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The Wheel on the School by Meindert DeJong

Apr4

This winner of the 1955 Newbery Award Medal is a winner indeed. The children of Shora, a small village on the Netherlands coast, all six of them, realize one day that the storks never come to Shora to nest. Storks nest on the roofs of houses in other neighboring villages, but not in Shora.

So, the children, along with their schoolteacher, team up to find out why the storks don’t nest in Shora and to fix it so that they do. The project is a difficult one, and the children intend to work hard to bring the storks, or at least one stork, to Shora as the birds begin to migrate to the Netherlands from their homes in Africa. Their teacher tells them to begin by wondering:

“We can’t think much when we don’t know much. But we can wonder! From now until tomorrow morning when you come to school again, will you do that? Will you wonder why and wonder why? Will you wonder why storks don’t come to Shora to build their nests on the roof the way they do in all the villages around? For sometimes when we wonder, we can make things begin to happen.”

p.6

Meindert DeJong has such a way with words, and the black and white drawings in this book by Maurice Sendak are just right, not too intrusive so that readers have room to wonder and create their own pictures of the story but with enough detail so that we can know what a stork looks like or what kind of wheel the children are looking for.

Such a good read aloud selection! But if you don’t have time to read it aloud, introduce the first chapter or two at least, and I believe most children would be drawn into the story. The culture is a bit different from American twenty-first century culture. The children are more “free range”, and the adults are both more irascible and more helpful and approachable than adults are in my city/suburban community. Shora is a small village, after all. But children are children everywhere, and these six Dutch children are imaginative, cooperative, and most of all persistent. And sometimes children with those qualities can make things begin to happen.

This book can be borrowed by member families from Meriadoc Homeschool Library.

Journey From Peppermint Street by Meindert DeJong

Feb9

Mr. DeJong has a talent for getting inside the mind of a child and writing about the imaginations and embarrassments and fears and delights and misapprehensions and insights that run through a child’s thoughts. In Journey From Peppermint Street, eight year old Siebren, a little Dutch boy, goes on a journey with his grandfather, and he experiences all of the above, in addition to much adventure, as we readers walk along with him on a trip from Weirom, near the coast of Holland, to his great-aunt’s monastery home near an inland swamp full of frogs and fireflies and giant pike.

At first the story seems rather mundane. Siebren walks along behind Grandfather, and Siebren’s thoughts run hither and thither. Siebren talks a lot, but he also listens carefully, although not with full understanding. When Grandfather calls the miller with whom he has been feuding “handball of Satan”, Siebren latches onto the phrase and wonders whether he himself might be a “handball of Satan” since he sometimes listens to and acts on his fears and temptations rather than his good sense. (I googled the term “handball of Satan”, but nothing came up. It must be an insult peculiar to Grandfather alone.)

The story becomes more and more exciting, however, and filled with both real and imaginary dangers: a giant pike who can eat a whole frog in one gulp, the swamp muck that can suck up and drown the unwary traveller, an attack from a pack of village dogs, a frightened neighbor with a gun, a bottomless cistern that empties out to the river, a night alone in a dark house, and last but not least, a tornado. (I didn’t know that the Netherlands even experienced tornadoes; I halfway thought tornadoes were only a peril in Kansas and the rest of the midwestern United States.) Siebren must sort out his real fears and dangers from the imaginary ones, and he must learn how adults can be trusted and whether he himself is meant to be a handball of Satan or a believer in miracles.

Journey From Peppermint Street was the winner of the National Book Award for Children’s Literature the very first time that award was given in 1969. I’m on a quest to read all of Meindert DeJong’s books for children, and so far this one is one of his best.

Content considerations: Siebren gets a spanking for disobedience from his dad at the beginning of the story. There’s the whole “handball of Satan” question and discussion. And Siebren more than once lets his imagination and curiosity run away with him, stealing cookies, disobeying his grandfather and his great-aunt several times with mixed results. Sometimes his disobedience turn out okay, and other times it gets him into trouble, which is the way it worked for me when I was an imaginative and exploring child like Siebren.

