Cultural Decay: The Trailer for Peter Rabbit

Longtime readers of The Jade Sphinx know of our longstanding love for children’s literature. Now, Beatrix Potter’s classic tales of Peter Rabbit have been adapted into a new, animated film. Here is the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pa_Weidt08.

Since this simply beggars description, I will simply remain silent.

Best in Snow, by April Pulley Sayre (2016)

Best is Snow is a charming books of photographs by April Pulley Sayer celebrating the mysteries of snow.  And what better mediation for this, the Eve of Christmas Eve?

Sayre is the author of a companion book, Raindrops Roll.  One imagines that she was inspired to move onto snowier topics by living in South Bend, Indiana, one of the snowiest cities in the United States.

The text of Best in Snow is a study in brevity – this review alone would equal three-to-four times as many words.  But if a picture is worth a thousand words, than this simple book speaks volumes. 

Sayre shows us photos of a variety of birds, squirrels and other animals as snow gently drifts on idyllic sylvan scenes.  These are pictures of remarkable beauty and refinement, and are perfect for a quiet evening before the fire … or even the radiator.

In addition to her animal photos, Sayre provides great shots of leaves, branches and ice crystals, and she illustrates the effects of ice, water, cold and snow on natural, living things.

The final two pages of the book are some fun facts about snow … some even obscure enough to be a surprise to Your Correspondent.

This is a great book for the winter-fans, snow-buffs and nature-lovers – not to be missed!

A Special Christmas Eve Message Tomorrow!

Candy Cane Lane, by Scott Santoro (2016)

One of our favorite memories of Christmas 2016 will be having read Candy Cane Lane, by Scott Santoro, under our Christmas tree.  It is a delight.

Santoro is the author and illustrator of Farm-Fresh Cats and Which Way to Witch School?  He has also worked on several animated feature films, including The Lion King, Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, and Gnomeo and Juliet.  He is a great talent and deserves wider recognition; it is our hope that Candy Cane Lane is the breakout holiday book of the 2016 season, and that it reaches a wide readership.

The story is about a little girl who lives on the eponymous street.  Every house is a marvel of outlandish holiday decoration, each lawn is more elaborate than the one proceeding it.  Her house, however, is always empty, as her father cannot afford fancy lawn ornaments.

Just before Christmas, a mighty storm blows in, and the ornaments of Candy Cane Lane are scattered everywhere.  A plastic choirboy ends up in the nearby trashbin, and she takes it for her own.  Her pleasure is short-lived, however, when the trashmen take it away.

Alone, in the snowy city dump, the choirboy pines for Candy Cane Lane and the little girl.  He is befriended by a plastic, illuminated reindeer, and, later, by a discarded Halloween ghost.  They decide to join forces and find their way back.

Lost, they come upon the offices and showroom of Giant Displays, where they are befriended by the plastic Giant out front, along with the scores of factory rejects (like Green Santas or giftless Magi) who also need homes.

What follows is a parade of ornaments and over-sized product avatars seeking their own, special Christmas refuge.

It is almost impossible to overestimate the charm of this book.  The illustrations have a loose line and sense of fun, and the coloration of the pages is stunning.  Each page is filled with work that has real forward momentum … many of the figures seem ready to fly off the page.  Santoro also has the gift for capturing ‘glowing’ light, and, better still, the quality of light thrown off by Christmas lights in the darkest of nights, against backdrops of snow.

There is also an antic sweetness to the book that irresistible.  Perhaps it is Santoro’s background in animation that makes so much of this book reminiscent of the animation style of the Little Lulu or Mighty Mouse cartoons of the 1940s, produced by Famous Studios and Terrytoons, respectively.  

Like the best animated cartoons, it makes the inanimate live, and shows us the interior lives of the objects around us.  One could almost imagine a Big Band score to accompany the illustrations – and Your Correspondents hopes that Candy Cane Lane becomes a cartoon itself, some day.  The book is touching without being cloying, and smart without being knowing.  In short, Santoro has created a little Master’s Class in making the difficult seem easy, all with a wonderful vibe that is both retro and timeless.   

Candy Cane Lane is a delicious confection – and our favorite Christmas picture book of 2016.  Bravo Santoro – and more, please!

The Night Gardener, by The Fan Brothers (2016)

There are so many great picture books for children this Christmas season that it’s almost impossible to write about them all.  But there are a few standouts that demand particular attention, and we will try to bring them top-of-mind this week.  (The number of excellent prose novels recently released for Young Adult readers is equally impressive, and we will tell you about some of those before the New Year rings in, we promise!)

One of the most original and delightful books to cross our desk this season is The Night Gardener, by Terry Fan and Eric Fan.  These extremely talented brothers are Ontario-based writers and illustrators, and The Night Gardener is their best book to date.

The story tells of life on Grimloch Lane.  Life continues apace, without much interesting seeming to happen.  Young William notices, though, a mysterious gardener steal by one night, a gardener who transforms an ordinary tree into a magnificent topiary sculpture of an owl.  The neighborhood falls agape with wonder … and the mysterious gardener continues to ply his trade, leaving these amazing wood-and-leaf sculptures in his wake.

William, of course, promises to stay up one night and catch him in the act…

There is so much going on in The Night Gardener that adults will delight in unpacking the story as much as children.  The evocative illustrations for this book were rendered in graphite, and then digitally colored.  Fortunately, the Fan Brothers exercised as much restraint in the coloration process as they did with their drawings.

Grimloch Lane in the early pages of the book is a fairly gray, monochromatic place.  As the Night Gardener creates more and more topiary art, the pages slowly and subtly infuse with color, reaching a full, rich coloration at the end.  But this is never used to cheap effect; indeed, illustrations that take place in moonlight are just as mysterious and creamy as they are subdued. 

The drawings themselves have a great deal of charm; they are mindful, in their way, of the pen-and-ink work of Edward Gorey (1925-2000).  But where Gorey was macabre and mordant, the Fan Brothers are more mysterious and insinuating.  The brothers have a happy knack of composition, and the drawings are filled with witty details that catch the eye. 

