2000 CHILDREN'S BOOKS OF DISTINCTION AWARDS erbank Review --~ - ~~ --~--::;:::::::=-- -:::-. of books for Young -re3ders

THE TEACHER'S ART:

ONE FOR THE SHELF:

SPRING 2000 $5.00

PUBLISHED AT THE UNIVERSITY OF ST . THOMAS Guess what( It's time for Spring I

GOTTA GO! GOTTA GO! BIG MAMA by Sam Swope by Tony Crunk Pictures by Sue Riddle Pictures by Margot Apple * "The experience of one tiny * "A quiet, satisfying picture creepy-crawly bug ... drama­ book with a small town setting tizes the astonishing journey of and a big heart." the Monarch butterfly ... This -Starred, Booklist is a story that brings the wonder "There is a mellowness here of the natural world right up that is tangible." close to a preschooler ... The -Kirkus Reviews rhythmic storytelling bears $16.00 I 0-374-30688-5 I Ages 3-7 repeated readings." -Starred, Booklist AROUND MY ROOM $12.00 I 0-374-32757-2 I Ages 3-7 by William Jay Smith Pictures by Erik Blegvad BUTTONS ln this winning collaboration, by Brock Cole twenty-nine poems for small * "Cole's range, empathy, children and delightful illus­ and imagination continue to trations demonstrate the astonish. This puckishly perfect enduring wit and charm of picture book insinuates itself two masters whose work into the heart immediately ... has delighted young readers The language sparkles and begs for over four decades. to be read aloud." $16.00 I 0-374-30406-8 I Ages 2-{i

-Starred, Book/ist TONY CRUNK $16.00 I 0-374-31001-7 I Ages 5 up 'BIG ' I MAM.A P i<'1uro h Marxoc App l e

P•••s t_y Williani Ja y ~iith lll•st1•t10•1 6v t:o ik Bleg"ad

Farrar • Straus • Giroux Spring 2000

contents

Essays ~ Foreign Goods ...... 4 About the Cover Artist By Michael Patrick Hearn When I was a child in Korea, my Expanding the Boundaries ...... 8 brothers and I often played on the By Mary Lou Burket paths between the rice paddies and ponds. Each spring we Reviews would watch the tadpoles ~ swim around and eagerly await New Books for Spring ...... 28 u their change into frogs. Butter­ flies and bugs were our playmates. -YumiHeo

ROUNDTABLE Sparking Interest in Nonfiction 10 Yumi Heo was born and raised in Korea. Contributors: Her introduction to art began when she Emily Arnold McCully Kathleen Krull was .fouryears old and was given a box ef Deborah Hopkinson Jim Murphy crayons by her mother (her favorite colors were pink Joanne Ryder jean Fritz and sky blue). Her mother encouraged her Lisa Westberg Peters Diane Stanley drawing as a child and later sent her to an Jim Arnosky Jeanette Winter art studio to study. Arthur Geisert Julius Lester Heo came to the United States in 19 8 9, and received an MFA from the INTERVIEW Lynne Rae Perkins ...... 15 School of Visual Arts. Her style incorpo­ By Martha Davis Beck rates oil paint, pencil work, and some col­ lage. She is the author and illustrator of THE TEACHER'S ART Adventuring with Alice ...... 20 several picture books, including One Sun­ By Monica Edinger day Morning {Orchard), The Green Frogs (Houghton) and Father's Rubber PROFILE Daniel Pinkwater ...... 23 · ~ Shoes {Orchard). She is also the By Christine Heppermann ~-; ~ illustratorefNancy VanLaan's So Say the Little Monkeys A POEM FOR SPRING Haiku by Matsuo Basho ...... 25 (A theneum), Verna Aardema's The Lonely Lioness and the Ostrich 2000 Children's Books Chicks {Knopf), and Cynthia Chin-Lee's of Distinction Awards ...... 26 A Is for Asia (Orchard).

ONE FOR THE SHELF Peter Spier's Rain ...... 52 By Christine Alfano A is for angel asleep in his bed Bfor the beauty of birds overhead Editor Martha Davis Beck Art Director Kristi Anderson Two Spruce Design Marketing Director Christine Alfano Circulation Manager Christine Heppermann Editorial Committee Christine Alfano Martha Davis Beck Mary Lou Burket Christine Heppermann Susan Marie Swanson Copy Editor David Caligiuri House Artist Julie Delton Computer Consultant Eric Hinsdale Cattails Andy Nelson Interns Emily Carlson Kirsten Keto Letters are the foundation of language; out of language is Advisory Board born the ability to express the concepts of the mind, heart, Rudine Sims Bishop, Susan Bloom, and spirit. A Spin.ted Alphabet connects the letters of the Barbara Elleman, Carol Erdahl, alphabet with such important values as beauty, faith, spirit, Karen Nelson Hoyle, Susan Huber, and wonder. Ginny Moore Kruse, Margaret O'Neill Ligon, Trudi Taylor, Mary Wagner

By Parent's Choice award-winners Morgan Simone Daleo Spring 2000 and her husband, illustrator Frank Riccio, the artist of The Volume III, Number I Copyright 2000 by the Riverbank Review. Little Soul and the Sun by Conversations with God author All rights reserved. Neale Donald Walsch. Please direct correspondence to: Riverbank Review University of St. Thomas 1000 LaSalle Avenue, MOH-217 A YOUNG SPIRIT BOOK COMI G I OCTOBER FROM Minneapolis, MN 55403-2009 Phone: (651) 962-4372 Fax: (651) 962-4169 E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.riverbankreview.com

The Riverbank Review (ISSN 1099-6389) is pub­ H AM PT 0 N R 0 A D S P U B LI SH I N G C 0 M PA N Y, I NC. lished quarterly, in March, June, September, and December. Subscriptions are $20 for one year (800) 766-8009 • www.hrpub.com (four issues), $35 for two years. The Riverbank Review is published in affiliation with the School of Education at the University of St. Thomas.

2 Spring 2000

editors note

I often hear the complaint that there isn't much good non­ old, or when their son becomes interested in origami. All fiction published for children. It's frustrating for me to hear good reasons. The too well kept secret is, many of the books this, since I believe there is actually a lot ofgr eat nonfiction on these shelves can also satisfy the desire for a gripping out there; many readers just aren't aware of it. My response story. And, as Mary Lou Burket points out in this issue, the is usually to select a favorite title-Jim Murphy's The Great field of children's nonfiction has undergone significant Fire, David Getz's Frozen Man, Russell Freedman's The Life change in recent years: more and more titles break the mold and Death of Crazy Horse, or Jennifer Armstrong's Shipwreck of what we expect from "information books." at the Bottom ofthe World, for example-and make a pitch for The Riverbank Review's annual Children's Books of Dis­ it, not simply as a solid source of information but as a com­ tinction Awards, also featured in this issue, recognize non­ pelling read. fiction as well as picture books, fiction, and poetry. As with I've come to realize that there are reasons why people are the judging in each category, what we look for in the non­ unaware of the riches in this branch of literature. In most fiction we read is that magic combination of elements that bookstores the children's nonfiction section is dominated makes a book literature. By literature, let's say we mean a by series titles. In libraries, nonfiction picture books, which book of outstanding quality in its writing (and illustration, encompass such wide-ranging subjects as folklore, biogra­ if applicable), a book that is compelling to both children phy, and natural science, are shelved (logically enough) by and adults, a book that we feel is of lasting value-worth their nonfiction subcategory, rather than in the general pic­ rereading, and worth passing on to others. ture-book section where most parents of young children Of the qualities that make a book a contender, given browse. I feel especially tender toward these diverse and cre­ these criteria, I think the most important is voice. Does the ative picture books that remain obscure to many readers­ writer have a viewpoint that is clear and distinctive? Is the books like Lisa Westberg Peters's The Sun, the Wind, and the writing lively and engaging? For anyone who has doubted Rain, which the author succinctly calls a book "about the that they'll find these strengths in nonfiction, our first impermanence of mountains," or Juan Felipe Herrera's Call­ Roundtable offers evidence of the passionate and distinc­ ing the Doves, a picture-book memoir of the poet's child­ tive perspectives that can be found in children's nonfiction hood as the son of migrant farmworkers, or any ofJeanette today: twelve writers whose work incorporates nonfiction in Winter's splendid picture-book biographies of artists. some fashion share their insights and approaches. Their Too few of us include the nonfiction section in our brows­ voices are inspiring-and that's a fact. ing. And when we do, I think there's a difference in the way -Martha Davis Beck we tend to approach nonfiction that works against our dis­ Acknowl edgments covering some of the terrific books that are on the shelves. Publication of the Riverbank Review is made possible It's a more goal-oriented approach than that which charac­ in part by a gift from Margaret S. Hubbs, and by a terizes a perusal of the fiction shelves. People wander into the grant from the Minnesota Humanities Commis­ IIM rNN Esor A sion, in cooperation with the National Endow­ nonfiction section when their daughter needs a book about HUMAN1r1Es coMM1ss10N ment for the Humanities and the Minnesota State whales for a school report, or when they need to find a good Legislature. The magazine gratefully acknowledges this sup­ book about sexual development to share with their ten-year- port, along with the contributions of individual donors.

3 Riverbank Review

Foreign Goods

What happens to books in translation? By Michael Patrick Hearn

merican children who have been reading the Harry Potter nations is skin-deep. Although they books have not really been reading the Harry Potter books. will rarely admit it, many editors sub­ scribe to the irrational prejudice that At least not as J. K. Rowling wrote them. Harry has had to A adults and children will reject almost go through American customs. This means removing "Britishisms" any book in translation, that they real­ ly are that might baffle young Yanks. Poor lad ... I mean, kid. Harry Potter's not interested in other peoples unless they are somehow represented American editor, Arthur Levine, told The Harry Potter Problem raises within U.S. borders. And language The New Yorker that he was not trying broader questions about the trans­ remains a barrier. to "Americanize" the text: he was try­ portation of foreign goods to America. Some translations have become ing to "translate" it. "I wanted to make Readers generally accept imported classics in their own right, though the sure that an American kid reading the books on faith, assuming that transla­ role and skill of the translator is not book would have the same literary expe­ tors fluently speak the language they often recognized. Helen Dole's 1884 rience that a British kid would have," are translating from. But often, with version of Heidi is still in use today. he explained. But it is not the same expe­ children's books in particular, one gets Few people are aware that Emil and the rience when the words are different. less than meets the eye. The way pub­ Detectives was translated from the Ger­ Voice is as important to a book as lishers choose a translator is often man by the famous Viking Press editor plot and characters, and Harry Potter's dubious, and the translator is usually May Massee, or that the "friendly wit­ slang adds personality to the narrative. treated as no more than a hired gun. ness" for the House Un-American "Spanking new" does not improve on Juvenile-book editors on the whole Activities Committee, Whittaker Cham­ "cracking," and "complete lunatic" want their translators to remain invisi­ bers, was responsible for the English lacks the character of"barking mad." Is ble, as if to fool the public into think­ version of Bambi. Father Christmas really the same as ing that such-and-such a book did not Translation requires enormous dis­ Santa Claus? Crikey! A "bogey" is not originate abroad. A few years back, a cipline, but it is an art, not a science. a "booger"! Introducing a child to the pretty American picture-book edition Some juggling of a text is at times nec­ idioms of another land is a fine way to of Aleksandr Pushkin's Tale of Tsar essary, and people do disagree on the learn about another people. Are Amer­ Saltan, with its original and well­ question of how much change is per­ ican children unable to figure out the known illustratons by Ivan Bilibin, was missible before a work becomes some­ meaning of an unusual term from the actually based on an Italian translation thing entirely different. Russia's great context in which it is used? If British rather than translated directly from the children's poet Kornei Chukovskii was boys and girls can negotiate their way Russian poem. The original source for also a distinguished translator who de­ through Huck Finn's thick Pike Coun­ this curious project was buried in the manded that "an artistic translation ty dialect, young American readers can copyright information. Many books reproduce not only the original author's surely grasp Harry Potter's relatively do not even mention their translators. ideas and images, not only his plot mild slang. Let them use their dexter­ There is a rampant provincialism in the schemes, but also his literary manner, ous imaginations. No young reader has American publishing trade despite the his creative personality, his style." Care ever been to Oz, but every one knows demand for multicultural books. This must be taken to preserve what is what a Munchkin is . interest in other cultures and other unique to the individual work. Or else,

4 Spring 2000 as Robert Frost quipped, poetry is "what drive he wanted to gets lost in translation." It often requires anglicize the story. Had what Chukovskii called "imprecise pre­ the author's widow not cision." Effective translation demands a objected, Dorothy might have person who knows and understands come from Hertford, Hereford, the nuances of both tongues. or Hampshire rather than from American publishers are not alone Kansas. "I am very sorry I do not feel in their resistance to foreign work. I want The Wizard changed for _ Hans Christian Andersen has probably an English edition," Maud '\ftJY;.~~~ been abused by more translators than Baum replied. "I feel ~ J'~~\)\i~~J any other major children's book author. The Wizard is a clas- ,fC- 0° ,,...... The famous fairy-tale writer insisted sic, like Alice in Won­ that "there is in the Danish language a derland, and should power which cannot be transfused into remain as written. I think a translation; the Danish language is that much is due Mr. peculiarly excellent for this species of Baum's memory." fiction." But his fellow Danes were Sir Bernard Pares's British among the last people in Europe to rec­ edition of Ivan Krylov's Rus- ognize their own national treasure: many sian fables is notorious for of Andersen's fairy tales appeared in its disregard for the integri­ German and English before they were ty of the Russian original. published in his native tongue. The Pares calls Krylov's un­ Danes considered Andersen crude and named serfS Farmer White, uneducated, and objected to his collo­ Old Thompson, and quial style because it emulated recent John Brown. Rubles German literature, like the tales of the become shillings, Brothers Grimm. Yet the form of his pence, and pounds. stories was intentional. "I wanted the Kasha miraculous­ style to be such that the reader felt the ly transforms into Illustration by Leonid Vladimirskii,from The Wizard of the presence of the storyteller," he ex­ rice pudding. It is Emerald City, by Aleksandr Volkov, an unauthorized translation plained, "therefore the spoken language difficult to see what of l. Frank Baum 's The Wizard of Oz had to be used." Some translators tried is gained by such to elevate his stories by rephrasing changes. Sometimes a foreign word or spirit of the German tales is betrayed them in the purplest of Victorian prose. phrase gives just the right flavor to a when the stories are transplanted to the Others bowdlerized Andersen or story. "Tsar" offers more to a Russian Scottish Highlands or County Mayo. added long-winded passages to his suc­ fairy tale than "king," and "dacha" has They are neither Scottish nor Irish, and cinct tales. Many of his translators did more character than "country residence." definitely not German anymore. And not know Danish; they worked from "Baba Yaga" is much better than plain they are not Grimm. Ifit says "Grimm" German editions. Even Jo March in old "witch." on the cover, it had better be Grimm! Little Women reads Andersen with Pro­ One of the oddest examples of try­ There is nothing in Western juve­ fessor Bhaer in German. ing to come up with linguistic equiva­ nile literature quite like what Russian Some British express a remarkably lents is the recent Penguin Classics edi­ writer Aleksandr Volkov did to L. Frank cavalier attitude toward translations, tion of Selected Tales of the Brothers Baum's The Wizard of Oz in his unau­ even of American books. People can­ Grimm. The Low German tales have thorized The Wizard ofthe Emerald City not wear sweaters and sneakers or drive been rendered into a Scots dialect, and of 1939. "I shortened the book signifi­ a truck; they have to put on jumpers those originally written in Swiss or cantly, let the water out of it, removed and plimsolls and run a lorry. In 1932 a Austrian dialects have been converted with acid the bourgeois morality typical London publisher wanted to bring out a into Irish ones. Now the Fisherman and of Anglo-Saxon literature, wrote new new edition of The Wizard ef Oz, and his Wife are the Fisher and his Gweed­ chapters, introduced new characters," since it was during a "BUY BRITISH" wife who live "

5 Riverbank Review position of his translation. "Through­ Tin Woodman the Iron Woodman, and Road was an encounter with an Ogre out the book I have aimed to present ... Volkov named the Wizard James Good­ who plans to butcher the little girl for the ideal of friendship and genuine win! Nowhere in the book is the word his dinner. This chapter was entirely self-sacrifice, without envy or greedy "Oz" mentioned. out of character with Baum's intention self-interest, and the ideal of love of Among the unexpected new adven­ to eliminate "all the horrible and blood­ country." Dorothy became Elli and the tures along this Russian Yellow Brick curdling incident" and "heart-aches and nightmares" from his American fairy tale. The Wizard ofthe Emerald City in turn has been translated into at least thirteen languages (including English), A Bird orTwo and became as popular in the Soviet A Story about Henri Matisse Union as The Wizard of Oz is in the United States. Written and illustrated by Volkov readily wrote six sequels to BIJOU LE TORO the book, which he insisted were based more on the work of British writers Robert Louis Stevenson and Frederick Marryat than on that of L. Frank Baum. Bijou Le Tord's delightful They were so popular that school chil­ illustrations capture the vivid dren passed around manuscript copies when libraries could not meet the colors of Henri Matisse, and demand. L. Frank Baum was virtually unknown in the Soviet Union. When I her poetic words sing to visited Russian grammar schools in 1990, I spotted drawings students had the music of his made of Dorothy and her friends. pictures. When I was dutifully informed that they were pictures of Elli, the Scare­ crow, the Iron Woodman, and Totosh­ ka, too, I had the feeling I was not in "Exuberant." Kansas anymore. -Booklist One of the finest recent transla­ tions of a children's book was Erik Blegvad's Twelve Tales by Hans Christian Andersen, published by Margaret "Le Tord's sun-steeped art ... radiates Matisse's McElderry in 1994. Unfortunately this volume was largely ignored by the happiness and sense of play." press and the public, perhaps because - Publishers Weekly there are so many other inferior edi­ tions of Andersen on the market. The stories are not only beautifully illus­ All Ages · Full-color · IO" x I I" · 32 pages · Picture Book · Hardcover trated but masterfully translated by the ISBN 0-8028-5184-3 · $17.00 artist. Blegvad, being Danish-born and -bred, has spent much of his adult life in England and the EERDMANS BOOKS United States, and At your bookstore, brought a rare sensitivity to the nuances or call 800-lSJ-7521 for Young Readers FAX: 616-459-6540 255 J rson Ave .E./Gr11nd Rapids, Michigan 49503 of both Danish and English to his ren­ E-mail: [email protected] An imprinr of WM . B. EERDMANS l'UBLI SH ING O. derings of this round dozen of his favorite Andersen fairy tales. But Twelve Tales remains the exception. Greater

6 Spring 2000

attention to the translating, editing, and reviewing of children's books is still needed. Young people deserve the best, and the best is what the author says­ not what an editor or translator wishes had been said. Please let Harry speak for himself. -=

Michael Patrick Hearn's "Centennial Edition" ofThe Annotated Wizard of Oz will be pub­ Illustration by Erik Bfegvad,.from "The Emperor's New Clothes," in Twelve Tales, lished by W W Norton in September 2000. by Hans Christian Andersen

~------< Books in Translation Honored by the Mildred L. Batchelder Award f-----~

This award, established in 1966 by the 1992: The Man from the Other Side, by Uri ALSC (Association for Library Service Orlev. Translated from the Hebrew by to Children), honors outstanding books Hillel Halk.in (Houghton Miff-Jin). originally published in a foreign language in a foreign country, and subsequently translated 1991: A Hand Full of Stars, by Rafik Schami. Trans­ into English and published in the United States. The fol­ lated from the German by Rika Lesser (Dutton). lowing titles are recent recipients of this award. 1990: Buster's World, by Bjarne Reuter. Translated from 2000: The Baboon King, by Anton O!iintana. Translated the Danish by Anthea Bell (Dutton). from the Dutch by John Nieuwenhuizen (Walker & Company). 1989: Crutches, by Peter Hartling. Translated from the German by Elizabeth D. Crawford (Lothrop, Lee & 1999: Thanks to My Mother, by Schoschana Rabinovici. Shepard). Translated from the German by James Skofield (Dial). 1988: If You Didn't Have Me, by UlfNilsson. Translated 1998: The Robber and Me, by Josef Holub. Translated from from the Swedish by Lone Thygesen Blecher & George the German by Elizabeth D. Crawford (Henry Holt). Blecher (McElderry).