This book can be borrowed by member families from Meriadoc Homeschool Library.

Born on This Day: June 6th

Jun6

Peter Spier, 1927-2017, was a Dutch-born American illustrator and author, creator of any number of my favorite picture books: The Fox Went Out on a Chilly Night, Bored–Nothing to Do, Peter Spier’s Rain, Peter Spier’s Christmas, The Erie Canal, Noah’s Ark, The Book of Jonah, The Cow Who Fell in the Canal (by Phyllis Krasilovsky) and more, including my very favorite:

This classic story of three children left “home alone” on a beautiful Saturday may be my favorite picture book of all time. It’s certainly in my top ten.

The story begins: “It happened on a Saturday morning that Mrs. Noonan said to her husband, ‘When are you going to paint the outside of the house? You’ve been talking about it for months!'”

Then Mr. and Mrs. Noonan leave for the day to run errands, telling the children to “behave themselves” and that the babysitter would be there shortly. “But the sitter never showed up.”

” . . . there was plenty of paint in the garage.”

You may think you can imagine what happens next, but unless you’ve seen this book with Mr. Spier’s wonderful illustrations, I can assure you that your imagination falls far short of the glorious picture book reality. The details in each illustration are so much fun to study, and the overall story—and the ending–are epic.

The plot of the story is similar to my other favorite Peter Spier title, Bored–Nothing To Do, but I love this one even better. It’s so colorful!

If you can find a copy of this picture book, I highly recommend it. Unfortunately, it’s out of print, and copies of the used paperback are selling for more than $10.00 online; the hardcover is more like $20.00+. Check your library, then used bookstore, either storefront or online.

Princess Arabella series by Mylo Freeman

May21

Princess Arabella Mixes Colors by Mylo Freeman.
Princess Arabella’s Birthday by Mylo Freeman.

Ms. Freeman in The Guardian, June, 2016:

I’m a black Dutch author and illustrator of picture books and I’d like to tell you something about my work. The idea for my main character Princess Arabella came from a story I heard about a little black girl who was offered the role of princess in a school play, which she declined, simply because she didn’t believe that a princess could be black. I decided then and there it was high time for a black princess to appear in a picture book!

Several months ago I received review copies of the two books listed above from the Princess Arabella series by Dutch author Mylo Freeman. It’s taken me a while to get around to reading the books and reviewing them, but now that I have read them, I am a fan. These books have been around for about ten years and there are ten books in the series. They are just now being translated into English and published in the United States by Cassava Republic Press.

In Princess Arabella Mixes Colors, Princess Arabella is bored with the white walls and white ceilings and white floors of her bedroom.

“I want lots and lots and LOTS of paint,” says Princess Arabella, waving her arms around. “Paint in every color of the rainbow.”

The princess’s footmen bring several pots of paint in white and black and all the primary colors. But Princess Arabella isn’t satisfied: she wants pink and and purple and orange and gray and green. So Princess Arabella begins to mix the colors to satisfy her desire for more and more colors. (If there’s a subtext here about diversity of skin colors and mixed racial heritage, the metaphor remains in the background while the story engages the reader in a color romp.)

In Princess Arabella’s Birthday, the question is: “what do you give a little princess who already has everything?” Princess Arabella asks for a very special gift, but she eventually finds that the gift itself has its own ideas about who’s in charge and what the princess’s gift should be.

Both books make a lovely additions to my library and add to the diversity and joy of the princess genre in my book selections. More Princess Arabella books available in English:

Princess Arabella Goes to School
Princess Arabella and the Giant Cake

Also by Mylo Freeman:
Hair, It’s a Family Affair: “A celebration of black hair, through the vibrant and varied hairstyles found in a single family.”

