Something old,
something new,
something borrowed . . .
and something blue . . .
So you and/or your children or students love picture books? --But you’ve just run out of books by your favorite author or illustrator and summer is in full swing. To help stave off television or computer screen addiction this summer you’d like to inspire them to open a few book covers, choosing books to accompany them on real life outings to the beach or on picnics or on vacations or long road trips . . . so, to what new author/illustrators should they turn next? There are so many picture books to choose from that it is often difficult to know where to begin—books are everywhere, floods of them, at libraries, mega-bookstores and remainder tables. But which ones are the cream of the crop—books for which your children, and you, will fall hard?
Here are a few suggestions to jumpstart your summer reading. The author/illustrators for each of these selections has a host of other books that you can explore through the links provided.
To thematically tie each new set of picturebook reviews together, I will stay with the children’s theme, choosing books that loosely fit into a nursery or street rhyme. Nursery rhymes and street rhymes have been a part of oral culture for centuries and, as such, have become a staple in the children’s narrative field, so it might also be interesting to historically research each rhyme used as a theme.
For a theme for this set of book reviews, I have chosen books that relate to the categories of the well-known rhyme:
Something old, Something new, Something borrowed And something blue— And a silver sixpence in her shoe.
With the above rhyme in mind, including its little known final line, I have chosen a post-modern version of a very old Jack Tale; a well-known classic with vibrant new illustrations; an unusually creative book I borrowed from my local library;, and a book that focuses on surreal dream visions of night for “something blue.” Finally, I offer a bonus book with a round silver emblem on its cover, reminiscent of an historic silver sixpence—an award-winning book.
This old rhyme quoted above is at least as old as Victorian times and perhaps older; and it may have English or Puritan origins. In an 1894 edition of The Warren Ledger, a Pennsylvania newspaper, this rhyme was listed as a “Puritan Marriage Custom.” It recites items a bride should carry with her during the marriage ceremony for good luck in her marriage. Carrying something old emphasizes the valuable support of old family and friends as a new marriage is begun; carrying something new is a reminder of the help that new family and new friends can be in the new marriage; carrying something borrowed is a reminder that the newly married must not be afraid to “borrow” support and help when they are in need and it also refers to a token often borrowed from a particularly happy or fortunate already-married couple to help bring similar happiness and good fortune to the new couple; carrying something blue probably refers back to the historical meaning of the color blue. In ancient Rome brides wore the color blue to represent modesty, faithfulness and love. Blue came to represent purity when Christianity consistently showed the Virgin Mary dressed in blue. Blue was a popular color for wedding gowns before the late Victorian age, as is shown by proverbs like “Marry in blue, lover be true.” Finally, referring to the final line of the rhyme, the sixpence is a silver coin worth six pennies that was in use in Britain from 1551 to 1967. It was also minted in Maryland, USA in about the same period. This part of the rhyme might trace back to an old Scottish custom where the bridegroom put a silver coin under his foot for luck, or another, where the father of the bride placed the sixpence in his daughter’s shoe to attract wealth in her marriage—the left shoe supposedly produced the most luck. Although sixpences are no longer minted, some companies produce keepsake sixpences specifically for use in weddings, as you can discover at www.silver6pence.com/. For an image of an English sixpence see http://www.english-hammered-coins.com/hammered_coinage/coins_of_elizabeth_i/1588-sixpence.htm.
Something Old . . .
The Giant’s Toe, Brock Cole’s postmodern spin on a very old oral Jack Tale—Jack and the Beanstalk . . . .
The Giant's Toe by Brock Cole (Sep 4, 2001) Paperback $6.95
I first heard of Brock Cole’s books from him, in person, at a conference where I remember him describing selling his first five picture books, books that he had both written and illustrated, all in one fell swoop on a single trip to New York City--using this to point out the importance of meeting potential publishers and editors in person. I still have the first book of his that I bought at that conference, The Giant’s Toe, a Farrar, Straus and Giroux (Sunburst) 1986 edition signed by Cole in an innovative way with a drawing of the giant featured in this subversion of an old folktale.
