Hans Brinker

It was snowing when we went upstairs last night.  I tucked both kids (and myself) into Leo's big bed with a new picture book:  Hans Brinker, retold by Bruce Coville and illustrated by Laurel Long (Dial, 2007).  Right away there was a lot of ooh-ing and aah-ing over Long's lush, luminous paintings of snow-covered Dutch towns and landscapes.  The snow seems to sparkle (and inside, the candles glow).  Then we discovered that the story really begins on the eve of St. Nicholas...and of course, last night was the eve of St. Nicholas.  It was the perfect book for us to be reading together.

Coville does a wonderful job with this adaptation of the novel by Mary Mapes Dodge, first published in 1865 (see the Holiday High Notes from the November/December 2007 issue of The Horn Book for a review).  The story is somewhat complicated:  there is the race for the silver skates on one hand, and the situation surrounding Hans's father, who lost his memory after an accident ten years before, on the other.  Leo was intrigued by the mystery of the missing thousand guilders (and the origin of the silver watch; see, I told you it was complicated), and he was excited to learn the outcome of the race (spoiler alert: Hans does not win).  Milly might have fallen asleep, but she's only three and it was past her bedtime.  As for me, I especially liked the character of Hans, who is "strong of heart and true of purpose" (Coville, in an adaptor's note):  a good role model for my own sturdy boy (and girl).

[Happy St. Nicholas Day!  To learn more about St. Nicholas and how his day is celebrated in Holland around the world, go to the website of the St. Nicholas Center:  Discovering the Truth about Santa Claus.]

Aesop Elementary

The Fabled Fourth Graders of Aesop Elementary by Candace Fleming (Shwartz and Wade, 2007) was a Washington Post KidsPost Book of the Week way back in October (the winning entries in the KidsPost fable-writing contest were printed in today's paper).  While I think everyone should know (if not love) the originals, I really like the idea of recasting Aesop's animal fables with kids, and retelling (or completely rewriting) the fables in an elementary school context.  Each of the fourth-graders in Fleming's book gets his or her own short school-themed chapter or "fable", complete with moral; there is also a romantic subplot involving the fourth-grade teacher and the school librarian that runs the course of the school year.  Warning:  the book itself is very punny!

This article by Judy Freeman in School Library Journal online (Curriculum Connections, 11/8/2007) has lots of good suggestions for teaching with The Fabled Fourth Graders.  First among them is reading the classic fable along with the corresponding chapter of the book (compare and contrast!).  If you're so inclined, or if you're just interested in reading Aesop's fables, these are my two favorite picture book editions:

• The McElderry Book of Aesop's Fables by Michael Morpurgo; illustrated by Emma Chichester Clark (McElderry, 2005).  Also my kids' favorite.
• Unwitting Wisdom:  An Anthology of Aesop's Fables retold and illustrated by Helen Ward (Chronicle, 2004).  More sophisticated retellings.

Mr. Fox really is Fantastic

Many thanks to Susan T. at Chicken Spaghetti for her Poetry Friday post featuring a "jaunty little song" from Roald Dahl's Fantastic Mr. Fox.  Leo and I started Fox last night and finished it this afternoon almost as soon as he got home from school.  It was great fun to read aloud, and perfect for us to read together (I had to resist the temptation to read ahead after Leo went to bed).  I also had to reassure Leo that the Fox family would be fine in the end more than once (I guessed; thank goodness I was correct!).

To be fair, farmers Boggis, Bunce, and Bean pose a credible threat to the foxes, and the book is fairly explicit about what might happen to them ("How will they kill us, Mummy?" asked one of the Small Foxes.  His round black eyes were huge with fright.  "Will there be dogs?").  In spite of (or perhaps because of?) that, Leo and I were compelled to keep reading, at breakneck pace, until we had reached the very happy, for the foxes at least, end.

At dinner (from Boggis's Chicken House Number One, natch), we talked about when and whether it was right for Mr. Fox to steal from the farmers.  I like that Dahl deals with this dilemma in the book itself (see Chapter 14, Badger Has Doubts), although he leaves a lot of room for discussion.  A good kids' book club pick!

[By the way, have you heard that there is a Fantastic Mr. Fox movie due out next year?  George Clooney is the voice of Mr. Fox.  No, really!]

Bella Dia's Christmas Book Advent

Cassi Griffin is celebrating Christmas Book Advent on her craft blog, Bella Dia.  She'll post a book (or two) and a corresponding project to do with your kids on each day leading up to Christmas.  The first book is Snowflake Bentley by Jacqueline Briggs Martin (illustrated by Mary Azarian; Houghton Mifflin, 1998); the project:  cutting snowflakes, of course.

