books together

From Los Gatos Black on Halloween by Marisa Montes; illustrated by Yuyi Morales (Henry Holt, 2006):

Los gatos black with eyes of green,
Cats slink and creep on Halloween.
With ojos keen that squint and gleam--
They yowl, they hiss...they sometimes scream.

This book won the 2008 Pura Belpre Medal for Yuyi Morales's richly atmospheric paintings, which reflect the traditions of both Halloween and the Mexican Day of the Dead.  It also won a Pura Belpre Honor for Marisa Montes's rhyming text about a monster's ball on Halloween night that is interrupted by the arrival of [spoiler alert!] trick-or-treaters.

Montes incorporates some spooky Spanish words: see above as well as, for example,
la bruja (witch), el esqueleto (skeleton), la calabaza (pumpkin), and medianoche (midnight).  I like that the Spanish words are specific to the Halloween context; this helps integrate them into the text.  The text itself is sometimes redundant (I don't think the English word is always required, especially when there are context clues, illustrations, and a glossary), but that doesn't seem to bother the kids.

What does bother them are those gorgeous, glowing paintings.  Too scary!  Maybe next year.

[The Poetry Friday Round-up is at Becky's Books Reviews today.]

I suppose I should be pleased that the cat in Caroline Lazo's charming picture book Someday When My Cat Can Talk (illustrated by Kyrsten Brooker; Schwartz and Wade, 2008) made it to Spain on his European adventure at all.  But here's what he has to say about it:

He'll talk about events in Spain--
like bullfights every spring.
And he'll praise himself for stopping one
by jumping in the ring.

At the back of the book, Lazo notes that "[b]ullfighting is Spain's best known and most-unusual spectacle, but today many people think it is cruel to kill bulls--or any animals--for sport, and hope it will end soon."  While I'm not accusing Lazo of perpetuating the leyenda negra in picture book form, I'm disappointed that she chose bullfighting to represent Spain.  No other country is represented negatively.  Next time, may I suggest that the cat make a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, read Don Quijote, dance flamenco or visit the Alhambra instead?

[Disclaimer:  No bulls were harmed in the writing of this post.  And the Poetry Friday roundup is at author amok.  Thanks!]

My favorite picture book edition of Edward Lear's The Owl and the Pussycat is, not suprisingly, James Marshall's.  I love that the "beautiful pea-green boat" is a cruise ship, the S.S. Dorabella.  The watercolor sketches for this book were Marshall's last work.

Lear himself did not finish "The Children of the Owl and the Pussycat," portions of which were published posthumously.  Here are the opening lines:

Our mother was the Pussycat,
our father was the Owl,
And so we're partly little beasts
and partly little fowl.

The brothers of our family
have feathers and they hoot,
While all the sisters dress in fur
and have long tails to boot.

We all believe that little mice,
For food are singularly nice.

[Poetry Friday roundup at Biblio File.]

I love narrative poetry for children, like "Wynken, Blynken, and Nod" (Eugene Field) and "The Owl and the Pussycat" (Edward Lear).  Also for grownups:  "The Highwayman" (Alfred Noyes; thank you, Charlotte) and "The Farmer's Bride" (Charlotte Mew).  The latter was the Poem of the Week on the Guardian Books blog this week (thank you, Carol Rumens); like "The Highwayman," it is a dark and lovely love poem.

The Farmer's Bride

Three summers since I chose a maid,
Too young maybe - but more's to do
At harvest-time than bide and woo.
When us was wed she turned afraid
Of love and me and all things human;
Like the shut of a winter's day.
Her smile went out, and t'wasn't a woman -
More like a little frightened fay.
One night, in the Fall, she runned away.

"Out 'mong the sheep, her be," they said,
'Should properly have been abed;
But sure enough she wasn't there
Lying awake with her wide brown stare.
So over seven-acre field and up-along across the down
We chased her, flying like a hare
Before our lanterns. To Church-Town
All in a shiver and a scare
We caught her, fetched her home at last
And turned the key upon her, fast.

[Read the rest here.]

[The Poetry Friday round-up is at Wild Rose Reader this week.  Thank you, Elaine!]

The poem in my pocket yesterday was a childhood favorite: "Los zapaticos de rosa" by Cuban poet Jose Martí (picture book edition illustrated by Lulu Delacre; Lectorum, 1997). I chose it in honor of my mother, whose birthday was yesterday, too. When I was little I used to make her recite it to me every night before bed. She knows it by heart; the way, I suspect, many Cubans (and Cuban-Americans) do. These are the opening lines:

Hay sol bueno y mar de espuma
Y arena fina, y Pilar
Quiere salir a estrenar
Su sombrerito de pluma.

¡Feliz cumpleaños, Mami!

[This week's Poetry Friday roundup is at The Well-Read Child (which also happens to be one of my favorite kidlit blogs).]

I think the best Valentine is a poem.  Preferably one written just for you.  The little boy in this book by Cynthia Rylant (illustrated by Fumi Kosaka; HarperCollins, 2005) writes a simple Valentine poem for everyone in his family, plus the cat, the dog, his teddy bear, and the bird that sings outside his window.  Each of the poems (there are ten of them) has the same format:  they all begin with "If you'll be my valentine" and go on to say, in four short lines, what the little boy will do with or for the recipient in return.  The one he writes to his mother is (not surprisingly) my favorite:

If you'll be my valentine
I'll pour our tea at three.
Spicy cookies
and an orange
just for you and me.

