a list of…five snapshots along my European itinerary!

At the end of this week, I’m packing my bags and getting on a jet plane, heading off to Germany for a much-anticipated visit to my daughter.  By the time I return, I’ll have strolled along the Seine, hiked in the Swiss alps, boated down the Grand Canal in Venice, craned my neck in the Sistene Chapel, adored incredible Raphael paintings, and hopefully sampled gelato across Italy!  I won’t be blogging for a few weeks — just enjoying great company, great scenery, great art.  Today, I’ve listed one delightful book from each of five exciting stops along our route, beginning with…

Minette’s Feast: The Delicious Story of Julia Child and Her Cat, by Susanna Reich, illustrated by Amy Bates

This is a story with two heroines:  one, a vivacious, extraordinarily-creative, 6’2″ woman named Julia, the other a soft, extraordinarily-content, tortoiseshell cat named Minette.  Minette Mimosa McWilliams Child, to be precise.

Minette is lucky enough to belong to the Paris household of Julia Child.  Amid the whiskings and stirrings, sauteeings and roastings undertaken by Julia in her little, upstairs kitchen, Minette lounges, delicately tasting the savory tidbits offered her from one of the world’s most famous, most beloved, cooks.

However.  Despite all those delicious sauces and stews and creams and crepes…Minette might be hard-pressed to declare any of them better than her very favorite morsel of all:  mouse.

Ahhhh!  This is an incredibly delightful book!  Do you love Julia Child?!  You really ought to read it.  It’s a lovely, enjoyable story of Julia’s life, with the addition of her (for real) cat to entice younger listeners, and snippets of Julia’s own words which lend glorious personality.  Amy Bates’ charming pencil and watercolor illustrations are done in warm, Tuscan colors, and capture the bustling, classy Julia we all love, as well as the antics of her mouse-alicious cat.  A fantastic afterword gives many more interesting details of Julia’s life, and a glossary provides pronunciations and definitions for the French vocabulary sprinkled throughout the text.  A yummy treat through and through!  

The Magic Meadow, written and illustrated by Ingri and Edgar Parin d’Aulaire

The breathtaking alpine meadows of Switzerland are the setting for this vintage classic from 1957 by the d’Aulaires.  Peterli is a young boy who lives in a small chalet high in the alps with his grandfather and their fat, sleek cows and goats.  With Peterli as the common thread, the d’Aulaires cleverly weave into this book information about Swiss heroes, folk tales, and the way of life in these alpine villages. 

The story of William Tell and the formation of Switzerland, the myths of Princess Spring and King Ice, alpenhorns and goat herding, canton politics and monasteries with Saint Bernard rescuers, cheesemaking and the language variations in Switzerland, the landmarks of Berne and Geneva…all this and more is cheerfully stitched together into a story format.  It’s an old-fashioned, pleasant read that paints an interesting, even though a bit outdated, portrait of Switzerland.  

The d’Aulaires are one of children’s literature’s most well-loved teams; this volume is the result of a year spent in Switzerland, spun together via their fabulous talents of storytelling and illustration.  Typical of their books, the illustrations alternate between black-and-white  and vivid color, all displaying their trademark style.  The details are fascinating, and the boldness is highly appealing to children.  This one is more difficult to locate than many d’Aulaire titles, but we’ve enjoyed our library-sale copy over the years.

The Orphan Singer, written and illustrated by Emily Arnold McCully

Venice.  City of water and gondoliers, golden sunlight and rosy canalside palazzos, and of course — music.  The fictional Dolci family of this story are music afficionados like all their Venetian neighbors.  In fact, their children are gifted singers.  Unfortunately Antonio, their son, has no choice but to shoulder the trade of his father.  But Nina, with her angelic voice has one, heartwrenching, option:  if her parents abandon her to the school for foundling girls, she can receive some of the best musical training in Europe.

With a view to her future, that is what her loving parents do, and in all the years of Nina’s training, they find ways to keep in contact with her.  Meanwhile, Nina flourishes in the world of the ospedalo and the choral school, becoming a famous soloist and repaying her family’s sacrifices in unexpected ways.