The Giant’s Toe has become one of my favorite stories, and a perennial favorite with my college students in an Imagery for Children class, with its irreverent revisioning of the familiar Jack and the Beanstalk folktale, published at a time when such post-modern revisionings were still rare. Cole’s exquisitely rendered and vibrantly colored watercolors featuring a grandpa-esque giant dressed in spats, Hawaiian print shirt and flat straw boater and his circa 1950 giant’s home, typically located on a cloud up in the sky, but a-typically abounding in curvaceous chrome toasters, period wood stoves, purple radios and red vinyl chairs, invite the reader into this slightly off-kilter tale that fulfills the quirkiness promised by the book’s title. Cole has not exactly deconstructed Jack and the Beanstalk in this narrative, for that familiar folktale is a mere sideline. The child reader does need to be familiar with Jack and the Beanstalk to fully enjoy this new tale that bears some similarities to the older story, but this is a new fairytale, make no mistake about that, and it is one well worth adding to the fairytale canon.
In this tale the Giant meets his nemesis, a part of himself, that manages to destroy everything the Giant owns of value. In the end, however, this saves the Giant from the attention and powers of a much more destructive character with whom we are all familiar—a boy named Jack—who goes off to search for another Giant to harrass.
I enjoyed this story so much that I researched the other four picture books Brock mentioned in that conference I mentioned earlier, and eventually added them to my collection as well, books such as The King at the Door and Buttons all have merit—and I now watch for any new Brock Cole additions to the Children’s Picture Book field (and he has begun producing chapter books as well), but The Giant’s Toe remains a favorite. For other Brock Cole books, check out:
Something New . . . .
Michael Hague’s illustrated edition of Kenneth Grahame’s classic The Wind in the Willows—an old classic with a new twist
Hardcover: 216 pages List Price: $26.95 Price: $17.79 Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. (BYR); 2 Reprint edition (September 1, 2003) Product Dimensions: 10.2 x 8.3 x 0.9 inches
Michael Hague has been a favorite illustrator of mine for some time now. As a poor student artist a few years ago, I splurged and bought several greeting cards because I could not resist the luminous watercolor illustrations of scenes from Kenneth Grahame’s classic tale, The Wind in the Willows that were featured on each. It was those vibrantly colored and skillfully drawn paintings that first brought Michael Hague, children’s picture book illustrator, to my attention. Later, I purchased a copy of the 1980 edition from which they had come, published by Henry Holt (with Ariel Books) for my children’s picture book collection.
This edition is not a true picture book, but is rather an illustrated chapter book. Its text is a faithful printing of the original full length novel first written by Edinburgh-born Kenneth Grahame to entertain his son and then published in 1908. I share a special affinity with this timeless tale right now since I currently live literally on the banks of a large marsh river and have met each of these animal characters from time to time—have even spotted Badger a time or two at night. The story still accurately reveals the competing allure of a constantly-changing, accelerating world filled with ever-newer technologies set against the backdrop of eternal seasonal rhythms and laid-back life on the river. This is a book I have read to my own children, chapter by chapter—and they promptly succumbed to the charm of its characters, Mole, Ratty, Badger, and unforgettable Mr. Toad. Mr. Hague, on an endpage of the book, reveals himself to be a fourth generation lover of this tale. He dedicates the artwork in this edition to his grandmother, Violet King, who was born when the book was first published, and loved to listen to her father read the book to her as she grew up. Mr. Hague talks about how his daughters, too, will be another generation to grow up with and love Mr. Toad. This continues to be a story loved by generation after generation of readers.