Playground by Mies Van Hout

May17

Originally published in the Netherlands under the title Speeltuin, this visually rich and colorful picture book is fun to look through, if a little confusing. The pictures are stunning, busy, and lively. The plot is almost non-existent: two children travel through the pages of this colorful world on their way to The Playground. The reader is invited to “take an exciting trip through this book! Find the way with your finger. These red arrows on each page show you where to start and where to go next.”

Maybe I just don’t get it, but the arrows seem unnecessary. If a child reader wants to run his finger over the double page spreads of rather abstract landscapes, I can’t see how the arrow on the edge of each page helps. But the adventure in art is enticing, and as the two children collect animal friends on each page to accompany them on their journey, the illustrations become more and more imaginative. I can see how this book would inspire children to create their own artistic journey-scape.

The ending is . . . disappointing. Perhaps the author/illustrator is trying to show that the journey is more interesting than the destination, or maybe I’m reading too much into it. At any rate, I would let children explore this book on their own and see what they come up with. Maybe start them on the adventure with the invitation, “Let’s go to the playground! Are you coming?”, but the text, translated from the Dutch, is fairly basic and dull. In fact, I can see this one as a wordless book, and it might work better that way.

Enjoy the color. (Did I mention that the book is very colorful?)

Baker’s Dozen: Books to Read for my Around the World Project

Dec27

I’m planning a new project for 2016, an expansion of my Africa Project. This one is an around the world project in which I hope to read at least one children’s book from or related to each nation of the world. Some countries are easier than others to find books, available in English and written by a citizen of that country. I may have to settle for folktales retold by American or Births authors from some countries or even for books that are simply set in the target country, preferably written by someone who has at least visited the particular setting in the book.

So, here is the page for my Around the World Reading Project. Do you have any suggestions to add to my project list, especially for those countries for which I have no books listed? The books must be for children, available in English (translation or original) in the United States, and preferably written in and popular in the country of origin.

Here are thirteen of the books I already chose that I am planning to read this year:

Blinky Bill by Dorothy Wall. (Australia)

The Paper Bag Princess by Robert Munsch. (Canada)

Comet in Moominland by Tove Jansson. (Finland)

The Horse Without a Head by Paul Berna. (France)

The Adventures of Maya the Bee by Waldemar Bonsels, 1912. (Germany)

Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie. (India)

The Shadow of Ghadames by Joelle Stolz. (Libya)

A Girl Named Disaster by Nancy Farmer. (American author) (Mozambique)

The Letter for the King by Tonke Dragt. (Netherlands)

Platero y yo by Juan Jimenez. (Spain)

The Brothers Lionheart by Astrid Lindgren. (Sweden)

Go Ahead, Secret Seven by Enid Blyton. (England)

Jamela’s Dress by Niki Daly. (South Africa)

I chose these particular books from the list mostly because I have them or have access to them. Have you read any of them? Any recommended or not?

Christmas in Holland, 1943

Dec6

A Dutch family celebrates Christmas/St. Nicholas Day during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands:

St. Nicholas told Pieterbaas to look in the bag and see what was in it. To everyone’s amusement, Pieterbaas pulled out six chocolate bars! They were small bars, but they might have been of gold. Chocolate had been unknown in Holland for the past three years. Now Betsy believed more than ever in St. Nicholas’ magic!

St. Nicholas sat at the table and had supper with the family. Mother had added to the meal a sauce of the mushrooms Joris had picked, so that there would be enough food for everyone.

Betsy exclaimed that she had never before eaten with St. Nicholas. “Are you going to see my Daddy,” she asked.

St. Nicholas was struggling with the soup; he seemed to have difficulty finding his mouth through the beard. “Yes, yes,” he said. “Of course, I don’t forget people.”

“And what will you bring him?” asked Betsy. “Bread pudding?” Bread pudding seemed to be a family joke at the stationmaster’s house.

“No, I’m going to bring him good news of his girls. He’ll like that best,” said St. Nicholas. Koba and Betsy nodded. That seemed reasonable. ~The Winged Watchman by Hilda van Stockum