Emily McCully is a fabulous storyteller.  Nina’s is an exciting  story, full of historical detail and Venetian color.  An Author’s Note gives more in-depth information about the eighteenth century orphanages of Venice and the maestros who taught these incredible female musicians.  McCully’s sun-dappled, watercolor and tempera illustrations capture the architecture and clothing, period instruments and romance of Venice.  Put some Vivaldi on and soak up this story with kids ages 5 and up.

This is Rome, written and illustrated by Miroslav Sasek

Here’s another classic, from 1960.  M. Sasek’s sensational guides to some of the great cities of the world are simply fantastic.  This joyous tribute to Rome swings with a modern, 60s vibe that is oh-so hip; cool, urban sophistication enlivens every page; the dashing mixed media illustrations feature Sasek’s bold, classy paintings sprinkled with a number of photos, traipsing us around the highlights of Rome from Michelangelo’s sculpture to darkened catacombs, zippy red Vespas to the moonlit Trevi Fountain.  His style is a distinct pleasure.

The simple, conversational narrative tells us what we’re seeing without belaboring any points.  Well-designed page layouts rivet our attention on one sight, and then the next, and the next, pulling us by the hand on our sweet tour.  Check this one out, and then find your way to other cities via M. Sasek.  

Pippo the Fool, by Tracey E. Fern, illustrated by Pau Estrada

In 1420, work began on the monolithic duomo designed by Filippo Brunelleschi to cap the Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence; the cathedral had been waiting for more than one hundred years.  Finally, someone has devised a way to build an enormous dome in a manner fitting the elegance of the cathedral itself.

Brunelleschi was an incredibly ingenuous guy — “a goldsmith, clockmaker, sculptor, and inventor [whose] true love was architecture.”  In designing this dome, he overcame tremendous mathematical, architectural obstacles.  His gorgeous project remains one of the masterpieces of the world.

Pippo the Fool tells the other side of Brunelleschi’s  story.  The mocking he received, the disbelief of the city fathers over his new-fangled construction plans, and the intense desire he had to receive proper credit for his stunning, thorough, ideas.  It’s a pleasant, humorous, colorful story, with an exaggerated villain, a determined underdog , and a fascinating, easily approachable account of Brunelleschi’s strategy and materials and methods, culminating in a glorious triumph.

Estrada’s watercolor and gouache illustrations pair with the text perfectly.  His characters have a humorous quality that will engage young listeners, while his architectural details, Renaissance costumes, and views of ancient Florence give loveliness and authenticity.  This is an excellent team effort, and one that would fit perfectly into any study of Renaissance Italy, by the way.  Kindergarten and up.  An informative Author’s Note provides more historical details, and the Illustrator’s Note is delightful and points us to details we might otherwise miss.  

Here are Amazon links for this Grand Tour of titles:

Minette’s Feast: The Delicious Story of Julia Child and Her Cat

The Magic Meadow

The orphan singer

This is Rome

Pippo the Fool (Junior Library Guild Selection (Charlesbridge Paper))

 

a list of…five inventive artists who inspire and delight us

Chuck Close: Face Book, based on an interview by Chuck Close, created by Joan Sommers and Amanda Freymann, with Ascha Drake

Chuck Close is an incredibly influential contemporary artist who works on just one subject:  the human face.  Whether he’s painting a massive, abstract, oil portrait, or squeezing pulp-paper into a collage, etching, silkscreening, or using his own fingerprints — Chuck Close focuses on faces, on which he loves to read “a road map of a life.” 

Glue + Paper Workshop has created this incredibly unusual biography of Close.  It’s a fascinating read; it’s chock-full of reproductions of his work;  AND… it includes a way-cool, mix-and-match-the-faces section — awesomely inventive!

The book is based on an interview between Close and a group of 5th graders from Brooklyn.  Their questions steer the book in directions we are all curious about:  What made you start to draw?  Why do you only paint faces? Why doesn’t anyone in your art smile?  And, referring to the accident at age 48 which caused paralysis from his chest down:  When you were paralyzed, were you afraid you wouldn’t be able to paint again?  Close answers beautifully.  Without talking down, he articulates his thoughts in language elementary students can grasp, honestly revealing many technical, philosophical, and emotional elements which undergird his art.  

Meanwhile, about one-third of the book is printed on sturdy cardboard pages, sliced in thirds, each of which has a full-page self-portrait done in a number of styles and mediums.  Foreheads generally take up the upper third, mouths and chins rest on the bottom, eyes and nose take up the middle.  Flip the pieces back and forth to compile brand new Chuck Close self-portraits!  Brilliant!