1997: The Friends, by Kazumi Yumoto. Translated from 1987: No Hero for the Kaiser, by Rudolph Frank. Translat­ the Japanese by Cathy Hirano (Farrar, Straus & Giroux). ed from the German by Patricia Crampton (Lothrop, Lee & Shepard). 1996: The Lady with the Hat, by Uri Orlev. Translated from the Hebrew by Hillel Halkin (Houghton Mifflin). 1986: Rose Blanche, by Christophe Gallaz & Robert Innocenti. Translated from the Italian by Martha 1995: The Boys from St. Petri, by Bjarne Reuter. Translated Coventry & Richard Craglia (Creative Education). from the Danish by Anthea Bell (Dutton). 1985: The Island on Bird Street, by Uri Orlev. Translated 1994: The Apprentice, by Pilar Molina Llorente. Translat­ from the Hebrew by Hillel Halk.in (Houghton Mifflin). ed from the Spanish by Robin Langshaw (Farrar, Straus & Giroux). 1984: Rania, the Robber's Daughter, by Astrid Lindgren. Translated from the Swedish by Patricia Crampton 1993: no award given (Viking).

7 Riverbank Review

Expanding the Boundaries

Children's nonfiction isn't what it used to be. Andfor open-minded readers, that's a good thing! By Mary Lou Burket

Mark hadn't found out yet what kind of non­ he would take them back and try again. The fiction he liked, but he was still trying. Each non-fiction books he tried were mostly called month he would carry home his ten books things like "When I was a Boy in Greece," or and read the four good fiction ones in the first "Happy Days on the Prairie" - things that four days, and then read one page each from made them sound like stories, only they the other six, and then give up. Next month weren't. They made Mark furious. -HalfMagic, by Edward Eager (Harcourt, 1954)

hat would Mark think of nonfiction today, in which book these playful fictions emphasize how not just the titles, but words and art invite the reader to tangible and durable, how beauti­ ful, Rome is. They make us look. W enter a narrative world? If the reader is expecting noth­ Another sophisticated picture book, ing more than information, the effect can be perplexing, but by trust­ Tibet: Through the Red Box, has an actual document at its core-the diary the ing the author and setting aside expectations, the reader can learn author's Czech father kept while travel­ from some extraordinary books. Mark, Antics, the "document" is Rome, a city ing on a secret expedition to Tibet some I think, would be pleased to find that replete with ancient wonders. What bet­ forty or fifty years ago. Sent by his govem­ nonfiction resembles the kind of book, ter way to see its walls and roads, its domes men t to film a modern highway being the fiction, he knows and loves. and tiles, than from a pigeon's point of blasted through the mountains, the Most books make a tacit promise to view? We trace the pigeon's flight by father was gone from home, ostensibly the reader: read me and learn, read me way of a line that soars and dips and lost, for years. During his absence, Peter and laugh, or-read me and think about stops and starts. Past the Colosseum, Sis, the son, became gravely ill, but he the world in a new way. Being receptive through the Pantheon, beneath the to this promise is important to appreci­ bridges on the Tiber River, this bird ating an increasing number of books. flies toward some compelling destina­ RomeAntics by David Macaulay (Hough­ tion. No one in Rome would notice yet ton, 1997) and Tibet: Through the Red Box another lowly pigeon-no one does­ by Peter Sis (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1998) but the reader notes her passage every are partly fiction, partly fact, but solid time a cat looks up with a hungry eye. just the same. Full of art, they're meant While touring the city, David to challenge readers. A kindred book, Macaulay revels in suggestion-the without illustration, is Red Scaif Girl by suggestion of a bird's unique perspec­ Ji-Ii Jiang (Harper, 1998), a memoir that tive. The reader knows that statues do is shaped, like a work of fiction, by a lit­ not wave at pigeons flying overhead, as erary hand. I think of these enlightening they do here; nor in modern times do books as documentary literature. legionnaries sit among the tourists on Illustration by Peter Sis,from In the witty and extravagant Rome the crowded Piazza Navona. Yet in this Tibet: Through the Red Box

8 Spring' 2000

Illustration by David Macaulay,from Rome Antics recovered when his father appeared at is blurred by his own childhood long­ Chinese customs, habits, culture, and his bedside with extraordinary stories. ings, images, and fears. The father real­ ideas known as "Four Olds." Children The son's reflections alternate with ly did go to Tibet and really did keep a were instructed to report against their sections of the diary, which is written journal, but in the end this book teachers, neighbors, families, and friends in such plain, credible prose that one is reflects the author's love of inscrutable -anyone perceived to be delaying rev­ inclined to accept the astonishing things things. It protects what isn't absolutely olutionary goals. Confident, bright, and it contains. In the diary, the father peers clear about a time, a place, a journey. loyal to Chairman Mao, Jiang was at first at fish with human faces and remem­ How happy most of us are to know a willing recruit. This book is her account bers leaping across an abyss in the arms that a story we are reading "really hap­ of how her loyalty to Mao eventually of a kindly giant. What were these pened"-most of all when someone in died, to be replaced by the beliefs she strange events? Hallucinations caused the story has a triumph at the end. Red holds today. It's a powerful account. by drinking potent tea or by breathing Scaif Girl is such a book. "A memoir of There is little one can do to check mountain air? Consoling dreams? the Cultural Revolution" it may be, the truthfulness of any book based on From the start, the Soviet and Chi­ but so completely and exactly does it unique experience, conceptions, or nese governments lied about the pur­ reenact entire scenes, with dialogue desires. A reference work or two might pose of the trip and kept the destination and names and rising feeling, that it help to verify a name, a date, or some vague. Later, many things that happened reads much like a closely plotted novel. important fact, but when a book has in Tibet remained beyond the father's Let's say it is a novel, based on a special been shaped to produce a fresh effect power to explain. The son's interpreta­ kind of document, an adult's vivid or has some special purpose other than tion, formed while sitting in his father's memory of her youth. informing us of facts, readers must chair in middle age and reading pages Ji-Ii Jiang was twelve in 1966 when adjust their expectations-or risk mis­ taken from a box (the box of the title), Mao Tse-tung began his fierce attack on understanding exceptional books.

9 Riverbank Review

How does one evaluate nonfiction books that reach beyond conventional expectations? By being receptive to books t~ble as they are, discerning the promise that roun d the author is making to the reader, and using the standards implied within the books themselves. An interesting example of a book Sparking Interest whose promise might not be immediate­ ly obvious is Amelia and Eleanor Go for a Ride, a picture book by Pam Munoz Ryan in Nonfiction and Brian Selznick (Scholastic, 1999). This Twelve Writers' Approaches book recreates the night Amelia Earhart flew with her friend Eleanor Roosevelt from Washington, D.C., to Baltimore Emily Arnold McCully and back. Impromptu flights were rare in 1933, and Ryan wanted proof that this Schiller coined the word einfuhlung for fully imagining the one happened; news reports and a pho­ past, not holding the mirror up to it but going through the tograph verified that it had. mirror. It's the strange familiarity, of people, places, and Someone else flew the plane, but in perspectives, that pulls me in when I'm creating historical Ryan's book Amelia Earhart is the pilot. fiction, and I want any reader to be similarly attracted. "It seemed much more exciting," Ryan The first challenge is the difficulty explains in an author's note, for these BEAUTIFUL WARRIOR of really imagining what it was like '77x S'G<"d of th< %in:• 'Aun& Cfu brave friends to travel by themselves. back then. In my research I use Many other details in the book are true sources from the period as I don't to life. According to Ryan, most of the want the pictures to look like dialogue derives from published sources. posed tableaux of costumed con­ If Ryan hadn't clarified the bound­ temporaries. aries for her book, its promise might In An Outlaw Thanksgiving the not be as clear or as worthy of trust. Like ironies of train robbers' virtues Ryan herself, the reader would wonder and railroad magnates' knavery were what fueled my inter­ what actually happened. Instead, the est in the story. In the forthcoming Mirette and Bellini Cross book is faithful to the reader and the Niagara Falls, the protagonists witness the early tabloid people it's about. Two kinds of readers press in America, the terror as well as the gladness at Ellis -those who like stories and those who Island, and the seamier side of American enterprise. These like facts-meet an important pair of all seemed important and interesting facets of the period heroes, each with a disarming and reveal­ and not what kids usually get. ing sense of fun, in a setting that high­ I had to work up the nerve to turn Elizabeth Cady lights this interesting trait. Stanton into a riding teacher in The Ballot Box Battle-but Deciding how well a book has kept everything I read about her told me she would have been its promise depends on seeing a book as naturally suited to it. Cordelia, the young girl in this story, it is, on recognizing what it has to offer. would not have chirped, "Oh, it's terrible that women This is not the same as reading with a can't vote!" She would not have questioned her world. rigid set of rules and expectations; it's not Creating a character like Cordelia who reflects the prevail­ the same as measuring a book by stan­ ing attitudes of the time makes Mrs. Stanton's outspoken­ dards set by other books. Sometimes books ness, her courage and perseverence, all the more dramatic. surprise us, and they should! -=- Emily Arnold McCully has wrillen and illustrated twentyfive books Mary Lou Burket is a member of the editorial for children, illustrated dozens by other writers, and published two committee ofthe Riverbank Review. novels far adults.

10 Spring 2000

Deborah Hopkinson seeing their world in new ways. "Imagine you are gray the color ofsmoke. Imagine you are shrinking ... " I use second-per­ Standing before seventy third-graders, I ask, "How many son voice to engage children's full participation. This requires like mysteries?" All hands shoot up. "Scary stories?" Ooh, a delicate balancing act. The text must be true to animal be­ yes! Hands fly. havior, not "anthropomorphic," but the experience must "What kinds of books do I write?" Silence. Most hands relate to a person-perhaps a child who, in a chipmunk's drop. Someone ventures a guess. "Historical fiction?" Good. body, wakes up in a leafy bed and eats a winter snack. Then comes the important question: "Is historical fiction true?" Evocative experiences still need to convey facts. As a for­ I explain to children that historical fiction is, by defin­ mer journalist, I amass my research first, then write a poet­ ition, "a made-up story." Once I invent dialogue, I'm cre­ ic draft, and revise, checking each word for accuracy and ating a character, no matter how closely she may resemble clarity. My text is the iceberg's tip. My research, sub­ an actual person. In writing books like A Band ef Angels, merged, must support it. about Ella Sheppard and the Jubilee Singers, or Maria's How nice that readers no longer need to climb over Comet, about astronomer Maria Mitchell, my aim is not fences to satisfy both curiosity and imagination! biography. Rather it's to explore through story an emo­ tional truth or connection I myself have discovered. When Joanne Ryder's latest books are Rainbow Wings (HarperCollins) and I first encountered these women's diaries I felt the vibran­ Each Living Thing (Harcourt). cy of their remarkable spirits across time. I felt connected to these other human beings who preceded me; I felt curi­ ous to know more. In crafting my stories for young readers, Lisa Westberg Peters I try to share that connection and curiosity. I hope my stories help readers to imagine themselves When I wrote The Sun, the Wind, and the Rain, a picture in another time and place, and to return from their reading book about the impermanence of mountains, I never journey with new ideas and questions. I hope they spark asked myself: Is this fiction? Nonfiction? What are the critical thinking ("Why were Ella and her friends turned rules here? I was concerned only that my story be appeal­ away from hotels?" "Why was it unusual for most girls of ing, accurate, and accessible. Maria's time to go to college?") as well as emotional con­ To boost its appeal, I introduced Elizabeth, a fictional nections. beachcomber. She had no companions-dialogue between Pioneering history educator Lucy Maynard Salmon made-up characters smelled like fiction, even to someone said, "History must be seen." History is a lifelong study, a who wasn't thinking about search for truth and meaning, not just of the lives of others rules. I wove in a narra­ but ofour own lives. Historical fiction is one place to begin tive thread, but I didn't the search. get too closely inside her head-erosion, not emo­ Deborah Hopkinson's most recent books are Maria's Comet and A tion, was my subject. Band of Angels (both Atheneum), the latter an ALA Notable To insure accuracy, I Children 's Book. did my homework. To From The Sun, the Wind, make it accessible, I re­ and the Rain wrote for four years. I Joanne Ryder never told my readers that Elizabeth was invented and the geology was real. But that was 1988; the "rules" may be A kind reviewer once wrote that I walked the fence between changing. In an author's note, Andrea Davis Pinkney fiction and nonfiction and did not fall off At the time, it explains what is real and what is invented in Alvin Ailey, a was assumed that imaginative writing techniques would picture-book biography of the dancer. Jeanette Winter distort factual information, and that for this reason the two writes My Name Is Georgia in appealing first person and sets genres should be kept far apart. However, I don't think off Georgia O'Keeffe's actual words in italics, a choice information and imagination are oil and water. Rather, I explained in a note to readers. In Chris Raschka's Mysteri­ blend them to create vivid experiences for children. ous Thelonious, a biography of the jazz musician, the pub­ In my books, poetic language spins a spell of transfor­ lisher says Raschka matched musical tones with color val­ mation. Children imagine becoming something different, ues "to see what it would look like." This explanation

11 Riverbank Review

increased the appeal of an already very intriguing book. ~~--~; •, ' ?" .,. .;e_, •~· ~ ~ ?'" - ?:!. 'WJ!}~I In the end, I favor wildly inventive children's nonfiction ::.: .. ~ A#' ·

12 Spring' 2000 day openness to mention odd habits, sexual orientation, day grumbling and with a headache. No one ever told me addictions, gossip and rumors, strengths and weaknesses, that history could be so painful! On the other hand, it's and other behavior perhaps "unmentionable" in the past. great fun when all the pieces finally come together to cre­ Because we include twenty people in ate a picture of the past that (one hopes) readers can enter each book (an arbitrary decision made into and experience as if they were there. early on), the text must get to the point so quickly that all the "boring Jim Murphy's books include The Great Fire (Scholastic), a Newbery parts" must go. Shaping each person Honor Book, and Gone A-Whaling (Clarion). differently from his or her nineteen companions has the effect of high­ lighting startling or unique features. Jean Fritz The biggest help has been the visual enhancement: the elegant book design My first objective when writing history for children is to and, especially, the portraits painted Illustration by convince them that the past really was. Children who have Kathryn Hewitt,from by Kathryn Hewitt, whose caricatures Lives of the Artists survived traditional textbooks are not easily persuaded that indeed inspired the whole series. Most people living long ago experienced the same emotions that kids can't seem to stop a grin at their first sight of the big we feel today. Historical figures were often scared Gust as we heads, persuading them to look closer and appreciate the are today), discouraged, happy, amused, angry, frustrated. rest of what we're trying to do. When I can find humorous anecdotes I am delighted. Humor often breaks down the barriers that time puts in the Kathleen Krull writes the Lives Of series, ofwhich the final book, Lives way of understanding. of Extraordinary Women: Rulers, Rebels (and What the Neigh­ I do not invent in my biographies. You will never find bors Thought), will be published by Harcourt in 2000. a quotation mark for which I have no source. In my Notes at the end of each book I will either include the source or give the reasoning I have used to reach my conclusions. If Jim Murphy I question the accuracy of something I have read, I share this question with my Every day I set aside a little time to read firsthand accounts readers. If research is thorough and . !I ',_ • ., "'' from the past. I might dip into an autobiography, a collec­ -·····... :.- detailed enough, feeling should be '."Ii . •• ·, ~ - tion ofletters, a diary-anything that lets me hear an indi­ ~ t: ' ~ implicit without having to spell it out. I vidual's voice talking about his or her experiences. If the become exasperated when readers take voice happens to be a youngster's, that's terrific. But I for granted that anything that surprises don't limit myself to young people. I'm searching for any them is fictional. Because so many of eyewitness account that sounds natural, covers an event or my titles are in the form of questions and tend to sound a period of time with accurate and memorable details, has a bit "perky," I find librarians who shelve my biographies sense of drama, and, yes, humor. under Fiction. This is also annoying. Finding a voice isn't easy, but once in a while I come across one that is strong enough to build a book around. I like to jean Fritz's many biographies include And Then What Happened, tell history through scenes, action, and the words of the indi­ Paul Revere? and The Double Life of Pocahontas {both Putnam), viduals who experienced the event. I don't invent details to the latter ofwhich won the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award. flesh out a scene or create action that didn't exist (even though this might lead to a more dramatic text). This means I spend an awful lot of time doing very specific research. What did Diane Stanley a particular street look and smell like? What sort of cloth­ ing did people wear then? What was the weather like on the People are sometimes confused by the picture-book for­ day the action took place? And on and on and on. I often feel mat of my biographies, assuming that the subject matter is like a snooping detective following one clue after another, too advanced for young readers. I have long been puzzled always hoping to unearth a telling detail. by this, since history and biography are essentially stories, Sometimes I find what I'm looking for, but often I many of them quite dramatic. Even very young children don't. This can be frustrating, and is why I usually end the love a good story, and a true one is even better. My son,

13 Riverbank Review when in kindergarten, chose Sh aka, King ofthe Zulus as his By the time I start writing or painting, I've put the research favorite book. He couldn't read it by himself, of course, aside. I consciously leave all dates out of the text. Dates are but then he couldn't read Green Eggs and Ham, either. irrelevant to young children. "What did this person do?" I never underestimate the breadth of children's interests, and "Why is it wonderful?" are the important questions. or their ability to learn new things. My guiding principle is Sometimes the words come first, sometimes the pictures. that if I find something interesting, my young readers I've simplified and condensed my visual vocabulary, much probably will, too. (I am not the first person to take this in the same way that I simplify and condense a life for a pic­ approach, by the way. Back in 1973, David Macaulay ture book. I see the way that I paint-my style-as a visual thought children would be interested in how cathedrals language or tool that allows me to tell any kind of story. were built. Of course, they were-and adults were, too.) Step by step, beginning with Peter the Great, I formed an Jeanette Winter's many picture books include My Name Is Georgia approach to writing history. My first rule is not to fiction­ and Sebastian: A Book about Bach (both Harcourt). alize at all. I make every effort to tell the known facts. Then I take it one step further: I want my readers to understand that history is not a hard science. Even eyewitness reports Julius Lester are suspect, and most of what we have is less reliable than that. Cleopatra's history was written by her enemies a hun­ My approach to writing historical nonfiction for children dred years after her death. I think children would be inter­ is no different than the approach I use when writing fiction ested to know this. or when writing for adults. I want to engage the reader Although I feel compelled to be as factual as possible, emotionally. I want the reader to relinquish his/her ego I know that my book must be lively enough to sustain read­ enough to enter the lives of the people about whom I am ers' interest. Colorful facts and quotes help bring my sub­ writing. In To Be a Slave, the text jects to life. An example of this is Michelangelo's habit of was factual and descriptive and sleeping in his boots, keeping them on for months at a the tone was objective, because time, so that "when he drew them off, the skin came away I wanted readers to hear and be together with the leather, like that of a sloughing snake." involved with the voices of the What ten-year-old boy could possibly resist that? ex-slaves. In From Slave Ship to Freedom Road I used a personal Diane Stanley's books for young readers include Joan of Arc (William Illustration by Rod Brown, voice because I wanted to com­ from From Slave Ship to Morrow) and the forthcoming Michelangelo. history is not only Freedom Road municate that something that happened in the past; history is something we live. Our personal lives inter­ Jeanette Winter sect continually with history; the more we are able to live consciously with what history has bequeathed us, the more "OK, what's important here?" I repeat this sentence to we are able to shape the history we create. myself over and over, like a mantra, when I'm working on I want to invite readers to use their imaginations. a picture-book biography. It helps me to find my way Although we cannot know precisely what it was like to live through all the material I've gathered at any period in the past, I do not believe that the emotions before I begin to write or paint. I start from our ancestors experienced differ radically from those we the objective research and gradually work experience now. Just because someone is white, he is not my way in, to the subjective. exempt from entering the experiences of slaves. Just I want to tell the story of a life-from because someone is black, she is not exempt from entering the beginning to the climax or end. I want the experiences of slaveholders. to see the process of a life-how a person My responsibility is to use my imagination to feel what took one step, then another, and another, it is like to be you, and yours is to feel what it is like to be to pursue and achieve their dream. To do all this in a picture me. This is the opportunity literature affords us, whether book, I must simplify, eliminate, rearrange, and condense that literature is fiction or nonfiction, for children or adults. the objective material in a most drastic and subjective way. Because all of my biographies have been about artists, I Julius Lester is the author ef thirty books for children and adults. His feel a personal identification with the nature of this life. most recent is the novel Pharaoh's Daughter (Harcourt).