Any attentive reader paging through the book will, again and again, return to the word ‘subtle.’  We are told very little about William, but there is a picture of his parents on his windowsill.  We never learn anything about them, and it was not until my second page-through that I noticed that the building he leaves at one point is an orphanage.  And our gardener seems to sculpt his animals based on whatever animals happen to be in the neighborhood.  And who are the mustached, hat-wearing twins in nearly every group drawing?  Could it be the Fan Brothers, themselves?

But just as interesting as the illustrations are, the story is even more compelling.  Are the Fan Brothers offering a parable on the affect that art has upon us, or a story of transferring intergenerational expertise?  Is it about the soul-crushing effects of ugly neighborhoods and urban blight, or about the restorative effects of engaging in the arts?  Is it a meditation on seasonal changes, or a commentary on created families?

This is a book with no easy answers, but many earned pleasures.  The Night Gardener is sure to intrigue both children and adults with its subtle drawings, evocative narrative, and hidden clues.  A gem!

The Little Wizard Stories of Oz, by L. Frank Baum (1914)

We have never taken a prolonged look at the corpus of Oz books by L. Frank Baum (1856-1919) and that is something we will do in 2017.  They are perhaps the most important and accomplished work of sustained fantasy in the 20^th Century (take that, J.R.R. Tolkien!), with the first six books in the series being especially delightful.  We will fix his absence in these pages soon.

As an appetizer, and considering the holidays are upon us, I thought I’d take a look at the only collection of short stories in the Oz canon, The Little Wizard Stories of Oz, written in 1913 and collected in 1914, with illustrations by the greatest of the Oz artists, John R. Neill (1877-1943).

The stories were conceived by Baum and his publisher, Reilly & Britton, and were intended for publication in little booklets for each story (each costing 15 cents).  The Oz books were traditionally written for middle readers – ‘tweens,’ in today’s lexicon – while these short stories were created for very young readers.  Baum and company hoped to generate interest in Oz at a very early age, and continue to promote Baum and all of his books into a brand name for kiddie lit.

Because of the younger audience, Baum tones down a bit of the irony and pun-play found in his longer books, and the plots are significantly less intricate.  But taken on a level of simple fun and games in the land of Oz, these stories are unbeatable.

There are six stories in the book, with three of them being particularly charming.  In The Cowardly Lion and the Hungry Tiger, both big cats are bored standing guard at the throne of Ozma, princess of Oz.  The Hungry Tiger would particularly like to eat a little baby, while the Cowardly Lion is eager to maul some innocent.  They leave the castle and promptly come upon a lost baby and, later, the distraught mother – both ripe for consuming and mauling.  The self-deceptions they use to avoid creating mayhem are hilarious, and very human.

Jack Pumpkinhead and the Sawhorse shows two of our favorite characters from the later novels work together to save a boy lost in the forests of Oz.  This is particularly grand because Baum always tried to work out the absurdities of Oz to their most logical conclusions…. For example, since neither Jack nor the Sawhorse sleep, when night comes, they simply stand by the side of the road till daylight.  (A somewhat disquieting image.)  And when Jack’s pumpkin head is spoiled, he must go headless until he gets back home.  There is more than enough to delight any child with a sense of whimsy here.

The Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman features, perhaps, the two most famous characters in the series.  When the two friends go boating, the Tin Man falls overboard.  He lies at the bottom of the riverbed, his tin stuck in the soft earth.  The Scarecrow would save him, but his straw would not allow him to submerge.  The two finally escape with the help of some low comedy crows, but things get significantly better when the Wizard himself shows up.

The other stories, Little Dorothy and Toto, Tiktok and the Nome King and Ozma and the Little Wizard are all fine, and worthy of attention.

The book is available online, but can also be gotten in a low-cost hardcover reprint from Books of Wonder, complete with the original illustrations.  Their Web site is: http://www.booksofwonder.com.  For the Oz completest, or to introduce younger readers to the world Oz, it makes for amusing reading.

Framed! A T.O.A.S.T. Mystery, by James Ponti (2016)

For anyone actively engaged with children’s literature and Young Adult fiction like Your Correspondent, the challenge isn’t in finding the good, but in keeping up with all that is good (and great).  I am constantly amazed at the high quality of the books that come across my desk, and marvel at what a Golden Age this is for the medium.

Case in point – Framed! A T.O.A.S.T. Mystery by James Ponti.  I approached this book with trepidation, expecting just another juvenile mystery in the Hardy Boys vein.  What I found instead was a novel that is smart, beautifully constructed, and often screamingly funny.  Framed! ranks as one of the best books I’ve read this year – either for adults or young readers. 

Framed! is all about Florian Bates, a 12 year old who recently moved to Washington, DC, with his art conservator mother and museum-security specialist father.  Bates is an extraordinary boy in that he has an uncanny knack for noticing things, and making educated suppositions based on tiny facts.  He calls his method TOAST, or the Theory Of All Small Things.

He meets his neighbor, Margaret, and promises to teach her the TOAST technique.  She is a more than adept pupil, and is quickly matching Florian deduction-for-deduction.  While providing her with TOAST training at DC’s National Gallery, their observations lead them to believe that something shifty is afoot.  When key Impressionist paintings are stolen from the museum, his deductions bring him to the attention of the FBI, who, realizing themselves how outlandish it all is, bring Florian onto the case.

Framed! often reads like a Young Adult version of the popular series Sherlock; and it shares with that series an almost beatific regard for the lead’s deductive powers, and the comedic interplay between the lead characters.  Author Ponti really makes the entire notion of TOAST come alive.  It is essentially a riff on Sherlock Holmes’ famed powers of observation and deduction, but Ponti makes a point of walking us through Florian’s mental gymnastics as they occur, rather than explaining afterwards.  It is an effective twist.

