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Top 10 Wordless Picture Books

This article was originally written for and printed in the Spring 2012 issue of Soul Gardening Journal. I have since substituted in two titles (listed at the end) that came to my attention and taken out the original listings for The Silver Pony about which I had this to say: “This is a sort of strange, magical book that might not be guaranteed to win everyone’s hearts… but its peculiarity won mine.  I love the old fashioned, black and white sketches here.”  

And also I removed Rainstorm, originally saying this: “Barbara Lehman is more well known for her Caldecott honored The Red Book but this one tickles me just a bit more.  A young, well-to-do boy feels the restlessness and boredom of a rainy day before finding a magic key that offers him a magic portal into his imagination.  There’s something clean about Lehman’s illustrations that make her a refreshing read.”

Finally, I gave a shout out to one of my very favorite Christmas books ever: A Small Miracle and would also add The Snowman.

Willfully Wandering Wordless: A Top Ten List

Some of my very favorite picture books are completely devoid of words.  I used to sort of smile and write (no pun intended) these kinds of books off as novelties without any real sort of lasting merit.  But as my bookshelf space shrunk and my exposure to children’s literature grew, I was proven wrong… very, very wrong.
Wordless picture books can be an excellent vehicle for pre-readers who want to “read” books like big brother/sister.  They can serve beautifully for creative narration prompts too.  Instead of playing the memory game and asking your child “Okay, what was the story about”… to which they promptly regurgitate a couple of quoted sections word-for-word to show that they’ve been listening, kid’s are forced to tell a story in entirely their own words.  In the wordless world, it’s all about attention to the details, to sequencing, to the art of what’s happening.  Many are written in comic book fashion which gets little ones used to the concept of left to right to down directional reading.  Teachers have often used wordless books for question prompts to creative thinking: “What do you think he’s looking for?”  “Why might she be feeling sad?” etc.  Since none of the answers are ‘given away’ with text, even shy children might open up with some interesting interpretations.
With regards to wordless books in this family, my children take a few different approaches that are refreshingly different from the reactions I get with traditional picture books. My five year old son likes to take a wordless book off to a corner by himself and study it through.  Then he asks me to “read a story with him” which entails us sitting on the couch together while he tells me everything that’s going to happen on the next page.  He gets a giddy delight out of finally being the one in the know with a book, while I am simply the willing audience to his interpretation.  My seven year old boy does a great deal of personification in his life.  If he sees an image he likes with just enough figures for our family, he promptly names us all.  I am honored to have been labeled an ant, a banana, a Chinese spinster, and a flying frog among other things.  With wordless books, he’s in hog heaven describing who’s who and bringing in all the people from his real world into the story with unnamed characters.  My nine year old boy is a bit more like me with the wordless books.  He just curls up somewhere with a blanket and reads it quietly to himself, slowly turning the pages and letting his eyes feast on the artwork. The canvas is totally blank when it comes to these kinds of stories and imaginations can run wild.  Here is a Top Ten list of my very favorite wordless books, though it really is cruel to limit myself in this wonderful genre:

 The Arrival by Shaun Tan. This book is stunning and the artwork will weave you right into its spell.  I spent the better part of an hour reading this book by myself; it is living proof that picture books aren’t just for kids. I’d happily keep this surrealistic story of an immigrant on my coffee table.  While it was fun to go through with my children, the message really can be quite profound for adults too.

 Peter Spier’s Rain. A perfect springtime book full of lovely, poetic imagery.  Peter Spier is one of those wonderful authors that the world seems content to forget.  So many of his gems (some others are wordless also) are out of print and I curdle my nose in disgust sometimes to think of some the fodder that’s replacing his books at stores everywhere.

 Anno’s Counting Book by Mitsumasa Anno.  Get all of Anno’s books; you won’t regret it!  This book doubles as a superb and innovative counting book with folky artwork that I adore. Anno’s Journey is another title in this category that is a lot of fun to follow with children.

 Tuesday by David Wiesner. Wiesner is the master of the wordless genre.  While we love his Flotsam, Sector 7 and Free Fall too, this book about flying frogs (yep, that’s me!) on an adventure in the middle of the night wins my boys over every time.  These pictures are feast-worthy indeed.

 The Lion & the Mouse by Jerry Pinkney. Now Pinkney was fortunate here in that the story was already provided for him– remember that fable from Aesop about the mouse who helps out the lion?  Pinkney just happens to be an incredible artist who took this story for a beautiful spin in 2009 with the release of this book.

