a freewheeling summer.  Audio books make for a superb option as you are road tripping. And certain books are just perfect for this warm season in particular…  here are my choices for optimal summer reading that the whole family will enjoy:

 It’s a classic for a reason. The four siblings are slightly more grounded in this world than the Narnia children, but the similarities are still there.  I was unsure that my children would really get into the fairly descriptive, not-exactly-cliff-hangar-chapters, but they ate it up! Sailing, adventure, independent children soaking up summertime bliss. Something about Ransome’s style just weaves enough magic into the story to make a solid impression on children aged 7-13 in this house! The only unfortunate thing is that while this book makes its way on lots of “best of” lists, not a lot of people make efforts to continue the series; the books are a bit lengthy… but so worth it.  We are knee deep into the sequel: Swallowdale in our family and loving every bit of it.

Don’t be mislead by the sweet cover. While it’s tempting to want to curl up with your 5 year old daughter with this for a cute innocent adventure (try Milly-Molly-Mandy for that), the book is admittedly best suited for slightly older children… maybe age 10 or so. Feuding and intrigue and happy endings… all taking place in the heat of the south. Grab some iced tea and enjoy!

So, it sounds like a Roald Dahl comedy: boy finds a bunch of monkeys who escaped from a circus train.  A large reward goes to whomever can return them to the owner.  But the book isn’t a funny book by design. It’s full of adventure and suspense and for the sake of all that is good, do NOT get the paperback version which has a photograph of the boy on the cover. Photograph covers on books constitute a cardinal sin in my opinion (more on cardinal publishing sins to come)—no room is left for a child to form his own personal impression in their own minds; photograph covers ruin imaginations! Anyway, it’s a great book!

We love Homer Price in this family!  He is just the bee’s knees if you asked my boys and easy, independent chapters of his adventures back in the ‘good ol’ days’ will be perfect for lazy summer reading… don’t forget the sequel! Light, enjoyable reading at its finest.

Boys only please (okay, I would’ve read and loved them as a tomboy ‘tween but your mileage may vary).  These guys have a clubhouse, impressive IQs and adventures galore that would fill your child’s brain with plain old good stuff during summertime.


Summertime is E.B. White time!  This is the time to bust out the glorious, early chapter books to your 5 and 6+ year olds.  Be it Charlotte’s Web or Stuart Little or The Trumpet of the Swan… all are so perfectly suited to long, slow summer days.  I re-read Stuart Little recently with my children and was reminded again at how unique White is in the children’s literature world: the ending is moving and poignant… but not your typical super-happy, loose ends tied up conclusion. Same with Charlotte’s Web now that I think about it. I remember feeling sad at the dear little spiders floating away to find their place in the world… (even though I can only WISH that spiders in my house would float away…)

Oh my! Oh my! Have you seen the “Puffin in Bloom” collection yet?! The covers are stunning!  Yeah, yeah, Heidi is fantastic summertime reading (watch out for the photograph covered editions, blech!). What could be greater than the Alps and a wild child and new friendships?! But seriously, check out this new cover by artist Anna Bond.  And there’s a whole set of them coming soon!  What a stunning gift even an individual title would make here.  Take a look at the individual covers here.

Often called “The boy’s Little House series”, Little Britches: Father and I Were Ranchers is great for boys and girls in my opinion.  And this title is where it all starts. And let me tell you: these stories are so incredibly satisfying for both parent and child. There is just enough of a hat tip to adult sensibilities to make these books fantastic for everyone.  I bought it on audio and we listened to it on our way to a camping trip last year.  So, so, so good. A must have for anyone who loves the value of hard work, simple humor, and excellent storytelling.

But of course!

Back in print! Back in print!  I’m so excited to find The Happy Hollisters revived in popularity. What is so lovely about this family of five children who get mixed up into lots of little mysteries and adventures is that they are always positive and fun. I devoured almost the entire series of these books when I was about 10 or so and longed for more titles. My cousin and I used to spend hours reading together, pretending we were just reading them to make fun of the funny, vintage language some kids used (“Gee whillakers!”) but that’s because we thought we were too cool to actually enjoy the fun in these books.  Thankfully, my children don’t think they are too cool for these books and they are eating up every copy I manage to acquire. They are all great reading, don’t need to be read consecutively, and some particularly summery titles are The Happy Hollisters on a River Trip and The Happy Hollisters at Sea Gull Beach…

 

* * * The Honorable Mention “Next 10″or “After Further Thought” Additions to this list. * * *

 

Share

Pace, Poetry and Passing on the Blessing

I’ve been thinking a lot about cadence and pacing in storytelling lately.  So many good things about that I want to discuss but I’m saving my thoughts for an article in the next issue of Soul Gardening.  So, you’ll have to wait for publication to hear all about it.