The novel begins with Florian kidnapped by the Romanian mafia, and then trying to remember the lessons of his hostage survival course provided by the FBI.  When he comes face to face with the criminal kingpin, Florian makes another key deduction, which then leads to a book-long flashback explaining how he got into this fix.

Perhaps one of the most fascinating things about the book is Ponti’s regard for Florian’s intellectual prowess.  There are many (many!) books where young protagonists rely upon magic or science fictional ideas to succeed; Florian is a creature of the mind and exults in his intelligence.  More, please!

One minor quibble, not that any of the younger readers would make note, is that in Ponti’s world, the FBI is a benevolent entity filled with agents of real integrity who are focused on justice, rather than a highly politicized entity spying on innocent Americans.  Given a tracking chip by the bureau (with a promise never to spy on him), I feared that young Florian would grow up to spend his adulthood in hiding with Edward Snowden…

But real-life disappointments have little to do with this marvelously realized book.  It is fabulously addictive from the very opening.  For example, here is Florian talking to his Romanian kidnapper (with a very uncertain grasp of English) while trying to ply his hostage training:

Survival Step 2 – Disrupt Your Captor’s Train of Thought

“Do you mean ‘not wrong’ as in I’m not wrong in what I’m saying?  Or ‘not wrong’ as in you’re not wrong in whom you kidnapped?”

I waited for a response, but all I heard was a low, frustrated growl.  I assumed this was his deep-thinking noise.

“If you don’t use pronouns, it really makes the conversation hard to follow.  You need to say ‘You’re not wrong’ or ‘I’m not wrong.’  Especially in a situation like this with threats and demands.  The wrong pronoun could have someone else ending up with your ransom money, and that wouldn’t be good for either one of us.”

“Not wrong!” he barked again as if saying it louder suddenly solved the grammar issues.  Just then he swerved to avoid another car, blasted his horn, and yelled what I assumed were choice Romanian curse words.  I figured he was distracted enough for me to start inching toward my backpack.

“Don’t feel bad,” I continued.  “I understand how hard it is to learn a new language.  My family moves all the time.  I’ve had to learn French and Italian.  It’s molto difficile.  That’s Italian for ‘very difficult.’”

“Stop talk!”

“That’s a perfect example of what I mean.  You said ‘stop talk’ but it should be ‘stop talking.’  English is so complicated.  But let’s forget about grammar and get back to you kidnapping the wrong person.  Like I said, it’s an easy mistake and easy to fix.  If you let me go, I promise not to tell anyone.  Just drop me off at the nearest Metro station.”

“Shut mouth or else!”

The “or else” was ominous, and combined with the continued lack of pronouns it reminded me of the third step from my training.

Survival Step 3 – Do Not Antagonize Your Captor

(When I told Margaret about the steps, she couldn’t believe this wasn’t first.)

This is a delightful book and comes highly recommended.

Hap-Pea All Year, Written and Illustrated by Keith Baker (2016)

Hap-Pea All Year is a charming and delightful book for very young readers.  Following his previous books about peas (which took the peas through letters, numbers and colors), writer and illustrator Keith Baker now provides a snappy walk through the year, blithely illustrated with hap-pea peas.

Each of the 12 months is showcased in a two-paged, double-spread illustration, showing how the peas enjoy each month.  There’s snow in January, Valentines in February, and camping out under summer skies in July.  The simple paintings are fecund – crammed with detail and amusing incident, each with little ‘pocket’ stories of isolated action.

Hap-Pea All Year is for young readers (under eight), but parents will not find it a slog.  In fact, adults will get nearly as much fun pointing to the various elements of each painting, and helping underscore the various delights that can be found in each month.

Hap-Pea All Year is a book of beguiling sweetness and delicious simplicity.  It comes highly recommend to anyone with young children, and should inspire new readers to pick up Keith Baker’s earlier titles. 

The Marvelous Thing That Came From a Spring: The Accidental Invention of the Toy That Swept the Nation, by Gilbert Ford (2016)

Every now and then Your Correspondent comes across a new picture book and the response is simply – gosh, that’s terrific.

I can’t help myself; The Marvelous Thing That Came From a Spring: The Accidental Invention of the Toy That Swept the Nation, by Gilbert Ford, is simply fantastic.  It has been on our coffee table for several days now, and I’ve been unable to resist it.  People come over, and I show it to them – it’s that delightful.

The story – and it’s true – is simple enough.  It tells the story of engineer Richard James, who creates a new toy, the Slinky, in the 1940s.  He and his wife take out a loan to manufacture a bunch of them, and he manages to sell out his entire stock at a demonstration in Gimbels right before Christmas.

The business continues to grow, and the James’ move from manufacturing Slinkys on their own, to buying a factory and mass producing them.  Following the war, the Slinky became a staple for emerging Baby Boomers – I know, I had one myself.  Mrs. James would eventually run the business herself, moving it into its greatest period of popularity and sales.

For Your Correspondent, one of the great joys was the flood of memories the book inspired.  I remember my older brother William and I ‘walking’ our Slinky down the stairs as soon as we got it, or how my brother Thomas and I would sing the jingle whenever it was on television:

What walks down stairs,

Alone or in pairs,

And makes a slinkity sound?

A spring,

A spring,

A marvelous thing.

Everyone knows it’s Slinky

The text by author/illustrator Gilbert Ford is simple and straightforward.  But where the book really shines is the wonderfully inventive mode of illustration.  Ford created a bunch of cut-out figures and props, and then mixed them with actual miniature props (tables, toys, shelves, etc.) to create dioramas.  These dioramas were then beautifully photographed by Greg Endries (who must share equal accolades for the success of the book) to create the final effect. 

It is this mixture of illustration, diorama and photography that makes the book so beguiling.  The resulting photos are unlike anything you’ve seen in children’s picture books, and are great fun.  The book is great for children, their Generation X parents, and their Baby Boomer grandparents.  Enjoy!