 A Boy, a Dog, and a Frog by Mercer Mayer. My very first introduction to wordless books was this one.  I love the size; I love the limited color scheme. I love all the sequels to this book. I have to admit that I came into it biased because Mercer Mayer illustrated my all-time, very favorite series of childhood chapter books–The Great Brain by John Fitzgerald– and I was delighted to see this kind of art again. One way to sneak out of the limiting Top Ten is to throw out other titles to reference by the same author. In this case, I’d point you to a very recent fun title by Mayer called Octopus Soup.
 The Boy, The Bear, The Baron, The Bard by Gregory Rogers. How refreshing!  Are you studying Shakespeare?  Add this to your unit to round out all the romantic, poetic imagery of the man.  Here a contemporary boy gets lost on a stage hosting the Bard himself who becomes enraged at the interruption and chases the boy through old London.  The great thing about graphic novels is that you get lots of bonus perspectives to complete the comic book boxes… so an extreme close up of Shakespeare’s face or a panoramic bird’s eye view of the city fill out the pages quite nicely.

 Mirror by Jeannie Baker.  Baker is a collage artist and she uses an assortment of materials, fabric and natural foliage to construct this very novel book.  It is testament again that wordless stories aren’t just for preschoolers; in fact I think you’d really need to be about eight years old at least to really appreciate what’s going on here.  When you open this book you have two stories side by side on each side the outside covers, so you are flipping pages from the inside binding to show the daily lives of an Australian child and a Morrocan child.  It’s a beautiful social studies lesson on the uniqueness of two very different cultures but the same threads of family, meals, and home life bind us all together.  Jeannie Baker is also well known for her other wordless story called Home which will be one of the subjects for some other season in this Book Basket column as I explore a couple of books that reflect on urban relationships.

Magpie Magic: A Tale of Colorful Mischief by April Wilson is a gorgeous and fun tale of words coming to life. I wrote about it a couple years ago: “The book a feast of imagery from the first person perspective as we see artist’s hands draw the magpie outside her window.  As any good story book would have it, the bird then comes to life and what happens next is a witty sort of duel between the bird and artist which ends in a very satisfactory way.” 

 Journey by Aaron Becker is one of the very best books of 2013.  There is something about the wordless genre that lends itself perfectly to fanciful travels or surreal experiences.  This book is that. A girl goes on an incredible journey in a very similar way to Harold did in Harold and the Purple Crayon. Exquisite details in this thoughtful book.

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Loving Lessac

Lately, I’ve been enjoying the work of a wonderful author and illustrator—Frané Lessac.  Her style is deceptively childlike: at first you see her paintings and think Psssh! My 8 year old colors like that! I guess anyone can illustrate children’s books. Then you look a little closer or turn a few pages and realize that her folk art is absolutely filled with thoughtfulness and detail… color and feeling.  This is more than what most children can do— Lessac has a bright ability to make stories come alive with innovative attention to detail.  And every new book I see illustrated by her, I inevitably love.

She spent part of her life living on the Carribean island of Montserrat and this has influenced her work heavily.  The story My Little Island  was the first encounter I had with her and I was struck with how fitting her style is with summery, beachy, island themes, similar I guess to the way that Jan Brett really shines brightest in her Scandinavian themed books.  The flavors of island life practically jump from the pages in My Little Island.  And they do this as well with Drummer Boy of John John which is a fun story about the upcoming festival of Carnival featuring lots of foot stomping, hand clapping onomatopoeia.

The next time I stumbled across Frané was when I picked up On the Same Day in March at the thrift store.  What a gem! I really love LIVING social studies books and this one immediately went into my homeschooling basket for my 2nd grade and under crew. It examines different parts of the world at the exact same time of year.  It is so fun to see the differences in weather and lifestyle!

Next I found Monday on the Mississippi at the library and marveled at how beautifully the text and pictures complemented each other.  This book takes the reader from the headwaters all the way to the Gulf of Mexico… I immediately pegged it as a great companion to Minn of the Mississippi and any other studies of this river or rivers in general.

I really loved Lessac’s illustrations in Queen Esther Saves Her People by Rita Gelman also.  I think it can be a challenge to translate many Bible stories into children’s books while retaining the story element. But this one absolutely brings the fantastic story alive and wonderful to kids while remaining faithful to the story of Esther.

