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Cybils: Picture Books

Oct7

Nominations are open through October 15th for the Cybils, the book awards for children’s and young adult literature that are administered, judged, and awarded by kid lit bloggers. The category description for Picture Book Fiction says:

The category contains titles for toddlers and third graders, funny stories and moving tales, history and fantasy, traditions and diversity, elegance and silliness, education and entertainment. An amazing conceptual range for books with typically 32 to 48 pages.

Here are a few Picture Book Fiction books that may deserve a look, but haven’t been nominated yet. If one of these is your favorite, please nominate it for a Cybils award.

The Christmas Cat by Maryann Macdonald. NOMINATED
Stone Soup with Matzo Balls by Linda Glazer.
Deep in the Sahara by Kelly Cunnane.
The Artist and the King by Julie Fortenberry.
Audrey Bunny by Angie Smith.
Those Magnificent Sheep in Their Flying Machines by Peter Bentley.
Mikis and the Donkey by Bibi Dumon Tak. NOMINATED in Middle Grade Fiction.

Keep turning in nominations for all your favorites in all of the categories, but remember that only those books published between Oct. 16, 2013 and Oct. 15, 2014 are eligible. And only one book per nominator per category.

Poetry Friday: Yuki and the One Thousand Carriers by Gloria Whelan

Oct3

Yuki and the One Thousand Carriers By Gloria Whelan. Illustrated by Yan Nascimbene. Sleeping Bear Press, 2008.

This week and next in our homeschool we’re traveling to Japan: sushi, haiku, kimonos, rice paper, origami, big city, small farm, tsunamis, cherry blossoms. And what else might we discover in our imaginary journey to Japan?

When you’re looking for children’s books with an international setting and flavor, Gloria Whelan is a go-to author, and Sleeping Bear Press is definitely a premier publisher of such books. Sleeping Bear has published a whole bushel basket of alphabet books featuring different countries, states, regions, and interests from A is for Aloha: A Hawai’i Alphabet to K is for Kabuki: A Japan Alphabet to Z is for Zamboni: A Hockey Alphabet. And their non-alphabet, non-concept books rate high in both beauty and educational value, too. Sleeping Bear Press specializes in picture books, ergo the pictures in the books are delightful, colorful, and rich in detail.

Yuki and the One Thousand Carriers is no exception to that description. The illustrations, in double page and page and a half spreads, are Japanese in flavor, with the delicate figures and light and dark contrasts of Japanese character writing. However, there’s also a lot of color splashed all over these pages to delight the eye and engage the imagination. Yan Nascimbene also did the small, intricate illustrations for another lovely picture book set in Japan, Hachiko: The True Story of a Loyal Dog by Pamela S. Turner.

Gloria Whelan’s text tells the story of an seventeenth or eighteenth century girl, Yuki, who must accompany her family on a 300 mile journey to the capital city of Edo. Yuki must ride in a palanquin (most of the time), and her teacher has given her an assignment to write a haiku every day to chronicle the journey. Yuki writes all of her longing for home and her fears about the future as well as her enjoyment in the small pleasures of each day into her haiku.

Little Red Bowtie from Flickr via Wylio

© 2012 John Morgan, Flickr | CC-BY | via Wylio

Once outside the gate
how will I find my way back?
Will home disappear?

River is busy
making its own long journey;
it doesn’t look back.

Gulls write their haiku
in the sky, dipping and darting,
not caged in a box.

Once during the long journey, Yuki is able to climb out of the palanquin and walk a little way. She writes:

Grass under my feet
plum blossoms drift down on me
just for a minute.

Finally, the family reach Edo, the end of their journey, and Yuki learns to appreciate where she is, instead of always looking back to long for her old home.

The book is a fantastic introduction to historical Japan and a lovely story of overcoming homesickness through poetry and awareness of daily blessings.

Jama’s Alphabet Soup has today’s Poetry Friday Roundup.

Poetry Friday: Hosie’s Aviary by Tobias and Leonard Baskin

Jul11

Hosie’s Aviary is a book of bird poems and drawings. It’s a lovely collection, a family project, and a delight to the ear and the eye. For example, the poem “EGRET”:

Long hair
and pencil bill,
does this egret write poems?