The book is rounded out with a graphic timeline of Close’s life (he’s still living, mind you), a list of some of the museums where you can view his work, (For those of you in Minneapolis, the book does not mention that we have the mindboggling “Frank” hanging in the MIA, and a number of gorgeous portraits at the Walker Art Center, so do go see them after you read this book!), along with other resources, a nice glossary of art terms, and more.  It’s like a triple-scoop ice cream cone:  the yumminess just keeps going and going and going… Highly recommended for ages 8 and up.  

Sandy’s Circus: A Story about Alexander Calder, by Tanya Lee Stone, illustrated by Boris Kulikov

Have you ever seen a mobile?  Thank Alexander Calder, the playful, inventive artist from Connecticut who experimented with dancing, whimsical, wire.

The child of artists, Calder began dabbling with wood, leather, and wire as a child, creating clever toys that entertained and delighted.  Moving from engineering to art as an adult, Calder took a job sketching scenes from the circus, which prompted him to return to the wire he loved and create an elaborate, ingenuous miniature circus.  Flying trapezes and high wire walkers, curly-maned lions and prancing ponies — Calder’s circus could pack up in a crate, then be set up to entertain audiences for hours.

Calder is most known for his mobiles, of course –his colorful, geometric pieces, suspended on thin, sweeping arms, elegantly hanging, gently bobbing, in air.  They are a joy to see.  Mobiles belong to the list of ideas that, when once brought to life, seem so essential to the world, so obvious almost, we cannot imagine that for millennia they did not exist.  Yet that bright, cheerful mobile suspended over your baby’s crib is a descendant of Calder’s genius.

This is a short, accessible story, focusing on Calder’s wire circus, that will introduce children as young as 4 to this brilliant artist.  Kulikov’s bright, sunny illustrations fill the pages with enthusiasm and optimism and liveliness.  I love the Muse who gads along, inspiring Calder here and there on his life-journey!    Read, then look for Calder’s mobiles in a museum near you, including, Minneapolis-dwellers, the MIA and the Walker.

The Wonderful Towers of Watts, by Patricia Zelver, with pictures by Frané Lessac

Simon Rodia was an Italian-born immigrant who settled in Los Angeles in 1921, purchasing a small lot in the Watts neighborhood.  Known as Old Sam, Rodia was a bit of a quirky fellow, who worked in a tile factory by day. 

And by night?  Outside of his work hours, Old Sam was a collector…and an artist.  His collection included shards of colorful tiles, fragments of cobalt blue and emerald green glass bottles, bits of bright pottery and shimmering mirrors, quaint knobs and funky faucets.  Sam purchased cement and steel.  Then, without any fancy machinery, without any help, Old Sam began to build. 

Crazy towers, towering spires, eccentric spiraling sculptures began to rise from behind Old Sam’s walled yard.  On the surfaces of these steel structures, Sam affixed the gewgaws and doodads he’d been collecting, until a fanciful, fantastical, mosaic-adorned monument glinted against the blue-blue California sky.

The Watts Towers still stand, now on the National Register of Historic Places.  They are a grand spectacle of folk art, built by a man with a singular vision who just kept carrying on until he succeeded.  I’m looking forward to seeing them for myself when I visit L.A.  later this year.  This simply-told story grabs our attention, giving just enough details for kids ages 4 and up.  Just be prepared for some backyard construction projects in consequence!  Brilliant, sun-baked, jewel-colored gouache paintings by Lessac mimic the rustic and whimsical nature of Rodia’s artistry.

Vincent’s Colors, words and pictures by Vincent van Gogh

Vincent Van Gogh wrote often to his brother, describing his paintings, telling a few of his thoughts about them.  In this beautiful book, the Metropolitan Museum of Art has paired sixteen of his paintings,with a short, evocative phrase of van Gogh’s to describe each one.  Using translations of the Dutch or French van Gogh wrote in, and setting them in pleasant rhyming patterns, the book calls our attention particularly to the colors he chose and his descriptions of them.

