Tag Archives: art

A New Noah’s Ark Book… and the Best One Yet

 Up until now, Jerry Pinkney’s gorgeous Noah’s Ark book was as good as one could ever hope for. I mean, it features his beautiful artwork and offers a faithful retelling of the story. I had no complaints and used it faithfully for my Jesse Tree Picture Book readings.

And then, along came the MET to one up him. Released a couple months ago is the most beautiful Noah’s Ark book on the market to date.  Linda Falkin’s Noah’s Ark takes the cake. This one is my new favorite, narrowly eeking past the Pinkney title just for the awesome art appreciation opportunities within its covers. The text is straight from the Bible and each page features a different artist’s full color, full spread reproduction of the famed scenes. It’s awesome and visually engaging and highly recommended. Anytime I can make the great masters part of my children’s everyday life, I will do so with gladness. If you own just one picture book on this story, make it this one.

Joseph_Anton_Koch_006 the_arkAurelio-Luini-Rising-in-the-Ark

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Nature Anatomy: The Curious Parts & Pieces of the Natural World, and a Giveaway!


“How many ways do I love thee? Let me count the ways…”

The find of the year (so far) for me is this piece of glory from Julia Rothman called Nature Anatomy: The Curious Parts and Pieces of the Natural World.  The entire thing is the what makes me love to homeschool (and I needed a new boost in loving that lately).  The book is fabulous, and everything one could wish for in a “textbook.”

First, it’s chock full of interesting facts covering various areas of geology, botany, biology, meteorology and astronomy.  In being such a broad book, do we turn up our noses claiming it can’t offer depth in any one area? Sure. You may look down if you like. But what it DOES offer is so beautifully presented and academically enriching that you’d be missing something great by choosing a dry science book over this one.

And then there are the illustrations. Folksy, detailed, handwoven with love and care and interest.  My goodness, I’m in love!

This author is the same one who brought us Farm Anatomy: The Curious Parts and Pieces of Country Life a few years ago. It had raving reviews but it was brand new to me this year.  I figured that I didn’t have a whole heckuva lot of interest in farm life on a technical scale so what would I get out of it?!  Little did I know that I’d lovingly turn each page in this too, admiring the art and the information each page provided.

Both books would be phenomenal springboards for deeper studies into any one area.  Nature Anatomy especially is such a breath of fresh air in this home.

I have the highly lauded (in Charlotte Mason circles anyway) Handbook of Nature Study and while the information in that is excellent, the photos are in greyscale and limited by their time period. And much to my ever-burning shame, it doesn’t get used nearly so much as I had planned. I’d like to think of this new Nature Anatomy filling in the gap in some way as being something fresh, useful, beautiful and worthy to include in our morning basket studies a few times a week. A must have in my opinion… you can virtually browse through it here.

I’m so in love with this book that I’m going to send it to one lucky person during this upcoming Easter season. I don’t know how I’ll choose a winner, but it’ll be non-scientifically random of course. If you have read through this post and are interested in receiving the book, just post a comment about something, anything, I don’t care— by Divine Mercy Sunday.  That day is my birthday and it would give me great delight to share the gift of this book with someone!

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The River: Something Strange and Something Beautiful

As if we needed more proof that picture books are not just for kids.  Along comes traipsing The River by Alessandro Sanna.  It’s a wordless wonder. I was struck immediately how art transcends culture so often.  Part of the beauty of wordless books is that the story is the same in Mumbai as it is in Miami. This title was created by an Italian artist who uses watercolors to illustrate the dramatic changes of life on a river over the course of a year.

I looked at the first few pages with my brow furrowed, seeing if I could get used to the dark, undulating painted water and sky and simple blobs for concrete objects.  But what I found after my initial skepticism gave way to the turning of each page… was kind of, sort of special. I just surrendered to a style that was not initially in my comfort zone of favorites and became engrossed in the passing scenery and brilliant use of light… like I was floating along in a hot air balloon just watching.  Outside perspective, unobtrusive. Nothing in your face or giving the first-person intimacy technique like some illustrations employ. Detached, the images still beckoned.

I especially liked how Sanna chose his springtime color motif. Not your typical pastels, but the bold violets of a crispy sunset and the hint of color in a semi-limited palette really will resonate with those Northern Hemisphere readers who don’t really experience “spring” until something like June.
The River is something different. It’s something that evokes the word beauty… but not in a way you necessarily anticipate in a traditional way… and I like that in a book.

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The Glorious ABC

If you haven’t surmised by now, I have a thing for alphabet books.  I also have a thing for Christmas books and wordless books and certainly other categories as well… but I really have a thing for alphabet books.  In fact, I probably need to make another top ten list because the first TWO lists weren’t enough!!! Just the challenge of finding a great theme and being able to execute each page of the book well… it takes skill and the thrill of the puzzle is what delights me.

Cooper Edens is a special sort of author/illustrator.  He is best known for his “horizontal storytelling” where the reader solves the string of “problems”… as can be seen in one of my very favorite gift-giving books (for people of ALL ages): If You’re Afraid of the Dark, Remember the Night Rainbow.

Well Edens thought it would be special to make a hall-of-fame picture book… one that celebrates many of the fantastic illustrators of picture book past and does a blessed fine job of it.

The Glorious ABC is a lovely diversion in picture book time travel. I had such a delightful time going through this book… and I wondered about how much fun it would be to come up with my own picture book titles “Hall of Fame” for each letter of the alphabet.  Possible I’m sure… and so many possibilities!

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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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What’s Your Favorite Animal?

