AN INTERVIEW WITH MAURICE SENDAK ~R.iver b ankR ev1ew . -::::;--- - ~~ --~--===---- -----­ of l>ooks for .Young -readers Ten Great Baby Books A Visit to the Native American Preparatory School Truth in Storytelling: An Essay by Jennifer Annstrong Books That Aren't Afraid of the Dark Beyond Guidebooks: Reading on the Road A Profile of Dayal Kaur Khalsa PLUS ~ New Books for Summer SUMMER 1999 $5 .00 PUBLISHE D AT THE UNI VERSITY OF S . Summertime treate ... FARRAR STRAUS GIROUX Books for Young Readers THE BIRD, THE MONKEY, GUS AND GRANDPA AND THE SNAKE IN THE JUNGLE AND THE TWO-WHEELED BIKE Kate Banks Claudia Mills Pictures by Tomek Bogacki Pictures by Catherine Stock *"Rebus books can be entertaining, "A charming look at a rite of passage for challenging, and useful for teaching reading, many young children." -School Library but when written with the delicacy of Banks Journal. "Right on target for the age group, ... and illustrated with the warmth of and the intergenerational relationship is a Bogacki, such a book [becomes] something sweet bonus." - Book list really special." -Starred, Book list $13.00 I 0-374-32821-8 I Ages 6-8 $16.00 I 0-374-30729-61Ages3 up Frances Foster Books NOW IT IS MORNING Candace Whitman TWISTER "This attractive picture book follows three Darleen Bailey Beard families from very different settings as they Pictures by Nancy Carpenter start the day." -Booklist. "The luminous * "Vividly written." -Starred, School Library scenes make the author's point: there are Journal. "A riveting adventure ... vibrates many ways to start the day, no matter with the intensity of nature unleashed." where morning arrives." -Kirkus Reviews - Kirkus Reviews $15.00 I 0-374-35527-4 /Ages 2-4 $16.00 I 0-374-37977-71Ages4- 8 THE ABSENTMINDED FELLOW Samuel Marshak Pictures by Marc Rosenthal Translated by Richard Pevear "Defying gravity and exuding antic glee, Rosenthal's figures hurl themselves across pages rendered in a style bold enough to engage a group yet with plenty of entertaining details ... Funny and childlike." - The Horn Book $16.00 I 0-374-30013-5 Ages 3 up Illustration by Nancy Carpenter from TWISTER Summer 1999 - contents About the Cover Artist MEILO SO Essays I am a Hong Kong-born Chinese. I ~ attended secondary school and art college Books That Aren't Afraid of the Dark . 7 in Britain. In 1987 I returned to Hong By Christine Alfano Kong and started working as an illustrator. I am now living in the south of England Truth in Storytelling . 14 with my husband and a ginger cat. By Jennifer Armstrong Being born in a concrete jungle, I had Beyond Guidebooks ... ..... ... ..... 21 very little contact with nature. Not until I By Roz Ramstad Hawley was fourteen did I see a proper river, the river Thames in Oxfordshire. When I was Reviews asked to make an illustra­ ~ tion for the Riverbank New Books for Summer . .. .. .... .. 28 Review cover, I thought immediately of water Features lilies. Water lilies have always been a favorite flower ~ for the Chinese. We praise it as the flower Books of Summer of gentility because of its quality of grow­ On the Banks ofPlum Creek . 5 ing out of the muddiest water yet remain­ Charlotte's 'Web .. .. ...... .. ...... .... 8 ing fresh, straight, and beautiful. Sketching Outdoors in Summer . .. 9 A favorite river memory of mine is Time of Wonder . 13 of visiting my sister and her family in Dandelion Wine . 16 Freiburg, a pretty German city by the "Bad Influence" .... ......... ... ..... 20 Black Forest. Every day I took my two nieces for walks by the river. I couldn't I N TERVI EW Maurice Sendak ......... ... .. ... ... 10 help envying their joy at wading and By Michael Patrick Hearn swimming in the clean water, watching tadpoles and dragonflies, and learning all TH E TEACHER'S ART Writing within the Magic . 17 the names of wildflowers and grasses By john G. Ramsay along the bank (in both Chinese and Ger­ man). We strolled for hours but never got BOOKMARK Ten Great Baby Books . ... .... ... ... 23 lost, because they knew that if one follows the direction the river is moving in, one PROFILE Dayal Kaur Khalsa . .............. .. 24 will never get lost there. By Mary Lou Burket A POEM Meilo So is the illustratorefThe Beauty of FOR S U MMER "Ode to the Sprinkler'' . .... ... ... ..... 27 the Beast: Poems from the Animal King­ By Gary Soto dom, selected by jack Prelutsky (Knopf, 1997), ONE FOR andTasty Baby Belly Buttons, by Judy Sierra THE SHELF Scooter, by Vera B. Williams . 48 (Knopf, 1999). 1 ~Riverbank Review ~....=----of \,ooJ,;s..