Chairs the color of “fresh butter,” and cypress trees “of a bottle-green hue.”  So satisfying to hear what he had to say about his own color choices, and then to have our eyes drawn to the other colors and brushstrokes he used in his dancing skies, undulating hills, and radiant stars.  

The book is beautifully arranged with a full-page, gorgeous reproduction set opposite a white page with just a short phrase walking across the middle of it; simple, undistracting, thought-provoking.  Children as young as toddlers can feast their eyes on these paintings, surely some of the loveliest in the world; can revel in van Gogh’s colors and textures; can be prompted to see and name the glorious colors in their own worlds.  Really lovely.

Romare Bearden: Collage of Memories, by Jan Greenberg

Romare Bearden was born in 1911 in Charlotte, North Carolina, and spent his artistic life in New York City before he died in 1988.  He was an African-American man who experimented with collage, focusing his art on the nitty-gritty of ordinary life and particularly on the history and culture of his people.

Bearden’s life was anchored in a childhood spent in places like  Harlem, whose streets were bursting with new immigrants trying to become those who truly belonged in America, and Pittsburgh, where the steel factories dominated the cityscape.  He stocked his memories with jazz singers and folk musicians, neighbors and friends rejoicing, mourning, dancing, working.  These bits and pieces of his life emerged in his complex, vibrant collages later in life.

Bearden experimented a great deal, cutting, painting, mounting, contrasting images and colors and placements until he achieved the style and rhythm and force he is famous for.  His massive collage “The Block” at the Met in New York, stretches 18 feet long by 4 feet high — an incredible representation of interiors and exteriors of an urban, black neighborhood.

This extensive biography by Jan Greenberg explores the influence of Bearden’s life and his artistic choices which culminated in his unique voice.  Lavishly illustrated with reproductions of Bearden’s works, Greenberg also often quotes from Bearden, seeking to help us understand the artist from his own point of view, rather than describing him from afar.  It’s a solid introduction to this thoroughly American artist which will help children ages 9 and up appreciate his work all the more when they see it.  

Here are Amazon links for these artistic biographies:
Chuck Close: Face Book

Sandy’s Circus: A Story About Alexander Calder

The Wonderful Towers of Watts (Reading Rainbow Books)

Vincent’s Colors

Romare Bearden: Collage of Memories

fiction favorites…The Penderwicks

The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy, by Jeanne Birdsall

For a long time after that summer, the four Penderwick sisters still talked of Arundel.  Fate drove us there, Jane would say.  No, it was the greedy landlord who sold our vacation house on Cape Cod, someone else would say, probably Skye.
Who knew which was right?  But it was true that the beach house they usually rented had been sold at the last minute, and the Penderwicks were suddenly without summer plans.  Mr. Penderwick called everywhere, but Cape Cod was booked solid, and his daughters were starting to think they would be spending their whole vacation at home in Cameron, Massachusetts.  Not that they didn’t love Cameron, but what is summer without a trip to somewhere special?  Then, out of the blue, Mr. Penderwick heard through a friend of a friend about a cottage in the Berkshire Mountains.  It had plenty of bedrooms and a big fenced-in pen for a dog — perfect for big, black, clumsy, lovable Hound Penderwick — and it was available to be rented for three weeks in August.  Mr. Penderwick snatched it up, sight unseen.
He didn’t know what he was getting us into, Batty would say.

 The Penderwick sisters are Rosalind, age twelve, Skye, eleven, Jane, ten, and Batty, four.  Their slightly-absent-minded,  professor-of-botany father has rented the cottage at Arundel Hall, and for three jam-packed weeks, the girls liven up the neighborhoods surrounding it.

Immediately,  the girls discover Jeffrey Tifton, the lonely son of snooty Mrs. Tifton, owner of Arundel.  Jeffrey finds ideal companions in these new friends, and together they evade an angry bull, practice archery, slip in and out of windows via tree branches and a rope ladder, and in general turn the orderly, staid life of Arundel upside-down.    There are fabulous grounds and enormous, treasure-filled attics to explore.  Rabbits to feed and cookies to bake.  Garden club ladies to avoid and one, handsome teen-age boy to dream about (for Rosalind.)  Storm clouds gather, however, when Mrs. Tifton threatens to send Jeffrey to military school.  Can the sisters help convince this prickly heiress to change her mind?  Or will they just make matters worse?