I picked up What’s Your Favorite Animal? on a whim and was happily surprised to find it as satisfying for adults as it is for children. (That’s the test of great children’s literature you know!)  In it, there is a medley of picture book artists who submitted illustrations of their personal favorite animal and a small anecdote or explanation why.  It’s great fun comparing the different styles of art and well-read children will find it a fun piece of trivia to see if they can match the artwork with the books they have previously read by that particular artist.  Some are obvious… like Eric Carle. Others require just a pinch more thought: like Peter Sis.  At any rate, it’s a fun little diversion from typical picture book fare and something any bibliozealot can appreciate!

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Music, Mozart and Riots in Paris over Russian Ballets

How very sad that history is so tragically boring for so many students. I feel like I got the short end of the stick in growing up not interested in history. This is why I’ve made it my personal mission to bring people and cultures and events and pasts alive and relevant to my own children. Picture books are an amazing help in this category. Currently in the thick of the American Western Expansion as well as Ancient Rome, I’ve been glued to the stories my children and I read together. Who knew it could be so fascinating?! The story of mankind is downright riveting!

As it is, we utilize picture books a lot to learn about composers and music. The stories behind some of the greatest music in the world are tremendously compelling. The first dip into living music history has been brought to us courtesy of the books by Anna Harwell Celenza and I’ve even used her books as spines for which composer we study. (Still waiting on Mozart Anna! Will I have to settle for the nice but incomplete The Magic Flute: An Opera by Mozart? Or try to find a copy of the tragically out of print Mozart Finds a Melody?Thankfully, Diane Stanley offers us a good biography to start with: Mozart: The Wonder Child).  Each of Celenza’s books doesn’t try to give a biographical sketch of the composer (like some other good picture books out there) but rather focuses on the individual story that inspired a particular piece of music, e.g. Beethoven’s joy and then dissilusionment about Napoleon with The Heroic Symphony or the homesick musicians who put their feet down with Haydn’s Farewell Symphony, etc. Her latest installment is Vivaldi’s Four Seasons which is at the top of my wish list!

As it is, finding picture books on some of the less famous composers is much more difficult. This is why I was particularly delighted to read Lauren Stringer’s newest book: When Stravinsky Met Nijinsky. The story is my favorite kind for my multi-aged family. Simple and easy for my 6 year old to understand and enjoy and with comprehensive end-notes for my 10 year old to research further into it. Stringer illustrated the book in her typical bold colorful way but with added meaning:

Dance and music were not the only arts undergoing colossal change at the beginning of the twentieth century. All of the arts were exploding in new compositions, colors and dimensions. In celebration of that change, I have made reference to many of my favorite paintings from that time throughout this book. To illustrate when Stravinsky and Nijinsky first met in 1911, I found inspiration in elements of The Red Studio by Henri Matisse, painted in the same year. Cubism took the art world by storm in 1907… several of my illustrations reflect cubist influence on that angular, flattened choreography of Nijinsky and the fractured, dissonant chords of Stravinsky’s music…

The story is about The Rite of Spring and how that came to be. The extraordinary thing about this is how one 34 minute ballet could cause a riot in 1913 Paris! The audience was so taken aback by the very novelty of the music and dancers that they protested and argued and threw punches over whether it was a disaster or brilliance!

My kids, so saturated in such a wide variety of music and dance nowadays found this to be quite perplexing and amusing. Stringer’s website provides an activity guide for this book that makes the entire story an excellent cornerstone for a unit study. History is thrilling indeed!

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An Open Letter to Oliver Jeffers

Dear Oliver Jeffers,

     Your books are quite simplistic.  And sometimes strange.  And always fun to look at.  For that, I love you. You first won the hearts of my children when one of them found the book The Incredible Book Eating Boy. They were horrified that the child who’d checked the book out previously from the library had taken a bite out of it and then had the audacity to return the book– unpaid!
     Still, though the book was a fun little diversion, we didn’t bother noticing the author’s name on the cover. Your artwork wasn’t the classically beautiful Robert McCloskey or Jan Brett type after all. It takes a quirky heart to appreciate both the figures and the humor you play with. It wasn’t until we chanced across the video of you reading Stuck, that we finally woke up, recovered from our giggles and went searching for more of your titles (having a soft spot for author/illustrators, see). And then, we feasted. The kids enjoyed The New Sweater, likening it to Max Lucado’s If Only I Had a Green Nose in chronicling the perils of peer pressure. I especially loved the page of the Huey who had the word “Want” written above him when he first saw the sweater.  After this, we delved into the adventures of the Boy and agreed that we liked him best in How to Catch a Star.

But the manner in which you really won my heart Mr. Jeffers, came about quite unexpectedly and in an improbable title.  It happened in the book This Moose Belongs to Me.  The book itself is absurd of course and makes no sense and I was about to miss the whimsy train when all of a sudden, I read it.  What may be the very best line ever written in children’s books since the ridiculous “Goodnight Nobody” line from Goodnight Moon. You wrote:

But in his haste, and miles from anywhere, he tripped over his string and got tangled up.  And there he lay.  Wilfred was beginning to get a little bit worried.  It was getting late and the monsters would be out soon.  He had just ruled out the last of his options… when along came the moose…

 Just like that.  In passing.  In an extraordinary sense of the perfect understanding that monsters are a real phenomenon (as any child knows of course) and could be brought up casually in a story that had nothing whatsoever to do with monsters.  For that, and for this super excellent video on how you make your books, I will forever count you among my favorites.

Love, etc.

A Fan

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The Birthing Process of a Picture Book

This is a really interesting video about how the extraordinary David Wiesner came to envision and create his book Art & Max. Incidentally, the book is bargain priced right now on that link. But even if you don’t buy it, check it out from the library or at least watch this video with your kids. On the amazon website, if you scroll down there are some neat images of Wiesner’s preliminary sketching for the story. It’s pretty neat to learn how a book was conceptualized and subsequently developed for publication:

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