14 Spring 2000

Lynne Rae Perkins

This artist and writer explores the subjects ef home, family, and friendship with a perceptive eye to the details ofa child's experience. B y Martha Davis Beck

ynne Rae Perkins is the author and illustrator of two picture think that was my first move in the direction of illustrating. books and a novel, all ofwhich have received Children's Books What kind of art did y ou make when L of Distinction Awards. Her first picture book, Home Lovely you got out ofs chool? (199 5), tells the story of a girl who moves with her mother into a small I worked as a graphic designer for a while, and I taught drawing and paint­ When mysterious trailer, a long way from the home of her dreams. ing. Then I worked on a series of prints seedlings poke through the dirt outside, MDB: What ledyou into the work ofwrit­ when my daughter was born. They were she is inspired to start a garden. Though ing and illustrating books for children? little etchings with writing on them. the plants turn out to be different from LRP: In college I studied printmak­ And I started doing a sequence of what she expects, the kindness of a new ing. Actually, I started out as an archi­ drawings about being the mother of a friend makes her garden lovely and her tecture major, but that only lasted three baby. It seemed like a book idea to me. trailer more like home. In Clouds for days-I had a very scary I sent the drawings to a friend Dinner (1997), a girl who lives with her teacher and I wasn't ready who was interested in chil­ dreamy, artistic parents in a ramshackle for what he was asking us dren's books, and she took house on a hill is smitten by a desire for to do .. . So I went over to them to a critique group that more mainstream comforts during a the art department. I'd she belonged to. Then she visit to her aunt and uncle's suburban always liked drawing, so I signed me up for a portfo­ home. A frustrating experience trying thought, "I guess I'll do lio review at a SCBWI [Soci­ to describe a sunrise to her practical­ this until I think of some­ ety of Children's Book Writ­ minded aunt gives her a new appreciation thing else." The depart­ ers & Illustrators] conference for her family's eccentricities. AU Alone ment advisor asked me in Pittsburgh, where I'm in the Universe (1999), a novel sprinkled what I thought I'd like to from. She told me that I with expressive illustrations, offers an do, and I said I'd like to should choose a classic fairy astute portrait of a girl whose best friend illustrate children's books. He just tale and do six drawings that would show has just thrown her over. Debbie's laughed and said, "Wouldn't every­ that I could take a character through loneliness is sharp, but it leads her on a body?" But at that time, at least in the different situations. sad, sweet, and funny journey as she fine arts program, illustration was What fairy tale didyou pick? tries to discover her place in the world. looked down upon. A common criti­ I looked through them and I didn't Lynne Rae Perkins lives in north­ cism of a drawing would be, "That's find one that struck me, so I decided I western Michigan with her husband not a drawing, that's an illustration." would make up my own story, just for and two children, in a hilltop home So, I felt steered away from it. But in the purpose of having something to that she and her husband built. The graduate school some of the prints I illustrate. That's when I started think­ following interview was conducted by made were in the form of little books, ing about Tiffany, the character in phone this winter. and I started putting words on them. I Home lovely.

15 Riverbank Review

Didyou create the whole book for that against stereotypes ofclass? mailman-but they're pansies and mari­ portfolio? The town where I grew up was real­ golds, not tulips, say, or lilies. No, just the first few pictures. My ly working-class. I think my mother On my desk I have a quote from friend had told me to do six, but I was the only woman on our street who Mitsuko Uchida, the pianist. She said, think I only got three done in time for had gone to college, and my dad only "People are starving for things that are the review. Later [after the art director went for one year. On some level I had beautiful, and there is not much that is for Greenwillow Books had expressed to leave in order to be who I was, but I beautiful." I think people are starving interest in the project] I went home spent a lot of years in that environ­ for things that are btautiful. And and finished the book quite quickly. ment. It shaped who I am. they're there, but we're presented with The second book, Cloudsfor other ideas of what's sup­ Dinner, took me a lot longer. posed to be beautiful, and How did the story for Home they keep us from seeing the Lovely develop? things that are right in front At the time, my husband of us, which to me are much and I were building our house. more interesting. We built it "pay as you go," }Our second picture book, and to begin with we were Clouds for Dinner, tells the living in a little cabin with­ story of a girl in an unconven­ out running water or electric­ tional household who briefly ity. When my daughter was longs for the suburban life ofher small I spent a lot of time at aunt and uncle. How did this the laundromat, and for some story connect to your own reason I began to notice all household? of these nine- or ten-year-old Qyite a few years ago, my girls-while doing laundry, husband bought twenty-five or at the local township park, acres to plant Christmas trees or in line at the cashier's at on. He built a tiny cabin on Target-and they all seemed a steep hill as a place to stay to be named Tiffany or Brit­ when he came to tend the tany or Nicole. On one occa­ trees. He never intended to sion I was in line somewhere move in. But a series of cir­ behind a girl and her moth­ cumstances led us to do just er, and the mother was irri­ that, and our cabin started tated and out of temper. She to grow in a way that a friend called out, "Tiffany! Get over once described as "all hig- here!" I started to think about From Home Lovely gledy-piggledy." We were how people pick names for into the idea of not spend­ their children and have these ideas So many picture books have an ideal­ ing much money, so we used a fair about what that name will do for their ized rural setting, whereyou don't see shop­ amount of recycled materials, which child, and what that name means. ping malls, Barbie dolls, or T-shirts with we liked anyway, because they seemed That's interesting. I hadn't really radio-station logos like Tiffany's in Home to have some personality. The reason thought about the choice of the name Lovely. Yet these are the icons ofmany chil­ we were into not spending much "Tiffany" as an expression ofthe desire for dren's lives. More than wealth, really, money was that we were also into not wealth. But that connects to the story in Home Lovely's subject is the longingfor making much money, because we were Home Lovely I like the fact that Tiffany beauty. But the beauty doesn't end up being into things like reading, gardening, and her mother have the dream ofa better what Tijfany-or the reader-expects. The and spending half the morning drink­ life, yet it doesn't define them;you 've drawn plants that she is hoping will be flowers are ing coffee and writing postcards to our them with respect. This is also true of the vegetables, but that turns out lo be fine, even friends. So our lifestyle grew in a sort of Prbyczkafamily in All Alone in the Uni­ something special. Ofcourse she ultimately higgledy-piggledy way, too. And then verse. Are you consciously trying to work gets flowers too, from her friend Bob the we had children.

16 Spring' 2000

I remember visiting my sister when to describe her, so it's difficult to do in instantly remembered the time when my daughter Lucy was about four, and a few words. I think a telling story my mother did that. With many peo­ being aware of how much she admired might be this: after she read the book, ple, their "official policy" is more gen­ the wall-to-wall carpet and the La-Z­ she said, "Well, if that's supposed to be erous than their actions. With my Boy recliners, neither of which we had. me, I can tell you one thing I would mom, it can just as easily, though by no Although my sister is not the sister in never do is pick up a hitchhiker." But means predictably, go the other way. the book, she lives a more "regular" life when my sister read the book, she As Debbie says in the book, "I keep try- than I do, and I realized that on some level, Lucy would thrive with that kind of regularity. I wanted to say to her, "I know I'm not good at that, but we have something good, too." Family is important in each ofyour books. Not only the characters' own families but other families, or individuals who enter their lives and more or less stand in as fam­ ily members. I think that we seek out what we need wherever we can find it. In All Alone in the Universe, Debbie talks about how family boundaries are made up, like state or national borders. When I was a child we had next-door neighbors who were much like the neighbors in that book. In my mind, they were a part of our family. I didn't realize until I was grown up that this was anything unusu­ al. I remember once when I telephoned from college to tell my parents some­ thing and they weren't home, I called our neighbors, collect. My mother found that pretty funny, but I didn't think anything of it. Have you drawn on your own family for the characters in your books? When I was working on Home Love­ ly, my father had recently died. He was a quiet man who could be very funny, Spare words a d lovely oodcuts ca eture ithe a wonderful companion for walks, long essence of [turning a are plot of gr un,d 'nto car rides, anything. I never heard him say a hurtful word to anyone. I was think­ frag'~nt flowers nd lu vegetables ahd ing about him a lot, of course, and in trees. This striking alpha&et vook, from the I my mind he became Bob, the kind illustrator of 5NOWFl AKE ENJl,EY, c;ele&ratee I mailman. Though it was a sad time, it was nice for me to have the chance to the simple joys of gardening. spend so much time thinking about him as I worked on that story. The mother in All Alone in the Uni­ verse is my mom, all the way-at least, my version of her. It took a whole book

17 Riverbank Review ing to figure out how she chooses." thought of Debbie as being my alter I loved the way that Debbie describes ego, she started to become her own her as being like a house with secret notches person. on the fence that welcome hoboes. I think it's One thing I notice about the novel is true that at Debbie's age-about thirteen­ that its time period is specifically the sixties. kids often start to look at their parents in a Often writers ofnovels for children write out new way, trying to understand them. oftheir own childhood time, but they don't Another thing I was interested in is make it explicit, so there can be odd ways in how kids try to piece together what's which a narrative doesn't feel like the pres­ going on from overheard snatches of ent, but for a young reader it isn't dear adult conversation. There's a scene where exactly when the story takes place. I appreci­ they go to the open house down the ated the fact that you grounded it in its time, street, and Debbie hears a little bit of with references to Dean Martin, fishnet what her mother and her neighbor say. stockings, Dark Shadows, that Prell sham­ Criticizing the Prbyczka family's poo ad with the pearl. . . and the craft proj­ lifestyle? ects-the bits of torn masking tape on the Yes. And she's just hearing these Mateus bottle .. . I remember all those proj­ snippets, but she's paying attention. A From Clouds for Dinner ects I What are your thoughts about making year or two earlier she wouldn't even a book live in a time and place? have noticed them. going to try to make a little etching that I wrote it in that time partly because Yt?t she makes up her own mind. She's expressed that thought. But I was hav­ I felt more confident that I could make not overly influenced by her mother. What ing technical problems. Normally, after it be real. My own kids are now eight and led you to write All Alone in the Uni­ scratching a design into the coating on six. I don't feel totally in touch with verse? What made you decide to move.from a copper plate, the etching process in­ what's happening in adolescence today, picture books to a novel? volves bathing the plate in an acid solu­ all the little details. And I wanted the Actually, I began working on the tion that eats away the exposed copper, story to feel real. At one point, when I novel before I did Clouds for Dinner. I leaving an incised line that will hold had set the year as 1969, my editor said remember when my daughter was very ink. Because I didn't have adequate to me, "You know, kids who read this young we went over to the house of a ventilation, I was trying to use a non­ are going to read it as historical fic­ friend of mine who also had toxic alternative to the acid, tion." It was a funny thing to realize. young children, and the chil­ which wasn't working very There are several chance encounters in dren were fighting and it well. So I did a drawing All Alone in the Universe that wind up was just total chaos. I was instead, and then I added being significant to the main character. It thinking, "I don't like this . & a little written description strikes me that your own trust in the writing at all! I'm not very good at From All Alone in of the scene-something process-in each piece finding its own the Universe this!" My friend was standing in about my childhood friend. place-is echoed in the way Debbie's experi­ the middle of the room and she turned Then I did a drawing of the fence that ences unfold. Seemingly random occur­ to me with this big smile and said, Debbie catches her stocking on, and I rences count for a lot. "Isn't this great? This is so much fun!" wrote a little bit about the hitchhiker As I was working on the book, I was She made me feel able to laugh at it, that her mother picks up. So I was gath­ thinking about people I have known. and it felt more like fun after that. She ering all these fragments of drawings Sometimes people will say something reminded me of a friend I had had as a and writing. It was interesting for me, to you, and for them it's just an off­ child, who became the model for Deb- because I had never written anything hand comment, a response to some­ bie's friend, Maureen. so big. But I kept telling myself that thing that you have said to them. But Maureen is the kind of person who somehow it would all come together, somehow some of those things hit you expects situations to be exciting, and some­ and I kept putting the different pieces in at just the right time and they become how they wind up being that way as a place. sort of a mantra that you take with you. result. So it began to have its own life, its own I was thinking about things that differ­ Right. So, after the afternoon at my momentum? ent people had said to me that became friend's house, I came home and I was Yes. And while I had originally that way. There's a Van Morrison song

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["Checking It Out"] on the Wavelength some of my roadblocks had crumbled part of what All Alone in the Universe album that goes, "And all the obstacles sooner. They're still there, ofcourse, but came out of was the desire to say that along the way I Sometimes may feel so they don't completely block my view. this willingness to care about one tremendous I There are guiding spirits When I look back at the times that were another is essential and valuable. -=- all along the way I Who will befriend hard or confusing, I remember the peo­ us." That was one of my guiding ple who held out a hand, and how that Martha Davis Beck is the editor of the River­ thoughts all the way through the writ­ was pretty much enough. I know that bank Review. ing of the novel. I was thinking about how people do that. That's a wonderful thought. Through the book there seem to be threads ofthat help­ " ... a volume to be cherished."• ing spirit, some of which are intentional, and some ofwhich are incidental. That inci­ dental brushing up against the kindness in a ·.1.8~ LITI'LE MATCH GIRL stranger can end up being important. DQltr~d by Jerry Pinkney Yes, it can be hugely important. The theme offriendship is central in the book. I love the way that you explore Deb­ bie's .feelings ofjealousy, ofneeding to move on, but of attachment and need as well. When her friend Maureen starts to have another best friend, there are very astute passages that describe how awkward the threesome.feels. At one point Debbie says, "! .felt off-balance, as ifsomeone kept borrowing my right foot for a few minutes. As ifsome­ one were moving into my house while I still lived there." It's something everyone .feels at one time or another, but don't want to admit to feeling. I think one of the things it took me a really long time to learn is that the rules do not apply. The expectations we have-about what friendships are supposed to be, or what romance is supposed to be, or what our families are supposed to do for us-they get in our way. In some ways, I see myself as a really slow learner. I was always a good student, but on an emotional level I think it took me a long time to figure things out. Maybe that's just how life is: we all have to learn for ourselves, and it just takes time. But I was won­ dering, what would have happened ifl had figured things out sooner? I don't want to say my adolescence was without happiness or fun, or even ..,..,..,.penpinputna11t.co111 glimmers of understanding ... but I can't help wishing I had been braver, that

19 Riverbank Review the teacher's art

Adventuring with Alice

By Monica Edinger

onderland has taken over my fourth-grade classroom. Books are everywhere. Editions of Lewis Carroll's Alice's WAdventures in Wonderland, from the very first, illustrated by John Tennie}, to the most recent, illustrated by Lizbeth Zwerger, fill the room. German, French, Russian, and Japanese Alices. Pop-up Alices. Comic-book Alices. Whoopi plastic Alice twirls on a key chain. Alice Goldberg's Alice. And, of course, plen­ cards. Alice toys. Alice games. The ty of Disney Alices. A mismatched tea room has been transformed. set sits on my desk while a stuffed Perhaps in this new millennium Cheshire cat smirks atop a file cabinet. Harry Potter will displace Alice as the Photographs of Alice Liddell-the real most widely known character in chil­ Alice, to whom Carroll first told the dren's book history, but for now she story-fill one bulletin board while a still stands supreme. Well over one Faith Ringgold Wonderland-inspired hundred years after publication, her story quilt, New Yorker cartoons, maps story is probably the most referenced, ofWonderland, and postcards ofOxford most illustrated, and best-known chil­ fill another. A china White Rabbit anx­ dren's book of all time. The White iously checks his watch while a bored Rabbit who worries about being late, the Mad Hatter at his tea party, the cro­ Illustration by Peter Newell quet-playing Red Qieen, the vanish­ ing Cheshire Cat, all continue to pro­ illustrated editions are produced all the vide pleasure and amusement to adults time, I suspect that in most cases they and children alike. are not read by or to children. More Sadly, the characters, situations, and likely they are given as gifts and are language of Alice's Adventures in Won­ quickly relegated to bookshelves, to derland are more likely to be known gather dust. Over the many years I've through the filter of Walt Disney's ani­ used Alice in my classroom, I've rarely mation than through Carroll's original met other teachers who do the same. book. While new and more lavishly And remarkably few of the hundreds

"Ms. Edinger had so many books with different pictures, but the amazing thing is that they all had the exact same words." Illustration by John Tennie/ -Evan

