Cities and Gardens

As mentioned last Friday, some professional worriers have noted that children’s picture books are displaying a decided preference for cityscapes as opposed to natural landscapes.  If the winners of this year’s Caldecott awards (given by the American Libary Association for outstanding picture books) are any indication, this supposed trend is only half true.  Two of the four rejoice in their urbaninity, including the gold medal winner:

A Ball For Daisy, by Chris Raschka.  Shwartz & Wade, 2011.  Age/interest level: 2-4

Daisy is some sort of terrier–long ears, thick coat, and  very exuberant as rendered in the thick, wavy water-color lines that are Raschka’s trademark.  She has a red ball that she loves enough to sleep with.  On a walk with her person (whom we see from Daisy’s perspective and don’t at first realize is a little girl), something bad happens (oh no! says Daisy’s eyes and posture). Then something terrible happens (exclamatory ears and eyes).  The terrible thing is sudden and sharp and doesn’t take a whole page, but the reaction is a double-page spread.   Water-color splotches express puppy sorrow.  But of course, that’s not the end of the story.

The beauty of a wordless book is that pre-reading “readers” can be left alone with it, free to explore the storyline, emotions, and interaction between characters at their own speed and level of perception.  Along the way they’ll be learning something about sequence, consequence, and cause and effect.  And don’t be surprised if they want a puppy.

Blackout, by John Rocco.  Disney/Hyperion, 2011.  Age/interest level: 4-7

“It started out a normal summer night.  The city was loud and hot.  Inside, everyone was busy.”  Mom is working at her computer, Dad is cooking, Sis is gabbing on the phone.  Little sister finds a board game (we never see its name), but everyone is “Much to busy” to play it with her.  Then the lights go out (notice the portrait of Thomas Edison looking askance)–not just in their apartment or block, but all over Brooklyn, in a series of panels that show ever-larger segments of the city shutting down.  Gradually the family comes together around candles and flashlights, along with the whole neighborhood.  They climb up to the roof where “a block party in the sky” is in progress under stars that look like they were painted by Van Gogh.   On the street below, folks are strolling, kids are splashing in the fire hydrants, a vendor is passing out free ice cream before it melts.  “And no one was busy at all.”

The story is told in double-page  spreads and comic panels reminiscent of Sendak’s In the Night Kitchen.  It celebrates the value of family time and relationship, even when the lights come back on and the family must make an effort to put aside their busyness.  Young readers will enjoy identifying the different lights in each panel and the details they illuminate; also playing “find the cat,” who shows up in a different place in almost every page.

The other two Caldecott Honor books look to nature for their inspiration.  Grandpa Green, reviewed here, depicts the life of the narrator’s gardener grandfather as a series of topiary sculptures in the garden of ordinary-but-rich experience.   And a natural-world advocate is the subject of our last honor book:

Me . . . Jane, by Patrick McDonnell.  Little, Brown, 2011, 36 pages.  Age/interest level: 4-8

Jane Goodall, born in London in 1934, grew up to become the pioneering chimpanzee expert who is not to be confused with Dian Fossey, of Gorillas in the Mist fame.  According to the author’s note at the end, one of Goodall’s seminal discoveries was that chimps can make and use tools (though bears may be catching up; see the latest).  After this discovery “the world was forced to rethink what makes humans different from animals.”  I can think of a few suggestions why we might retain our uniqueness (hint: What am I doing right now?), but the text of this picture book does not, fortunately, bludgeon preschoolers with crimes against primates or suggest our moral equivalence to them.  Instead, we are introduced to a little girl who was given a stuffed chimpanzee which she named Jubilee.  “She cherished Jubilee and took him everywhere she went.  And Jane loved to be outside.” (If she was born in London I don’t understand the rural environment depicted as her childhood home.  Either they moved or the illustrator is romanticizing.)

Jane and Jubilee climb trees, make diagrams, study books about animals and start a club called the “Aligator Society.”  Gentle prose and pictures stress her love for the natural world: “a magical world full of joy and wonder, and Jane felt very much a part of it.”  Partly inspired by the Tarzan series, Jane nurtures a dream of going to Africa like the fictional Jane Porter.  “At night Jane would tuck Jubilee into bed, say her prayers/and fall asleep . . ./ to awake one day . . . / to a dream come true.”  We turn the page from Jane asleep in her own little bed to a grown-up Jane awaking in a safari tent in the jungle, and finally to a photo of the real Jane extending her hand to a young chimpanzee.  It’s a beautiful sequence.  And a lovely little book overall, with watercolor renderings of Jane’s bucolic childhood on the right side and woodcut prints of natural elements–leaves, shells, animals–forming a background to the text on the left.  One double-page spread is a collage of drawings and puzzles created by Jane herself as a child.

When she said her prayers as a child, Jane Goodall didn’t know who she was praying to, and by her own admission still doesn’t.  But none of her spiritualist or animal-activist views intrude on the text, a gentle and harmless introduction to a lady who loves animals.

For more picture book recommendations, see our year-end roundup.  Also Those Who Served,  Picturing God, and Tall Tales.