Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

Ever post about something and then want to add to it later? Or read someone else’s post and have an idea for them? Well, I’m taking care of that today with a short list of addenda. Just humor me.

Addendum 1. Remember when Adrienne and I posted about what we called Slightly Demented Picture Books, a post dear to our hearts that resulted in quite a handful of folks piping up to name their favorite demented books? Well, I keep running across books to add to the list (namely, why hadn’t I ever read Roald Dahl’s The Enormous Crocodile, which I stumbled upon recently? Sylviane Donnio’s I’d Really Like to Eat a Child seems almost an homage to Dahl’s book, published back in 1978. And I read ’em in the wrong order, but at least I finally found Dahl’s crocodile tale).

Anyway, there’s a new title out from Candlewick, Beware of the Frog by William Bee, set to be published next week, I believe. And it not only made me (and the children around me) laugh out loud, but it is also one of those titles that embodies the spirit of our definition of Slightly Demented. Hoo boy, talk about the food chain (as we did in our post):

Sweet little old Mrs. Collywobbles, looking like she came straight out of South Park and who lives right on the edge of a “big, dark, scary wood,” has a pet frog. And he’s the only thing that protects her from all the horrible and terrifying creatures that live in the big, dark, scary wood. Three of those horrifying creatures—Greedy Goblin, Smelly Troll, and Giant Hungry Ogre—believe they have the ability to one-up the frog. But they’re wrong, and the results of their attempts to do so are pretty funny. And then, just when you’re already hoo-ha’ing over this intrepid frog and Bee’s offbeat, wry depiction of his triumphs over the scary wood creatures, Bee brings, not one, but TWO bah-dum-ching moments at the book’s close, throwing the reader two punchline curve balls you don’t see coming. Calling it quirky doesn’t cut it. Everything about the book—the narrative and Bee’s left-of-center style, including all his close-ups and frog get-ups—is wonderfully wacked. It’s almost as if Bee is speaking directly to those parents all set on shielding their children from the Grimms-esque scary and mysterious elements of the world (the Giant Hungry Ogre sings, “I must have my supper—a juicy old lady cooked in lots of honey and butter”). Maybe not so much speaking to them as saying: Here, try this on for size. And did I mention I almost soiled myself laughing at it, as did my children?

I’m eager for someone else who has read this to talk to me about it. You crazy, I want to say to this book if I were…uh…a person who uttered that phrase and talked to books. It’s some seriously funky stuff. This, in my book, is all good. If you’re like me, and you tire of hearing “cute” used to describe children’s books—when “cute,” that is, means harmless, which it often does (to be fair, some books are just cute and that can be okay)—-then this is a title for you.

Addendum 2. Speaking of Adrienne, she wrote a post back in April to which I keep appending titles in my own mind. I loved the topic of this post, which the post’s title makes clear: “Picture Books for Two Voices, or Doing Preschool Storytime for the Masses.” She wrote about serving a wide age range in her role as public librarian when they have “all-ages drop-in storytimes” and how she and one of her colleagues will read books with two voices, each taking a part. I saw a new title from Random House yesterday that fits this bill perfectly.

Brie Spangler’s picture book debut, Peg Leg Peke, joins the ranks of Picture Books Which Break That Fourth Wall, made so popular by Mo’s Pigeon books. In other words, here’s a title for Adrienne to add to her growing list of books in which she can pick a part, in this case one that either speaks directly to the protagonist or the protagonist himself.

In this title, we meet a Pekingese with a “boo-boo.” In fact, Spangler gets right to the emotional core of it all with a preschooler’s intensity by having the speaker say right off the bat, “Hello there! How are you today?” to which he replies with his speech bubble, “Not so good.
*Sniff!*” The dialogue continues: “Oh my, it looks like your leg is stiff as a board,” to which Peke replies, “I have a boo-boo.” The back-and-forth continues in this manner, the speaker eventually reminding Peke of the great power of his imagination by having him view his cast not as a bandage of any sort, but as a pirate’s peg leg. Or, as Kirkus put it, “Peke’s speech-bubble responses to an offstage, unnamed voice establish a classic preschooler-to-adult relationship, the indulgent grown-up helping to take Peke’s mind off his injury.” There’s a lot of humor here in the little details of Spangler’s drawings, and it’s fun to see the spreads . . . well, spread out as Peke’s world opens up in his mind. Kirkus also wrote, “{p}air this with Antoinette Portis’s Not a Box (2006) for a look at the fun of creative play to lift anyone’s spirit, even someone with a broken paw.” Yep, they’re on to something. Not a Box came to my mind, too, as well as Adrienne’s post. Here’s a perfect addition to the story-time/pick-a-part/read-in-two-voices canon.