Waiting for Augusta, by Jessica Lawson

We have been looking at children’s books this week here at The Jade Sphinx, and easily the funniest of the bunch is Waiting for Augusta, by Jessica Lawson.  It is written with considerable dash and brio, and has genuinely laugh-out-loud passages every few pages.  If you are looking for a lark for your young reader (or for yourself), you can’t go wrong with this book.

Our main protagonist is 11-year-old Benjamin Putter, who has a lump in his throat that he is convinced is a golf ball.  His mother – who runs the remnants of a once thriving pork restaurant in rural Alabama – takes the boy to various doctors who all fail to diagnose the real problem.  Even Ben thinks he may be cracking up … if only he didn’t think the whole thing made so much sense in a strange kind of way.  Ben’s recently deceased father was a huge golf fan, and much of their time together was spent with his dad talking about the game, the greens and the pros.

But … all is not lost.  Ben hears his late-father speaking to him from the urn holding his cremated ashes, telling him that these ashes need to be scattered at Augusta National gold course, the Valhalla of golf champs.  Ben, an amateur painter and gentle soul, runs away from home with his late father in search of the perfect resting spot for the old man.  Things get even more confusing when it seems that other inanimate objects have no hesitation to give Ben helpful advice, leading to many comic interactions.

On the way, he takes up with another runaway, Noni, a take-charge young girl with a gift for giving orders, hatching schemes, and making trouble.  Together, Ben and Noni make it from Hilltop, Alabama to Augusta, with a great deal of fun and hijinks during the trip.  Zany passages include an inebriated guard chicken (much better than a guard dog), passing Ben off as a hapless mute to get sympathy, and navigating the ‘big city’ of Augusta through disguise and improvisation.  The book, though, is no simple romp.  It has a surprise ending that brought this reviewer up for a shock, and is promised to resonate with readers for some time to come.

The great joy of Waiting for Augusta is the interplay between Ben and Noni.  Though only children, they are soon bickering like Lucy and Ricky; unlike sitcom couples, however, Ben learns something from Noni’s talent for schemes, her ability to play tricks and her skill at bending the rules.  In looking to find peace for his father, Ben ultimately finds himself.

Be sure that while the ultimate purpose of Lawson’s book is quite serious, she never flags in her comic invention and deft gift for dialog.  She also has a keen ear for regional prejudices, and the book, set in the South in 1972, is rich in historical details that are interesting and informative to young and old alike.

Jessica Lawson is the author of The Actual & Truthful Adventures of Becky Thatcher, and Nooks & Crannies, a Junior Library Guild Selection.  Waiting for Augusta is a terrific book, and we hope to see more from Lawson in the future.

Somewhere Among, by Annie Donwerth-Chikamatsu

Proving that children’s literature is endlessly fertile, rich and protean, we find Somewhere Among, a unique, resonant and disturbing book-length poem by Annie Donwerth-Chikamatsu.  A novel of subtle grace and undefinable beauty, Somewhere Among is unlike anything you have read before, and will haunt you for some time to come.

Somewhere Among tells the story of 11-year-old Ema, who lives in Japan with her American mother and Japanese father.  When Ema’s mother has a difficult pregnancy, she and Ema are housed with her father’s parents: Jiichan, her happy-go-lucky grandfather, and Obaachan, her cold and overbearing grandmother.

The story takes place over the course of the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States, and the anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.  Everywhere, Ema seems to encounter bullying – she and her mother are bullied by Obaachan; Obaachan bullies Jiichan; Ema is bullied by a school punk named Masa, who is, in turn, bullied by his own mother.  Even Ema’s father is bullied by his bosses at work.  At times, it seems that the whole world is an unending spectacle of bad behavior.

Donwerth-Chikamatsu uses the microcosm to explore the macrocosm – how can the world be at peace, she wonders, when its people can’t be at peace with themselves?  So much of the bad behavior that Ema sees every day is motivated by other bad behavior, creating a cycle that makes the world increasingly intolerant, hostile and disengaged.  Annie Donwerth-Chikamatsu is saying that this cycle of abuse has ramifications both personally and internationally, and that it cannot and will not be broken until we strive to be better, do better and live more consciously.  It is a bold and daring gambit to mirror historical events like Pearl Harbor Day and Sept. 11^th with more mundane, personal hardships, but the case Donwerth-Chikamatsu argues is a persuasive one.

Ema sees the chance for renewal and second chances in her soon-to-arrive baby sister.  Few events are more positive and optimistic than newborn babies, and the arrival of the baby helps mend the rifts within Ema’s family, just as the cycle of life can help renew our faith in our fellowman.

It is a daring choice for Donwerth-Chikamatsu to write her book in free-verse poems.  At first, the reader is convinced that this may be little more than an authorial trick; once into the story, however, the reader realizes it would be near-impossible to tell any other way.  The spare language of free-verse poetry connects directly with the deep and powerful emotional current that runs through the book.  At times wistful and full of hurt, her language also has the simple power of either a lament or a prayer.  Her versifying compounds the mighty emotional effect of the story, and its last few lines will linger with you long after you close the book.

Annie Donwerth-Chikamatsu lives in Tokyo, Japan, and this is her first novel.  Her previously work has appeared in Hunger Mountain, Highlights, Y.A.R.N., and other magazines.  Somewhere Among is a dazzling achievement, and we can expect great things from her.  Highly recommended.

Ollie’s Odyssey by William Joyce

Many artists reach a plateau and stay there, revisiting the same themes or visions, never expanding, never stretching, never evolving with their work.  And then there are those lucky few artists – which includes writers, graphic artists, musicians and performers – who continually grow, develop and stretch their capabilities.

Into that happy few we must count author, illustrator, animator William Joyce (born 1957).  After creating some of the most beautiful picture books of the 1990s, Joyce then branched off into his other love, filmmaking, and helped design a number of memorable films (including Toy Story), before branching out into production himself.  He also started the company Moonbot to make apps, games, animated shorts – anything, in fact, to which he could harness his storytelling genius.  Located in Louisiana, Moonbot is a human-scale Disney, where talented artists, writers and filmmakers create the next generation of children’s classics.