20 Spring 2000 ~ of children I've read this book to have had any previous firsthand experience "When I was younger, I used to think that ~ with it. Many parents seem to believe Alice's Adventures in Wonderland was a little kid's that, although the book may have been originally intended for children, it book. When we started it, I was surprised that is too confusing, too scary, and too esoteric for children today. it was really a book for nine-year-olds." I disagree. My father first read the -Gordy book to me when I was eight, and I read it over and over again thereafter, with One of the first well-known illustrators preted that particular chapter. As the tremendous pleasure. Tenniel's illus­ to do so was Arthur Rackham. His Alice children become familiar with differ­ trations, Carroll's wit, and Alice's tenac­ is a wispy thing, very different from ent artists, certain editions become ity never failed to enchant me. Won­ Tenniel's solid child in a pinafore. favorites and I have to control the mad derland was indeed nonsensical, but Other notable illustrators of Alice dash for the books before the daily that never bothered me. Its inhabitants include Salvador Dali, Ralph Stead­ reading begins. Tennie! is invariably scared me not a whit and its relevance man, Barry Moser, Anthony Browne, the most popular, but in past years to my life (or lack thereof) seemed dis­ Michael Hague, and, most tinctly beside the point. The Victorian recently, Helen Oxenbury and sensibilities seeping into Wonderland Lizbeth Zwerger. Some depict were as alien to me in 1962 as they are Alice in a manner similar to that to my students today. I envied Alice ofTenniel; some make her more and would have liked nothing more like Alice Liddell; others go far­ than to join her on her adventures in a ther afield, creating Alices total­ magical world that struck me as continu­ ly different from any before. ally fascinating and delightful. As an During my daily Alice time, adult I still consider it one of the few each child follows along from perfect children's books; it continues one of the many different illus­ to provide new surprises with each trated editions as I read a chapter rereading. Fortunately, year after year, from The Annotated Alice, by my students agree with me. Martin Gardner (new edition: At first I simply read the book Norton, 1999), occasionally aloud and relished my students' appre­ interrupting the story to read a ciation of the language, the humor, particular annotation or to clari­ and Tenniel's illustrations. After a while fy something I expect will be I discovered that there were others unfamiliar to them. The chil­ who had also illustrated the book and I dren delight _in the story, and began showing these different editions also enjoy learning about such Illustration by Lizbeth Zwerger to my students. Going deeper, I discov­ oddities as bathing machines, ered more about Lewis Carroll, about 1860s schooling, or the ritual of a Vic­ Anthony Browne, Ralph Steadman, and Alice Liddell, and about the book itself. torian tea. They are intrigued by Alice Angel Dominguez have been much Before long I had a whole literary study Liddell and her sisters, and enjoy admired as well. in place: The Many Faces of Alice. Christina Bj6rk's book, The Other Alice: For the first few years of the unit, While I like both Alice stories, the The Story of Alice Liddell and Alice in after completing the book I invited the focus of my unit is on Alice's Adven­ Wonderland (R & S Books, 1993). I've children to illustrate any part of the tures in Wonderland and its illustrators. It also been able to deepen their appreci­ text they wished. Over the years they is the lighter of Carroll's two books, ation of the book's poems and songs worked in a range of media, from col­ and far more artists have attempted it by reading them the originals that Car­ lage to watercolor, with remarkable than Through the Looking-Glass. While roll parodies so brilliantly. At the end of results. Some pictured Alice tradition­ purists believe no one can do better each session we take plenty of time to ally, in a pinafore and with long hair, than John Tennie!, many have tried. examine how various illustrators inter- while others made her a contemporary

21 Riverbank Review

"If you think that Disney's Alice is the only Alice in Wonderland, you're in for quite a surprise, because my class and I studied it, and we enjoyed it, and I think you would too." -Will

girl wearing jeans and a T-shirt. One child turned Wonderland into an under­ ground New York City, entered through a garbage can, while another surround­ ed his White Rabbit with a collage of clocks cut out of magazines, all set to the same time, 2:10 p.m. One of my all­ time favorites was a Motown version with Aretha Franklin as the Duchess. My two most recent classes went further by creating two fully illustrated editions on the Web. Teamed two to a chapter, the children created wonder­ ful illustrations, added annotations of their own, and wrote essays about the project. Every year the unit ends with­ what else?-a mad tea party. We push '54 t this the whole pack rose up into the air, and came flying down upon her ... " all the desks together to create one Illustration by Lauren long table, with my special wing-back chair at one end. Lanterns dangle from cups, and piled high with cucumber the ceiling and small rabbit candle­ sandwiches, tea cakes, scones, bread holders decorate an expanse carefully and butter, and more. With great care lllustrations by Monica Edinger set with special plates, napkins, and the children prepare their tea, sip it, and chat (far more civilly, I must note, than do the book's characters). We end with a screening of Disney's Alice in Wonderland. Now experts on the book itself, the children view the movie with a new and more critical eye. I realize that Alice isn't for every­ one. One of the reasons my students love it so much is that I love it so much; as a student once observed, I'm nuts about Alice. Such enthusiasm is contagious. However, they also enjoy it because it is silly, witty, and fun. For my students, Alice's Adventures in Won­ derland is no Victorian relic, but a book for the twenty-first century. -=-

Monica Edinger is a fourth-grade teacher at "'I'm not a mile high, ' said Alice." Illustration by Sam the Dalton School in New York City.

22 Spring 2000

Daniel Pinkwater

In The Hoboken Chicken Emergency and other books for young readers, this author celebrates life's absurdity and casts outsiders as heroes. By Christine Heppermann

n National Public Radio some years back, in a series of birth in 1941, and thus he has been commentaries later published in his book Chicago Daysi "variously known as Daniel Pinkwater, Manus Pinkwater, D. Manus Pink­ OHoboken Nights (1991), Daniel Pinkwater complained water, Daniel M. Pinkwater, Captain about what he called the "widespread humor loss" affecting our Daniel Pinkwater, Bullet-head, Jelly­ nation. He noted that funny people were often considered weird, as belly, and Tokyo Tom." His storyteller's bent colors any account he gives of his in "This is Pinkwater. Don't mind him, his picture books or novels and gain life; either that or he is the only person he's a little weird." Well, the truth of entry to a skewed reality where the on record to have once been evicted the matter is that Daniel Manus Pinkwa­ ordinary and the extraordinary cohabi­ from an army-surplus raincoat "for ter has never been just "a little" any­ tate; where new cars turn nonpayment of rent" and thing. This is especially the case when it into dinosaurs while being to have married the world comes to the mammoth body of work test-driven; or articulate record-holder in "women's for children and young adults he has blue moose wait tables at toad-thumping." Yet, enough created over the past thirty years. cafes and drink coffee out details recur, both in his Those who find him brilliant find him of chowder bowls; or over­ fiction and in the pieces he hugely so. For some, the mere mention weight extraterrestrials in does for National Public of certain Pinkwater titles, e.g., The plaid sport coats float Radio, where he has been a Hoboken Chicken Emergency (1977), The down from the sky, seeking commentator since 1987, Wuggie Norple Story (1980), Big Bob and world domination only as that one gets the sense they the Magic Valentine's Day Potato (1999), it relates to their ability to contain a smidgen of truth. induces fits of mirth. Those who find obtain cheeseburgers and breaded Although his family moved quite a him out in left field find him way, way clams. It's hard to imagine a humor few times when he was a kid, Pinkwater out-beyond the home run wall, prac­ drought striking in a world where such considers Chicago, where he spent his tically in the stadium parking lot. Jules phenomena exist. Perhaps all our civi­ early childhood and adolescence, Feiffer aptly described the way Pinkwa­ lization needs for salvation is a few home. Landmarks from the Chicago ter's brain seems to work-and he 266-pound chickens running around streets, encountered in the restless meant it as a compliment-when he and more people with names like Mrs. wandering of his youth, lend texture to said, "His tab A does not fit into slot A Hotdogbun. Pinkwater's novels-landmarks such as the way it's supposed to in a well­ Pinkwater's own name is a matter the greasy hotdog stand that served thought-out thought. More likely, his ofsome question. In the Something About generous portions of cheap, lethal junk tab A will fit into slot 14 or slot X79 ... " the Author autobiography series, he food, and the all-night movie house he Pinkwater's young fans expect no less. claims his parents experienced "confu­ enjoyed frequenting at two a.m. Like They rely on being able to open one of sion" about what to call him after his many of his adolescent characters,

23 Riverbank Review

Riverbank Pinkwater seems to have learned more Review from his excursions in the city than he Children's did in the classroom. His narrators are Books of usually intelligent misfits, as disgusted Distinction by their ineffective, hostile, and, in one 2000 case, certifiably insane teachers as they are by the apathy of their fellow stu­ dents. In The Snarkout Boys and the Avo­ cado ofDeath (1982), young Walter Galt expresses his dismay about school in a speech at Blueberry Park (modeled after Chicago's Newberry Park, where, according to Pinkwater, in the 1950s and '60s, anybody was "allowed to speak on any topic at any time without inter­ ference"). Walter tells his rowdy audi­ ence that he's "growing up ignorant, and [doesn't] particularly want to"­ but his teachers refuse to teach him anything. Pinkwater's books contain by good teachers as well, such as the affa­ mustration Jill Pinkwater,ftom The Hoboken Chicken Emergency BENNY'S HAD ENOUGH! ble Mr. Salami in the Big Bob early by Barbro Lindgren readers and the abrasively eccentric Pictures by Olof Landstrom his 1959 Peugeot station wagon for the Translated by Wally Gerskowitz in The Education ef Elisabeth Kallick Dyssegaard Robert Nifkin (1998). The good ones are East Coast, eventually residing in an * "In a strangely successful mix of those who don't just assign busy work artist's loft in Hoboken, New Jersey. In the absurd and the everyday, this and give grades based on the tidiness of 1969 he married his wife, Jill (the infa­ hilarious picture book tells the a student's notebook cover, but who mous toad-thumper), his future co­ story of a toddler-age pig who's author for one book (Superpuppy: How had enough ... With its wonderful­ challenge kids to express themselves ly off-beat sense of humor and its creatively. to Choose, Raise, and Train the Best Possi­ honest portrayal of a child's urgent No particular career goal other than ble Dogfor You, 1977) and future illus­ emotions, this is first-rate entertain­ a desire "to work indoors" emerged as trator for numerous others. In 1970 his ment with a heartbeat." calling finally became clear with the -Starred, The Horn Book Pinkwater drifted through high school $14.00 I 91-29-64563-8 I Ages 2- 5 and college. He majored in art at Bard publication of his first children's book, R&S BOOKS College and subsequently apprenticed The Terrible Roar. with a Chicago sculptor who acted as a Having long ago shed his disdain THE TROLLS sort of Zen master for him. At the end (or most of it, at any rate-he still con­ by Polly Horvath of his apprenticeship, the night before siders writing to be terribly easy), Pink­ * "Original and entertaining ... [a] he was to leave for New York to try to water now thinks being a children's witty, clever, and involving book." break into the Art World, the sculptor book author is one of the most impor­ -Starred, Booklist "Offers memorable characters, fizzy told him he would never make it as a tant things he could do. He has gath­ narrative, and scenes worthy of a fine artist. He predicted Pinkwater would ered quite an adult following for his roll on the floor, but also an under­ become a writer. In Chicago Daysi work in radio, another field where he lying emotional trajectory that Hoboken Nights, Pinkwater remembers never expected to find himself, but makes the strongest comedy part of a larger and more complex picture." responding, "I don't want to be a feels most committed to his young -The Bulletin of the Center for writer!. .. Writers are sissies! They sit readers. Recently he has even found a Children's Books around, bending over typewriters, pol­ way to combine his two professions, as $16.00 I 0-374-37787-1 I Ages 8-12 luting the atmosphere with bunches of cohost of the children's public radio unnecessary words." Determined to program Chinwag Theater, where he FARRAR • STRAUS • GIROUX prove his teacher wrong, he set out in often reads his books on air.

24 Spring 2000

No matter what age group he is writ­ a guy once notorious in certain Chica­ ing for, Pinkwater strives to keep his go circles for carrying a trained chicken prose clear and unpretentious. He intro­ beneath his hat. The fictional Chicken duces readers to bizarre fare, but his Man has this quirk plus a few addition­ writing never calls attention to itselfby al ones, such as a connection to a group getting flowery or overly introspective. of musical lizards who come from an When he illustrates his own books, most invisible island, worship chickens, and often with cartoon pen-and-ink draw­ jam on network television after regular­ ings, his artwork is much like his text­ ly scheduled programming ceases for friendly and emotionally direct. His the day. Pinkwater's Uncle Boris appears, 3 poein for spting matter-of-fact delivery enhances his in one form or another, in several sto­ ability to depict absurd situations and ries, notably as the man with the magic creatures as comically ordinary. The gem in Alan Mendelsohn, the Boy from vampires who climb through a boy's Mars (1979). (According to Pinkwater, window one night in his picture book this uncle, an amateur moviemaker, Wempires (1991 ), for instance, prefer liked to film people's feet. His mag­ ginger ale to blood. They sit around the num opus was created by "cutting all narrator's kitchen, raiding his refrigera­ the foot footage out of the family films tor and calling him "sonnyboy," until and splicing them into a two-hour his mother appears and shoos epic entitled Feet.") The title char­ them out into the street. Many acter in Alan Mendelsohn was Pinkwater picture books and supposedly based on a kid short novels depict animals in from Pinkwater's junior high unusual occupations. The school who started a riot among latest of these is Larry the his classmates by claiming to hail haiku polar bear, star of four pic­ from the red planet. Big Bob, the ture books to date, who left harmless second-grade narrator of I walk to find you the frozen North for a job three potato-related holiday tales, sometimes five or six miles­ as a lifeguard in Bayonne, bears the same name as a Hobo­ cherries in blossom New Jersey. Larry has no ken gangster with whom Pinkwa- Illustration by taste for human flesh; he ter used to swap dieting stories. Daniel Pinkwater, -Matsuo Basho (1644-1694) takes his wages in blueberry from Wempires Which brings us to the subject muffins-but just in case, of Pinkwater's weight: he's big, and the owner of the hotel where he works proud of it. In an interview published posts a sign reading, "NOTICE TO ALL on Fat!So?, the Website "for people Reprinted.from Grass Sandals: The GUESTS: MAKE SURE THE BEAR LIKES who don't apologize for their size," he Travels of Basho, by Dawnine Spivak YOU BEFORE USING THE POOL." Pink­ says he enjoys writing about fat characters (Atheneum, 1997). Reprinted by per­ water has even managed to strip the and placing them in "what amount to mission ofthe publisher. intimidation factor from the Prince of heroic settings." In marked contrast to Darkness himself. In the picture book characters in the movies and on televi­ Devil in the Drain (1984, now out of sion, his protagonists are lively, adven­ print), Satan turns out to be a diminu­ turous, and hip without being svelte. tive, portly, and irritable guy with a yen They encourage readers to find some for salted pretzels and a paranoia about way to move outside the status quo, people turning on the tap. where, as Pinkwater fans know, all the Judging from Pinkwater's radio com­ really interesting stuff happens. -=- mentaries, some of his most intriguing characters are inspired by actual people. Christine Heppermann is a member ofthe edito­ There's the Chicken Man, featured in rial committee of the Riverbank Review and a the novel Lizard Music (1976), based on contributor to the Horn Book Magazine.

25 Riverbank Review

2000 Children,s Books

Picture Books ~

Benny's Had Enough! All Alone in the Universe By Barbro Lindgren By Lynne Rae Perkins Illustrated by OlofLandstrom GREENWlLLOW R & S BOOKS/FARRAR, STRAUS & GIROUX In the summer of 1969, thirteen-year-old This delightfully quirky take on an Debbie's world is thrown off balance age-old clash between parent and child when her best friend gradually abandons stars a headstrong young pig, fed up with her for another. Her witty, piercing, and his mother's attempts to clean him and eloquently described account of this his stuff. Benny's singular venture out, painful transitional period is accompanied grimy favorite toy in tow, is both by pen-and-ink sketches that make her comical and uniquely touching. words seem all the more personal and real.

Tea with Milk The Garden of Eden Motel By Allen Say By Morse Hamilton H OUGHTON MIFFLIN GREENWILLOW Lucent watercolor portraits convey the Dal and his new stepfather's vacation out restrained yet intense unhappiness of a West provides a vivid picture of 1950s rural Japanese American adolescent who reluc­ Idaho as well as a look at the unpredictable tantly moves back to Japan with her family. landscape of an eleven-year-old boy's Her quiet triumph comes from working thoughts. A host of additional interesting within societal constraints to achieve inde­ characters pop up along the way as the two pendence and companionship. travelers get to know each other.

Vera's First Day of School The Trolls By Vera Rosenberry By Polly Horvath HENRY H OLT FARRAR, STRAUS & GIROUX On her first school day ever, a young Can Aunt Sally's wild stories about her girl's emotions run the gamut from childhood be believed? Siblings Melissa, boundless excitement to utter dejection Amanda, and Frank don't know for sure; when, having lingered outside to collect but beneath the mesmerizing hilarity her thoughts, she realizes class has started and suspense of her tales lie seemingly gen­ without her. What starts well ends well uine regret over past cruelty toward her for Vera in this heartfelt story with bright, younger brother and a subtle message to personality-filled illustrations. her nieces not to repeat her mistakes.

The Children's Books ef Distinction Awards are presented annually by the Riverbank Review. For more infonna­ tion, contact: Riverbank Review, 1000 LaSalle Avenue, MOH-217, Minneapolis, MN 55403, (651) 962-4372.

26 Spring 2000 of Distinction Awards

Poetry ~

In My Hands: Knock at a Star: Memories of a Holocaust Rescuer A Child's Introduction to Poetry By Irene Gut Opdyke Revised Edition with Jennifer Armstrong Compiled by X.]. Kennedy and KNOPF Dorothy M. Kennedy It sounds like the stuff of spy thrillers, but it Illustrated by Karen Lee Baker is true: a young Polish woman helped twelve LITTLE, B ROWN Jews survive the Holocaust by hiding them in In this user-friendly anthology, questions the Nazi major's house where she worked. about what poetry is and what it does are Her own suffering at the hands of the Germans answered with a treasure trove of poems as and Russians and the atrocities she witnessed examples. Lively, affectionate pencil draw­ are powerfully evoked in this memoir. ings complement work from a diverse and distinguished array of writers. Journeys with Elijah: Eight Tales of the Prophet Little Dog Poems Retold by Barbara Diamond Goldin By Kristine O'Connell George Illustrated by Jerry Pinkney Illustrated by June Otani HARCOURT C LJl.RION Illustrated with paintings as lush as a finely Like the shaggy terrier to which they refer, wrought tapestry, these colorful folktales the poems in this picture-book collection chronicle instances of the prophet Elijah's are small but significant, giving voice to a appearances to Jews around the world. little girl's revealing observations about her Goldin's thought-provoking and entertain­ canine companion. The warm relationship ing stories will make readers think twice before between narrator and pet is further evoked turning their backs on strangers in need. in spare and inviting watercolor artwork.

Through My Eyes Very Best (almost) Friends: By Ruby Bridges Poems of Friendship Articles and interviews compiled Collected by Paul B. Janeczko and edited by Margo Lundell Illustrated by Christine Davenier SCHOLASTIC C ANDLEWlCK As a first-grader in New Orleans in 1960, Vibrantly drawn boys and girls run, Ruby Bridges was the only black child to sulk, scheme, dance, and daydream on the integrate William Frantz Elementary. Her pages of this impassioned, slim volume childhood perspective of this experience is devoted to an all-important aspect of accompanied by excerpts from news reports children's lives. Noted poets speak openly and photos that document the appalling and not without humor about the highs hatred directed toward one very little girl. and lows of being a friend.