Although, in many reader’s hearts, it may be difficult to actually replace Ernest Shepherd or Arthur Rackham’s well-known and well-loved illustrations for this classic member of the children’s book canon, Michael Hague most definitely raised the bar of excellence with his illustrated edition to a height that will be difficult to improve upon. While Shepherd’s illustrations are the enchanting miniature black ink vignettes for which he is remembered, Hagues’ illustrations revel in color. Laid out in formal style alongside large, easily readable text, Hagues’ combinations of smaller vignettes and large one-page and double-page spread illustrations emit the warm glow of summer days or the cool luminosity of moon-filled nights that recall to readers’ minds similar sultry summer evenings or moon-lit escapades of their own childhood.
This book is an example of Hague’s earlier illustration style. His cheerfully anthropomorphic characters brightly dressed in period Victorian clothing are, despite their waistcoats, polka-dotted bowties and eyeglasses, accurate renditions of frogs, moles, and other river “critters.” In later books, white highlights become a much more important feature of Hague’s illustrations, and his characters frequently exhibit a certain distorted quality.
The defining feature for his illustrations for this book, however, I think, is the glow. “How does he achieve that glow?” the reader wonders as they leaf through the many illustrations in this edition. Hague himself shares a little about his illustration technique at the end of the book, telling those interested that he first applies a blue wash for cool illustrations and an ochre wash for warmer paintings—which accounts for the subtle mood that pervades each illustration—but there are still places where one marvels at his achievements—moonglow, starglow, reflections in water, firelight and lantern—Hague is a master at all of these effects of incandescence and reflection. And he does not scrimp on the number of illustrations—for the book is literally packed with them. The endpapers of the book also add to the overall pleasure of reading this book, displaying a pictorial map of the lands surrounding Toad Hall printed in a period-feeling sepia brown ink; for one last quality touch, when the illustrated dustjacket cover is removed, instead of the typical blank book cover, this cover displays the same illustration as on the dustjacket of a glowing sunset picnic gathering of Toad and friends beside their beloved river.
For any serious appreciator of children’s picture books. Michael Hague’s illustrated edition of The Wind in the Willows is a must have—for there is no mistaking that this illustrated edition was a true labor of love. A graduate of the Los Angeles Art Center College of Design, and a former employee of Hallmark Cards and the Current Company, designing greeting cards and calendars, Hague currently lives with his wife and children in the Rocky Mountains. His wife also graduated from LA Art Center College of Design and has written several picture books for children. For fans of The Lord of the Rings and The Chronicles of Narnia, Hague has illustrated The Hobbit and The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe. Three of his recent books include The Book of Dragons, The Book of Pirates and The Book of Fairies. He has illustrated many more picture books as well including the L. Frank Baum’s American classic fairy tale, The Wizard of Oz; for more samples of his art and information on Michael Hague’s work visit http://www.embracingthechild.org/ahague.html
michaelhague.com/
http://fan.theonering.net/middleearthtours/hague.html
Something Borrowed . . .
David Wiesner’s FLOTSAM,
a book definitely worth borrowing . . . . and keeping.
Flotsam 2007 Caldecott Winner by: David Wiesner Clarion Books $17.00 Hardcover; 40 pages Publication Date: 09/04/2006 Illustrations: full color Trim Size: 11.25 x 9.00 Range: 5-8 years Grade Range: Grades K-3
FLOTSAM, a Clarion (Houghton-Mifflin) 2006 picturebook written and illustrated by David Wiesner is definitely worth borrowing from your local library, and is almost worth buying for your own library just for its cover design alone. The front cover has a simple, bold, graphic look. It is a vivid flame red color with what, at first glance, appears to be a large round fish-eye lens or perhaps a ship’s portal window in the exact center of the front cover. A few silvery-green small fish swim across the bottom left corner and David Wiesner’s name and the title, FLOTSAM are centered, one above the other at the top of the front cover in a raised coated ink. The word, FLOTSAM is printed in metallic silver ink and both the author’s name and title use a typefont reminiscent of shredded seaweed. That’s all the text on the front cover. Some might not see more than a bold crimson graphic design, but if the book is opened and front and back covers are viewed together, the fish scales and flippers that are on the back cover offer the clues necessary to complete the picture. The red cover is, in actuality, a large red fish, much larger than the small green ones swimming alongside it, and the circular portal-like object in the center of the cover is actually the fish’s eye. If the reader examines that eye, he or she realizes that what appeared to be the glass reflections in a portal window are actually reflections of what appears to be a distorted old-fashioned box camera. Wiesner expects his readers to continue using the same sort of explorative thinking process they used on the cover as they open the book covers to tackle the wordless story itself. As always, one can see a clear grounding in Weisner’s background at the Rhode Island School of Design in the highly conceptual design and layouts for this wordless picture book.