Jeanne Birdsall has written a deliciously old-fashioned story, enjoyable as peaches-and-cream on a summer’s day.  Even the sorrowful strains in the plot — a mother who died shortly after Batty was born; Rosalind’s painful realization that this teenage boy sees her only as a child — have roots in many children’s novels of a century ago.  Meanwhile, all the elements of a pleasurable, charming story — the warm-hearted housekeeper, the attic overflowing with dress-up clothes, the vast meadows and grounds to explore unsupervised — are unabashedly present here.  These are children who never watch TV; they’re much too busy writing their own stories, concocting their own adventures, playing the piano, baking, reading, chasing escaped rabbits… and taking good care of one another.   

If you’ve read Elizabeth Enright’s books, or the Swallows and Amazons series, you’ll recognize a little of that same flavor here.  Perhaps a tad updated…but not much.  A cozy read for ages 8 -12.  There are already two sequels which I have not read, but I’ve heard good things.  Great summertime read, as well as read-aloud material for those even younger.

Here’s the Amazon link:

The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy

fiction favorites…Ruby Redfort Look Into My Eyes

Ruby Redfort Look Into My Eyes, by Lauren Child

“I am looking for Ruby Redfort,” said the voice.
“Well, you found her,” replied Ruby.
“Good.  So now that I’ve found you, all you’ve got to do is find me.”
“Excuse me?” said Ruby. “What is this, a quiz?”
“Well,” the voice said, “a little bird told me that you notice everything — but do you notice everything Ruby Red?”
“The name’s Ruby Redfort.” Ruby didn’t like her name to be messed with.
“As I was saying,” continued the voice, “I hear that you are quite the code cracker, that you are capable of noticing the smallest things, the tiny details and how they connect.  I bet you can see when something is plumb square in the wrong place, while everyone else just walks on by. You can see that something ordinary might mean something extraordinary once it’s put in context.  Am I right?”
“I can crack a code,” said Ruby struggling to sound more confident than she felt.
“Good,” said the voice, and the line went dead.
“So what’s the code, buster?” said Ruby to no one but herself.  She slowly put down the receiver.
Now what? 

If you’ve read the entertaining Clarice Bean novels by Lauren Child, you’ll be quite familiar with the name Ruby Redfort.  Ruby is a detective extraordinaire, and she is Clarice’s hero for certain sure.  Now, Child has written the first Ruby Redfort saga so that we, too, can be enthralled by the amazing, the ingenious, the one-and-only — Ruby Redfort!

But you don’t need to have read the Clarice Bean books to enjoy this one. 

Ruby is a brilliant child, an exceptionally astute code-breaker, a girl with stunning powers of observation.  It takes all her skills as well as her incredible pluck, a few way-cool top-secret spy gadgets, and the loyal assistance of her good pal Clancy Crew, to crack this case.  It all begins when the entire belongings of the Redfort household go missing at once — including the housekeeper!  Add some strange phone calls, a mysterious new butler, a hush-hush spy agency, the arrival of a huge shipment of gold, and a precious jade artifact, and Ruby finds herself hip deep in an ocean of trouble.  How will she survive, rescue Mrs. Digby, and foil the bad guys?  

Almost 400 fast-reading pages are filled with quirky characters, puzzling discoveries, and Ruby’s breezy, cool investigations.  Ruby is an incredibly independent, plucky heroine; it’s clear as day why Clarice Bean idolizes her so!  And that’s not all folks!  Included in these pages is a vigenere cipher to attempt to crack yourselves, and a 99-second Spectrum Agency Test that you can take to see if you measure up to the likes of Ruby Redfort!

Summer is coming; here’s a book that’s a blast to read.  Great choice for the beach vacation, road trip, or too-hot-to-move days ahead.  Ages 10 and up.  Probably a tad more appealing to girls with Ruby as the star of the show…non-picky boys could like it too, with plenty of sinister fellows, guns, and spy stuff.

Here’s the Amazon link:Ruby Redfort Look Into My Eyes

a list of…five terrific takes on transportation

Hot Air: The (Mostly) True Story of the First Hot-Air Balloon Ride, written and illustrated by Marjorie Priceman

On September 19, 1783, in front of the glittering palace of Versailles, a magnificent crowd of people gathered to see a stunningly-immense, sapphire-blue balloon ascend into the sky.  How terribly exciting!  This was something completely new!  Heads craned.  Ropes tautened.  Hats were thrown in enthusiasm.