27 Riverbank Review

Picture Books rich man (with buttons aplenty) asks an oak tree that he has advised her to her to marry. The second daughter, not­ run under.) ~ ing the many many buttons on a sol­ Brock Cole's ink-and-watercolor illus­ dier's uniform, offers to disguise her­ trations reflect a bygone century, all in Buttons self as a boy, join the army, and send muted, appealing tones, expressing the By Brock Cole home any spares. The third daughter, a quiet pastoral beauty of the country­ FARRAR, STRAUS & GIROUX little slower than the others, finally side as well as the energetic hurly-burly 32 pages, Ages 4-8, $16.00 comes up with an idea: "I will run in of a town-square marketplace. Best of ISBN 0·374-31001 -7 the meadow along the river, and I will all, his artwork captures the slight The swath of heavy curtain hanging hold my apron out so that if any but­ goofiness of his subjects and their but­ down the side of Buttons's front cover tons should fall from the sky, I will ton-inspired ordeals. Every page carries provides a clue: here is a story that catch them before they get lost in the the visual ping of a sweet and under­ plays as period farce. Listen for the ele­ tall grass." stated humor. vated use oflanguage, watch for sweep­ Needless to say, all plans go awry, and All's well that ends well: when the ing gesture, consider the writer's per­ what began as a straightforward search curtain goes down on this rollicking fectly timed manipulations within a for pants fasteners evolves into a fum­ drama, Papa's pants are secured firmly well-plotted, expertly paced story. The bling yet fateful love story for each girl. in place and all three girls are happily tale's main characters-a man, his wife, Only the sublimely ridiculous third married. Cole began with just three lit­ and three fair daughters-pose on the daughter, running barefoot through tle missing buttons, but he ends up front as though for a portrait. Turn the her meadow, finds a suitor who is both with a story that feels as solid and page and the narrator begins: "Once charming and smart enough to provide repeatable as a well-worn classic. there was an old man who ate so much the missing buttons. (They - Christine Alfano his britches burst and his buttons mysteriously fall from popped one, two, three, into the A Day, a Dog fire." That line pulls readers into a By Gabrielle Vincent romp that is both hilarious and FRONT STREET thoroughly satisfying. 64pages,Allages, $1 6. 95 With his buttons all gone, ISBN 1-8869 10-5 1-0 Papa turns to his wife. She puts him safely to bed and turns to This story-in-pictures by Gabrielle Vin­ her slightly silly daughters; cent (author/illustrator of the Ernest each of them devise an elab­ and Celestine series) wakes up the reader orate scheme that promises like a sudden fresh breeze in the face. the reward of at least three It is a simple yet ambiguous story, a buttons. The first daughter story that stretches one's capacity both plans to dress in her finest and to see and to feel. pace the palace bridge until a ll/ustration by Brock Cole,from Buttons The narrative of A Day, a Dog is

28 Spring 2000 conveyed in a series of powerful pencil drawings set against generous white space. A dog is tossed out of a car in the first picture; he races to catch up, unsuccessfully, in succeeding pages. In -... - -· an especially potent image, the car is shown stopped farther down the road, its driver unable to resist a backward glance. In a minimum oflines Vincent Illustration by Gabrielle Vincent,from A Day, a Dog conveys a lot about this family: a shred of regret in the father, firm, forward­ but then disappear. It is not so easy to meandering account of the day's events facing resolve in the mother. Yet much find a friend; at the end, this is what we is vividly brought to life by Shane W. is left to the reader to imagine. What hope has happened for our dog. A child Evans's expressive illustrations. Never did the dog mean to the child whose appears, with nothing but a small suit­ idealized (as illustrations celebrating head we see poking up in the backseat? case, on the ribboning road. Is he aban­ family so often are), Evans's oil paint­ It is this tension between what is told doned as well? Running away? All we ings divulge a deeper layer of meaning and what is not told that provides the know is that he, like the dog, is alone, in Johnson's prose poem, and often chief excitement in this story, inviting and his tentative but tender welcome is sweetly contradict what the young nar­ the reader into close scrutiny of the ele­ exactly what the dog has been seeking. rator tells us. Arriving at the house, the gant, expressive drawings and into an -Martha Davis Beck girl claims that her daddy's uncles and intimate identification with one aban­ aunts "are standing in line when we I doned dog. pull into the drive," and then contin­ Down the Winding Road What is central, and palpable ues matter-of-factly: By Angela Johnson throughout the story, is the dog's lone­ Illustrated by Shane W. Evans liness, his need, and his physical ener­ Two DKINK gy. Vincent's hand four is sure, her lines 32 pages, Ages 3-6, $15.95 swift and bold, capturing movement SIX ISBN 0-7894-2596-3 seven of them .. . and suggesting emotion with striking All in a row, precision. When the dog's family's car Kids often balk at visiting older rela­ looking just alike. disappears for good, his slumped tives-same old stories, same old place; dejection speaks volumes. When his what's there to do? In Down the Winding And yet, consult the illustration: posture suddenly straightens and his Road, Angela Johnson lets us see those you'll never see seven more unique ears perk up, we know what he hears annual visits to out-of-the-way relatives and interesting individuals, with faces before we see another car on the hori­ for what they really are: pilgrimages of so warm and friendly, postures and zon, heading toward him. As he steps a necessary sort. If we don't know who bodies and clothing so particular. out to meet it, we can't help but expect it is we come from, how can we know Evans imbues each with a singular life. the worst. Relief at seeing our four­ who we are? Ifwe don't hear those "sto­ Together, they share a meal, take a legged friend safely on the other side of ries ... that they all know by heart," slow walk, draw up memories like prize the road mixes with shock as we wit­ which stories find their way into our fish from a well-stocked pond. The girl ness the result of the car's swerving-it own hearts? and her brother walk along and listen, crashes in to another vehicle. The wreck Down the Winding Road brings us and jump from a tire swing into the and the gnarled traffic that ensue create on a young girl's visit to her father's glimmering lake where the Old Ones a tumult in which the dog is temporar­ childhood home. It's a big, old clap­ used to swim. Baptized by the past, this ily caught, his role in the accident board house way out in the country girl arrives at the end of the day still unknown, his howl lifting to the sky. (there are cows in the field and wash thinking in her same young way: Several pages show the dog com­ drying on the line), and it's full of the pletely alone, a small creature ventur­ uncles and aunts, "the Old Ones," who As we get in our car ing forth in a vast landscape. Occasion­ raised him. The whole family has made they line up in a row; al human beings, perhaps lost and the trip, but the voice of the story looking just alike, with creased faces. wandering themselves, appear as dots belongs to the girl, and her easy-paced, Then they wave us away.

29 Riverbank Review

Illustration by Shane W Evans.from Down the Winding Road

But she doesn't have to understand and spills a glass of juice, drenching the (The Seven Silly Eaters) provide excellent it all, just yet-she'll carry the day in dog in purple goo. Her mother takes the characterizations of the playful daugh­ her heart: mishap in stride: "[She] didn't like to ter, who doesn't notice that she's going yell, so instead she said, 'Harriet, my dar­ too far, and the stressed-out mother, back to the city, ling child.' I 'I'm sorry,' said Harriet, and who wants to be good, too. Frazee never and we are already missing them she was.'' The problem disappears with allows her remarkably sensitive illustra­ along the winding road. help from a sponge and a basin ofwater. tions to get too intense, even when the Down the Winding Road is testament But Harriet's sincere apology doesn't mother blows her top; the soft colors to a journey well worth taking. prevent her next few accidents, each of and delicate lines create a comfortable -Christine Alfano which add a line to her mother's rhyming ambience, suggesting the everyday nature scold: "Harriet, my darling child. Harri­ of the relationship. In a no-nonsense et, you'll drive me wild." manner, this picture book explores fam­ Harriet, You'll Drive Me Wild! Australian author Mem Fox (Skepy ily members' responsibilities toward one ByMem Fox Bears, Time.for Bed) structures the story another, and ends on a genuinely lov­ Illustrated by Marla Frazee as a four-stage buildup, including a sticky ing, reassuring note. H ARCOURT -Nathalie op de Beeck 32 pages, Ages 3-7, $16. 00 snacktime, a drippy art project, and an unfortunate tablecloth-yanking. With ISBN 0· I 5·201977 each test, Harriet's mother loses a little Joseph Had a Little Overcoat This astute account of a girl's mischief bit more of her cool; a tiny arch appears By Simms Taback and a mother's eroding patience begins in her eyebrows and the corners of her VIKI NG on a clear, sharp note. "Harriet Harris mouth turn down almost impercepti­ 40 pages, All ages, $15.99 was a pesky child. I She didn't mean to bly. At last, when Harriet and her pet's ISBN 0-670-87855 -3 be. She just was." In the adroit pencil pillow-fight results in a feathery explo­ and ink wash accompanying this intro­ sion, Mom loses her temper. She stands When Joseph's overcoat gets worn, he duction, an angelic preschooler with in the doorway, ramrod straight, and makes it into a jacket, then, after more wavy brown hair crouches in her paja­ yells. When she calms down, she admits wear and tear, a vest, a scarf, a necktie, a mas, squinting hard as she blows a plas­ her own mistake; Harriet needs to be handkerchief, and, finally, a button. tic trumpet. A tawny-coated dog glances more careful, and so does she. Mother When he loses the button, he makes a at her with a look of such alarm that the and daughter restore peace by cleaning book about the experience-just as infernal racket is almost audible. up together. Simms Taback has made this book Harriet proceeds to the breakfast table Both Fox and illustrator Marla Frazee about Joseph.

30 Spring 2000

Joseph is what the French used to photo labeled "Sigmund" that looks a call a bricoleur-someone adept at lot like Freud, Yiddish greeting cards putting old objects to new uses. So is and scraps of paper with Yiddish say­ Simms Taback. In a note at the back of ings on them. At one point, there is the book, he tells us that he's made a even a fiddler on the roof. Not only do book out of this Yiddish folk song these pictures evoke the richness of an before, and that his decision to re-illus­ old, enduring culture, their vibrant col­ trate it proves "that 'you can always ors and jaunty folk-art style express a make something out of nothing' ... joyful defiance in the face of depriva­ over and over again!" The illustrations tion and poverty that is itself the in this new version are themselves fine essence of the bricoleurs art: making examples of the bricoleurs art. A mix­ something joyful out of having next to ture of watercolor, gouache, pencil, nothing. ink, and collage, they incorporate bits The cleverest use Taback makes of and pieces of old photographs, sheet nothing is the die-cut holes he uses to music, and scraps of brightly colored show how a coat becomes a jacket, a fabrics. Some of these fabrics appear in jacket a vest. These holes-an absence the braided rugs in Joseph's house, rugs of paper-are literally not there, yet they Illustration by Anita Lobel.from One Lighthouse, One Moon that are of course recycled from old allow Taback to provide graphic evi­ objects. Patches of the fabrics, used in dence of the garment's transforma­ the rugs or in pieces of clothing or cur­ tions and to produce other ingenious year, and the third numbers one through tains, appear again against the black acts of bricolage. Seen through a hole, ten. What holds them together is a shared background of the endpapers, inviting a patch of black that seems to be part of setting-a house at the seashore-and viewers to find each pattern in the a cow's black hide on one page turns the sublime sensibility of this artist. book and appreciate the ingenuity that out to be part of the back of a man's The themes of balance and the put the scraps to further use. black jacket on the next. Meanwhile, cycles of life are quietly announced at Also scattered around the depic­ the hole, flipped from right to left as the outset by two lovely paintings. tions of Joseph's house and village are the page is turned, forms the "window" Night is depicted in the first of these: a images of a whole range of materials that defines the shape of each new (and gray tabby cat (who we later learn is representative of the traditional Yid­ smaller) article of clothing-here the "Nini") sits on the doorstep of the dish culture of Eastern Europe. There part ofJoseph's jacket that becomes his house, in shadow. The soft green land is are books by Sholom Aleichem and I. L. vest. For all its folksy exuberance and lit by a full moon that hangs above a Peretz, posters for Yiddish plays, a apparent na"ivete, Joseph Had a Little lighthouse just offshore. Day, on the Overcoat is a sophisticated and technical­ next page, finds the cat inside on the ly accomplished tour de force-a fine window ledge, gazing out to sea. Seven example of the complex artistry that pairs of shoes sit behind her; the day­ lets good children's picture books seem time moon-a sliver-is visible in the to be simple. blue sky beyond. Day and night, land -Perry Node/man and sea, inside and outside, the span of a week or a month: the simplest divi­ sions of space and time are conveyed One Lighthouse, One Moon beautifully and reassuringly in Label's By Anita Lobel vivid gouache and watercolor paintings. G REENWlLLOW Nini observes, 40 pages, Ages 3-7, $15.95 In "All Week Long" with interest, as each day of the week is ISBN 0-688-155 39-1 announced by a different pair of shoes Anita Label's latest picture book is a on the feet of a girl whom we see only splendid creation, and is actually three from the knees down. Lobel is in her Illustration by Simms Taback,from books in one. The first treats the days of element here, working with costumes Joseph Had a Little Overcoat the week, the second the months of the and sets. The view in each painting is

31 Riverbank Review limited, the elements carefully chosen. even to create a story. belly round, her nipples pronounced. Black lace-ups, red cowboy boots, blue In "Nini's Year" the cat again appears Turn the page and, sure enough, she sneakers, yellow sandals, and pink bal­ in each month's frame, sniffing snow­ sits proudly on a cushion in the living let slippers describe an active girl; bicy­ flakes, listening to the wind, gazing at room, a crackling fire in the fireplace, cle wheels, beach sand, or garden green­ flowers, posing on a pumpkin. At three kittens playing nearby. ery visible in the scene offer enough year's end we are told, "In DECEM­ "One Lighthouse, One Moon" is detail to spark readers' interest, invit­ BER Nini waited for good things," and the book's most spectacular section. ing them to fill in the larger picture- there she is, stretched out on a bed, her The view here is no longer close-up but grand, taking in the big world. It's the world of the seashore: one lighthouse, two boats, three sailors (waving to four girls who play on the opposite page), five whales, six pelicans, and so on. When the numbers reach their limit, the "one moon" reappears to comfort When Sophie Gef.s Angry­ the living world. -Martha Davis Beck Really, Really Angry ... Red Rubber Boot Day By Mary Lyn Ray Illustrated by Lauren Stringer H ARCOURT 32pages, Ages 3-7, $16.00

ISBN 0-15-21 3756-4

Mary Lyn Ray's Red Rubber Boot Day is a child's paean to a rainy day at home -from its solitary indoor projects and games to its outside parading and pud­ dle-jumping in "red rubber made-for­ rain boots." Lauren Stringer's illustra­ tions are bold in perspective, warm in color and tone as she zeroes in on one child's rainy-day schedule, using a kind of bug's-eye view-sometimes from overhead, sometimes up from the ground. This technique accentu­ ates the child's inner world during indoor play, but once the child leaves the house, the same perspective takes the reader directly into the world of puddles. Then the red boots leap and splash, and puddles explode across the page. Stringer's highly original illustra­ tions make this story about solitary play very exciting. Mary Lyn Ray's spare, poetic text works beautifully with Stringer's images; she captures the shifts in pace and focus that a rainy day brings to a

32 Spring' 2000

can fit floods, crashing waves, and a hailstorm onto the pages of a book, the faces of her characters are disappoint­ ingly bland, and their houses, inside and out, are oddly lifeless. Who are this child and his mother, who run toward the raging sea when the village sirens sound a flood warn­ ing at dawn? They seem to be inhabi­ tants of the village: they have a house of their own, and Grandmother lives just up the hill. Yet they react to the storm as newcomers might. Why is it that lllustration by Lauren Stringer,from Red Rubber Boot Day youngJim has not become aware of the power of wind and ocean until now? child at home. "I listen. I watch," the The Storm Perhaps it doesn't matter. This is a narrator reports, playing near rain­ By Kathy Henderson story about the wind and about a boy streaked windows, content in the com­ C ANDLEWICK who discovers for himself just how pany of two curious cats. "I may 28 pages, Ages 3- 8, $15.99 awe-inspiring nature can be. At the decide to get my crayons and draw the ISBN ·0-763 6-0904-8 conclusion of the book, Jim stands on things I like to draw." Crayons, blocks, the beach and whispers to the wind, books, miniature cars, and a tea party The main character of this picture "All this is yours." This time when he are all oversized and further animated book is the wind-not a scowling fairy­ stretches his arms out like the sails of by Stringer's unusual and intimate per­ tale wind with wild hair and puffed the windmill, he reaches down toward spective. A closet becomes a cozy cheeks, but nature's wind, as high and the gentle waves of the ocean. He has cave, but in one shadowy comer two wide as the sky. The setting is a seaside learned a lesson he will never forget. big red boots await the outdoor phase village at the end of winter, where a -Susan Marie Swanson of this day. young boy named Jim runs along the Soon the child breaks in a run from deserted beach with arms stretched out Thingy Things the house in those same boots and a "like the sails of the windmill." He By Chris Raschka as cats and toys shouts to the wind, "All this is mine!" bright yellow slicker, H YPERION indoors watch from the comer of a The most striking pictures in the 24 pages, Ages 3- 6, $3.99 each of the story depict the powerful storm that rainy window. Here the energy ISBN 0-7868-058 1-1 (Moosry Moost) book changes, becomes frisky and blows into the quiet village. Working expansive as the child dances and in acrylic, gouache, and other mixed A lilting pleasure permeates all of Chris jumps through puddles in the pouring media, Kathy Henderson achieves Raschka's work, and this neat quartet rain. An elderly neighbor (the only remarkable effects. When an ominous of books, so perfectly sized for small adult in the pages) comes outside in his gale looms up over the salt marsh, the hands, so slyly humorous and true to bare feet to feel the wet grass, but the red scarfJim wears is just a tiny speck in heart, is further proof of this artist's child decides that "splashing in boots is the distance, and the grassy bank where brimming talent. Four animals are better," and proves it with a riotous he runs is overwhelmed by the larger depicted in Thingy Things and four feel­ conclusion of crashing puddles and landscape. Henderson's textured ren­ ings are simply, concisely expressed. flailing arms. Then the rain stops, the dering of the dark, windswept night That each of the books should be as sky clears. Red Rubber Boot Day's final accompanies an especially affecting satisfying to read as it is wonderful to image is especially magical: the reader segment of her text: "All night long the look at is a small marvel. actually becomes the stilled puddle, wind raged. It stirred up the sea, bent Raschka wastes no time in Moosey looking up at the child's tousled hair trees, crashed shingles, smashed flow­ Moose-he starts at the emotional crux and beaming face framed in a circle of erpots, rattled at the doors and win­ -"Moosey Moose is mad." And then: sun against blue sky. dows, and tore through the dreams of "Yes, Moosey Moose is mad!" Well, -Margaret Willey people sleeping." But though this artist that's the way mad is-insistent and

33 Riverbank Review kind of pushy. In twenty-four pithy ka delights us with offbeat surprise. ishing reprimand : "Sluggy Slug!" This pages, we learn why Moosey Moose is "Sluggy Slug won't go" se ts the gastropod holds fast and looks, in the mad, and what at last makes him premise for the next book, and ifyou've end, quite content to stay put. happy. And you'd never guess in a mil­ ever encountered a stubborn toddler, Wormy Worm wiggles and giggles lion years what quells this animal's you'll recognize him here. Nothing makes and revels in movement. Whaley Whale fury. It's a pair of pants (long pants, him go, not even the luscious bribe of a plays hide-and-seek beneath the furni­ not short pants!) for his antlers. Rasch- pink swirl lollipop. Not even an admon- ture (who would look for a great white whale underneath a chair?). These ani­ mals, like children, are full of themselves. Riverbank Review, Books of Distinction 2000 Emotions (glee and anger alike) run ALA Notable Children's Book pure and unconstrained, and Raschka captures them in both text and illustra­ School Library Journal, Best Books of the Year tion. His line, as usual, is swift and live­ Charlotte Zolotow Award Committee, Highly Commended ly; his boldly painted colors and pat­ terns fairly bounce off the page. The back covers of Thingy Things promise that the series "teaches young children to read using simple sounds paired with easy word repetitions." Well, if we must turn these delights into lessons, let's mention the value of humor and blunt joy. Let's mention that Sluggy Slug gets his way! by JCristine O'Connell George -Christine Alfano Illustrated b y June Otani ~· Krisunr O 'Connell George mus1ra1(:J b\· June Otani Train Song "Enchanting poems and wi nso me watercolors paint a picture of the By Harriet Ziefert special bond be tween a young gi rl and her beloved pet. Balancing Illustrated by Donald Saaf simplicity with eloquence, the haiku-li ke ve rses make an inviting O RCHARD introducti on to poetry." -School Li brary journal, Best Books of the Year 24 pages, Ages 3-7, $14.95 ISBN 0-53 1-30204--0 40 pages 0-395-82266-1 $12.00 A small, Charlie-Brownish boy in a red ,...... _, ,rf[lso by JC.ristine O'Connell George ,...... _, buffalo-checked jacket and a baseball THE GREAT FROG RACE: AND OTHER POEMS cap is distracted from playing in the Illustrated by Kate Kiesler grass with his toy trains by the sounds 48 pages 0-395-77607-4 $15.00 of a real freight train coming round the OLD ELM SPEAKS: TREE POEMS bend. So begins Train Song, another Illustra ted by Kate Kiesler collaboration between Harriet Ziefert 48pages 0-395-87611 -7 $15.00 and Donald Saaf. As in their previous effort, Animal Music, the text of Train Song is very much a song-a tradition­ To order these books, visit y our al railroad tune this time, with chug-a­ local bookstore, call toll-free chug rhythms and folksy train refrains. 1-800-225-3362, or Jax y our The song includes rhyming lines about order to 1-800-634-7568. black engines and red cabooses, engi­ neers and trainmen, steam, smoke, and the clickety-clack of a train that's com­ ~ CLARION BOOKS ,...... _, a Houghton Mi ffl in Company imprint ~ 215 Pa rk Avenue Sou th, New Yo rk, N.Y. 10003 ing round the bend again. "A small boy stands and waves his