Leonard Baskin was planning and studying to become an Orthodox rabbi like his father until at age 14 he saw a sculpture demonstration in Macy’s department store, and he began studying art instead. Baskin became a famous sculptor and also illustrated many children’s books; however, it was for Hosie’s Alphabet (Viking), text written by his children Hosea and Tobias and by Lisa, his second wife, that he received a Caldecott Honor in 1973. In 1979, Mr. Baskin illustrated and published Hosie’s Aviary, also published by Viking Press and also written by his children Tobias, Lucretia, and Hosea, and by Lisa Baskin.

Leonard Baskin, who died in 2000, seems to have been a fascinating man. He was a friend of Ted Hughes, for whom he illustrated the poetry collection, Crow. The first Crow poems were written in response to a request by Baskin, who had at the time produced several pen and ink drawings of crows. Hughes’ wife, Sylvia Plath, dedicated one of her poems, “Sculptor”, to Leonard Baskin. Mr. Baskin was the sculptor for one section of the memorial to Franklin Delano Roosevelt in Washington, D.C.

Tobias Baskin, who just happens to have been born the same year I was, became a “self-directed learner” much like his father. He is now a biology professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. In the following video, he gives an acceptance speech to a homeschool group called North Star in Massachusetts which gave him an award for self-directed learning, or as he says, for dropping out of high school:

Tobias Baskin, 2010 from North Star on Vimeo.

The 1st Gift of Christmas: The Christmas Cat by Maryann Macdonald

Dec1

“This perfect Christmas read-aloud was inspired by Leonardo da Vinci’s drawings of La Madonna del Gatto, which show Mary cuddling both the baby Jesus and a cat.” ~inside blurb of The Christmas Cat

What ever happened to “the Little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes?” Well, like all idealized portraits, the image of a Jesus, even as a baby, who never cried, never expressed any emotions at all, and certainly never made any trouble or expressed a preference, has become inadequate, and we’ve come around and circled back to a Renaissance view of a Jesus who laughed and cried and pooped and even maybe, had a pet cat.

The Christmas Cat tells the story of Jesus’ birth in a stable where a tiny kitten comforted him with it purrs. The story continues with Jesus’ early childhood, and then the flight to Egypt, during which the cat again saves the day, and Mary’s frayed nerves. “The rhythmic rumbling, as always, soothed the baby, and Jesus fell sound asleep.”

I’m not all that fond of cats (or dogs), but The Christmas Cat is a story that will captivate the imagination of young animal lovers everywhere and give them an image of the baby Jesus with whom they can identify. Of course, I would tell my children that The Christmas Cat is an imaginary story, that we don’t really know if Jesus had a pet. But we can be sure that according to Scripture, Jesus was “fully human in every way” (Hebrews 2:17). Why not a pet cat for the boy who would grow up to preach that not even a sparrow falls without the Lord’s notice and care?

The illustrations in this Christmas picture book are by Amy June Bates, who has several children’s boos to her credit, including the easy reader Martin’s Dream by Jane Kurtz. The illustrations in The Christmas Cat a soft and colorful bringing the animals and people and first-century travels of the Holy family to life.

If you want to add a Christmas picture book to your collection this year, The Christmas Cat is a good, solid choice.

Today’s Gifts from Semicolon
A song: Mark Steyn on White Christmas by Irving Berlin.

A movie: Semicolon family’s favorite Christmas movie is White Christmas, corny jokes and all.

Phil Davis: When what’s left of you gets around to what’s left to be gotten, what’s left to be gotten won’t be worth getting, whatever it is you’ve got left.
Phil Davis: I want you to get married. I want you to have nine children. And if you only spend five minutes a day with each kid, that’s forty-five minutes, and I’d at least have time to go out and get a massage or something.
Phil Davis: How can a guy that ugly have the nerve to have sisters?
Bob Wallace: Very brave parenting.
Bob Wallace: Miss Haynes, if you’re ever under a falling building and someone offers to pick you up and carry you to safety, don’t think, don’t pause, don’t hesitate for a moment, just spit in his eye.
Betty Haynes: What did that mean?
Bob Wallace: It means we’re going to Vermont.

