The Lonely Phone Booth, or There’s Gum on my Dime

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Remember phone booths? Remember having to call your parents collect to come pick you up after track practice in high school because you couldn’t scrape together two gum-encrusted dimes from the bottom of your backpack? Maybe that was just me…but for anyone who does remember the antiquated charm of the phone booth, Peter Ackerman’s adorable “The Lonely Phone Booth” is a treat. On a busy corner of New York City, sits a little phone booth who’s feeling rather neglected, what with all the cell phones he sees rushing by. But, could he find new life once an electrical storm renders the cell phone towers defunct? This story has a retro feel and rallies support for the little booth as city officials threaten to haul it off to the dump. The pairing of Peter Ackerman’s delightful prose with Max Dalton’s illustrations is a smart one. Ackerman, a playwright who wrote Things You Shouldn’t Say Past Midnight,imbues an obvious love for New York City and the symbols of its glory (ballerinas, businessmen, racing cabs, skyscrapers) and Dalton, Argentinian-based illustrator extraordinaire has long been a favorite ever since he designed a “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off Board Game.” Put these two together and you’ve got a winning combination that will have children cheering for the booth. And you’ll recall with warm memories when you used to close that folding door behind you and call home collect.

Romeo and Juliet for the Drooling Set

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Every summer, my older son attends a Shakespeare Camp in which he and his fellow campers spend two weeks in literature heaven. Improv, movement, Shakespearean history…why, oh, why can’t adults go to summer camp too? I’d give anything to spend two weeks learning my son’s lines from The Merry Wives of Windsor (he made a smashing Doctor Caius, by the way…) At any rate, inspired by this Bard Bonanza, I went to my favorite local bookstore on the lookout for a children’s biography of Shakespeare. I found that (a lovely member of the “Who Was…” series by Celeste Davidson Mannis) and then I found what may be the most glorious gift to children’s literature in quite some time. Are you ready for this? Author Jennifer Adams and artist Alison Oliver have teamed up to create BabyLit Board Books. Yes, now you can find not only Romeo and Juliet for your little anglophile-in-training, but Pride and Prejudice  as well. (Insert swooning here.) Not only are Oliver’s illustrations just the most adorable things you’ve ever seen, the way Adams has turned the concept of two jilted lovers and the dashing Mr Darcy into counting primers for children is nothing short of miraculous. Some purists may scoff at the “dumbing down” of great literature for children, but I give a hearty “huzzah” to the concept of introducing great literature at an early age. Will babies truly understand the difference between Capulets and Montagues? No. But isn’t it fun to try?

Time for new underpants….

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How thrilled was I to see a clothesline hung in my local children’s bookstore…strewn with multi-colored underpants. The occasion for such tighty whitey hi-jinx? The release of the latest in Dav Pikley’s beloved series, Captain Underpants!  In stores next week, Captain Underpants and the Terrifying Return of Tippy Tinkletrousers, promises to surprise, delight and depants not only avid fans of the series, but newbies to the genre. (I promise a lengthy review once I can get my grubby little hands on it!) So, hang on to your boxers, briefs and (in some cases) granny panties. The Captain has returned!

The Blah, or The Potato with Feet

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Some days, you just feel like a blah. A big, beige blah. Like a potato with feet. And some days we can’t even explain why we feel that way. And other days, the world conspires against us to create said blahdom. It just happens. So we can all relate to the little boy in Jack Kent’s The Blah. His older brother stepped on his crayons. His mom is too busy doing mom stuff. (What? That happens?) And he feels like no one listens at all. So he creates the King of the Blahs – a drawing of a big blotch with a crown who terrorizes his fellow blahs. In this simple little story (which I first read almost 30 years ago), Jack Kent perfectly captures the frustrations of being a kid. Like when I was seven and I wanted my mom to listen to this great joke I’d made up (it involved a snowflake and a burrito if I remember correctly) and she was on the phone and couldn’t listen. Or when I’d recorded a soap opera called “As the Stomach Turns” on my hand-held tape player and wanted my grandmother to have a quick listen and she happened to be talking to her neighbor Abe, who strangely wore bathrobes all day long.  And I wanted to turn right around and draw my own King of the Blahs on the wall of my room. Published in 1970, The Blah is as relevant today as it was then – for kids and adults.  It’s a great book to bring out when the blahs are at your house for no other reason that perhaps they were bored down there in Blahville. There are just some days like that. And if, on some day in the future, I slightly resemble a potato with feet, you’ll know why.