In the meantime, I received a little affiliate bonus again and I want to give away a beautiful book to someone: Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening. The book is illustrated by the fantastic Susan Jeffers… who breathes life into the delightful Robert Frost poem.

I chose this book for a couple reasons:

1- It’s the thick of winter right now… let’s enjoy the wonderful titles celebrating that…

2- This book is a perfect example of the importance in savoring the words on a page and letting them hang suspended in the air for a bit before turning the page.

3- I love books that are able to serve in making poetry very easy and accessible to children.  Using picture books is a great way to acclimate young ones to the study of, but more importantly, the enjoyment of poetry.

So there’s that.  I’ll pick a winner this Friday in some random but unscientific way.  To enter, just comment please with whatever it is you’d like to say… 🙂

****** CONTEST CLOSED *******

Share

A Picture Book Thanksgiving

In nearly thirteen years of married life, I have cooked exactly one turkey.  Thursday will mark my second attempt. I say attempt because the first was a failure of significant proportions. We went to a local farm on the island we lived on and agreed to pay a pretty price for one of the turkeys trotting about the premises.  Part of the agreement was that my husband and sons would get to come help kill the bird so our children would know that food doesn’t come from a freezer and we support a local economy, etc.  Lofty goals…

The bird was slaughtered; defeathered and sent home with excited young eyeballs proud to call it our own. I had never cooked a turkey before so I just winged it (I’m so punny!)… thinking it would be hard to screw up.  Well, I screwed it up.  Birds that have room to roam are ipso facto leaner birds. The meat needed a little bit of TLC to get that famous “Butterball” taste I was used to.  I didn’t really know what I was doing and we gnawed on tough meat with sacrificial spirits, rather than thankful ones… thinking about how much money we spent on this ‘quality’ ‘local’ meat.  At least the pie was good…

But I digress. We’ve somehow managed to get invited elsewhere or visit family for most of our other Thanksgiving holidays and so I’ve no real experience in developing solid family traditions for this day.  I am asked to please make sure Great-Grandma’s Sweet Potato Casserole gets made but everything else can pretty much come or go any given year.  Perhaps that’s why I’m not particularly excited about Thanksgiving-themed picture books.  I just don’t get really jazzed up about this holiday for some reason.  I have precisely the books I want to have and am not really licking my chops hunting for the newer and better ones that I’m certain exist (google “Thanksgiving picture books” and you’ll get an eyeful if you want).

So, realizing there has been a void in Thanksgiving posts since I started this blog 3 years ago, I’ll share with you what I have and a brief bit about why I have them, just for my die-hard dozen of curious people. But know that this isn’t a comprehensive list of all great books out there for Turkey Day by any stretch of the imagination.  I read these during the week prior to Thursday.

Squanto and the Miracle of Thanksgiving: This gives the story of Squanto obviously and I like having a first person focus for this story. It’s well done and offers a friendly bit of truth regarding Spanish Catholic monks that isn’t too common to see in secular history accounts.

The Thanksgiving Story: Tells the tale. The text is a tad lengthy but the art style is beautiful as to be expected.  This is the “official story” book I go to. This year, I’m reading it over a couple days as part of our school’s morning basket.

Cranberry Thanksgiving: I love Cranberry-ville! This is fun and fresh and not focused on the history at all.  Vintage… happy that Purple House Press brought these back in print.

Mousekins Thanksgiving: I wish Mousekin was back in print; he’s a Charlotte Masoner’s dream! This is a gentle tale, full of natural goodness typical of Mousekin and ends in a satisfying and sweet way that captures the ‘spirit’ of Thanksgiving generosity.

Three Young Pilgrims. For my younger children specifically to get a taste of history with the personal narrative to go with it.  It’s colorful and engaging.

N.C. Wyeth’s Pilgrims: I bought this when we were studying N.C. Wyeth as an artist.  The story is a faithful rendition of the original history but I really don’t make a point to read from this book so much as to just enjoy the pictures (Though the scene is picturesque and romanticized a bit, it’s still a good piece of Americana to get nostalgic about).