Lastly, I want to highlight the best World War I picture book I’ve seen so far: The Donkey of Gallipoli: A True Story of Courage in World War I.  How do you bring the horrors of war into a picture book without horrifying young children?  I think the answer to this is in the art of storytelling and the way the pictures fill in the blanks.  For example, while Patricia Polacco’s highly acclaimed Pink and Say is a moving story taking place during the Civil War, I removed it from our collection.  I just had an aversion the graphic depiction of blood even if it was couched in beautiful sentiment.  But the Donkey of Gallipoli is balanced beautifully.  There are war scenes to be sure and the story doesn’t avoid the topic of death.  Yet, the folk style of Lessac really helps to soften the harshness of what is being read and the lovely story really is one that all children will enjoy.  The ending leaves us thoughtful and hopeful… not scared or disturbed.  Highly recommended!

Frané Lessac is a wonderful artist whose style is a refreshing and quirky change on my bookshelf of classic artists.  There are many other books she’s collaborated on not listed here which I am eager to get my hands on… and I understand she has many more in the works so keep your eyes open for her vivid bursts of delightful art.

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If You Want to See a Whale

I was eagerly waiting to get my hands on this book.  When Julie Fogliano paired her first story And Then It’s Spring with illustrator Erin Stead… it was a match made in Heaven and one of my very favorite books of last year.  I loved it so much that I did what I almost never do for children’s books: paid full price for it just to call it mine and see it sitting pretty in my springtime basket. So when If You Want to See a Whale came up, I snatched it up at the library and dove right in.

I had to read it twice. I wasn’t in the right mindset at first and I found myself getting lost in the lyrical side of it, wondering what the heck relevance this book had to a young reader. The pictures were gorgeous of course, and the text placement well thought out and the paper quality excellent… but I missed the magic boat initially.  So I read it again without my analytical, book critic glasses on.  It occurred to me that from the perspective of a young child, this book was a pure slice of lovely. Who cares if it was slightly off-center with where-is-this-going logic?!  I had to look at it the way I have to look at the genius of the incomparable A Hole Is to Dig for example.

      If you want to see a whale you shouldn’t watch the clouds, some floating by some hanging down in the sky, that’s spread out side to side or the certain sun that’s shining because if you start to look straight up you just might miss a whale.

I read an interview of Fogliano recently where she remarked that she loved working with Erin Stead because Stead often knew what she was trying to express better than she did. And I think this point is especially evocative in this story. The illustrations make the magic; they connect the sometimes disparate sentences.  Don’t get me wrong; the writing is great, and the cadence is well done… you just have to snuggle up with someone little and love it with them and for them to really appreciate it.

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Katie Morag

Do you know Katie Morag? We were just introduced last year when a dear godmother sent my son Katie Morag Delivers the Mail.  It was followed up this year with Katie Morag and the Big Boy Cousins. My (carrot-topped) son is now six years old and he pretends to be offended to receive books starring a female protagonist. But he’s still the first one to curl up next to me when I pull them out! As it is, the series of books are very popular in the U.K. and don’t seem to be as widely known here. Pity though, because they are lots of fun. Right away I was drawn to three things:

*It’s about islanders. Ever since living on Whidbey Island, I’ve developed a deep appreciation for island stories. There’s something about being an islander that is very different than living on the mainland and I like to catch parts of that in stories like Katie Morag or such…
*It stars a red-head. Call it the Pippi Longstocking syndrome, but since I have two redheads of my own now, I’m always drawn to gingers… who tend to be spitfires.
*It’s based in Scotland! Who doesn’t love a good Scottish brogue? You can almost hear it in the characters in these stories…
And of course there are the illustrations. They are reminiscent of Barbara Cooney in some ways, just perfect for this setting of a feisty, little girl who lives on an island off of Scotland. Mairi Hedderwick is a talented author/illustrator and I love how easily she depicts the simple island life. The stories are simple fun, they aren’t action packed adventures with high adrenaline or anything… just plain, easy going goodness. Hedderwick makes sure that she doesn’t romanticize the pastoral, island life too much though and she includes stories of different changes and things that happen. There are some adults who want to call these stories very socially PC nowadays: some non stereotypical roles fit into the stories: Granny Island always wears overalls and she’s very handy too. The father can be seen doing the dishes in an apron at one point. And apparently there was a Grandpa Island at one point but they are not married and I’ve yet to find anything objectionable with that rarely-mentioned situation. The books even include some adult humor, not anything objectionable but little things that the children won’t catch. There is one interesting thing to note about these stories:
Hedderwick has unwittingly become part of a censorship struggle as she commonly depicts Katie’s mother breastfeeding the baby. I personally love this (“Train ’em young!”) when it’s done tastefully but there is one image in Katie Morag and the Tiresome Ted in which the entire breast is exposed because the baby is looking back at his sister. (Here is the picture with the image blurred.) Some libraries have refused to stock the book because of this and Hedderwick’s editors were really skittish to want to leave it unedited. She has since said that she makes sure mother’s breast is now covered completely just to avoid the struggle with editors. I haven’t seen all the books so I’ll just take her word for it.
Still, if you are looking for something a little bit different and a little bit fun… Katie Morag might be just the ticket.
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Beach Books I’m Loving Lately