Who rode in the balloon?

A duck.  A sheep.  And a rooster.

Eight minutes later, the historic flight ended, and the three intrepid balloonists were found, unharmed.

Ah, but what happened during the flight?  That constitutes the (mostly) part referred to in this fantastic book’s title!  With verve, humor, and splendid imagination, Marjorie Priceman illustrates, wordlessly, the airborne antics of these famous explorers.  Her energetic, colorful, gorgeous illustrations won a Caldecott Honor in 2006.  Page after page of azure skies and a canary-yellow duck, tangerine-colored terracotta rooftops, amethyst breezes and emerald, leafy, trees, leap out at us, swirl, dance, curlicue,  with energetic vignettes of the perils and pluck of the sheep, the rooster, and the duck.

An added, illustrated history of the Mongolfier brothers’ ballooning experiments gives more of the realio-trulio elements behind this delightful account.   Great fun for preschoolers and up.

Louise Builds a Boat, written and illustrated by Louise Pfanner

Louise is building herself a boat, and what a capital craft it will be!   This is a girl who knows what’s essential for happy sailing.  For instance, a crow’s nest makes a dandy spot for watching dolphins at play.  And a figurehead is such jolly fun to paint, she simply can’t do without one.

Bit by bit, Louise’s dream boat takes shape.  Her multicolored- quiltish hammock hangs in the snug cabin above a neat line-up of whimsical shoes.  Her galley – ooh la la! — shines with cheery, red-and-white polka dotted dishes, and bins and baskets crammed with juicy oranges and multi-colored this-and-that.  When the whole, brilliant, lipstick-red boat is finished, Louise is set to sail around the world, visiting all her friends.  What a good idea.

This story is short on words, packed with imaginative detail in the bright, rustic pictures, and — super colossal bonus — has secret messages to solve!  Yes!  Louise strings jaunty signal flags upon the ship’s ropes, spelling out words 10 different times along the way.  Each signal flag is matched to its letter of the alphabet on the end papers of  the book; all you have to do is find the matching designs and write down their letters to decode these clever puzzles.

An exciting, daydream-inspiring book for little siblings to look at, while  bigger, reading-folk decipher the flags.  My kids adored this book in younger days, and had a grand time spelling out codes for one another using the flag alphabet and a box of crayons.

If I Built a Car, written and illustrated by Chris Van Dusen

Moving along to automotive design.

This chap, Jack, is a mite bored with his dad’s 1950-model station wagon, so he gets to work on a design of his own.  The result looks like something from The Jetsons…on steroids.

Wow!  It’s sleek.  It’s retro and futuristic simultaneously.  It’s carnation-pink and flame-red with plenty of dazzling chrome.  But looks aren’t the only thing.  Oh my, no.  There are sublime safety features, and bucket-loads of built-in entertainment, from swimming pool to fireplace, automated food delivery system to robotic chauffeur.  And this car does not stick slavishly to roads.  No way.  It is definitely water-worthy and aeronautically-capable, as well.  What a car!!

This is the stuff dreams are made of, delivered in a gee-whiz blast of highly-stylized, retro goodness.  The text is in enjoyable, energetic, rhyme that has a bit of a Dr. Seuss jive to it.  The brilliant, bold pictures look as if they’ve hopped right out of 1950s advertisements, and boy-oh-boy will your kids love ‘em!  This will easily be a read-it-again book for many children, ages 4 or 5 and up.

Freight Train, illustrated and written by Donald Crews

This is Donald Crews’ classic look at one, Crayola-crayon-colored, train. With just a few words, and page after page of outstanding graphic design, Crews has captured the fancy of a couple generations of children.

First, just the tracks parade across the page.  Then, introduced one by one, each car chugs by with its own eye-popping color and its own descriptive name — gondola car, tender, caboose.  Finally, the elegant black steam engine appears, whose puffs of charcoal smoke billow out in waves.  Look.  There’s the whole, beautiful train.

Watch it move.  Streaks of glorious color.  Cleverly emerging from tunnels.  Streaming past sophisticated cities.  Daring to cross elaborate bridges.