His first love, though, remains books.  He started a series of picture books and prose novels that detailed the origins of such childhood myths as Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny called The Guardians of Childhood, and he has now served up a new original novel with illustrations, Ollie’s Odyssey.  It is his most daring and interesting prose novel to date, and a significant demonstration of his ever-increasing capabilities.

Ollie’s Odyssey is all about a kid named Billy and his special relationship with his toy, a ragdoll his mother made named Ollie.  During a wedding party, Ollie is kidnapped by the minions of an evil toy, the demented clown Zozo.  Billy must sneak out of his home at night and trace his lost friend, a journey that leads him to a deserted underground carnival, to a confrontation with a horde of menacing reconfigured toys, and to a final battle royale led by Ollie and some odds and ends who form a junk army.

In outline, it would seem as if Ollie’s Odyssey would be just another kid’s adventure story.  But Joyce uses this framework to write a deeply moving tale about growing up, the inevitability of change, loss and, perhaps most important, the power of memory.  Rather than a stock villain, Zozo has become twisted through the loss of his beloved ballet dancer-doll.  He is a tragic-villain, fully formed and compelling enough for the most adult fiction.  Similarly, Billy and Ollie fear changes to their friendship as Billy ages, and Ollie wonders what becomes of toys that are no longer loved.  The coming end for their partnership does not mitigate in any way the love they have for one another, but it does add a tragic dimension unusual for kiddie fare.  Joyce also talks about resurrection and rebirth during the junkyard sequence, where now useless bric-a-brac takes on new life and new identity to help Ollie and save Billy.  It is a stunning juggling act: Joyce has written a profoundly moving and emotionally resonant novel in the guise of a children’s book.

Just as Joyce has previously illustrated his picture books with dazzling watercolor work, and then branched out into both line drawings and computer illustration, Ollie’s Odyssey tests his versatility with a series of charcoal drawings – a medium he has not used in his published work before.  The illustrations of Ollie’s Odyssey are unlike those of any of Joyce’s previous work, and fit the overall emotional tenor of the story beautifully.  Charcoal brings a gritty, tactile sense to this tale of fuzzy friends and frayed castoffs that would be missing from glossier modes of illustration.  He also used the paper upon which he drew to great effect, allowing what would normally be the white ‘tooth’ of the paper to soak up computer-added color.  The book is also beautifully designed by Joyce with chapter heads in bold red crayon, and different colored papers representative of different characters and scenes. 

As with much of Joyce’s oeuvre, his latest book can be savored by adults as well as children. A man who loves popular art immoderately (and wears that love on his sleeve), Joyce peppers Ollie’s Odyssey with echoes of titans and works that come before.   Attuned readers will catch bits of filmmakers Todd Browning and Lon Chaney, hints of the classic Universal Monsters with a touch of The Island of Lost Souls, a healthy smattering of Ray Bradbury, and shout-outs to everything from the original King Kong to Batman Returns to The Magnificent Seven.  Indeed, the final image of the book is a direct rift on John Ford’s mighty ending for The Searchers … and one wonders if Joyce is writing for adults who have kept their inner child alive and well, or if he writes for children who will one day make more adult connections.

Ollie’s Odyssey is a bigger, grander, more ambitious book than anything that Joyce has attempted before, and he rises to the occasion splendidly.  It is certainly the finest of his prose novels, and one cannot but wonder what this protean talent has in store for us in future years.

While we are delighted that Joyce has spread his abilities into so many different areas, it is perhaps in books that devotees get the fullest distillation of his talents.  His written and illustrated works are the least collaborative of his output, and capture his philosophy best.  That view of life has been changing and evolving over time – that William Joyce names his protagonist Billy is surely no accident – and if the man himself can emerge from the crucible of experience with his sense of wonder intact, what is he not capable of?  And what, he asks, are any of us not capable of?  It’s that sense of possibility, that childlike sense of limitless adventure, that the world is filled with things to delight each and every one of us, that is the essence of Bill Joyce.

Ollie’s Odyssey is highly recommended to kids, old people, and everyone in between.

William Joyce Wants Your Toys!

We have frequently looked at the work of illustrator/film-maker William Joyce (born 1957) in these pages.  He is one of the most gifted creators in the field of children’s entertainment today; his books have won numerous awards, one of his animated films has won an Oscar, he created his own wonderland-cum-story-telling-factory Moonbot, and most important, he was won a place in the hearts of everyone who takes expertly crafted, intelligent family entertainment seriously.  Joyce has shared his peculiar magic with the world, and now he wants something in return … your toys.

Recently, Joyce has been thinking about toys while preparing his upcoming book, Ollie’s Odyssey (soon to be reviewed in these pages).  In particular, he has been thinking about Big Teddy, a huge stuffed bear owned by his late daughter, Mary Katherine, as well as his own bear who became lost when we has around six years old.  What happened, he wondered, when beloved toys became separated from the people who loved them?

Right now, Joyce is collecting stories of beloved toys and their people on his Twitter account.  Tweet him at @heybilljoyce with a photo or drawing of your most beloved toy.  Every week, Joyce will pick one to illustrate and post, and then he will mail the drawing to you!

This is a wonderful opportunity to share an important part of our childhood with a man who has done so much for children’s literature, and who has brought a significant amount of wonder into the lives of children and adults.  Make your day a little happier and check out Bill Joyce on Twitter.

Click, Clack, Ho! Ho! Ho! written by Doreen Cronin and illustrated by Betsy Lewin

I don’t know why ducks are automatically funny, but they are.  From Donald to Daffy (even Darkwing), ducks are funny.  So, children ages four-to-eight will have a great time with Click, Clack, Ho! Ho! Ho!, written by Doreen Cronin and illustrated by Betsy Lewin. 