Okay, it's a simple poem (a little boy is supposed to have written it, after all).  But I love the specificity of it:  tea is at three (the illustration of the boy and his mother having tea shows the clock in the background); the cookies are spicy.  Also that the boy is doing something with his mom that she would particularly like, although he is certainly enjoying it, too.  This is true of all the poems:  in another, the boy promises to pull his little sister in the wagon so "we can sing and talk."  Milly, a little sister herself, likes that one best.

I had planned to write an acrostic poem for each of the kids and my husband this Valentine's Day.  I still might (even though my husband's name has an X in it, and it's hard to work an x-ray or a xylophone into a Valentine).  Or maybe I'll write these instead:  5 lines, first line "If you'll be my valentine," last four lines ABCA and a promise to do something special together.

The illustrations in this rhyming picture book won an unusual award:  Best in Show at the 2006 International Quilt Festival in Houston.  They began as a single quilt inspired by quilt artist Sieglinde Schoen Smith's favorite children's book, Etwas von den Wurzelkindern ("Something About the Root Children"). Written by Sibylle von Olfers, it was originally published in Germany in 1906.  Mother Earth and Her Children:  A Quilted Fairy Tale (Breckling Press, 2007) is the English translation of that book, illustrated entirely with details from Smith's award-winning quilt.  Yes, that cover image is from the quilt.

Renowned fairy tale scholar Jack Zipes translated von Olfers's short text about the changing seasons into English rhyming verse for the first time.  Here are the Root Children getting ready for spring:

"All are quick and ever ready
To sew spring clothes. Their hands are steady.
With needles, scissors, spools of thread,
They measure and cut, full steam ahead.

And when the children's clothes are done,
Kind Mother Earth admires each one."

I like the way these lines now recall Smith's work "with needles, scissors, spools of thread" as well as the Root Children's.

[This is the English edition with the original art by von Olfers (Floris Books, 1980) that inspired Smith; plus an article about copyright responsibility re: Mother Earth and her Children.  In case you're inspired to recreate your favorite picture book in some other medium.]

The 34 concise poems in this collection, Bronzeville Boys and Girls by Gwendolyn Brooks, illustrated by Faith Ringgold (Amistad, 2007) were first published in 1956.  They are just as fresh and appealing today; maybe even more so in this newly illustrated edition by Ringgold, whose paintings of the neighborhood houses and children are a perfect match for Brooks's poems [compare the cover of the original edition below].  I love that each poem has a name (Keziah, Nora, Tommy):  the name of the child it speaks for or about.  Ringgold, in "About Bronzeville Boys and Girls," says "[Brooks] reminded us that whether we live in the Bronzeville section of Chicago or any other neighborhood, childhood is universal in its richness of emotions and new experiences.  We are all Bronzeville boys and girls."  I think she's right:  at least I recognized myself (child and adult) in more than one of these poems.

From "Eunice in the evening:"

What is so nice in the dining room
Is--Everybody's There!
Daddy on the long settee--
A child in every chair--
Mama pouring cocoa in
The little cups of blue.
(And each of us has leave to take
A ginger cookie, too.)

Highly recommended. 

[The original cover art by Ronni Solbert.]

We spent last Saturday morning at the Gargoyle's Den, a workshop for families held every week from 10-2 in the crypt classroom of the Washington National Cathedral.  Lots of projects:  Leo and Milly loved it.  The classroom has a nice collection of cathedral-themed picture books, too.  This poem is from A Gargoyle on the Roof by children's poet laureate Jack Prelutsky; pictures by Peter Sis , whose distinguished work as an author and illustrator I admire (Greenwillow, 1999).

Mother Gargoyle's Lullaby

The moon and stars have vanished,
The long dark night is through,
Another day is dawning,
The sky is clear and blue.
The morning sun is rising,
It's climbing overhead.
My precious baby gargoyles
Should snuggle into bed.  [continues]

Other picture books about gargoyles:

god bless the gargoyles by dav pilkey (Voyager, 1999).  Look at this book for the gorgeous paintings (made with acrylics, watercolors, and India inks).  One was inspired by Edward Hopper's Nighthawks.

Night of the Gargoyles by Eve Bunting; illustrated by David Wiesner (Clarion, 1994).  Gargoyles on a museum building come to life at night in Wiesner's black-and-white charcoal drawings.

Good King Wenceslas; original carol by John M. Neale; illustrated by Tim Ladwig (Eerdmans Books for Young Readers, 2005).

"Good King Wenceslas look'd out

on the feast of Stephen,

when the snow lay round about,

deep and crisp and even."

Ladwig, working in watercolor, liquid acrylic, and oil on paper, beautifully illustrates Neale's carol about the tenth-century Bohemian king who goes out with his page to give alms to a peasant on St. Stephen's Day (the second day of Christmas, December 26).  I like Ladwig's framing device, a little boy looking at the statue of Wenceslas in Prague and "imagin[ing] a long time ago..."; the same little boy (and his dog) appears in the story as Wenceslas's page.  A "Historical Note" at the back of the book tells us that Neale wrote the carol in 1853 to inspire children to be generous on St. Stephen's Day: it's not too late!

See this article in Wikipedia for the full text of the carol and notes on its form (it was set to the melody of a thirteenth century Swedish spring song).  There is also another picture book about Wenceslas by Geraldine McCaughrean (whose work I very much like); illustrated by Christian Birmingham (Transworld, 2007); this one appears to be a prose retelling of the Wenceslas legend.

[Leo is finally interested in knights, kings, and castles, much to the delight of his medievalist mother (me); he especially liked Ladwig's warm illustrations of the castle interiors.]