Freight Train contains just over 50 quiet words, yet in combination with the fascinating, genius representations of this handsome train, they mesmerize us.  Crews won a Caldecott Honor in 1979 for this work.  It has become an enduring toddler staple.  We certainly gazed at it hundreds of times over the years, memorized the words.  Perfect selection for early, snuggly reading and wondering.

Cars Galore, by Peter Stein, illustrated by Bob Staake

On the smooth black highway twisting like spaghetti across these pages, winding, climbing, loop-de-looping like a roller coaster, comes a parade of some of the craziest cars you’ll ever see.

Cars direct from Who-ville.  Cars equipped with whales.  Cars that tower like skyscrapers.  Bed cars.  Igloo cars.  Cars propelled by hundreds of feet.

Turn the pages, read the exuberant rhymes, and find the preposterous vehicles that match the descriptions.  Staake has interpreted this listing of cars with flair; his digital illustrations feature dozens of fanciful, outlandish jalopies kids will adore finding and giggling over.  If I were taking a long road trip, I’d pack this one along for poring over, and mimicking with a set of markers.  Just a lot of fun.

Here are Amazon links for all these moving-along books:

Hot Air: The (Mostly) True Story of the First Hot-Air Balloon Ride (Caldecott Honor Book)

Louise Builds a Boat

If I Built a Car

Freight Train

Cars Galore

poetry friday

A Tiger Tale
by John Bennett

There was an ancient Grecian boy
Who played upon the fiddle,
Sometimes high, sometimes low,
Sometimes in the middle;
And all day long beneath the shade
He lunched on prunes and marmalade;
But what the tunes were which he played
Is certainly a riddle.

Three tigers gaunt and ravenous
Came from the gloomy wood.
Intent to slay the fiddler,
But his music was too good;
So round about him once they filed,
Till, by the melody beguiled,
They sat them softly down and smiled,
As only tigers could.

And thus beguiled, those tigers smiled
Throughout the livelong day
Until, at length, there was not left
Another tune to play.

What happened then I do not know:
I was not there to see.
But when a man runs short of tunes,
Can tigers be appeased with prunes,
Or marmalade and silver spoons?
That’s what perplexes me.

nonfiction nuggets…of ice and men

Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World: The Extraordinary True Story of Shackleton and The Endurance, by Jennifer Armstrong, with expedition photos by Frank Hurley

“For scientific discovery, give me Scott; for speed and efficiency of travel, give me Amundsen; but when disaster strikes and all hope is gone, get down on your knees and pray for Shackleton.” ~ Apsley Cherry-Garrard, polar explorer, 1922

This is the story of the disaster-ridden Shackleton expedition to Antarctica in 1914-1916.  It is one of the most extraordinary, nearly-unbelievable adventure stories of all time.  In the end, despite the wholesale abandonment of the original expeditionary goals, it is one of the most triumphant calamaties as well.

You probably know the story.  Ernest Shackleton set out in 1914 with a hand-picked crew of hardy explorers, scientists, artists, and one stowaway, in an attempt to cross Antarctica from one side to the other.  The unusual ice pack of that year, however, trapped their ship before they reached the continent, eventually crushing and sinking it before their eyes.  How the men spent an entire Antarctic winter camped in an unreachable frozen wasteland, then miraculously navigated some of Earth’s most perilous seas in a storm-tossed rowboat to reach a barren island; how Shackleton and a skeletal crew then journeyed by boat 800 more treacherous miles to reach inhabited land, and then trekked over unmapped, untraversed, Antarctic mountains to arrive, half-dead at the whaling station; and how the men left behind were all rescued… well, each small detail would be far-fetched if it weren’t all true.  All this, and Shackleton did not lose a single man.

Jennifer Armstrong’s account of this adventure is spellbinding from start to finish, packed with gripping tension and fascinating, humanizing details.  Woven into the saga of these men are helpful, interesting mini-forays into subjects such as Antarctic weather systems, habits of leopard seals, navigation techniques, Antarctic exploration, all of which help us comprehend more the obstacles Shackleton and his men faced.  Archival photos taken by expeditionary photographer Frank Hurley add authentic images to this exceptional story.  If you have not read about Shackleton, you really must.  Ages 10 and up.

Here’s the Amazon link:Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World: The Extraordinary True Story of Shackleton and the Endurance