Cronin’s tale involves farmer Brown waiting for Santa, and jumping into bed upon hearing the patter of feet on the roof.  But that’s not Santa … no, it’s Duck, using all kinds of wonderful high-tech means for getting onto the roof.

But fate cries fowl as when Duck gets stuck in the chimney.  Soon, a whole barnyard of animals are stuck as well, trying to rescue Duck.  Before long, Sheep, Pig, Cow and a host of barnyard friends are stuck in the chimney.  Will Santa be able to smoke them out in time to leave gifts for Farmer Brown?

Have no fear.

Of all the books reviewed this Christmas season, Click, Clack, Ho! Ho! Ho! is the one most accessible to your youngest children.  This is a lot of fun, and Lewin’s illustrations are a lot of fun.  Lewin paints with a remarkable simplicity.  Each picture is constructed to get the maximum value from each joke, and most each page is embroidered with cavorting mice. 

The simple text is perfect for reading aloud, and since there is a great deal of onomatopoeia and nonsense words, children will soon be following along.  Click, Clack, Ho! Ho! Ho! is the perfect companion for your child’s first Christmases.

Miracle on 133rd Street, written by Sonia Manzano and illustrated by Marjorie Priceman

In Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, Scrooge and the Ghost of Christmas Present walk the streets of London on Christmas day.  In the midst of a central London marketplace, revelers shop for their holiday dinners.  As they make their way, Dickens writes:

The sight of these poor revellers appeared to interest the Spirit very much, for he stood with Scrooge beside him in a baker's doorway, and taking off the covers as their bearers passed, sprinkled incense on their dinners from his torch. And it was a very uncommon kind of torch, for once or twice when there were angry words between some dinner-carriers who had jostled each other, he shed a few drops of water on them from it, and their good humour was restored directly. For they said, it was a shame to quarrel upon Christmas Day. And so it was. God love it, so it was.

In time the bells ceased, and the bakers were shut up; and yet there was a genial shadowing forth of all these dinners and the progress of their cooking, in the thawed blotch of wet above each baker's oven; where the pavement smoked as if its stones were cooking too.

“Is there a peculiar flavour in what you sprinkle from your torch.” asked Scrooge.

“There is. My own.”

“Would it apply to any kind of dinner on this day.” asked Scrooge.

“To any kindly given. To a poor one most.”

“Why to a poor one most?” asked Scrooge.

“Because it needs it most.”

Your Correspondent was reminded of this wonderful moment while reading the new book by Sesame Street star Sonia Manzano, Miracle on 133^rd Street.  Energetically illustrated by Marjorie Priceman, Miracle tells the story of Jose and his family’s holiday dinner.  Jose and his Mami are preparing the Christmas roast, but their oven is too small for the meat.

In an inspired moment, Jose thinks that they can take the roast to the local pizza parlor, and cook it there.  As Jose and his Papi walk through their 133^rd Street apartment building, they pass children fighting, scared shut-ins, arguing neighbors, and other challenges to urban life.  Outside, they tramp through the snow, passing a desperate Christmas-tree salesman and finally comforting a grouching pizza-pusher.

However, hours later after the roast has been cooked, Jose and Papi finally become holiday pied pipers as the pizza man, tree salesman and all manner of troubled apartment dwellers follow them home, beguiled by the delicious aroma of Christmas dinner.

Suddenly, the apartment that Jose’s Mami thought was too small is now just right for a holiday gathering. 

Though simple in its plot and execution, Miracle on 133^rd Street is complex in its themes and approach.  This is not a tale to sugarcoat the many challenges immigrants (in Jose’s case, Puerto Ricans) have in assimilating in inner cities; nor does it paint a picture of blanket good will during the holidays as a given.  Instead, Manzano demonstrates how simple creature comforts, a warm and loving environment and reaching out to people are more than enough to generate Christmas spirit.

The illustrations by Marjorie Priceman have a madcap, energetic quality.  Like much modern art, perspective is flattened and bright (almost neon) colors pile one-atop another, as if Priceman was channeling Chagall for children.  They are a perfect accompaniment to the text, and the resulting paring is something like music.

Better still, Manzano and Priceman have created a picture book that will inspire children to cherish their homes, their friends and their communities.  It is a delightful tale reminding us that we are all going through life together, and there is no better time to share our common humanity than at Christmas.  Highly recommended.

An Invisible Thread: A Christmas Story (2015), Text by Laura Schroff and Alex Tresniowski, Illustrated by Barry Root

Many Christmas picture books encompass a great capacity for wonder.  Stories of Santa Claus and his magical North Pole factory, tales of elves and Christmas sprites, and even vintage stories of Christmas ghosts, for example, use magic as a vehicle for transcendence. 

These stories can be great and good (Your Correspondent was certainly raised on them), but it is rare that a picture-book uses real-world experiences to illustrate the miracle of Christmas.  Parents looking for something rare and wonderful should look no further than the delightful and heart-warming An Invisible Thread: A Christmas Story, written by Laura Schroff and Alex Trensiowski, and illustrated by Barry Root. 

Many readers would be familiar with the story already, as it is based on Schroff’s New York Times bestselling book of the same name.  This picture-book version softens many of the details for children’s consumption, but alert children will pick up on the inherent grittiness of the tale.

In brief:  advertising executive Schroff is hit up for spare change by a street kid, Maurice, who is hungry.  Initially Schroff says no, but turns back and offers to buy the boy lunch.

So starts an unusual friendship, where Schroff takes young Maurice to dinner every week.  As the fabric of their lives become more interwoven, Schroff learns of the poverty of the boy’s existence, of his struggling family, and of his desire to break out of his miserable circumstances.

Soon, Schroff learns that Maurice has never had a proper Christmas.  So, as the holiday rolls around, Schroff helps the boy write his first letter to Santa, asks his help putting up her Christmas tree, and, on the Day of Days itself, takes the boy with her to spend the day with her family.