Sparkle and Spin

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Goodness gracious, how I ADORE this book. Sparkle and Spin: A Book About Words could potentially be my new favorite book. Not new in the sense of just-published, since this treasure of a tome was first published in the late 1950’s, but new in that I just discovered it and am seriously kicking myself for not finding it earlier. Having grown up with Dutch author and illustrator Dick Bruna’s books, I’ve always been a complete sucker for strong graphic visuals in children’s books. How could I have missed Ann and Paul Rand? It’s like Dick Bruna and Lane Smith had a child and created this book. In it, the Rands create a world of words – a delicious cacophony of syllables and sentences. With phrases like “what are words? words are how what you think inside comes out, and how you remember what you might forget about,” this delightful book captures all that is wonderful about language and does it in a way that is amazingly approachable and entertaining for children of all ages. You should purchase this book, republished by Chronicle Books, not only for your children to read but as a keepsake…a treasure to pass down through the generations of readers and lovers of words. This is a children’s coffee table book and should be relished and read aloud until the words are faint on the page.

 

Max’s Words, or Better than Collecting Tags

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For anyone who loves words as much as I do, Kate Banks’ “Max’s Words” is the perfect book. Max’s brothers each have fabulous collections – Benjamin collects stamps (what fun!) and Karl collects coins (slow down there, cowboy).  As a child, I and my friend Gretchen collected department store tags that had fallen on the floor of our local Marshall’s…but that’s for another time. Max, after some thought, decides that he would like to collect words. Cutting words out of newspapers and magazines, Max’s collection of amazing, stupendous, intriguing words grows and grows until he has just about enough to write a story for himself. Patching together his collection into a incredible tales of adventure and captivated by this new use for words, Max’s brothers get in on the action and find themselves working together with Max to build stories beyond their imaginations. Max is a child after my own heart – curious, literary and totally quirky. And the best kind of child – one who discovers the true power of words and creates something beautiful from them.

Neville

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I’ve always been fascinated by kids who had to move around a lot. I never moved until I went away to college. Same house. Same town. Same little hiding spot at the back of the closet where I kept all of my diaries and bad adolescent poetry. But whenever a new kid came to my school, I was always a little tad smitten. Whether they moved from Texas or from three blocks away, I always attributed some sort of romance to the notion of moving from one house to another and secretly envied the chance to start all over fresh and exciting – making new friends, despite the nervousness that must accompany such a daunting task. Perhaps it is this long-standing fascination that makes Norton Juster’s Neville so darn endearing. In it, a little boy has just moved to a new town. And with this move come all of the emotions inherent in such a change – fear, anger, loneliness. Will he find new friends? Will he fit in? His mother suggests the mythical solution to all childhood problems: “go outside” and the little boy does…reluctantly. How will he make friends just by going outside? Thinking perhaps there might be something a little more dramatic to do, the little boy starts yelling “Neville” at the top of his lungs. Pretty soon, curious little children hear the siren call and come to investigate. And, as children often do, they decide to join in the party, despite not quite knowing what the party actually is. Soon, all of the children are screaming for the ever-elusive Neville and magically bonding over this seemingly bananas activity. Just who is Neville? You’ll have to read this superb book (by the same author as The Phantom Tollbooth, no less ) and find out for yourself.  The seemingly daunting task of making new friends is made delightful – even fascinating.

I Want My Hat Back

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Perhaps I am just a sucker for bemused looking animals, but Jon Klassen’s book I Want My Hat Back is one of my new all-time favorites. I mean, seriously. Just look at that bear’s face. It’s irresistibly droll.  The book offers a simple story, really. No bells and whistles here. But for anyone with a slightly bent sense of humor and a great appreciation for clever writing, this is the book for you. Simply told, bear’s hat is missing. And he’s not too thrilled with the situation. Using the age-old repetitive trope of such classics as The Gingerbread Man and The Little Red Hen, the creatures of the forest encounter the peeved bear one by one, offering little-to-no guidance on his chapeau search. That is, until a graceful deer triggers a faint memory in the bear’s fuzzy brain. And with that, the true mystery of the hat takes off on little furry feet. And don’t even ask me what happens to the bunny. I’m not telling. You’ll just have to immediately go out and buy this adorably naughty book and find out for yourself.

 

Who Was George Washington?

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For anyone who has  not yet encountered the wonderfulness of the “Who Was….” series of biographical children’s books, it’s never too late to get your kids addicted to them. These books, with subjects ranging from Jim Henson to Albert Einstein, make history fun for your little ones. They’re well-written, easy to read chapter books with fascinating and entertaining information on every page. And in honor of the upcoming President’s Day weekend, I thought I’d send a special shout-out to our dear ole George. Roberta Edwards’ biography of our first President includes all of the pertinent information history buffs require with a lot of extra fun facts that your kids will eat up. They’re great for every day reading, and FABULOUS for book reports…Start a collection today – your kids will thank you for it!