34 PICTURE BOOKS

Benny's Had Enough! By Barbro Lindgren Illustrated by OlofLandstri:im

R & 5 BOOKS/FARRAR, STRAUS & GIROUX

Tea with Milk By Allen Say H OUGHTON MIFFLIN

Vera's First Day of School By Vera Rosenberry

H ENRY H OLT

FICTION

All Alone in the Universe By Lynne Rae Perkins

GREENWIUOW

The Garden of Eden Motel By Morse Hamilton GREENWIUOW

The Trolls By Polly Horvath

FARRAR, STRAUS & GIROUX NONFICTION

In My Hands: Memories of a Holocaust Rescuer By Irene Gut Opdyke with Jennifer Armstrong

KNOPF

Journeys with Elijah: Eight Tales of the Prophet Retold by Barbara Diamond Goldin Illustrated by Jerry Pinkney

HARCOURT

Through My Eyes By Ruby Bridges Articles and interviews compiled and edited by Margo Lundell

SCHOLASTIC

POETRY

Knock at a Star: A Child's Introduction to Poetry Revised Edition Compiled by X.]. Kennedy and Dorothy M. Kennedy Illustrated by Karen Lee Baker

LITTLE, BROWN

Little Dog Poems By Kristine O'Connell George Illustrated by June Otani

CLARION

Very Best (almost) Friends: Poems of Friendship Collected by Paul B. Janeczko Illustrated by Christine Davenier

CANDLEWICK

The Children's Books of Distinction Awards are presented annually by the Riverbank Review. For more information, contact: Riverbank Review, 1000 LaSalle Ave., MOH-217, Minneapolis, MN 55403, (651) 962-4372 Spring 2000

"Tomorrow when it's almost ten," Zeifert sisters wave good-bye to her, running concludes, "Freight train will be back to join their friends on the busy play­ again." ground. A bit overwhelmed, Vera sits -Margaret Willey by herself under a tree and becomes absorbed watching a fuzzy orange-and­ black caterpillar climb its trunk. The Vera's First Day of School ringing school bell startles her out of By Vera Rosenberry her reverie, and she turns to find the H ENRY H OLT 32 pages, Ages 3-7, $15.95 playground empty. As is often the case with young children, Vera assumes ISBN 0-8050-5936-9 Illustration by Donald Saaf,from Train Song that's it-she's missed her chance to go As in her first picture book, W7Jen Vera in. So she walks back home, forlorn arms," the song goes. "Freight train Wis Sick, Vera Rosenberry draws on her and disheveled-her white sash all passes towns and farms." In this cou­ own childhood (using herself and her undone by the time she arrives. The plet's illustration, real train, toy train, sisters as characters) to create a simple, way that her mother resolves the mishap little boy, and train conductor are joined resonant story about an experience of is lovely and reassuring: Vera's fears in a moment, here and then gone. Text significance in a young girl's life-in and feelings are respected, and her first and illustrations capture the way that a this case, a difficult but ultimately tri­ schoolday is reclaimed with a mini­ passing train can be both a momentary umphant first day of school. mum of fuss. thrill and an emblem of a pleasant, Vera is so excited about going to Rosenberry has a knack for zeroing dependable routine. As the train con­ school, she is up long before her two in on what matters to a child. In bright, tinues on its way we meet the trans­ older sisters-up before sunrise, in fact, appealing gouache illustrations she ported animals-cows, chickens, ducks, which she watches through her win­ conveys the tactile beauty of the small geese, and pigs-traveling contentedly dow, all dressed, simply needing some­ things that capture a child's affection in brightly colored cars, along with coal, one to tie the long white sash of her or hold her gaze, and the text keeps this logs, and a tank car with a shiny side. dress into a bow. It's an important day, child-centered focus. Early in the story ("Don't you wonder what's inside?") the day Vera is Vera examines her school supplies with Donald Saaf's paintings are decep­ "big at last." loving care: "Vera held her two big tively childlike. His use of primary When the three round pencils. She smelled her new colors and washes with loose black girls get to box of crayons. In her slim black paint outlines and repetitive accents pro­ school, Vera's box, the oval pans of colors shone like duces a kind of innocence, but jewels." In the title-page illustration, a the slightly static quality of the figures and the soft lines also Illustration by Vera create a sense ofstilled time that Rosenberry,from Vera's suits a book about trains, with First Day of School all that they symbolize in our culture: arrival and departure, past glory, the lost frontier. Trains are fun, fun to see and hear, fun to ride, but still somehow inherently mourn­ ful, and, like a train whistle, mysterious. Saaf's final images reflect this as the little boy watch­ es the train disappear over a distant hill, his back to us, his hand slightly lifted in the aftermath ofa good-bye wave. At his feet, the toy train waits.

35 Riverbank Review close-up picture of Vera's caterpillar the pupils. Tired of being viewed as a ing act, maintaining a moral ground­ climbing the playground tree, even slave and a freak, she runs away-quite ing in spite of a sensationalistic plot. this humble insect is given an expres­ a feat for one of her stature, who can -Nathalie op de Beeck sive countenance! hide along muddy roads but cannot an blend into the population of the Rosenberry's eye for detail has Francie Lower East Side. She delivers herself emotional as well as decorative effect, By Karen English Wal­ as does her attention to pattern. Wall­ into the clutches of one Mr. R.]. FARRAR, STRAU S & GIROUX paper designs, clothing fabric, even ters, slick proprietor of the Museum of 199 pages, Ages 10-14, $16.00 the grain of wood on the floorboards, Earthly Astonishments at Coney Island. ISBN 0-374-32456-5 are rendered with such care that the Walters looks at Josephine and sees reader recognizes this is not just any dollar signs. He gleefully gives her a For twelve-year-old Francie Weaver, life house-it's Vera's house. stage name-Little Jo-Jo, the World's in Noble, Alabama, is almost unbear­ -Martha Davis Beck Smallest Girl-orders a custom-made able. For one thing, she's black, living wardrobe, and installs her in his human in a town where racism is still the status menagene. quo. For another, her beloved father Fiction Author Marthe Jocelyn crafts the has moved to Chicago and found a job ~ events as a Victorian serial, down to such as a Pullman porter, leaving Francie, chapter headings as "12-In Which her younger brother, and her mother Earthly Astonishments Little Jo-Jo Makes Her First Appear­ behind until he can afford to send for By Marthe Jocelyn ance" and "23-In Which Josephine them. And her many obligations allow DunoN Plans for the Future." The plot turns very little time for her passions: read­ 176 pages, Ages 8-12, $15.99 on Josephine's wish for a family and ing, eating Scooter Pies, and watching ISBN 0-525-46263-5 on the ways that insensitive people the train go by-the train that will take This Oliver Twist-ian tale conceives of a capitalize on her appearance. Josephine her to Chicago someday. Going to Chica­ tiny girl-a "midget," in P.T. Barnum's befriends a hard-as-nails stage mother go means more than reuniting with her parlance-living hand-to-mouth in and her son Charley, an albino boy father. It means libraries, good schools, the New York of the 1880s. In an engag­ with whom she feels a kinship. Mean­ and piano lessons. It means showing up ing first-person prologue, Josephine while, she learns to bargain for her all those in Noble who think that her speaks pragmatically about the only thing rights as an adult, albeit one who rides father has abandoned his family. And that sets her apart from other girls. on a dog in a boardwalk sideshow. In Chicago promises an escape from the "I'm little, you see. I'm shaped regular, true Dickensian fashion,Jocelyn makes racism-the meanness and the dangers but littler, is all. When I was seven, I Josephine comfortable in this new life, -of the Depression-era Deep South. was a bit taller than the seat of a chair." then resuscitates sundry villains to com­ Francie works so hard, both at Josephine remembers that her abu­ plicate the melodrama. home and with her mother Lil, on var­ sive parents scorned her: "Mostly they At times, the narrative labors to ious jobs for the townspeople of were ashamed of me and never made avoid the sort of exploitation that it Noble, that she seems almost a me pretty things," she says. One day, chronicles. Josephine's physical fea­ paragon of virtue. But by choosing to her father charges fair-goers a penny to tures are uncanny, and must be unset­ tell her story from a first-person point gawk at her, then sends her away to be tling to some, but in the novel news­ of view, Karen English allows readers a seamstress for the cruel headmistress hounds invariably find her charming. to appreciate Francie's clever wit, her of a girls' school. "They never said it Further, the Earthly Astonishments quiet rebelliousness, and her courage. was the last time I'd see my mother. "performers" seldom frighten onlook­ Francie stands up to and subsequently And I never said that I didn't care ers intentionally, although extroverted feels sorry for a school bully; she holds much anyway," she shrugs. Charley calls himself a "ghost boy" and her own when a white merchant accus­ After this introduction, the novel threatens to haunt anyone who mocks es her of shoplifting; and she exacts shifts to the more distant third-person. him. Only when Josephine is in danger revenge for many wrongs in a brilliant Josephine, now twelve, is a maid-of-all­ are her amiable cohorts monstrous, fashion. She also tutors Jesse, an older work at the girls' academy. Every day, and by then readers know that the boy who cannot read, then feeds and she endures rough treatment from the inhumanity is just part of the act. Joce­ hides him when he is hunted by a gang kitchen staff and suffers the taunts of lyn's novel performs a delicate balanc- of white men intent on punishing him

36 Spring 2000

for being "uppity." Through all of this, wished it), and watches while a neighbor those sins that he doesn't confess. He Francie's spunk keeps her just on the seemingly contemplates suicide as she also knows that he does not fit in, that edge of serious trouble, much to Lil's hangs her laundry. He senses that his he's not like his brother and his friends. despair and dread. It's no wonder, then, adored uncle is struggling with an abid­ Toward the end of the book, Eugene that the family leaves for Chicago as ing sadness underneath his happy exte­ sees an airplane parked in a backyard­ soon as Lil can arrange it. It's too dan­ rior, falls in love with the beautiful hands quite an unusual sight in the teeming gerous, emotionally and physically, for of his piano teacher, and worries about neighborhood of Frenchtown-and, for them to stay in Noble. Francie is a heroine who, like Mil­ dred Taylor's Cassie in Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, epitomizes the spirit that led to the civil rights movement. A1000 AlA Notable Children's Book Evocative of a place and time that still echoes in American history, this Coret­ ta Scott King Honor book explores issues of racism and human worth and dignity in a way that kept me thinking long after I closed the covers. -Lee Galda

Frenchtown Summer By Robert Cormier D ELACORTE 113 pages, Age 10 and up, $16.95 ISBN 0-385-32704-8

In thirty brief chapters of lyrical free­ verse, Robert Cormier evokes the tene­ ments, heat, poverty, and daily life of a 1938 New England factory town popu­ lated by French Canadians. The town is presented through the eyes of twelve­ year-old Eugene, a boy struggling to find a place in his world and to connect with his father. The father is an enigma to his son, loving but distant. Eugene is ~\I/~ a bookish kid in a town that rewards ~-::.. "A story about the year two best friends become physical accomplishment, a sensitive quietly less so.... It's a portrait of a girl's intent boy surrounded by others who have lit­ observation of the ordinary, and the power of tle energy and less time to spare for language to make it art. Exceptional." introspection. -Starred review I The Horn Book As he moves about town on his paper ~\II~ route, interacts with his extended fam­ ~-::.. "Sharp, funny, uneasy, spiteful, fragile ... a realistic ily, and ponders the relationships be­ coming-of-age story as Debbie finds friendship in tween his mother, father, brother, and a widening world." himself, Eugene reveals an unusually -Starred review I ALA Booklist perceptive sensibility. He wonders why Ages 10 up • 144 pp. • TR $16.00/0-688-16881-7 his father is so distant, questions whether or not he himself is responsible for a MGreenwillow Books A division of HarperCollinsChi/dren'sBooks 1350 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10019 • www.williammorrow.com neighborhood bully's death (because he

37 Riverbank Review

a moment, he is the center of atten­ describes, over and over, the sight of this reminiscence of a boy who "knew tion. When he leads his brother and that orange biplane. The occasion [his] name I but did not know who [he] his friends to the site, he finds that the serves as a watershed in the relation­ was." The book will surprise those who plane has disappeared, and his word is ship between Eugene and his father. only associate Cormier with The Choco­ discounted. Later that evening, when The free-verse vignettes that make late ~r or I Am the Cheese. It reminded his father reveals that he saw the plane up Frenchtown Summer offer a form me of the grace and beauty of his earli­ too, Eugene's status is restored, and he that is graceful and entirely suitable to er Other Bells for Us to Ring. -Lee Galda

King of Shadows By Susan Cooper McEwERRY 18 6 pages, Age JO and up, $16. 00

ISBN 0-689-82817-9 DeLLgVltfuL TCILes Susan Cooper, who won the Newbery Medal for The Grey King (of the Dark Is Rising sequence) has full control of her Grandpa's_.,u;,,-- .. -- Soup magic. In King of Shadows (the title comes from Midsummer Night's Dream) she shows that she understands the magic of the theater, how a group of people in an enclosed space can make the impossible happen. In this splen­ did novel for young people, she has translated this understanding into a ravishing story. Nat Field is part of the Company The Tale of the Grandpa's Soup of Boys, youngsters from eleven to Heaven Tree Written by Eiko Kadono eighteen who are chosen to perform Illustrated by Satomi Ichikawa Shakespeare as a troupe, practicing Written by Mary Joslin "This endearing book features a lllusuated by Meilo So first in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and multiethnic cast, and the message, then performing in London at the "Lyrical prose provides a portrait of too, transcends cultures." paradise, and Qoslin 's] deftly deliv­ - Publishers Weekly newly reconstructed Globe Theatre. ered message is likely to inspire Nat loves acting, and he has a quick "Gentle lessons on coping with young readers. But it is So's energet­ memory and a gift for tumbling and ically patterned watercolors that grief." - Booklist instantly command attention." Picture Book acrobatics. In theater he finds surcease - Publishers Weekly *starred review Hardcover · ISBN 0-8028-5195-9 · S 16.00 from his sorrow, for both of his parents Publishers Weekly Best Religious are dead. The Company is run by one Children's Books for 1999 At your bookstore, Richard Babbage, called Arby, a dragon "Brilliant watercolors ... are or call 800-253-7521 of a man who works the boys hard but Fax: 616-459-6540 festooned with words that climb nurtures their talents, too. After the and soar and slither on the pages." E-mail : [email protected] troupe moves to London, Nat falls - Booklist Picture Book spectacularly ill; when he wakes up, he Hardcover · ISBN 0-8028-5190-8 · S 16.00 discovers himself in another time entirely: the time of Will Shakespeare. I\\ f erdrr1ons Boo!u for Young Readers Nat does indeed play Puck as planned, 155 JEFFERSON AVE ~.E. /G RAND RAPIDS, MICHIGAN 4

38 Spring 2000 plicated life, whose words do his bid­ about Steve and, eventually, to judge ding even in daily conversation. ) him. Steve's decision to write about him­ How did this happen? There was a self as if he were a character in a movie Nathaniel Field, the Blackffiars Boys' is a way of detaching himself, not just Make Poetry best player, who lies ill with the plague from the "monster" the prosecuting in a London hospital in place of Nat; he attorney wants the jury to see when they a Part of will return, cured, to his own time. Coo­ look at him, but also from his own fear per has so steeped herselfin Elizabethan and confusion-and, possibly, from his Your Day lore that the tastes and textures and odors own guilt. and sounds of the actors of the Globe Steve's act of becoming a detached shimmer into perfect reality, filtered observer of himself has subtle resonances. through Nat's perceptive but believ­ Growing up in an urban neighborhood, able consciousness. Shakespeare touch­ he has learned that the most important es Nat's deepest sorrow, too, and when aspect of his life is how he looks to other Nat is transported back to his own world, people-and not just because he is black. that healing gift remains with him. There's a hint that he may have agreed The tale wobbles a bit at the end, with to take part in the robbery so he would Nat's being sent to keep the plague from appear macho, not be seen as "lame." In Shakespeare that he might go on to the detention center, he realizes that write the rest of his plays. However, the "all you have going for you is the little power of words to move and to heal, the surface stuff, how people look at you." joys of being on stage and making the His lawyer tells him that her job is "to magic happen, and the richness ofone boy's make you a human being in the eyes of connection to the greatest of English the jury." Steve himself does this suc­ writers are perfectly, limpidly clear. cessfully, for the jury in the courtroom, -GraceAnne A . DeCandido and possibly for himself and for readers Young People's of the screenplay in this novel. Poetry Week But is Steve's screenplay just an Monster appropriate defense against the horror By Walter Dean Myers is April l O· l 6, 2000. of his situation, or is it a clever way to Illustrations by Christopher Myers HARPERCOWNS escape the consequences of his actions? 281 pages, Age 12 and up, $15.95 Is he an innocent boy caught up in cir­ National Poetry Month ISBN 0--06--028077-8 cumstances beyond his control, or is he a monster whose ability to detach is the entire Only sixteen, Steve Harmon is on trial himself appears not just in his screen­ month of April. for acting as a lookout in a robbery that play but in his willingness to take part resulted in the death of a storekeeper­ in the robbery-to, indeed, act as a an offense that brings the possibility of lookout, so that, intriguingly, the crime Kids and poetry create a life sentence. Frightened by the hor­ he is accused of is exactly that of being rors of the detention center and the a detached observer? Should readers a magical mix. uncertainty of his future, and rocked sympathize with Steve or condemn him? by the prosecuting attorney's descrip­ If we condemn him, are we condemn­ tion of him as a monster, Steve dis­ ing a criminal or merely a kid who wish­ tances himself by imagining his life as a es to detach himself and manipulate his I• (•IThe Children's Book Council movie. Walter Dean Myers's novel image to his own benefit? I is a nonprofit trade association of consists of the screenplay Steve con­ Both Steve and Myers are good U.S. children's book publishers and packagers and structs, and of the notes he sets down in enough writers that the answers to is the sponsor of National Chi ldren's Book Week his notebook as the trial proceeds. these questions never become clear, and Young People's Poetry Week. Visit the Web site www.cbcbooks.org The novel is, in fact, about the screen­ and readers have the opportunity to play, how it invites readers to think realize what complex questions they