In return, Maurice leaves a very special present under Schroff’s tree, one that she will treasure forever…

Based on a true story, the book closes with a picture of both Schroff and Maurice when they met, and how they look today.  Maurice freely admits that Schroff’s kindness and interest in him steered him away from a possibly troubled life; Schroff asserts that simple acts of kindness can change the world by impacting positively on individuals.  (It is, in short, a dramatic, real-life illustration of the lesson found in Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.)

The book ends with a brief homily on the value of Small Acts of Kindness.  While many people will spend Christmas buying gifts, this book reminds young readers that the true meaning of the holiday is the importance of giving from our hearts.

The text (one imagines that Tresniowski did the adaptation from Schroff’s source material), is tight and smartly written.  One can see that there was a lot of judicious editing to make the hardscrabble realities of Maurice’s life palatable to youngsters, but nothing is lost by the concision.

The illustrations by Barry Root are energetic, warm and intimate.  Through smiles and body language, Root is able to illustrate their deep emotional connection.  One is touched by the primacy of Christmas trees in these pictures, as if a teeming holiday spirit was taking root and growing.  Root’s pictures are terrific, and make the story come to life.

This book is highly recommended to anyone looking to help youngsters learn the true meaning of Christmas and, perhaps, turn them into budding altruists, too.  If you have children on your Christmas list from about ages four-to-10, it would be hard to do better.

More Christmas picture books tomorrow!

Through the Looking Glass: Further Adventures and Misadventures in the Realm of Children’s Literature, by Selma G. Lanes (2004)

Last week, we looked at Selma G. Lanes (1929-2009) and her initial book of collected essays and reviews, Down the Rabbit Hole, published in 1972.  This book was a significant watershed in serious criticism of the genre, and Your Correspondent recommends it highly.  More than 30 years later, Lanes returned with another collection of essays and reviews, Through the Looking Glass: Further Adventures and Misadventures in the Realm of Children’s Literature.  Does the latter book measure up to the former?

Actually, Lanes’ follow-up is not only worthy of its predecessor in every way, but in many instances quite superior.  Featuring essays and reviews written between the early 70s and 90s, Lanes continues to show a keen critical acumen and love for the subject.  Her voice is one that is greatly missed.

As would be expected from one of the first critical champions of Maurice Sendak (1928-2012) , Lanes writes about both his mid-and-late career triumphs with real sensitivity.  She also tackles the enigma that was Edward Gorey (1925-2000), a unique talent in children’s publishing in particular, and the art world in general.  Anyone familiar with Gorey’s spidery pen-and-ink drawings has a ‘take’ on him, but it was Lanes who described it best for me with the phrase “arctic detachment.”  She also argues, cogently, that Gorey was not a children’s illustrator at all, but rather a sometimes visitor to this realm.  Gorey’s sense of humor, his flights of fancy and his worldview were too mordant, too bizarre and too bleak for children, and many of his best books (The Gilded Bat comes to mind) are children’s books in name only.  Lanes summarizes his peculiar charm nicely.

Also excellent is Lanes’ chapter on the latter life of Beatrix Potter, who, once she was married and living in the Lake District she so dearly loved, turned away from her fabulous children’s books with nary a second thought.  Oddly enough, it was American collectors and publishers who kept the cult of Potter alive, and it is largely through their efforts that she is remembered today.  Kudos to Lanes for this bit of insight.

Useful, too, is her look at the letters of fairy tale master Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875) and American writer, editor and publisher Horace Elisha Scudder (1838-1902), of Boston, Massachusetts.  Scudder, in letter after letter over the course of many years, slavishly worked to get authorized editions of Andersen’s books in the US; he also sent the Great Man many of his own stories and books.  Scudder, it seems, barely registered as a human being to the Great Man, who was too involved, too remote and too icy a character to respond in any human way.  All of Andersen’s heart, it seems went into his work, with nothing leftover for the man himself.

Lanes writes perceptively on the drawings of Ernest H. Shepard (1879-1976), who brought A.A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh to graphic life, and was the ideal artist for Kenneth Grahame’s Wind in the Willows.  Shepard, it seems, understood whimsy (Milne) and English countryside philosophizing (Grahame), and was able to capture both with his pen.  Also valuable is Lanes’ chapter on New Yorker writer E. B. White (1899-1985), who also wrote the classics Charlotte’s Web and Stuart Little.  Lanes argues that his brevity, style and honesty were all reflections of his inner self; a man who finely hones his talents and his emotions until they were worthy of a public airing.  White is a type much missed in the contemporary world.

But Lanes’ best chapter, as in the previous book, is on the evils of the culture of Political Correctness and how it neuters literature and emotion, and how poisonous it is in particular to children’s literature.  On one hand, Lanes bemoans an atmosphere that seeks to find intolerance when there is none.  She is against expurgated versions of Dr. Doolittle, The Five Chinese Brothers, and the illustrated Yankee Doodle because she believes that children (a) are smart enough to understand historical context and (b) read for insights on character and not to underscore racial prejudices.  On the other hand, she also (rightly) abhors books that exist for no other reason than to make certain groups of people feel better about themselves.  As Lanes wisely put it: Now propaganda is an entirely legitimate and worthwhile endeavor when undertaken in a life-enhancing cause.  But those of us who choose books for children should be both willing and able to recognize the difference between propaganda and literature.

There is a great deal more in Lanes’ book (including insight on Winsor McCay, historian Roger Sale, and an excellent essay on Harry Potter written shortly before her death), and all of it smart, wise and very, very human.  Through the Looking Glass is still in print, and can be found at Books of Wonder in New York and online.  If you are even remotely interested in the subject, get it.

Down the Rabbit Hole: Adventures and Misadventures in the Realm of Children’s Literature, by Selma G. Lanes (1972)

Though perhaps little remembered today, Selma G. Lanes (1929-2009) was an influential editor and children’s book critic.  Born in Dorchester, MA, she attended Smith College after a stint at the Dorchester High School for Girls.  She would eventually land in the Columbia School of Journalism.