The Thanksgiving Door: Something off the beaten path a bit and full of Thanksgiving “spirit” again.  I like to find tales that get a new angle on this holiday because there’s only so many books you can read about the history before your eyes blur over.

p.s. Regarding seasonal out of print books. If you don’t already know this, they are horrifyingly overpriced when it gets close to that season.  Do not shop for OOP holiday books in the same month that the holiday is celebrated.  I buy my OOP Christmas books no later than October and shake my head as prices skyrocket just weeks later… so you have to think ahead of the game a little bit. 

Share

The First War

We’ve been studying World War I lately.  Seems like we spent forever on the Civil War and then just breezed right through the Industrial Revolution and immigration before going back to war again.  We are a bloodthirsty people… Lord have mercy.

In the literature world, World War I is often eclipsed in the horrors of World War II… but I still believe that picture books offer one of the best way to explore the issue with children.  They offer the perfect level of understanding whilst maintaining the dignity and compassion necessary to view war from a child’s perspective. World War II is a much bigger issue, with more literature options so we are saving it for next fall. Our entire study of this period of time is comprised of picture books:

Where Poppies Grow: A World War I Companion (an overview)
War Game: Village Green to No-Man’s-Land
The Language of Doves
The Letter Home
One Boy’s War
The Donkey of Gallipoli: A True Story of Courage in World War I (my favorite)

One book in particular Wings for Per — spans the timeframe of both the world wars in a unique way that offers a bit of continuity from a young Norwegian boy’s life.  It is very overpriced now, out of print, but I promised I’d post some pictures of the inside from my own, tattered copy:

Share

To a Publisher’s Shame

I picked up Autumn Harvest at the thrift store a while back with eagerness.  I immediately recognized the illustration style that made White Snow, Bright Snow a Caldecott Award Winner in the late 1940s. The same author, Alvin Tresselt, wrote Autumn Harvest and the same artist, Roger Duvoisin, illustrated it. This team also produced a quirky, quiet book called Hide and Seek Fog (itself a Caldecott Honor Book) and their work complements each other beautifully. One that I didn’t know about is called The Beaver Pond and while out of print, looks to be readily and economically available. Furthermore, Roger Duvoisin is the illustrator for other fantastic and popular books like Petunia and The Happy Lion too; his accomplishments and credibility can’t be denied.

Here’s my beef. Why—if you have such a lauded duo of picture book makers— would publishers let their other titles go out of print?!  Forget for a moment, the worthiness of other titles, isn’t there something to be said for celebrity power in the children’s literature world? But let it be known that Autumn Harvest is worthy! The story is simple, and slow. It’s a cycle of nature and lifestyle beginning with the earliest harvest season:

 After the threshing, timid filed mice scurried through the stubble to find what the machines had left. And chattering birds gathered in the hedgerows to feast on the fallen grain. Each night at sundown the katydids sang louder.  Katydid…katydidn’t…katydid…katydidn’t. Till the first frost tipped the maples with scarlet, and turned the elms to gold.

… and continuing on through the season until the farmer’s family gathers around the table for Thanksgiving. All the while accompanied by Duvoisin’s excellent, vintage drawings. I’m just not sure where the book goes wrong enough to get left in the publishing dust pile? Is it too dated or nostalgic?  Is it because the farmer is not PC and he smokes a pipe? What?! Why suffocate our children with other filth in print and avoid the riches of yesteryear?  I suppose it’s the vicious cycle with all consumerism: if people buy it, they produce it.  If they produce it, people buy it, if for nothing else than for lack of better options.  So who really is to blame them? Us? Them?

Whatever the case may be, don’t get all glittery eyed at the Barnes and Noble shelf of books when there are treasures waiting to be purchased second hand all over the place. Do some research. Don’t settle for pig slop. Buy books with wrinkles.

Share

Bargain Book Roundup!

Skimming through the current Bargain Books on Amazon can be daunting because there is so much chaff and very little wheat. But here are some notable hardcover books that are currently on sale for a good price! Get ’em while they’re hot!

The Donkey of Gallipoli: A True Story of Courage in World War I I just talked about how much I love Frane Lessac a couple weeks ago! I was so excited to see this book on sale, it’s my favorite WW1 picture book to date.