39 Riverbank Review are. Monster is a subtle and provocative and their mother, now his wet nurse. Carmen Teresa deftly retrieves it, novel about what it means to be alive in A room to herself, a comfortable however, and finds that Doii.a Josefa, a our time, especially but not exclusively bed, three baths a day, and servants to family friend, has brought her the gift of for young African American males. do the work: these things are no small a blank book, the kind used as a journal -Perry Node/man part of her contentment among the or diary. Those gathered together vie to Khemetians. But her homecoming is offer Carmen Teresa ideas of how she also religious. Without knowing why, can fill its pages. Pharaoh's Daughter Almah has long followed a ritual in This is so cleverly constructed, so By Julius Lester which she greets the rising sun with a lively in the telling. Each guest has a HARCOURT 192pages, Age 12 and up, $17.00 holy disrobed ecstasy; the Khemetian story to share, usually from childhood, religion comes naturally to her. Almah and often connected to food. Flor ISBN 0-15-201826-3 is that appealing fairy-tale figure: the relates the making of an a!fOmbra for Julius Lester's new novel retells the Moses child who, misplaced in her family, Holy Week in Guatamala City. The alfom­ story at two removes from the biblical. goes away to find home. bra is a street carpet made of colored First, Lester extracts the story from sacred Mosis has none of her certainty. At sawdust and flowers, and Flor's grand­ literature to place it in the context of fifteen, he is part Hamlet, part Holden father allows her to make the design. Egyptian history (in part by renaming Caulfield, though, unlike them, he's Flor incorporates her abuelo's loss of the character "Mosis," a shortened form tongue-tied. He cannot decide to act, his home into the a!fOmbra, comforting of the name of an Egyptian god). Next, he enjoys almost nothing but visiting them both. Carmen Teresa's grandmoth­ he moves into his characters' points of his sister, and he longs for the lost par­ er tells a story from her childhood in view. The result is a novel of identity adise of childhood. People and circum­ Old San Juan, where an overly protec­ more than a take on history. The young stances push him to decide between tive abuela keeps a small boy from hav­ narrators, Mosis and Almah, both seek Habirus and Khemetians. No innate ing any fun, until a plucky girl finds a to know themselves by deciding where faith or sense of destiny points the way. way to release him. Uncle Robert tells of they fit within two cultures, the Habiru Instead, in the midst of his inner tur­ his eighth birthday piii.ata in Juarez, (Hebrew) and the Khemetian (Egyp­ moil, he kills his Khemetian brother­ obtained by his mami despite her tian). Because the Habirus believe in figure, and so he cannot return to Pharaoh's being stopped by immigration officials one god, Ya, and the Khemetians believe court. No emoting Charlton Heston, on her way to her job in El Paso. in many gods and goddesses, this is also this Mosis has not yet heard from God. Doii.a Josefa herself tells a powerful a choice between faiths. Of the two, Almah would seem to tale of her namesake, Josefina Mar­ Almah, Mosis's older sister and the have the greater gift for holiness. But manillo of Lima, Peru. Known as Do ii.a book's first narrator, follows her innate that might be the point: the benighted Pepa the morena, she was a slave whose religious impulse-and a love of luxu­ murderer will need to come a long way, cooking was famous until an illness ry-to find her identity within the out there in the desert. His identity is disabled her. Freed by her master, one Khemetian court. By the time Mosis not accomplished yet. October she prayed to el Senor de los takes over the narration, Almah is a -Jessica Roeder Milagros, the moreno image of Christ, priestess to Eset; the Pharaoh has and was cured. In thanks, she invented granted her the name that used to a honey, lemon, and orange-blossom Salsa Stories belong to his daughter, Mosis's adop­ nougat known as turr6n, still made each By Lulu Delacre tive mother (who, in a neat reversal, October for the feast of the Lord of SCHOLASTIC has gone to live with the Habiru). 104 pages, Age 9 and up, $15.95 Miracles. Almah's character combines holiness In each story, food is a central char­ ISBN 0-590-63118-7 and adolescent solipsism. Early on, her acter. At the end, Carmen Teresa decides birth father takes her aside, and she In the first story of Lulu Delacre's col­ she will fill her blank book with family worries he has found her a husband. lection, Carmen Teresa tells how, on recipes. They are all included, from Instead-and to her relief-he asks her New Year's Day in a household filled Mama's Arroz con Pollo (chicken with to keep watch for soldiers who will with relatives and the savory aromas of rice) to Marilia's Besitos de Coco (coco­ come to kill Habiru infants. After the favorite meals, a present meant for her nut kisses), and a glossary ofSpanish words massacre, she is overjoyed to move almost goes astray when a small cousin is appended. The whole is nicely tied into the palace with her infant brother tries to unwrap it himself together by Delacre's energetic linocuts,

40 Spring' 2000 whose muscular and decorative line echoes both the tales and the recipes. -GraceAnne A. DeCandido COLLECTED WITH When Zachary Beaver Came to Town ENTHU51A5M, By Kimberly Willis Holt H ENRY H OLT WITH JOY 10-14, $16.95 KEAD 227 pages, Age ISBN 0-8050-6116-9 A 2000 Riverbank Review There's not much to do in Antler, Texas, Book of Distinction during the summer of 1971 except sit on the roof of the Bowl-a-Rama and "With a greatly expanded collection watch the world, such as it is, go by. of poems and new black-and-white Even though observing the comings pencil sketches, this revision will and goings of the townsfolk is "about as appeal to a whole new generation readers." -School Library Journal exciting as watching worms mate," thir­ of teen-year-old Toby and his best friend "With any luck at all, this wonderful Cal manage to learn something about anthology of poems will find its loss and grief, friendship and family, way into the hands and backpacks over the course of the summer. Winner of many children and be awarded of the 1999 National Book Award, plenty of smudged When Zachary Beaver Came to Town fingerprints." -Riverbank Review explores how the ordinary can be extra­ ordinary, and the freakishly unusual normal, if only we take the time to Age 10 and up. watch and listen thoughtfully. • $10.95 (10.70) pb • $17.95 (17.45) he 0-316-48800-3 0-316-48436-9 The story opens with Zachary, the "world's fattest boy," arriving in an old trailer decorated with Christmas lights, pulled by his guardian's blue Thunder­ "Simont's paintings in a full bird into the Dairy Maid's parking lot. ')> range of colors As Toby watches the townspeople line ',?Jr!> -t> give these up and pay to see this wonder, he tells ·~' already favorite us a lot about those around him, but verses additional more about himself. His mother has dimensions of left for a country-music contest in mood or meaning." Nashville and Toby misses her, espe­ -The Horn Book cially since he knows, though he won't admit it, that she's probably never "Here are words that coming back. Not enough excitement soar and sing, entrancing in Antler for her, or for Toby either. His the ear and the heart." taciturn father tries to help, but Toby -Ogden Nash won't talk to his mother on the tele­ Age7and up. phone, nor will he read her letters. • $5.95 pb 0-316-15885-2 He's also in the throes of his first love, made more excruciating because the girl thinks he's "the nicest" boy in Little, Brown and Company town when he wants her to think that I* I 41 Riverbank Review he's the handsomest. Toby is also begin­ summer-until Zachary Beaver arrives. to peek through the window, leave food ning to grow impatient with Cal, who Zachary, as it turns out, is there to on the doorstep, and eventually visit the won't reply to the letters he receives stay-at least until his guardian returns boy in the trailer, as they get to know from his brother, a boy Toby looks up from a road trip in search of other Zachary their curiosity turns to genuine to, who is in Vietnam. All in all, this is "freaks" for the sideshow. interest and even the beginnings of a confusing and lonely time in Toby's Even though it is curiosity fueled friendship. A trip to the drive-in movie life, made worse by the boredom of by boredom that pushes Cal and Toby in the back of a pickup-they have to build extrawide stairs so that Zachary can get into the truck bed-is at once humorous, pathetic, and eye-opening for Toby. As the summer unfolds other "everyday" events occur, including the death of Cal's older brother. The osten­ sible freakishness of Zachary Beaver serves as a counterpoint to these events, by Timothy Bush Ages 6-9 and to the characters themselves. TR $16.95 0-531-30250-4 This brilliantly written, evocative RLB $17.99 0-531-33250-0 novel calls forth those summers when nothing and everything happened. Antler, Relatively Speaking: Texas, becomes our hometown without Poems About Family losing its distinctive flavor. The cast of by Ralph Fletcher eccentric, one-of-a-kind characters man­ Ages 8--12 ages to evoke our familiar friends and TR $14 .95 0-531-30141-9 neighbors. And the realization that our RLB $15.99 0-531-33141-5 own freakishness is normal reassures. The Other Side: -Lee Galda Shorter Poems f!y Angela Johnson A Coretta Scott King Author Honor Book Ages 10 up PB $6.95 0-531-07167-7 TR $15.95 0-531-30114-1 America's Champion Swimmer: RLB $16.99 0-531-33114-8 Gertrude Ederle By David A. Adler Stone Bench in an Empty Park Illustrated by Terry Widener selected by Paul B. Janeczko H ARCOURT photographs by Henri Silberman 32pages, Ages 6-9, $16.00 All ages ISBN 0-15-201969-3 TR $15.95 0-531-30259-8 RLB $16.99 0-531-33259-4 David A. Adler and illustrator Terry Widener-the same team who created Movin': The Babe and I and Lou Gehrig: The Luck­ Teen Poets Take Voice iest Man-extend their enthusiasm for edited by Dave Johnson sports stories to the historic swim drawings f!y Chris Raschka across the English Channel by nine­ Ages 12up PB $6.95 0-531-07171-5 teen-year-old American Gertrude Eder­ TR $15.95 0-531-30258-X le in 1926. America's Champion Swim­ mer begins in Ederle's childhood, when "Trudy" falls into a pond at age six and Orchard Books AGrolier Company www.grolie nearly drowns, prompting her father to teach her to swim. By age fifteen she

42 Spring 2000

ty feet. Widener's renderings of the Channel itself highlight the isolation and peril of Ederle's swim. But there is a good deal of wit in his pictures, too: an ecstatic infant Trudy bathed by her mother in the kitchen sink; Trudy float­ ing on her back in the Channel while eating a chicken leg and sipping from a cup of broth. She looks formidable in her goggles and her red bathing cap. She looks like a swimmer and a cham­ pion, someone who can take on what others tell her is impossible. -Margaret Willey Illustration by Terry Widener,from America's Champion Swimmer Building the Book Cathedral was winning races for the New York her sister Margaret, who is doing the By David Macaulay Women's Swimming Association, and greasing. "Let's get started." She comes H OUGHTON M IFFLIN at sixteen she beat the men's record for across as a woman with enormous con­ 112 pages, All ages, $29.95 swimming the seventeen miles from fidence in her abilities, at a time when ISBN 0-395-92 147-3 lower Manhattan to New Jersey. many people, including Ederle's train­ Twenty-nine U.S . and world records ers, did not believe a woman should Twenty-seven years ago, David Macaulay followed, and then Ederle set her sights even attempt something so difficult. launched his career as a children's book on what was considered the ultimate Widener's illustrations energize illustrator with Cathedral, an innovative challenge for a swimmer-the twenty­ Ederle's story. He depicts her as a picture book that intricately detailed one-mile English Channel-rough, cold, woman with physical strength, poise, how the great cathedrals of medieval and unpredictable. Her first attempt and gusto. The portraits are stylized and Europe were built. Building the Book failed, but Trudy found a new trainer upbeat, but Widener doesn't prettify Cathedral contains all the text and pic­ and within a year tried again and suc­ the rigors of the historic swim, during tures from that wonderful book, accom­ ceeded, not only becoming the first which it rained, the tide grew strong, panied by Macaulay's story of how he woman to swim the Channel, but also and the waves reached a height of twen- wrote and drew it. This new book is as breaking the men's record by almost two hours. New York City presented her with a ticker tape parade, President Calvin Coolidge sent his congratula­ tions, and Gerturde Ederle became, as Adler tells us, "a beacon of strength to girls and women everywhere." Ederle's inspiring story is a natural for an appealing book about courage and endurance. Adler's telling of it is o...u.i.....-...... _____ u...... "'"'" ...... -. both straightforward and idiosyncrat­ ..__.,., - ...... - ...... ,_. tMI _... -___... ..__...._,,.--..It ..... ,._ ... ,_...,,,...... __ ,,._ _...... ,..__..... bM -"- n.,. ic; he chooses unusual details that • _ _...... _ ...... wu.- ,,,_ ...... ,...... ,.wm11oo-wtN.1Mrwl ...... ~ _ _....._'9oll:llM ...... __ ,,_,._ ...... ,...., make the story come alive, like report­ .... ll ...... ,...... _.i...... ,. __ ._~..._. ing that for Trudy's second and suc­ cessful Channel swim she wore a self­ .. ______.. _ designed two-piece bathing suit, a red ...... _.... ,.._.. ,...... __ _ __--·-___ ""-' ___---·-·-__ ...... _ _,....,...... ____ _.. _.._ ._..... cap, and a heavy coating oflanolin and ··-·--·--_ grease to insulate her from the cold --- water. "For heaven's sake," Trudy says to From Building the Book Cathedral, by David Macaulay

43 Riverbank Review full of fascinating information about In the Middle Ages, documents were materials amounts to reinvention. The how books come into existence as the often written on pieces of vellum or old Cathedral is still here, just as the old original book was about how cathe­ parchment that had been written on words remained on the palimpsests, drals come to be. But what pleases me before. Remnants of the earlier, imper­ just as the crypt remained under the most is how appropriately medieval fectly erased writing were still visible in floor of the rebuilt cathedral Macaulay the very idea of such a book is. It's these "palimpsests." Like these medieval describes in his book. But the first book Macaulay's version of a palimpsest. recordings, Macaulay's reuse of old is interesting in new ways; the focus is on how Macaulay arrived at his deci­ sions about what to draw and how to draw it. Most intriguingly, he includes A Riverbank Review both early versions of illustrations from the original Cathedral, which make the ones published in 1973 into Children's Book palimpsests, and new drawings that replace published illustrations that now of Distinction! dissatisfy him, making palimpsests of the 1973 pictures. All ofthese documents provide a rich sense of ongoing process ~ and change overtime, just as Macaulay's original description of the building of journeys with Elijah the cathedral did. Eight Tales of the Prophet Just as they represent change, palimp­ sests reveal what endures. Scholars have By Barbara Diamond Goldin been able to recover the lost works of Paintings by Jerry Pinkney antiquity from the partially erased rem­ nants found on medieval palimpsests. ~ In a similar way, Building the Book "These stories ... celebrate wisdom, compassion, and gratitude." Cathedral not only allows Cathedral -Riverbank Review itself to survive in a new time, but reveals, in Macaulay's gloriously obses­

l\t\RBARA ntAM0'.:0 COi.D i N MORE HONORS FOR sive fretting over angles and details and ]owmeys wzrh ELz;ah JOURNEYS WITH ELIJAH: the positioning of images on the page, f l(;HT T' lf.'1 Of THF Flt.. OrHtl + Kirkus Reviews (pointer review) just why it works so well and deserves an * Publishers Weekly (starred review) audience. Building the Book Cathedral is not just a terrific book. It is two terrific * School Library Journal (starred review) books, all at once. A School Library Journal Best Book -Perry Node/man A Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year A Sm ithsonian Magazine Notable Book for Children Do You Remember the Color Blue? A Syd ney Taylor Award Honor Book And Other Q!iestions Kids Ask An ALA Notable Children's Book about Blindness By Sally Hobart Alexander An NCSS-CBC otable Children's Trade Book in the Field of Social Studies VIK.ING 80 pages, Ages 9-13, $15.99

ISBN 0-670-88043-4 0-15-200445-9 $20.00 If you think you know the answer to Gulliver Books/Harcoun. Inc ~Harcourt 525 B Street. Suue 1900. San Diego. Cahfom1a 92101 this book's title question, you might be \\Wwharcouncom • 800-5~3-1918 in for a surprise. Sally Hobart Alexan­ der, who became a writer after losing her

44 Spring 2000 sight in early adulthood, does remem­ The book is full ofinformation, but er: "We were scared to death. People ber blue and other colors, but those the answers are grounded in the author's told us so many things about what memories have faded. She works to experience; Alexander never gives the white people did." In "Juneteenth," she retain what she can through exercises impression that all blind people agree. tells of an annual holiday commemo­ that stimulate the brain's parietal lobe Readers might try the exercises at the rating the freeing of Texas slaves; each (the part responsible for visualization), back of the book to get an admittedly June nineteenth, she says, "the white yet she knows that the image of blue limited sense of how blindness might folks would let the black folks off from she calls up is not "exactly like the real be for them. But perhaps the most the field-no hoeing cotton or corn, thing." For the thirteen questions that important advice Alexander offers is no chopping cotton on that day, no introduce the sections of this book, that her readers not shy away from ask­ plowing." Alexander offers fascinatingly detailed ing questions of the blind people they As such outtakes reveal, Mays responses. Along the way, she address­ meet-doing so, of course, with shows her readers that freedom has es many more than thirteen questions. respect and the keenest manners. limits. Mays's grandmother was born In her discussion of color, for example, -Jessica Roeder into slavery, and her mother worked as she reveals with characteristic honesty a housekeeper for white people. Osce­ that metaphorical descriptions of ola composed poetry as a teenager but Osceola: Memories of a color, such as "blue looks cool or cozy gave up writing for domestic work: "I Sharecropper's Daughter or sad," simply "don't work" for the never thought I'd do that [housekeep­ Collected and edited by Alan Govenar, congenitally blind. ing] for a living. But when I grew up, as told by Osceola Mays The author has had time to formu­ that's what I had to do, just like my Illustrated by Shane W. Evans late her responses during years ofschool mama and grandma." Mays's gently H YPE RJ ON visits. Student questions, she notes, fall 64 pages, Ages 8-12, $15.99 modulated voice expresses not bitter­ into patterns. "Elementary school stu­ ness but matter-of-fact resignation. ISBN 0-7868-0407-6 dents ask... [about] practical prob­ A certain reserve extends to Mays's lems. Middle school kids ask about the According to Osceola Mays (1909- discussions of family. She mentions physical aspects of being blind ... High 1999), "My daddy was a sharecropper, that she was ten years old when her school students ask more complicated meaning he'd make a crop and then mother died from childbirth complica- questions" about emotion and psycho­ he'd have to share it with logical survival. This book addresses the white man who questions of all sorts, from "Ifyour eyes owned the land." In this don't see, do they work at all?" to "How collection of first-person do you read?" to "Has being blind narratives compiled by changed you?" folklorist Alan Govenar, Alexander is straightforward and Mays recalls fragments often humorous. In answering the ques­ of her girlhood in segre­ tion "How do you write?" she tells an gated Waskom, Texas, a anecdote about the day she heard her small town on the Loui­ talking computer let off a stream of siana border. The story­ profanity. She dashed into the com­ teller leaves the details of puter room, where her young son and sharecroppers' lives to his friends were typing out their full historians, instead pro­ repertoire of forbidden words. About viding an atmospheric her dog guide she writes, "I can't tell account of living condi­ Ursula, 'McDonald's, please,' and have tions for African Ameri­ her take me there. Ursula is not a cab cans, fifty years and more driver." (She also reveals that the off­ after slavery ended. duty Ursula is not above taking occa­ In the chapter "Fear," sional advantage of Alexander's blind­ she remembers a white ness; to get away with mischief, she goes mailman who threatened about it quietly.) her and her younger broth- illustration by Shane W Evans,from Osceola