So, what is FLOTSAM, the story, about, I found myself wondering when I first spotted it in my local library. Well, the word used in the title gives a clue. I have always used the term “flotsam” with a companion word, “jetsam,” with a vague memory that those words together meant stuff found floating on the ocean or washed up by the tides. Curious if my memory had served me correctly, I Googled the term. Answers.com defines “flotsam and jetsam” as: “In maritime law, flotsam applies to wreckage or cargo left floating on the sea after a shipwreck. Jetsam applies to cargo or equipment thrown overboard from a ship in distress and either sunk or washed ashore. The common phrase flotsam and jetsam is now used loosely to describe any objects found floating or washed ashore” (http://www.answers.com/topic/flotsam). Aha! Chalk one up for my vocabulary skills!
To get back to the story, if one opens the book the endpapers are a speckled sandy art paper reminiscent of the beach, and a full bleed picture of a boy digging on a beach immediately draws the reader to the Jersey Shore (a place that David Wiesner visited and still visits with his family since his childhood—a fact born out by the dedication, “For my family And all our years down the Shore” as well as the photograph on the back jacket flap of the author at the shore as a child). The title pages show all manner of discoveries laid out in symmetrical order like a Victorian museum display—everything from shells to feathers, to compasses and old bottles, buttons and starfish and an old compass—all things a child might collect at a beach. The actual story begins with a dramatic picture sequence—first the reader stares into the startled eyes of a hermit crab in the foreground, with one enormous eye staring at him from behind, slightly out of focus. What is unusual about this picture other than the dramatic choice of perspective is the curved large glass reflection on the picture’s left side. Turning the page clarifies that reflection, as the “camera” pulls back dramatically to show the young boy the eye belongs to examining the crab through a magnifying lens. His parents sit in beach chairs under an umbrella behind him, and in the foreground the reader sees that the boy is a budding scientist/explorer and has brought all his scientific paraphernalia with him to the shore to explore the wildlife there. He has his magnifying glass, his binoculars and even his microscope in a plastic bag for safety. The artwork is all painted in the light blues and tans of a seashore color palette. As the boy examines a crab with his magnifying glass, a wave hits the shore and washes an old underwater box camera onto the beach. The boy finds film in the camera and develops it. All of this action is shown as sequential images in a storyboard-like format. When the boy begins to examine the developed pictures the story takes on an even more mysterious turn. The pictures show schools of giant red fish such as the one on the book cover whose insides are robotic. They show an octopus living in an underwater living room assembled from the remnants of a lost moving van storage container (this one has a tongue-in-cheek grouping of fish looking at a fish inside a fish bowl on a table in that living room—water inside the fish bowl and outside). Still another image shows islands that are really giant starfish that can get up and move at will. Each image is more fantastic than the last. The final plot twist occurs when the boy views a picture of a girl holding a picture of a boy holding a picture of another child holding a picture of another, and so on. The boy scratches his head, then uses his magnifying glass to examine the picture even closer and sees more children holding pictures of children holding pictures. He gets the idea of using his microscope to examine the picture even closer, and is able to see a point when the pictures of children holding pictures of children change to black and white. At this point the book layout gives us the magnification settings of the microscope (10x, 25x, 40x and so on), until finally one last picture shows a boy dressed in Victorian clothes standing on a beach waving, but holding no picture. The main character then, with a new roll of film loaded in the camera, takes a picture of himself holding the picture of children holding pictures. As he takes the picture, a wave washes the rest of the picture prints from the original roll of film away. With the pictures washed away, there is no evidence of the magical pictures—nothing to show adults—so, I suppose, the point of this plot detail might be that this story could be “true,” and what child can resist the hook of magic that might have “really happened” if only the proof had not been inadvertantly lost? Finally, the boy tosses the camera into the waves. The reader could almost accept this point as the end of the story—but there is more. Through sequential images, the reader sees the camera pulled along by squid, eaten by a fish, pass a whale, pulled by a group of seahorses, float through a community of merpeople and pass through many other adventures, until it is finally washed ashore again and another little girl reaches out to pick up the beached camera, ensuring that this magical underwater camera will continue to fascinate generations of children. Readers of this picturebook leave it feeling that perhaps they, too, might someday find that camera for themselves! While the illustrations are executed with precision, it is the innovative concept, finely wrought narrative (for, yes, it is a narrative, even though without words!) and well laid out page spreads that make this book unforgettable.
