Now, just feast your eyes on this lovely piece of art work (used with permisson from Random House) from illustrator Nicoletta Ceccoli<\/a><\/strong>:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Being the “fairy tale expert” she is, as the TuscaloosaNews.com feature put it, it’s not surprising that the book greets us with a “once upon a time . . .” There once was a girl who lived in a castle in a museum. In the first spread, Ceccoli gives us a close-up, aerial view of this castle, then zooming out a bit to a museum room (evidently, the Museum of Strange and Wondrous Random Things). The girl in the castle in the museum, we clearly see now, is inside a display, as you can see in the above spread. Children visit, straining their eyes to see the fabled girl in the castle. With a jolting — yet welcoming and effective — immediacy, Bernheimer then directly addresses the reader: “There, through that window, right there. Do you see her?” And, even though her castle home is beautiful and exotic (and “full of music and grace”), she is lonely. She dreams at night in her tower in her castle inside the museum. “And {w}hat does she dream of . . . ?” She dreams of visitors — only to wake to further loneliness. <\/p>\n The girl, though, suddenly has an idea, this very brainstorm serving as the book’s biggest charm: She hangs a frame next to her bed, and it’s solely for the child reader to put to use. Paste an image of yourself there, the text suggests, so that the girl will never have to be lonely again (that alone will probably discourage many librarians from purchasing it, which is unfortunate, since it’s one handsome book). “Now in her room and in her dreams, inside the castle inside the museum, inside this book you hold in your hands, you keep her company in a magical world. Do you see her? She sees you.” The End. <\/p>\n In the wrong hands, this would be creepy, no? (The review over at Strollerderby<\/em><\/strong><\/a> has the post title of “Creepy in a Good Way”). But Bernheimer infuses it with a magical whimsy (there, I said “whimsy,” though I think it’s so over-used in children’s-book reviewing that it almost loses its meaning anymore). And Ceccoli’s illustrations — which will very much please fans of the ethereal, the dream-like, the haunting, the fantastical — are spellbinding. As Gwynne Watkins at Strollerderby<\/em> put it, “there\u2019s a dark side to {Ceccoli’s} whimsy, a Roald Dahl\/Neil Gaiman\/Tim Burton side that kids and adults alike are drawn towards.” Watkins adds,<\/p>\n Ceccoli creates a fantasy museum of Escher-like labyrinths, clockwork birds, Victorian doll-fairies, and ephemera floating through the air like dust mites. The story is open-ended and mysterious: we never learn how the girl came to live in the museum, only that she\u2019s lonely and needs the reader\u2019s friendship. If the reader is a child who\u2019s spellbound by detailed illustrations, he won\u2019t mind returning her feelings.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Now, switching gears big-time, look! It’s the fearsome, formidable BIG BAD BUNNY — sent to us from G. Brian Karas<\/a><\/strong>. <\/p>\n “At home, Just look at her name: She’s no baby!<\/font> <\/p>\n The word drives her wild in a big, bad way. <\/p>\n And here’s Mama Mouse calling, always calling after her, <\/p>\n ‘Baby! Where are you, Baby?’<\/em><\/font> <\/p>\n It’s humiliating. It’s quite naughty.”<\/em><\/p>\n And what this little mouse, dressed as a Big Bad Bunny, does is runs away from home. Billingsley, though, cleverly opens the book by making us think that Big Bad Bunny is a loathsome, terrifying creature of the forest — and one who has no fear (“Big Bad Bunny can go anywhere.”) See the above illustration and the terrifying teeth and claws and oh the mighty power of this creature? Yeah, that. These images, as you can see, are juxtaposed with images of what looks like a dainty mama mouse at home. Turns out, as the narrative progresses, she’s not as timid as she seems (and she “will go anywhere for Baby Boo-Boo”). And “she pursues and tames the ferocious Big Bad Bunny – with no loss of face on her child’s part,” as the Publishers Weekly<\/em> review wrote, thus capturing the book’s related themes of child-wanting-independence yet mama-needing-to-nurture (or, as PW<\/em> put it, “{Billingsley and Karas} grant Baby Boo-Boo and her alter ego the right to act out, at the same time assuring readers that there will always be a place for them at home”). Karas, with spot-on pacing, lots of drama, and subtle humor, allows time for the reader to be surprised by the changing perspective from ferocious bunny \/ fragile mama to loving matriarch in control \/ child needing parenting. And just one femtosecond of condescension to the child reader would ruin this book, but both author and illustrator never let that happen. <\/p>\n There are way too many saccharine-sweet I’ll-love-you-forever-to-the-moon-and-back-and-throw-you-up-in-the-air-or-whatever-and-fish-for-you-in-a-stream tales from parent to child. Choose this child-centered one over those any<\/em> day. Boo-Boo’s just gotta<\/em> strike out on her own, but your mother will go any<\/em>where for you. And, if she’s good, she won’t humiliate you in the process. <\/p>\n Highly recommended. Now, back to the bookstore I go. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
This is from The Girl in the Castle Inside the Museum<\/a><\/strong><\/em> by Kate Bernheimer, released last month from Schwartz & Wade Books. This is Bernheimer’s first children’s book. She’s the Editor of the literary journal, Fairy Tale Review<\/em><\/strong><\/a> (really, how great is that and why haven’t I heard of it before? If other bloggers have talked about it, well, I’ve missed it, what with me being perpetually behind on my blog-reading, it seems. Anyway, maybe I’ll talk a bit more about this fabulous publication on Poetry Friday). In this profile<\/a><\/strong> of her at TuscaloosaNews.com, she talks about reading children’s books to her daughter and getting discouraged. She also talks about how writing one was the hardest thing she’s ever done, thereby helping fight the prevalent notion that writing for kids must be easy — “I wanted it to be really accessible, almost effortless, to the reader; to get it to feel that way took a lot of effort. I didn’t want it to talk down to the child at all, and I didn’t want it to talk up to the adult either . . . I didn’t want any winks to the adult.” I, for one, am glad she tried her own hand at one. It’s a beguiling thing, this book. “I wanted it to be a book that you might read as a child and remember as an adult,” she said in the aforementioned feature. I think she might have succeeded. <\/p>\n
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<\/p>\nMany thanks to Brian for indulging my request to share one of these illustrations (Remember now, the “G” stands for “Ginormously” talented<\/a><\/strong>.) Anyone else remember when he stopped by 7-Imp last August<\/a><\/strong> and shared with us the cover for Big Bad Bunny<\/strong><\/em><\/a> by Franny Billingsley<\/a><\/strong> and just released last month by Atheneum\/Richard Jackson Books? Well, I stood in a bookstore aisle last week and read it and fell in love with it. However, since for some INSANE reason I didn’t actually purchase it (I blame a momentary lapse of reason, and I’ll have to remedy this), I’ve got only my memory to go on here when telling you about it. Which may not be much, what with my mind all cluttered (that’s what young children do to one’s brain). Let’s start with the book description then, borrowed straight from the publisher<\/a><\/strong>: <\/p>\n
\nin the Mouse House,
\nBaby Boo-Boo gets no respect. <\/p>\n
\nBaby<\/font> Boo-Boo.<\/p>\n
\nMice (and other small persons)
\nwill understand what
\nBig Bad Boo-Boo does.<\/p>\n