45 Riverbank Review tions; her father remarried and had six such as E. D. Tyler's "The Black Man's landscape paintings, clay-colored dirt more children. Otherwise, she offers Plea for Justice." ("I remembered what roads lead to boxy wooden shacks, a scant information about her relatives. he wrote, but I changed it up a little bit farmer plows a furrow in yellowish To show where her strength derives, to make it my own.") sod. Dark-green foliage, brownish Mays quotes verse about black soldiers Shane Evans's illustrations reflect areas of grass, and a hazy blue sky sug­ who served in the Civil War, sings Mays's habit of melancholic, con­ gest the summer heat of the South. phrases of the blues, and recites poems frontational understatement. In his Evans's portraits of unsmiling children and adults recall photojournalists' images from the Dust Bowl in the 1930s. Poverty and discrimination under­ lie Osceola Mays's testimonies, but her stories stand alone, without commen­ tary other than Govenar's foreword and Evans's imagined scenes of rural life. Curious readers might append this reading with a historical account of the period, or with photographs by Mar­ garet Bourke-White, Walker Evans, and Dorothea Lange. Mays died a few months before this book's scheduled release, but Govenar's project pre­ serves her sometimes weary, some­ times wry voice. - Nathalie op de Beeck randma Chickenlegs by Geraldine McCaughrean, Days Like This: •strations by Moira Kemp A Collection of Small Poems +"The familiar tole of a child surviving a visit to Bobo Yoga's Selected and illustrated ' chicken-legged abode has never been told with more gusto." by Simon James · - Pointer, Kirkus Reviews CANDLEWICK 1999 Best Picture Book for Children as chosen by 46 pages, Ages 4-8, $17. 99

Newsweek ISBN 0-7636-08 12-2 "Rollicking fun from start to fi nish." - Publishers Weekly The illustrations in this collection of 95 1-57505-415-9, $15 • nineteen poems a re irresistible; they 32 Pages, Ages 5-8 have the puckish and goofy charm of Qientin Blake. Children of many shapes and colors in the city and in the coun­ try populate these watercolor-washed pages: on their bikes and at the seashore, in the backyard and in their rooms. ~(Carolrhoda Books The poems-all small indeed, taking A division of Lerner Publishing Group up a bare handful oflines each- range 800-328-4929 • www.lernerbooks.com from traditional to contemporary, span­ ning the twentieth century. Ogden Nash,

46 Spring 2000

wich is part of the experience. In "First Day at School," Rod Hull's narrator wonders whether school is worth return­ Coming in the ing to. It's easy to feel his doubt as he Summer issue of walks contentedly with his mother along the sidewalk, his baby sister in her stroller. The brothers in the darkened and realistically messy room of"Two in Bed" have an offhand tenderness that is quite engaging, and the question in Aileen Fisher's "The Seed"- "A seed is so small / where do you suppose I it stores up all I of the things it knows?" -is pondered by two kids under a luscious­ ly rendered old tree. Read these poems aloud; they almost An Interview with cry out for storytimes or family reads, Madeleine L'Engle because the pictures so obviously want to be pored over, laughed over, giggled at. The rhythms, particularly of the Listening Tour: Illustration by Simon James, traditional verses like "Rain," have the Children's Books .from Days Like This lull and bounce that bears repeating. Days Like This is extremely satisfying in on Audio many ways. Eve Merriam, Charlotte Zolotow, Mar­ -GraceAnne A . DeCandido A Profile of chette Chute, and others are represent­ Barbara Cooney ed; James himself contributes three Little Dog Poems poems. By Kristine O'Connell George The subject is exploration and dis­ Illustrated by June Otani Baseball Stories covery, sometimes of the world, some­ CLARION times of an idea-from a consistently 40 pages, Ages 3-8, $12.00 sweet but not saccharine kid's-eye view. What Makes a Good ISBN 0-395-82266-1 The pictures reflect this consistently. In Board Book Eve Merriam's "A Lazy Thought" grown­ A lot of poetry for young children ups rush to and fro, talking on cell gallops along with strong rhythms Plus: phones and looking at their watches, and rhymes. These wonderful poems New Books while the verse observes, have a different gait. "Mystery" typi­ for Summer fies the collection in its brevity and No wonder concreteness: Grownups Don't grow up Little Dog is Any more. not allowed It takes a lot on the beds. Don't miss an issue I Of slow Subscribe today by filling To grow. Who made this out a card in this issue. warm round dent Or visit our Website at The beach setting of Dorothy Aldis's in my quilt? www.riverbankreview.com "The Picnic" is illustrated with splashes and subscribe online! of lemon-yellow sand and turquoise In vocabulary easy enough for inex­ water, where "We didn't wear I Hats or perienced readers, Kristine O'Connell Shoes or Socks" and a dropped jelly sand- George's poems pull us along with

47 Riverbank R eview

mindful description, carefully crafted syntax, and clever line and stanza The Cooperative Children's Book Center Announces the breaks. In "Bath," for example, pro­ gressively shorter lines, a single-word 2000 "stanza," and the tenderness of emo­ tion implied in the description give Crr-JIARLOTTE ZoLoTow the poem its tug. \V RD Dripping and soggy Little Dog really is Winner When Sophie Gets Angry-Really, Really Angry... little. by Molly Bang (BlueSky/Scholastic) The poems have the succinctness Honor Books and implied emotion generally associ­ ated with the poetry of China and Bark, George, by Jules Feiffer (HarperCollins) Japan, and they share with those poet­ Three Cheers far Catherine the Great!, by Cari Best ic traditions characteristic restraint in (Melanie Kroupa/DK Ink) the use of metaphor. Especially in a volume for children, this sort of poet­ Highly Commended ry is vulnerable to the criticism that it is flat and featureless, but George rises Flicker Flash, by Joan Bransfield Graham (Houghton Mifflin) to the challenge. The Hatseller and the Monkeys, by Baba Wague Diakite (Scholastic) The "little" of the title refers both to a b usy little pet and to the poems How to Catch an Elephant, by Amy Schwartz (DK Ink) themselves. There are thirty poems here, Little Dog Poems, by Kristine O'Connell George (Clarion) ranging in length from six to twenty­ eight words. Though the first poem is Trashy Town, by Andrea Zimmerman and David Clemesha about waking up and the last about (HarperCollins) going to bed, the collection doesn't When Will Sarah Come?, by Elizabeth Fitzgerald Howard (Greenwiliow) form a strict narrative sequence. Read­ ers may wander here and there among You Are My Perfect Baby, by Joyce Carol Thomas the pages. (Harper Growing Tree/HarperCollins) June Otani's watercolors are a fine match for the poems, sharing their best qualities: simplicity, warmth, and wit. Like the poems, the paintings incorporate plenty of white space, resulting in a book that manages to be The Charlotte Zolotow The award is admin­ both spare and welcoming. The pro­ Award is given annually istered by the Coopera­ tagonist Otani pictures in her water­ to the author of the best tive Children's Book colors is a beguiling little terrier with a picture book text pub­ Center, a children's liter­ golden-brown coat and an inquisitive lished in the United States in ature library of the School expression, accompanied by a sweetly the preceding year. Established in of Education at the University of rendered girl, the implied speaker of 1997, the award is named to honor Wisconsin-Madison. the poems. the work of Charlotte Zolotow, a For information about the CCBC While George's previous books of distinguished children's book editor or this award, contact Kathleen poems, The Great Frog Race and Old Elm and author. Horning at (608) 263-3930. Speaks, are suited for somewhat older children, Little Dog Poems reaches out

48 Spring 2000

to youngsters who are still learning a baseball game: the city seems to set we look closely enough, we will see their nursery rhymes. The observer in itself up for haiku. poetry." Would-be urban poets can these poems sees things from her pet's Any student who has suffered retrain their sharpened, street-smart point of view, and the result is a gentle through an elementary school haiku sense toward an impressionable aware­ wit that welcomes young and old. In lesson might remember the syllabic ness. This new anthology, with its ele­ "Car Ride" she observes: formula 5-7-5. Paul Janeczko asks stu· gant black-and-white photographs of dents to practice observation first: "If New York and haiku appropriate to Racing from window to window, Little Dog barks at all those other cars *"A powerful personal narrative"* that are chasing us.

She understands that

The best ball is the one under the bed.

Cozy under the quilt at bedtime on the last page of the book, she supposes:

No one will ever guess, that the lump under my blanket is

Little Dog.

- Susan Marie Swanson

Stone Bench in an Empty Park Selected by Paul B. Janeczko Photographs by Henri Silberman ORCHARD 40 pages, Age 6 and up, $1 5. 95 An ALA Notable Children's Book

ISBN 0-53 1-3 0259-8 A School Library journal Best Book of the Year A Boollllst Editors' Choice If haiku did not already exist, modern A Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year city dwellers might have invented it. A Bulletin oftbe Center for Children~ Books Blue Ribbon Book The brief form, with its attention to nature, to the seasons, and above all to * "Bridges .. .was the first black child to attend a New Orleans public elementary the moment, suits the city's quick pace school. .. [Her] words, recalling a child's innocence and trust, are more vivid and diversity. The haiku's subject, than even the best of the photos. like poetry or prayer, they melt the heart." Nature, squeezes itself in amidst the -Puhlisbers Wrek91, starred review city's bustling. When not in the form *" ... this memoir brin~ some of the raw emotions of a tumultuous time into of weather, city-bound nature is sharp focus." -Scbod Library ]oumal, starred review" placed, framed, tamed, trained, or * "Bridges speaks without heroics about what happened to her then and what it pared to haiku size, according to means now." -Boolllist, starred review human needs and wishes. The potted tomato plant, the iguana on the fire Scholastic Press-=::-- escape, the sudden downpour that stops ~.

49 Riverbank Review

Reviewers in This Issue ~

Christine Alfano lives in Minneapolis with her family. A former booksell.er, she has written about children's books far the Hungry Mind Review and other publications.

Martha Davis Beck is editor ofthe Riverbank Review. She lives in Minneapolis with her husband and two sons.

GraceAnne A DeCandido is a writer, editor, and library consultant who reviews regularly far Booklist andfar Kirkus Reviews. She can be reached online at [email protected].

Lee Galda, coauthor ofLiterature and the Child (Harcourt), is professor of children 's literature at the University of Minnesota. She lives in Minneapolis with her husband and children.

Christine Heppermann is a regular contributor to the Horn Book Magazine. She lives in Minneapolis with her husband and daughter.

Perry Nodelman 's most recent novel for Photograph by Henri Silberman,from Stone Bench in an Empty Park young adults is A Meeting of Minds (Simon & Schuster),fourth in a series offantasies written in collaboration most any industrialized city, demon­ the intimate swishing of fabrics along­ with Carol Matas. strates the often playful connection side louder traffic noises. between observation and art. The book progresses from spring (a Nathalie op de Beeck writes about Though Henri Silberman shot the prime haiku season, spring lasts longer children's books for Publishers Weekly photos with the haiku in mind, few on these pages than it seems to in real and other publications. correspond exactly to their poems' life), to summer (though one poem Jessica Roeder 's fiction, poetry, and images. When the poem says one thing returns to Valentine's Day), to fall, to reviews appear in national publications. and the photo says something slightly winter. Transitions are subtle; from She lives with her husband and two rabbits different, the reader must give each its fall's flight of geese we turn the page to in a very small apartment. moment ofattention. Two haiku accom­ find an indoor scene of a white cat pany a photo of blossoming branches pawing a white curtain above a haiku Susan Marie Swanson is the author of two that poke through and reach over a ply­ in which a cat watches snow. This is a books for children, Letter to the Lake and wood construction fence. Both poems gentle, even old-fashioned book. The Getting Used to the Dark (both DK Ink). include branches and a barrier, but in Stop sign may be graffitied, the She reads and writes poems with children in the first the trees are pines, and in the garbage brimming with Ben & Jerry's her work as a visiting poet in schools. second, the wall is concrete. With Buson's wrappers, yet for the most part this Margaret Willey is the author of six young "In the rains of spring I An umbrella New York is timeless: inviting, vigor­ adult novels-most recently, Facing the and raincoat I Pass by, conversing," we ous, even beautiful, well worth the Music (Delacorte)-and a picture book, see a crowded sidewalk where numer­ poet's attention. Thanksgiving with Me (HarperCollins). ous coats and umbrellas pass by one - Jessica Roeder She lives in Grand Haven, Michigan. another. The poem allows us to imagine

50 Spring 2000

Winter Eyes Watercolor and colored pencil snow. In the frontispiece, paint gives By Douglas Florian used together result in delightful pic­ sky, winter jackets, and ice their colors, GREENWIU.OW tures of a northern winter. Paintbrush in while pencil lines define branches, ice 48 pages, Age 4 and up, $16.00 hand, Florian works with washes and skates, and the squiggly tracery of ISBN 0-688-16458-7 dabs of color, while his pencils detail skates on the ice. facial features, siding on a barn, and -Susan Marie Swanson Winter Eyes is a fresh and original col­ the outlines of small animals in the lection of poems, notable for the way it combines accessibile sing-song rhythms with meditative, even grave, observa­ tion. Winter isn't "dead," says the poet: "She leaves her tracks, I She shows us signs: I Not brilliant blooms, I But webs oflines" (from "Winter Lives"). Douglas Florian is known for his amusing collections of animal rhymes paired with watercolor paintings, a series that began with Beast Feast, and for two books of nonsense verse illus­ trated with line drawings, most recent­ ly Laugh-eteria. The humor in those books is sometimes edgy or silly; the poems are full of wisecracks. As illus­ trator and as poet, Florian strikes a dif­ ferent tone in Winter Eyes, one more gentle and reflective. Like the earlier work, these new poems employ the techniques of light, humorous verse, but Winter Eyes is really a book of nature poems. Writing in rhythmic two- and four­ beat lines and with strict rhyme schemes, Florian manages to get goofiness and ~ "In the first picture book that the Caldecott Honor artist tenderness to join hands. "Winter Bur­ has both written and illustrated, a witty green narrator rows," for example, is structured in ter­ describes [his] dramatic transformation from idol cets: "Beneath the pond a sleeping frog in Egypt to a captive curiosity in Napoleon's France. I Recalls she was a polliwog, I Once A singular voice and impeccable visual pacing make wiggling wild beside a log." The rhymes this character's story one of the most memorable of are a bit noisy, but they bring a quiet the year." -Starred review & a Best Book '99 I Publishers Weekly idea along with them. In "Winter Tree," a tree dreams +"A Nile crocodile is suddenly set upon by 'bozos with funny hats,' who at the behest of Napoleon cart him off Of picnics, to a Parisian fountain for public display. Soon he is the Hammocks, 'Toast of the Tulleries,' but [then] he hears that he's And leaves slated to become a pie ... Crocodile tells his tale in a And leaves disingenuous tone; the illustrations [are] grand." And leaves -Pointer review I Kirkus Reviews And leaves. All ages. $15.95Tr (0-06-205168-7); $15.89Lb (0-06-205199-7) The repetition is silly-and poignant, too.

51 Riverbank Review

I '

1 one for the she\{

Is it odd that one of the best read-aloud Peter Spier's Rain smaller illustrations depict a tire's impres­ soaking grass, flowers bending from books doesn't have a word of text? Not a By Peter Spier sion in single sentence appears on any of this pic­ the weight of water. 40 pages, All ages ture book's forty pages. Just the title, Peter Spier also knows that half the fun in get­

Spier's Rain, and then an abundance of illus­ YEARLING I paperback: $6.99 ting drenched is drying off. Once the entire trations that sweep readers into the drama ISBN 0-440-41347-8 neighborhood has been explored, and the of a rainy day-from the first hint of children seem just to the point of wrinkled approaching dark clouds (way up in the left- skin and on the verge of a slight chill, we hand corner of the first page) all the way through to the follow them into their warm home, where a steaming bath, last page, a sunlit rain-dappled next day. Though the story dry clothes, and hot cocoa await. The house is cozy, the begins and ends in the backyard (a big, friendly-looking children's mother is welcoming, but a comfortable messi­ backyard with overgrown flowers and a tipped wheelbar­ ness presides. I love the fact that the closet is an absolute, row and a tangled hose that hasn't been properly put away), overflowing mess. The kids' clothes aren't too well-matched; it doesn't stay there. We get to tag along with a young girl the boy's pants are big and have a tendency to slide down. and her little brother as they do what must be done in any Spier understands what happens in houses with children good, long rainshower: explore! See what the world looks living in them. Tidiness gives way to clutter, and his pictures like when it's wet! are more interesting because of it. Book-lookers of any age can As night falls and the rain con­ traipse along on this rain-drenched tinues, we look out the window adventure. The story that a four­ with the children and see car year-old finds in Spier's detailed, lights reflecting on the slick street. pencil-and-watercolor illustrations The kids climb into beds heaped is different from that which a with blankets and books and toys, seven-year-old sees, and the narra­ and by the time the lights go out tive can be as simple or complex you can almost hear the raindrops as the reader wishes. Do the chil­ hitting the roof. Spier stays awake, dren "leap through the street's though, and affords us the rare rushing water" or do they "jump opportunity to watch the night in a puddle"? It's up to you. The progress. He brings us once again book stays fresh because every into the familiar backyard. Trees time you open it, new details sur­ sway in the wind, clouds enclose face. A wealth of sensory moments the sky. Soon the rain stops and are captured on its pages. What stars peek through the night. Bats happens when you tug on a wet and raccoons make appearances, evergreen bough? What does it mice scuttle through the over­ feel like to stand beneath a pour­ turned trash can. When the sun ing rain spout? Rain is a sketch­ rises on a damp but rainless morn­ book of sorts, a compendium of ing, we get the same sense of antic­ both energetic and quiet events, ipation that the children must feel and Spier is an astute chronicler. as they pull apart the curtains to One remarkable two-page spread look outside. What will this day displays the echoed circular pat­ bring? terns of raindrops hitting water; -Christine Alfano

52 A 1999 NEW YORK TIMES BEST ILLUSTRATED BOOK

, , ~ttle Bunny on the '1oJ'i ~~ by Peter McCarty fl .. T. I ,, * 1me ess. -School Library Journal, starred review "Make no mistake about it-this is a rabbit with a mission. Whispery il1ustrations ... add wonderfully to the sense of mystery about the bunny's journey.... Little Bunny on the Move nicely portrays a time-honored objective for children and adults alike: going home." - New York Times Book Review

'The more I read this, the more it reminds me of the wonderful simplicity and spareness of language of a classic Margaret Wise Brown picture book .... A choice gift for a newborn. Thanks, Mr. Mc(a rty. ,, - The Children '.s Book ReVl~W Service ··oreamily satisfying••.• The soft yet unsquishy story of this cozy quest will be an eminently suitable read-aloud for little bunnies nestled down in their own homes." - Bulletin of the Center for Children 's Books + "A fresh look at a reassuring theme, with unusual and beguiling illustrations .... Toddlers and caregivers alike will be soothed by a child-sized adventure, brought to sweet closure.,,

ISBN 0-8050-4620-8 Ages 1-5 '32 pp. •• ~---~-• 0 ~---~ e And the winners are ... •e e Joseph Had a Little Overcoat e by Simms Taback 2000 Caldecott Medal Winner 0 .. ALA Notable Children's Book ..• •• *"... b ursting at the seams with ingenuity and creative spirit." - School Library ./ourna/(starred review) e "A true example of accompli shed bookmaki ng ... " - Book list .. 0-670-87855-3 I $15.99 e Getting Near to Baby by Audrey Couloumbis 2000 Newbery Honor Book ALA Nota ble Children's Book SU Best Book ofthe Year * School Library Journal 26 Fairmount Avenue + Kirkus 0-399-23389-X I $17.99 by Tomie dePaola 2000 Newbery Honor Book ALA Notable Children's Book e Horn Book Fanfare •e * Horn Book 0-399-23246-X I $ 13.99 e ••• Viking C hildren's Books • G . P. Putnam's Sons •Dial Books for Young Readers e • Divisions of Penguin Putnam Books fur Young Readers • www.penguinputnam.com ·-----e·=e== 0· e ==9==eee•

Bulk Ra te stf86MAS U.S. Postage ~ PAID •• RIVERBANK REVIEW Unive rsity of ,, MOH-217 St. Thomas /000 LaSalle Avenue Mi1111eapolis, MN 55403-2009