I have admired David Wiesner from a distance for years—enjoying each new book as it was published, and, since many of them were wordless, similar to the graphic novel or comic book type of layout—a style that I have a fondness for when well-done in the few picture books that utilize this style—his picture books definitely caught my eye—especially as he has won no less than three (count them) Caldecott Medals for some of them. But, until FLOTSAM, I did not feel the need to collect them, to have copies of them in my personal library. FLOTSOM did the trick, however—from the exceptional and colorful cover design to the innovative story inside the covers to the well-conceived layouts, it was a “gesamkunstwerk,” opera composer Richard Wagner’s coined term for a “complete work of art,” through and through. And falling for this book caused me to renew my acquaintance with others of Weisner’s picture books, ultimately adding more to my collection—Tuesday (Caldecott Medal 1992), and The Three Pigs (no normal 3 Pigs story—that one! Caldecott winner, 2002), Free Fall and Sector 7 (both Caldecott Honor books) among others. Some of these I will undoubtedly review in future; but, for a bibliography of David Weisner’s illustrated books to explore now, visit http://www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com/authors/wiesner/books/books_biblio.shtml. Wiesner received his third Caldecott Medal for FLOTSAM in 2007 (only the second person to do so)—so there are obviously quite a few others in the field who share my assessment of not only the high quality of this book, but also the consistent excellence of all of Wiesner’s work. What I can add to their expert assessment is that this is not merely an award-winning book whose merit may be acknowledged by experts but may be difficult for the common reader to discern—it is one definitely worth borrowing from your library or “checking out” for yourself and then purchasing for your own shelves. For a transcripted conversation with Weisner, go to:
and Something Blue . . .
Imagine a Night, with paintings by Rob Gonsalves and text by Sarah L. Thomson (Byron Preiss Visual Publications & Athenaeum Books for Young Readers, Simon & Schuster 2003) challenges readers to imagine much more than just a night . . . .
I first spotted Rob Gonsalves’ artwork hanging on a wall of an antique shop. I found it memorable. While I was unable to afford the giclée prints the shop offered, I noted a copy of a picture book featuring some of the same artwork mounted on the wall near the artwork and was able to obtain copies of his picture books. From the cathedral ruins open to the deep blue night whose windows morph into blue-robed monks, to the farmer on a farmhouse porch fiddling his field of sunflower people to sleep, to the man on a rural cabin porch cutting a glittering city skyline from his window shades that have been masking the starry sky outside, this Gonsalve’s illustrated picture book, Imagine a Night, jumpstarts its readers into observing the nighttime world from an altered plane of reality. Some of the images will seem familiar to many people, such as the children jumping on quilt-covered beds who then begin flying over “quilt-like” farm country. We have often seen or dreamed of some of these similarities for ourselves and will feel a sense of recognition as we observe Gonsalves’ interpretation of these themes. Others will not be so easily recognized—but once you have observed them, they will give you a sense of “Ahhhhh, I should have seen that before.” Gonsalves’ illustrations, poised at the intersection of waking and sleeping, each build on the sense of enchantment that permeates the book.