Today's post features my favorite Robert Sabuda book, Winter's Tale (do I have to note that it's a pop-up book? It's Robert Sabuda!).  This one was inspired by the artist's walks in snowy Michigan woods.  I love the woodland birds and animals he recreates in these intricate white paper pop-ups:  owls and foxes, reindeer and squirrels.  Learn how to make some simple pop-up cards at Sabuda's website:  my favorites are the Christmas Tree and Bird House (the bird flies away when you open the card).  Paper magic!

Fall Book Basket

The fall books are back on the shelf today.  I pulled them from here and there around the house in September and put them all together in a new basket just for seasonal books.  I'm not sure if we read them a lot more than we would have anyway, but at least they were easier to find when we did want to read books about back-to-school, Halloween, autumn leaves, and Thanksgiving.  Some new books found their way into our fall book basket this year, too:

We Gather Together: Celebrating the Harvest Season by Wendy Pfeffer; illustrated by Linda Bleck (Dutton Children's Books, 2006).  Non-fiction picture book about harvest celebrations from the past that are still carried on all over the world today.  We also added two of Bleck's retro-inspired Pepper the Dog books ("Pepper plays, pulls, and pops!") to our collection (Milly insisted).

How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin? by Margaret McNamara; illustrated by G. Brian Karas (Schwartz & Wade Books, 2007).  This one inspired an afternoon of seed counting (by twos, fives, and tens) at our house.  I really like Karas's illustrations, from the autumnal palette to the many multicultural faces of the children in Mr. Tiffin's class.  Perfect all season.

Boo and Baa Have Company by Lena and Olof Landstrom (R&S Books, 2006).  I like Swedish children's books in general, but we all adore Boo and Baa.  The droll, deadpan text and the remarkably expressive illustrations of these two googly-eyed and clueless sheep work together perfectly: the result is hilarious.  Apparently there is a whole series of Boo and Baa board books which are not readily available in the States (believe me, I've looked).  Good thing I can read this one over and over again and still think it's great.

Most of our seasonal books come from the library:  we go at least once at week, and we have lots of books out at a time.  These we get to live with all year round, even when it's not their turn in the seasonal book basket.

[Thank you for your patience with the last of this year's fall books.  Now it's time for winter...and Christmas!]

Scholastic Book Fair Blizzard

I helped set up the Scholastic Book Fair at Leo's school this morning.  This is the third year I've volunteered to work the fair, and I think it's the best one yet.  There are a lot of good books in the cases (Clementine, available in paperback, and The Talented Clementine are in there), and not as much non-book merchandise cluttering things up as there has been in the past.  I'm still a little uncomfortable with the way the books are marketed to students:  last year, they watched a video about some of the featured books; and each class visits the book fair twice, once to write a wish list and once to shop.  But the kids (not just mine) are obviously excited about it, and so are the parents.  It's a great event for the school.

This year's theme is Book Fair Blizzard, so there are two tables of snowy-looking books on display (Jan Brett's The Three Snow Bears and Susan Jeffers's The Snow Queen are there).  I like snow books, so I'll be sure to check those out.  My new book, however (yes, I got a book already; I paid myself for setting up at the fair) didn't come from the snow tables:  it's a nice paperback edition of Princess Academy by Shannon Hale (I'm probably the last person to read this book, I know), with the original cover art by Tim Zeltner.  Sure enough, I think that's snow.

Books that Cook: Bee bim bop!

[Books that Cook:  An occasional feature in which the Books Together Test Kitchen (that would be me and my kids) prepares a recipe from the back of a picture book.] 

Milly and I brought Bee-bim bop! by Linda Sue Park (illustrated by Ho Baek Lee; Clarion, 2005) home from the library one day and were making the title dish for dinner the next.  Its catchy refrain, "Hungry hungry hungry / for some BEE-BIM BOP!" was certainly true at our house.  Park's picture book is just plain fun to read aloud, and she makes cooking dinner, which can be a chore, sound like fun, too.  Best of all, bee-bim bop--or "mix-mix rice"--also sounded like something everyone (kids included) might actually eat.  Bonus!

Park's recipe for this popular Korean dish fills a double-page spread at the back of the book.  Single-spaced.  But the ingredient list, while long, consists mostly of items you probably already have in your pantry (the only thing we had to buy were mung beans, and next time we won't even buy them); and the cooking instructions aren't complicated, they just have many steps.  Park helpfully notes what children and grownups should do at each step.  Leo and Milly mostly measured and mixed while I chopped and cooked; there was enough to keep us all busy for about 30 very intense minutes.  Then our bee-bim bop was ready to bee-bim and eat!