She became editor of Parents Magazine, and from there became managing editor of Western Publishing children’s book division.  During this time, she wrote dozens of reviews on children’s books for the New York Times daily and magazine section.  She was one of the first members of the literary establishment to recognize the genius of Maurice Sendak (1928-2012), and would eventually write a book about his art.

But Lane’s great claim to fame were her two books about children’s literature, Down the Rabbit Hole, published in 1972, and much-delayed and far superior sequel, Though the Looking Glass: Further Adventures and Misadventures in the Realm of Children’s Literature, published in 2004.

Down the Rabbit Hole is a remarkable achievement, both as literary criticism and as a historical document.  Being a journalist, Lane clearly recycles previous reviews and covered trends.  Happily, there is a minimum of recycled journalism in Rabbit Hole, and Lane includes original chapters that are as fresh and insightful as they were over 40 years ago.

Lane seemed to be among the first in the literary establishment to fully realize Sendak’s genius, and her chapter comparing him to English illustrator Arthur Rackham (1867-1939) – of all people – is something of a tour de force.  Better still is her dissection of the American fairy tale tradition, and just how unique and separate it is from its European counterpart.  She also sites L. Frank Baum (1856-1919) as one of the central figures of American letters, a position as unpopular in 1972 as it is today.

Lane also provides historical context with a lengthy chapter on St. Nicholas Magazine, the first important periodical directed at children.  She writes at length on why such a publication would be impossible in 1972 (as it would today!), and mourns, to a degree, the then-incipient fracturing of our society.

Happily, Lane also champions children’s serial fiction, finding much value in the various adventures of The Hardy Boys or Nancy Drew.  She concludes that children do not see life as a story with beginning, middle or end, but, rather, as a series of adventures.  It’s only natural that their books reflect that view.  More important, the endings of individual titles in children’s series are often quite disappointing … better still is the promise at the end of further adventures to come.  (Children weaned on everything from Nancy Drew to Harry Potter become, I’m sure, besotted by the continuing adventures of everyone from James Bond to Sherlock Holmes.)

Her finest chapter, though, was on the explosion of books for African-American children.  While applauding these books – some of which by now are considered classics – she bemoans the loss of previous books about black children chucked overboard in the name of Political Correctness.  (PC seems to be a scourge of modern life – its baleful influence seemingly as potent then as now.)  Lane pleads for both historical context and intent when reading a work of the past, a simple catechism that seems inexplicable to most college students today.

Though Down the Rabbit Hole is sadly out-of-print, this title is easily gotten by Abebooks.com or ebay, and is well worth the investment.  Delightful reading for anyone seriously (or even somewhat) interested in the genre.

In the weeks to come, we will look at her follow-up book, Through the Looking Glass, written more than 30 years later.

Christmas Books: Jack Frost by William Joyce

Readers of The Jade Sphinx are well aware of our high regard for well-crafted children’s literature.  The genre boasts works that demonstrate all of the best that was said and thought in the language – think Wind in the Willows, Peter Pan or The House at Pooh-Corner – and has carved out a singular literary tradition of its own.  The United Kingdom and Continental Europe owns this literary franchise (from the days of Grimm’s Fairy Tales to today’s own Harry Potter), and any serious discussion of the genre returns again and again to several key, European works.

Fortunately for us here in the United States, we have enjoyed our own golden age – but the tradition stateside has really been in fabulously-illustrated picture books.  Our great prose fantasist was L. Frank Baum (1856-1919), but most American masters have a special magic for merging word with image, and they have created art of a very high order.  For the last 50 years or so, the US has been home to some of the most fertile, creative and artistic book creators in the world. 

The fullest contemporary realization of this great tradition is the Louisiana-born William Joyce (born 1957).  We have been watching his work with great interest, and he has not lost his ability to continually surprise us.

After decades of beautiful and evocative work, Joyce has concentrated on his magnum opus, The Guardians of Childhood series, which chronicles the beginnings of such childhood gods as Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy and the Sandman.  The series has included both prose novels and picture books, and unified his own cosmology, much like Baum’s world-building Oz books.  The latest installment in the series is the lavishly illustrated picture book, Jack Frost, created in collaboration with Andrew Theophilopoulos.

As his narrative has crossed several mediums (prose novels, picture books and a feature film), Joyce has had to juggle elements between episodes to maintain a fully-realized whole.  Jack Frost provides the bridge between the character Nightlight as seen in the books and Jack Frost, who served as the focal character of the feature film.  But as a key segment in the ongoing narrative, or as a stand-alone picture book, Jack Frost is terrific entertainment and a delightful addition of the Guardians saga.

In short, Frost tells how the heroic sprite Nightlight sacrifices his life to protect the infant Man in the Moon from the soul-crushing evil of the series villain, Pitch.  (That’s the Boogeyman to me and you.)  Nightlight saves the day, but at terrific cost.  He resurrects as Jack Frost, but has no memory of his former self or mission.

What follows is some of the most haunting and resonant themes in the Joycean canon – that of death and resurrection as well as continual change and growth.  Frost feels Olympian isolation and loneliness, and as he does, he leaves cold and frost in his wake.  This winter of the soul becomes actual winter weather for humankind – until that grief and mourning can be rechanneled into healthier, more positive energy.

Joyce accomplishes this miracle with great economy of language; he has also retained the lush blue-gold European palette of the series, paying homage to the Continental roots of many the of Guardians.

The series will continue with additional prose novels and picture books, and one wonders how Joyce will conclude his epic in the books to come.  There is the sense that the Guardians of Childhood is a mid-career summation of Joyce’s artistry, of his deepest-held beliefs, and his untiring optimism and energy. The Guardians of Childhood is a magnificent monument to a kind and benevolent genius, and an important influence on young hearts and imaginations.  More, please.

Jack Frost is available in bookstores everywhere, and is highly recommended for the young (and young at heart) this holiday season.