No matter how good one judges Sarah Thomson’s text, for those who choose to read, borrow or purchase Imagine a Night, that decision is all about Rob Gonsalves’ surrealistic paintings. The text appears to be there, primarily to tie the 16 paintings together in some thematic way to be able to present them to readers as a “picturebook.”
This picture book and its companion book, Imagine a Day, will fascinate children despite the lack of “story,” precisely because of the fascinating pictures within the book covers. Each illustration challenges the imagination and invites examination. These illustrations have the potential to open children’s eyes and invite them to observe their surrounding neighborhood and world in an entirely new way forever after. And the text frequently does offer food for thought while also encouraging exploration of each illustrations’ motifs in lines such as, “imagine a night . . . when the space between words / becomes like the space / between trees / wide enough / to wander in.” These lines accompany a picture of a family enjoying a quiet evening in front of a fireplace, while the floorboards of the rustic cabin floor change into the columns of tree trunks in an evergreen wood. Most of us will connect with the truth behind those words, having warm memories of just such evenings at times in our lives when mood and sense of family is great, though accompanying words are few, where the flicker of firelight and the sounds of the night are all that breaks the quiet.
Rob Gonsalves is a Toronto native, born there in 1959. At age twelve his interest in architecture was already beginning to develop and he learned how to use perspective techniques to render imaginary buildings. Influenced by Dali and Magritte, as a post graduate he worked full time as an architect and also began painting trompe l’oeil murals and theater sets. Gonsalves developed his own brand of “surrealism” in which actual natural scenes transform into other scenes they already resemble using the imagination’s eye. Reflections of pine trees and clouds in a dark lake become ladies climbing out of the lake. Blue balloons let loose into a grey sky create a blue sky. The rocky pine covered walls of a canyon river transform into cathedral spires. A tree house becomes an actual house on a street. A sand castle takes on the dimensions of a real castle (on the cover of Imagine a Day). A toy train becomes a real one. He utilizes tricks of perspective, trompe l’oeil and illusion to create his images, which all have a feeling of the magical about them—so perhaps a more accurate description of his style of painting might be “magic realism” instead of “surrealism.” 
Gonsalves was awarded the 2005 Governor General’s Award in the Literature/Illustration category for his children’s picture book Imagine a Day, the afore-mentioned companion book to Imagine a Night. This book is the same size, with the same style text and layout on the cover, and with text, once again, by Sarah L. Thomson accompanying a new selection of “magic realism” images; making the two books an excellent duo to collect together. In Imagine a Day, however, the focus is on daydreams, such as the title page’s image of a handsome arched bridge over a bay whose arches transform into old time sailing ships; or, to continue with the bridge theme, when Sarah Thomson’s text, “imagine a day . . . when grace and daring / are all we need / to build a bridge” accompanies another stone arched train bridge, upon whose high arches a train chugs along towards the reader, while in the foreground the bridges arches have taken on the color of the costumes of circus acrobats who are forming the arches of the bridge in an outdoor ampitheatre ring being watched by a crowd. Occasionally, in illustrations such as this, where the bridge is spanning water and the acrobats are dressed differently than the crowd, the text seems to encourage application of these ideas to cultural and social issues. Another example of this is the text, “imagine a day . . . when we build a moat, / not to keep strangers out, / but to welcome them in.” Such pages could encourage thoughtful classroom or dinner table discussions of possible implications and applications of these ideas.
Collecting these books by Gonsalves is actually an inexpensive way to acquire a large collection of his intriguing images. Purchasing them individually as giclée prints is possible, though a more costly proposition. Two sights that offer collections of his prints (and picture books) are: http://www.sapergalleries.com/Gonsalves.html and http://www.progressiveart.com/gonsalves_page.htm
FYI: What is a giclée?
A giclée is a digitally output (printed) copy of the original painting on either paper or canvas. It is printed on a device with extraordinarily high resolution and then signed by the artist directly on the paper or canvas.
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