Notes from the Test Kitchen

• If you like a lot of extra juice for your rice, make double the amount of marinade and stir-fry the meat in a very large frying pan.  The marinade smells (and tastes) delicious!
• Substitute the vegetables for ones you know your kids like.  Park uses carrots and spinach; next time we might try red pepper and broccolini.
• Wash pots pans and dishes as you go.  Everything cooks in a separate pot and is served in a separate dish.
• The kids loved being able to choose what and how much of it to add to their rice.  Make sure they choose some vegetables (Leo, that means you).
• Next time we (the grownups) are going to try it with spicy ko-chee-chang and kimchi for a little extra kick.

We all had a lot of fun making--and eating--this dish.  Almost as much as we did reading the book!  Park has worked as a food writer, and it shows:  the recipe was written with care, and it's a real asset to the book.

The Provensens' Beowulf

This essay by Blake Gopnik in the Washington Post (11/22/2007) compares reading Beowulf to watching the movie.  Gopnik, who went on to do medieval studies at McGill, recalls that "[His] first encounter with Beowulf came as a kid, in a surprisingly uncleaned-up version from The Golden Treasury of Myths and Legends [adapted by Anne Terry White; 1959].  I still think the spare modernism of the book's images, hand-drawn by the great American illustrators Alice and Martin Provensen, comes closer to capturing the intensity of the ancient original than the $150 million movie's industrial light and magic ever does."  Well, that's not surprising, I thought, they're the Provensens.

Wait--the Provensens' illustrated a book of myths and legends?  I must have it!  Seriously, I've been looking for just such a book to read to Leo.  I didn't grow up with the D'Aulaires, either Greek or Norse (I got my mythology from a tattered Edith Hamilton paperback), so there is no obvious choice.  I have hopes for the collections of Greek and Roman myths retold by Geraldine McCaughrean and illustrated by Emma Chichester Clark, but what about the Norse?  Recommendations most welcome.  Thanks!

Carnival of Children's Literature: Making simple books

The theme for this month's Carnival of Children's Literature, hosted by MotherReader, is tips.  I have one to add to the list of great tips posted on Jen Robinson's Book Page and at The Miss Rumphius Effect for parents who want to encourage their kids to love books and reading:

• Make your very own books.

The simplest books you can make consist of nothing more than 3-4 sheets of copy paper with a construction paper or cardstock cover, folded widthwise and stapled twice.  Make a stack of them to have on hand.  I think this size is perfect for most of the books younger kids will want to make.  It also makes a good journal for short trips of all kinds (you'll want to pack some colored pencils and tape or a glue stick, too).

[I made journals like these for myself and the kids the night before we left for Philadelphia.  They were inspired.  I wish I had a photograph of Leo's journal to share:  it's filled to bursting with hand-written notes, drawings, and trip-related paraphernalia.  He loved the process of putting it together.  Milly did, too:  she wrote her name across the first two pages of her journal, and drew a picture of the dog "because I miss him" on the next (Milly's three).  We keep both journals on the travel shelf with the other guidebooks, for the next time we go to Philadelphia.]

This website is (or rather will be, among other things) about making book-related things with and for your kids.  These little staple-bound books are one of my favorites.  I'll post some variations on them (using different kinds of paper for the text block, experimenting with sewn bindings) in the coming weeks.  Thanks for visiting!

Expanding Horizons Challenge

I'm excited about participating in the Expanding Horizons Challenge started by Melissa at Book Nut.  I read a fair amount of books by authors who are not just white/non-white, but most of those books are by authors of Spanish or Latin American descent (full disclosure:  I'm Cuban-American myself).  For this challenge, I'm reading four children's or YA novels written by Native American authors.

• The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie (Little, Brown 2007).  As if I needed an excuse: this one's been on my hold list at the library for weeks.  I'll be reading The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Dominican-American author Junot Diaz (Riverhead, 2007; this one's for adults) along with it:  I think these two novels will have a lot to say to each other.
• The Birchbark House by Louise Erdrich (Hyperion, 1999).
• The Winter People by Joseph Bruchac (Dial, 2002).
• Rain Is Not My Indian Name by Cynthia Leitich Smith, (HarperCollins, 2001).

I tried to balance the list between historical and contemporary fiction, male and female authors, books I know something about already and books I'll be coming to with no prior knowledge.  The pages on Cynthia Leitich Smith's website highlighting children's and YA books by Native American Indian authors were enormously helpful in compiling this list.  Other helpful resources include Oyate and Debbie Reese's American Indians in Children's Literature blog.

I'll post a review or response for each book as I finish it as well as a wrap-up post when I've completed the challenge.  Thanks, Melissa:  I'm looking forward to it!