A birthday and a book(list): Rex Stout, b.1886.
A verse: Mistletoe by Walter de la Mare and Lines for a Christmas Card by Hillaire Belloc.
A Christmas idea: Let Us Keep the Feast: A Book Recommendation for the beginning of Advent (today)

Charlotte Zolotow, b.1915, d.2013

Nov20

Children’s author and book editor Charlotte Zolotow died yesterday at the age of 98. She wrote and published over seventy picture books for young children, including Mr. Rabbit and the Lovely Present, William’s Doll, Big Sister Little Sister, and Over and Over. As an editor for Harper and Row, she was instrumental in publishing such authors as ME Kerr, Paul Zindel, Kara Kuskin, and Patricia MacLachlan, whose lovely book Sarah Plain and Tall won the Newbery Award.

Some of my favorite books by Charlotte Zolotow, illustrated by many of the picture book world’s most gifted illustrators:

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Here at Semicolon, I wrote a birthday celebration post for Ms. Zolotow a few years ago, and there’s a linky there. I’ve moved it here so that if you want to link to your post about Charlotte Zolotow and her legacy, you can. I’m adding links myself to the tributes I find so that I can go back and read them again when I want to remember. Or I can just read her books. The books will last.

Sunday Salon: Books Read in August, 2013

Sep8

Children’s and YA Fiction:
Imperfect Spiral by Debbie Levy, reviewed at Semicolon.
I also read and reviewed several picture books set in Korea as a part of my Picture Book Around the World sequel to Picture Book Preschool. Someone asked if I had an ETA for PBAW (don’t you like the acronyms?), but I’m sad to say that I’ve been working on it sporadically for a good while now, and I’m not much closer to finished than I was last year at this time. If a bunch of you asked me to “pretty please finish” so that you could purchase Picture Book Around the World, I might get motivated to actually buckle down and get it to the (self) publishing stage.

Adult Fiction:
The Aviator’s Wife by Melanie Benjamin, reviewed at Semicolon.
A Wilder Rose by Susan Wittig Albert, reviewed at Semicolon.
The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb.

Nonfiction:
Prayers of the Bible by Susan Hunt.

I can’t say I read a lot of books this month, but what I read was pretty good. I’m still thinking about a review of Wally Lamb’s Columbine shooting novel, The Hour I First Believed.

The Trip Back Home by Janet S. Wong

Aug26

Picture Book Around the World: Reading Through Korea I’m working hard on my Picture Book Around the World sequel to Picture Book Preschool, my preschool read aloud curriculum for homeschooling your preschooler or kindergartner. This week at Semicolon, we’re going to continue to visit Korea through the medium of a treasure trove of picture books featuring that country and its children.

This picture book about a child and her mother visiting the mother’s home in rural Korea gives a good feel for the ambience of farm life in South Korea, maybe a a decade or two back from now. The narrator and her mother give gifts to the family and accept gifts from their family as a framework for this story of exploration of Korean culture and customs.

The illustrations by Chinese artist Bo Jia are lovely, colorful and exciting. Story and pictures work well together, and the entire package gives children (and adults) a little slice of Korean family life.

I was reminded of childhood visits to my grandmothers’ homes, even though we didn’t have to go all the way to South Korea to visit them. And I felt a little nostalgic for those family times, reunions, and get-togethers. I’m probably painting the past with rosy colors, but it seems as if people had more time for family and visits and just sitting and talking when I was a child. Nowadays it’s my children who are too often too busy to spend time with their grandmother, even though she lives in a little apartment just behind our house.

Oh, well, it’s a good book for a unit on Korea or grandparents or family life—or just for reading together, snuggled up on the couch.

My Cat Copies Me by Yoon-duck Kwon

Aug22

Picture Book Around the World: Reading Through Korea I’m working hard on my Picture Book Around the World sequel to Picture Book Preschool, my preschool read aloud curriculum for homeschooling your preschooler or kindergartner. This week at Semicolon, we’re continuing to visit Korea through the medium of a treasure trove of picture books featuring that country and its children.

The unnamed narrator of this simple story is a little Korean girl who has a pet cat. As girl and cat play together, the cat copies the girl’s actions: hiding in the closet, chasing after insects, sitting quietly together. Then the girl decides to copy her cat and gain strength and inspiration from the independence and fearlessness of her cat.