The Legend of Saint Nicholas Demi’s version of the story, criticized for having a Catholic bias. I hate to break it you everyone, but Nicholas of Myra was in fact, a Catholic bishop.

Martin de Porres: The Rose in the Desert This is a pretty new book on St. Martin. I bought it full price last year when it came out… so great was my curiosity. Some folks were a bit offended that the monks in here were portrayed as meanish or critical. I don’t know St. Martin’s story really well, but I do know that the Church is a hospital for sinners, not a hotel for saints… and that sometimes, holy people have faced more persecution from INSIDE the church than outside of it! So I was not too bothered by any biases that some saw in this book. It had lovely art and was a good primer on a wonderful man.

Louisa: The Life of Louisa May Alcott I just learned a little about this famous author and was surprised to find out that she never WANTED or INTENDED to write a book for girls! She had other material that her first publisher didn’t love and she was asked to write a story for girls… so she did, and did the sequels just to keep the bills paid. Despite the fact that those stories weren’t what was initially on her heart, she sure made a success of herself for generations to come!

The Trouble with Wishes This is a light, fun retelling of the famous myth about Pygmalion.

Pandora I love Robert Burleigh’s Hercules book and he writes a bunch of other excellent non-fiction titles as well.

Adèle & Simon in America I absolutely love Barbara McClintock; her illustrations are so old-world evocative… and this is a fun little look and find book for little eyes.

Seed by Seed: The Legend and Legacy of John “Appleseed” Chapman One of my favorite Johnny Appleseed picture books.

Snow Superb picture/text symetry here. This would be a great addition to anyone’s winter basket (the general part of this season sometimes gets overlooked in deference to the millions of Christmas season books…)

Close to the Wind: The Beaufort Scale I have not seen this in person yet, but it looks absolutely delightful and original and perfect for explaining not only the scale on which wind is measured but so many other nautical things too, lovely art!

Angela and the Baby Jesus A beautiful picture book embodying the “real meaning” of Christmas from the author of the famous Angela’s Ashes.

Merry Christmas, Curious George! I don’t generally advocate for commercial characters in picture books, but Curious George was cool before he became… well… cool. So if you have any young fans in your house who’d love a George Christmas book, this is your ticket…

Corn. Gail Gibbons may not author the most beautiful books on the planet, but they sure are excellent contributions to non-fiction topics. Corn would be a great addition to anyone’s harvest or autumn basket of books. I recently found Spiders at the thrift store for our Fall basket and think Corn would accompany that nicely!

Panorama: A Foldout Book I don’t know much about this book, but it looks intriguing and like it might make for a beautiful, unique gift. Here is a blog post I found describing it a bit more in depth.

Share

The Tale of Lazy Lizard Canyon… etc.

I’ve said before that asking a bibliozealot to choose a favorite book is like asking her to choose a favorite child.  And although I have dozens and dozens of “absolute, 100%, very, very favorite books”, I think I’m ready to back-peddle on that statement.  I do have a favorite book.  This post isn’t about that though… a thorough post on that is coming…

This post is about a title by the same illustrator: Doris Burn.  I have made a point to collect all the books that were written and illustrated by Doris Burn (there are only three and two are out of print).  But she has illustrated a half dozen books in addition to these.  A fellow Washingtonian, Doris Burn won my heart with Andrew Henry’s Meadow years ago. Then I stumbled on my precious, precious favorite which she illustrated We Were Tired of Living in a House.  I’m not linking it because I don’t want my unwitting readers to accidentally buy the new, awful version of that book… more on this later.

Last year, I acquired The Summerfolk and loved it.  This year, I finally got my hands on the missing part of the trifecta— I’ll offer pictures before commentary:

The first thing I noticed about the book was the departure from her earlier style of simple black and white sketching.  In this title, Burn uses a brown pencil wash which is actually quite fitting for the Old West themed story.
The story itself didn’t immediately grab me in the way her other titles have.  This is written in a true, olden time fashion.  Unlike modern cowboy books, Doris doesn’t shy away from whiskey, guns or brawls.  She tells it like it is to which many contemporary parents will probably stick up their noses.  The tale is of two feuding families ultimately brought together by a romantic, non-fighting son and a pretty lil’ Miss.  This isn’t something I would read to my 6 and under set, but my 8 and 10 year old boys found it to be amusing, while I found the writing… the STORYTELLING to be indeed very deliberate and authentic.  I don’t think you will find much in children’s picture books these days about the authentic Old West… fun, stylized versions, yes… but the nitty, gritty, dag-nabbit, root-tootin mess that it often was?!  Not likely.  So this book is nice to fill in that area.  
That said, it wasn’t an area that I felt essential to get into and I wouldn’t call this title a MUST-HAVE for anyone other than die-hard Doris Burn lovers like myself…