Make no mistake: this is not a post pretending to be comprehensive in any way regarding beach books. It’s simply a note of some beachy titles I pulled out of our collection or checked out from the library that we are reading and loving lately.  We are savoring this final douse of summertime here in the Puget Sound area…

 
 
 
“It’s a good rule after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another one till you have read an old one in between.”
-C.S. Lewis
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The Summerfolk

The Summerfolk by Doris Burn is an excellent summer story that is out of print and not too cheap to find unfortunately.  Because of my deep love for Doris Burn, I splurged the $11 on this used title and am happy to own it now.  But when I bought it, I knew nothing about its contents.  There were no reviews that really gave me any idea of what I’d be purchasing so I really took a leap of faith this time (knowing I had a solid foundation with all her other art, plus the story line of Andrew Henry’s Meadow).  So here today, is a brief review with pictures (I obviously didn’t try very hard to take good shadow-less photos; but you get the idea).  This is a story about friendship and dispelling prejudices and adventure of the best kind.

Willy Potts (who appears to be about 9-12 years old) and his dad dislike the tourists who visit the beach where they live each summer.  They are loud and reckless and an all around disruption to the simple, fisherman’s life Willy and his dad have.

“Thick as sand fleas and twice as pesky,” muttered Joe Potts.
“Summerfolk,” grumbled Willy.

But one day, Willy takes his rundown old boat into the swamp and meets a “summerfolk” who has created an exciting pirate ship raft that wants to pull Willy through the swamp to meet other kids with other strange abodes or boats.  They commence to pick up other strange, exciting, kind children with exotic names as Twyla Loo and Cork and Fedderly.  They eat and climb trees and tell stories and have a grand old time until it is time for the summerfolk to head home.

As you can imagine, Willy has quite changed his mind by now (still needs to convince his dad of this) and ponders carefully at the end of the story:

“I reckon there’s summerfolk and summerfolk.”

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Thrifting Swoon/On Challenging Your Children

I went to the Goodwill yesterday saying a little prayer as I went in that there would be some decent pants in the sizes of my two middle sons… they are in desperate need of some fresh knees to rip through.

No such luck. God, in His infinite goodness, did not allow such a mercy. But He did allow me to find a book that has been on my want list for a very, very long time:

Pagooby Holling C. Holling is the very first living science book that I read aloud to my children when my oldest was six years old. It was a very surprising hit. Kind of like how I was shocked when my six year old requested that we read Pinocchio (the original version) where the language is archaic and challenging, but they loved it! Children really ought to get their ears trained to hearing excellent vocabulary though. Don’t make the mistake of thinking they always need to be talked (read) down to. They will rise to the challenge. And when I taught myself to read at age four, whenever I came across words I didn’t know, I just sort of ignored them until they slowly came to meaning based on context. That’s how readers and writers are born. They get challenged with the words in their natural setting which they are exposed to often. If you yourself are uncomfortable with reading challenging books with your children, get the audio version! Play it in the car where they can’t escape the words which might ordinarily make them disinterested only because they are unfamiliar…

But I digress, I think if I were to read Pagoo again with their ages now (9, 7, 5), it would be even more popular. As it is, Holling C. Holling books are one of the more superior options you have in teachable stories. I mean, a lot, lot, lot of picture books really double as educational too… but these are something special. Each one is a perfect science or geography lesson in and of itself with a story wrapped up in it. And the art, which is usually a color spread on every other page, and more nature-journal black and white sketches with captions in between… is super. Do not expect a typical 15 minute story however, they are fairly dense. We spread our reading of it out over a week.

Pagoo is about the life of a hermit crab. We learned all about tidal creatures, life cycles of hermit crabs and fun little facts here and there. It was really easy to make it come alive for them when we went to the aquarium and could see real hermit crabs up close… and then I reinforced it with buying this excellent little companionfor our toy animal bin too.

Other books we’ve purchased (albeit full price) from this author are Minn of the Mississippiand Paddle-to-the-Seawhich we began reading when we studied the beginnings of European explorers in Canada last year. Excellent, excellent books. And who really needs pants when you have books?

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