Addendum 3. Last week, I posted about what I called EarlyEmergingBegin-
ningInterChapterMe-
diateReaders, books that fall somewhere between picture books for children and what are often called middle-grade novels. I mentioned that, in the name of early readers or beginning readers, I had yet to read Mo Willems’ two new Elephant & Piggie titles, I Love My New Toy! and I Will Surprise My Friend!. Well, since that post, I have read them, and I’m here to say that they lived up to my great expectations.

I can be way more glass-half-empty sometimes than I’d like to be, and with each new Elephant & Piggie title, I wonder how—just exactly HOW—Mo is going to manage to pull off The Funny yet one more time. But boy howdy he does with these two titles. If my girls and I are reading them in a public place, we have to suppress our loud, almost-obnoxious laughter. These books will do that to us. And when are Acting 101 students going to be required to use Elephant and Piggie beginning readers as texts in their courses? You know, there’s all the drama and suspense and emotional turmoil—O! the sturm und drang of it all! (Goethe who?). And the body language Mo gets out of these characters with the simplest of lines? The man’s smart.

What else can I say (except to tell you what these are about, but a. the titles tell you a lot and b. I don’t want to rob you of the Elephant & Piggie experience anyway). There’s more of the clever wit, accessible characters, slapstick, and all-around charm in these titles as in the previous ones, I Love My New Toy! the most emotionally-charged of them all. And, at each book’s core, is the tight friendship of E & P; their bond can survive the ups and downs of friendship, including—in this case—betrayal and well-meaning but heart-stopping surprises. I still say: Thank goodness Mo decided to turn his attention to beginning readers, a genre of books that needed a bit of a jolt (with some exceptions, as always) if ever there were one.

Addendum 4. So, I had a conversation with myself the other day (this happens sometimes at one’s blog, which always reminds me of this shirt, one I want to own, or the poster pictured here. You know, it’s good to be reminded occasionally to never take one’s blog too seriously) . . . where was I? Yes, I was talking to myself about what picture book titles I think are, thus far in ’08, Caldecott-worthy. I’m used to talking to myself—online or off—so this was okay, but as it turns out, Fuse had her own conversation yesterday, in which many folks participated, as they’re wont to do over there. So, if talking about the Caldecott makes you immoderately excited, as it does me, don’t miss it. It’s called “2009 Newbery and Caldecott Predictions — Halfway Mark,” and it’s here (scroll down to see it; don’t let all that white space fool you).

I posted comments an embarrassing number of times, and I was reminded that Kady MacDonald Denton, who illustrated the FLAWLESS A Visitor for Bear, written by Bonny Becker, is Canadian and not eligible. D’oh! Come to think of it, Edwin Fotheringham, who illustrated Barbara Kerley’s What to Do About Alice?, lives in Seattle now, but he is Australian, correct? Shoot, I dunno. Just don’t miss Fuse’s post.

Addenda complete. Back to your regularly scheduled programming . . .

Edited to Add: Yet one more early-morning addendum:

Alkelda has posted about my grad-school annotation of The Frog Prince, which is here in cyber-land. I feel so special, just like that monkey up there. Seriously, I do, and thanks, Alkelda. I really loved that project. I’m happy that someone other than me and my former grad school prof is interested in reading it!

Pictured here is Iron Henry, the only character in the entire tale that you don’t want to smack upside the head, as Alkelda points out (but much more nicely and articulately) over at her site. I want to write a novel around the notion of the bands around his heart, or I would if, uh….I were a novelist with talent. (Or perhaps someone already has? Or maybe there is poetry out in the world about Faithful Henry and the cracking iron bands around his heart? I’ll have to do some research.)