Share

Unspoken: Pick of the Week

I picked up Unspoken: A Story From the Underground Railroad thinking it was pre-Civil War but it is clearly in the midst of it.  It’s a wordless book (a genre of which I’m an admiring fan) and the pictures are muted pencil drawings throughout.  Unlike other Civil War stories, this doesn’t highlight either tragedy or heroism really… it just sort of shows a simple piece of reality in some “safe houses” where a little girl finds a runaway slave and acts to secretly help the person in small ways. The Confederate soldiers come by and the family has nothing to say…

A lovely book, best shared in a bigger context of the Underground Railroad, and other more complete Civil War studies.

Share

Electric Ben!!!

Yes, we’ve transitioned into Springtime and yes, it’s Easter and I missed out on blabbing all about my favorite Easter books because I tried to really limit my computer time during Lent.  I’ve been itching to share some goodies discovered and biblio-thoughts that have marinated over those 40 days but first I want to tell you all about Electric Ben: The Amazing Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin before I forget.

Benjamin Franklin is absolutely the BEST character for Revolutionary Era picture books.  His unique background and personality and lifetime accomplishments make him ripe for the memorializing… and there have been many books written about him.  So when I noticed a brand new one out by Robert Byrd, I was mildly surprised that publishers would consider any more books on Franklin. I mean, he’s not exactly a novelty in the picture book world and I wasn’t convinced an author could offer us anything fresh about the man.


Byrd has proved me wrong.  His book is absolutely a new essential for Franklinophiles and for students studying the birth of our nation (or electricity, or fireplaces, or printmaking, etc…).  The book is best suited for maybe ages 9 and up. It’s wordy and fascinating and the pictures, though quite well done are fairly small for the most part. The book is the epitome of a living book. It could honestly be a starting spine for an entire Revolutionary era study and use all the fascinating bits of Franklin’s life as jumping off points for other things. He covers science, the economy, politics, nation building, farming, weather… truly Franklin’s was a universal mind.

To be fair, there a number of excellent Ben Franklin books out there. We absolutely LOVE our How Ben Franklin Stole the Lightning for example. And the never disappointing D’Aulaire’s Benjamin Franklin is also on our bookshelf. But there was just something really special about Byrd’s new book. It was so thorough! Just so well done all around! So, take that for what it’s worth. But Benjamin Franklin is the quintessential American and if it seems random to praise his books on Easter Monday, so be it.

Share

A Lost Book of Thanksgiving Art

This year, we are doing artist studies in a way that highlights just one artist per school term… a new painting each week.  In our home, it looks a lot like this.  Anyway, to get my boys excited about art in general, I knew I had to introduce them to a very boyish, exciting artist first, before getting into things like Degas and the ballerinas.  Enter N. C. Wyeth.  He is an extremely prolific and wonderfully exciting artist for young boys (think pirates, cowboys and knights) and we had a lot of fun appreciating his work.  The problem is that there exists very little literature that tells us about the artist himself in a child-friendly way, and no real compendium of his work in the picture book world.  Or so I thought.  I just discovered N.C. Wyeth’s Pilgrims which is an out of print (but readily and economically available used) story of Thanksgiving from the perspective of his happy paintings and cheerful characters (Wyeth was a consummate American, even if this meant overlooking some of the darker realities of the Thanksgiving story).  We actually have a number of Thanksgiving books and weren’t necessarily looking for more– but this popped onto my radar just last week– and I had to buy it.  Even if we have moved onto Rembrandt (to correlate with a visiting exhibit coming to the Seattle Art Museum soon), the boys were excited to peruse the book and see some more paintings by this artist, larger than the 4 x 6’s I’ve been pinning on our board.  The story itself by Robert San Souci is fairly typical.  But the art is classic, and the notes about Wyeth in the end are great.  I’m surprised to not see it mentioned more often either in conjunction with artist studies, or with Thanksgiving itself.

Share