-=-=---=---=- for }'011ng~ readers..,_=---=­ Editor Martha Davis Beck Art Director Kristi Anderson Two Spruce Design Marketing Director Christine Alfano rom Hampton Roads, publishers of the Conversations with God series and The Little Soul Circulation Manager F Christine Heppermann and the Sun. Young Spirit books stimulate the intellect, Editorial Committee teach valuable lessons about spirituality and metaphysics, Christine Alfano and help young spirits grow. We invite you to bring these Martha Davis Beck wonderful books into the lives of the new readers you love, Mary Lou Burket and give them the key to a whole new world. Christine Heppermann Susan Marie Swanson Copy Editor OBO David Caligiuri Bob Anderson House Artist Julie Delton Where is Paradise? When an adorable monkey Computer Consultant named "Obo" hears of a place called "paradise:' Eric Hinsdale he sets off in search of this magical land. OBO Cattails engages children in learning respect for our Andy Nelson fragile natural environment. Hardcover with Advisory Board color illustrations. Rudine Sims Bishop, Susan Bloom, Barbara Elleman, Carol Erdahl, Karen Nelson Hoyle, Susan Huber, Ginny Moore Kruse, Margaret O'Neill Herman's Magical Universe Ligon, Trudi Taylor, Mary Wagner Becky Mccarley Summer 1999 While searching for serious answers about the Volume II, Number 2 Copyright © 1999 by the Riverbank Review. world, Herman discovers the seven metaphysical All rights reserved. laws of the universe that explain how things really NEW ADDRESS work and why. Hardcover with color illustrations Please direct correspondence to: Riverbank Review by the artist of seven Moody Blues album covers, University of St. Thomas Phil Travers. 1000 LaSalle Avenue, MOH-217 Minneapolis, MN 55403-2009 Phone: (65 I) 962-5372 Fax: (651) 962-5169 E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.stthomas.edu/www/rbr_http The Riverbank Review (ISSN 1099-6389) is pub­ lished quarterly, in March, June, September, and H AM PT 0 N R0 A D S P U BL I S H I N G C 0 M PA N Y, I NC. December. Subscriptions are $20 for one year (four issues), $35 for two years. The Rivubank Available from your local bookseller or order direct • 1-800-766-8009 · www.hrpub.com Review is published in affiliation with the School of Education at the University of St. Thomas. 2 what have you lost? An antholosv of poems selected by Naomi Shihab Nye Photo5raphs by Michael Nye * "Each poem pierces and then releases readers, who pocket a new treasure at the end of each page."-School Library journal (starred review) * "Rich in quantity, quality, and variety." -Bulletin ofthe Center for ChiUlren's Books (starred review) • "Young adults ... will appreciate this collection about losing-and regaining-oneself through the experience of loss ." - The Horn Book • "Thought­ provoking."-Kirkus Reviews • ''A great stimulus for students' personal writing." -ALA Booklist liilJ Greenwillow Books A division of William Morrow & Co., Inc. Ages 12 up. 224 pp. 1350 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10019 • www.williammorrow.com RTE $19.00/ 0-688-16184-7 Riverbank Review ~ editors note This spring I had the opportunity to revisit a place that I and somehow, I believed, existing beyond-the book. love. With memory as my guide, I found the unmarked Rereading was the best way to get to that larger, imagined road that leads down through woods to a stretch of wild world, by going deeper and deeper into the story. Some and beautiful Northern California shoreline, a place I time later, I read Charlotte's Wt!b aloud to my sister on a used to hike to as a teenager. Once again, I heard the sea­ long car trip. How important I felt, entrusted with this wind in the trees and watched waves smash through the task! (No doubt, I entrusted myself with it-but nobody opening in a massive arch of rock. I clambered up the stopped me.) To take on the role of reader for someone steep dunes (with more effort than it took twenty-five else is, for a child, a powerful way to revisit a book. years ago) until I was high enough to look out. Wild­ Sharing books with children is often an act of reread­ flowers bloomed on the cliffs. Below me, small birds tip­ ing. When you read a book aloud that you remember tapped along, poking their beaks into wet sand. The from your childhood, you hear it in a new way. Your ocean beyond was dazzling. young listener may surprise you by being amused, per­ There are lots of beautiful places in the world, and a plexed, frightened, moved in places you don't expect. Or good many may be as beautiful as this spot. But I went by being utterly unmoved by a book that meant some­ out of my way to visit this particular windblown beach. thing to you. Loving a place and knowing it well-going back to it, As readers, our perspectives and insights are contin­ either in your imagination or in person-gives it power ually developing, which is why time, as well as familiari­ as a presence in your life.