That’s about it. There’s not much of a plot, and the story ends where it begins, girl and cat together. The illustrations, by author Yoon-duck Kwon, are colorful and engaging, but rather odd in places, at least to Western eyes. In most of the illustration girl and cat stand together about the same size, which seems a little off. And in one picture the girl looks out from inside the cat’s eye. I don’t know exactly what that’s supposed to mean.

However, this gentle tale of a girl and her cat might appeal to cat lovers and pet adventurers as they identify with the girl and her pet. I just hope nobody tries to copy the girl on the front of the book as she copies her cat and crawls on top of a bookshelf full of books!

Poetry Friday: Tap Dancing on the Roof by Linda Sue Park

Aug2

Picture Book Around the World: Reading Through Korea I’m working hard on my Picture Book Around the World sequel to Picture Book Preschool, my preschool read aloud curriculum for homeschooling your preschooler or kindergartner. This week at Semicolon, we’re going to continue to visit Korea through the medium of a treasure trove of picture books featuring that country and its children.

POCKETS

What’s in your pockets right now? I hope they’re not empty:
Empty pockets, unread books, lunches left on the bus–all a waste.
In mine: One horse chestnut. One gum wrapper. One dime. One hamster.

Linda Sue Park’s poem, POCKETS, is an example of a Korean sijo (see-szo or she-szo, with the j pronounced as the French pronounce Jacques), a three or six line poem with a fixed number of stressed syllables and an unexpected twist or joke at the end. Tap Dancing on the Roof is a book of sijo. These deceptively simple poems are a delight, but after reading over the end page, “Some Tips for Writing your own Sijo”, I am even more impressed with the difficulty inherent in writing a “simple” poem. Making it look easy isn’t easy.

Sijo were originally meant to be sung, and the songs “often praised the beauty of the seasons.” Yes, they’re similar to haiku, but whereas haiku are usually nature poems, sijo are about all kinds of subjects. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries many sijo were written by women who were court singers. These sijo were often about love and romance. The poems in Tap Dancing on the Roof are about kid stuff nature, games, daily tasks, and family relationships.

I thought I might try writing my own sijo for this review, but after I read the poems in Tap Dancing on the Roof and thought about it some more, I decided that I’m not that talented as a poet. So here’s a poem I liked from the Sejong Cultural Society website:

The spring breeze melted snow on the hills, then quickly disappeared.
I wish I could borrow it briefly to blow over my hair
and melt away the aging frost forming now about my ears.
춘산(春山)에 눈 녹인 바람 건듯 불고 간듸업네
저근듯 비러다가 뿌리과저 머리우희
귀밋헤 해묵은 서리를 불녀볼까 하노라
U-Taek (1262-1342)

My Name Is Yoon by Helen Recorvits

Jul30

Picture Book Around the World: Reading Through Korea I’m working hard on my Picture Book Around the World sequel to Picture Book Preschool, my preschool read aloud curriculum for homeschooling your preschooler or kindergartner. This week at Semicolon, we’re going to be visiting Korea through the medium of a treasure trove of picture books featuring that country and its children.

“I write my name in English now. It still means Shining Wisdom.”

Yoon, newly arrived in the United States with her family from Korea, doesn’t want to write her name in English letters with all their circles and lines and sharp cornersand lack of continuity. She wants her name to be written in Korean: “My name looks happy in Korean. The symbols dance together.”

'RSDigby_1628' photo (c) 2009, Robert S. Digby - license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/2.0/

She’s right. The Korean hangul do lend themselves to artistry, don’t they?

I think the take-away from this story of a Korean girl finding her place in a new country and culture is that we do give up some things when we cross cultures. Yoon learns to write her name in English. But she still knows that it means “Shining Wisdom”, and she still keeps her attachment to words and the way they sound and look. Yoon is something of a poet as she tries on the new English words to see how they fit her.

We give up some things and gain others. Yoon makes new friends, and she learns to understand her new teacher who smiles at her in the end.

Helen Recorvits and Gabi Swiatkowska have collaborated on two other books about Yoon: Yoon and the Christmas Mitten and Yoon and the Jade Bracelet. On the basis of this first book, the other two would be worth seeking out.