I remember loving Leo Lionni’s book as a child, though I honesty don’t remember exactly what I loved so much about it. In re-reading it, however, I know what re-worthifies it. First and foremost, the story is triumphant and heroic. A small fish– with the unfortunate name of Swimmy– culls his desire for adventure from … Continue reading
Nothing at All is Wanda Gag’s 1941 Caldecott Honor book about an invisible puppy. Invisibility suits him fine until the day that he needs to be seen. Before that day, though, his sweet tempered brothers give this very cool justification for believing he exists even though they can’t see him: “We can’t see the wind … Continue reading
This, my friends, is Frog and Toad are Friends, written in 1970, the first in a series of three by Arnold Lobel. Why do I like this book? First and foremost: Toad. He’s the sort of character who is all too comfortably endearing. He’s Eeyore to Poo, he’s Jack to Algernon, he’s Cameron to Ferris Bueller. He’s grumpy, gullible, and self-defensive, he’s your sadly loveable grandfather and your childhood best curmudgeon friend all rolled into one. He wears striped, full body bathing suits and wool jackets, and he sleeps a lot. Continue reading
If academics had a hard time with the naked Mickey yelling Cock-a-doodle-doo in In the Night Kitchen, what would they say to a kid’s book where all the adults get into the bathtub together? What exactly would they conclude from a big, hairy, naked king jovially commanding all of his subjects to conduct their business with him–fishing, eating lunch, having masquerade balls, planning battles– in the bubbly waters of his bath? Continue reading
To add to the list of personal favorites: Julian Scheer and Marvin Blick’s Rain Makes Applesauce. Simply put: without any direction, tangible plot, or identifiable characters, Rain Makes Applesauce explodes in a carnivalesque orgy of nonsense, hordes of patched dolls, giant clouds of collaged landscapes, and fragmented colorful lines splaying all about. Continue reading
So, what’s great about Sendak’s next best known book? His second little dark haired hero, Mickey, falls into a surreal bakers’ world and saves the day by flying a dough plane to a giant milk bottle and getting the bakers the milk they need for the morning cake. Again, as in Where the Wild Things Are, imagination takes a boy to a world outside of his own. But this one’s got a slightly different kind of ending… Continue reading
When you read criticism on Maurice Sendak’s first hugely successful book (and there are academic essays, I assure you), you realize, holy shit, people have applied phrases like “colonialist or Freudian prism” and “the psychoanalytic story of anger” to this tail of an angry boy who sails to where the wild things are. This isn’t the first place that Where the Wild Things Are has been treated as a book whose readership has no age limits. Continue reading
Little Book Review 