The Adventures of Tintin

My kids are on a Tintin kick these days. They discovered them in the comic book section of our library over the summer. I'm not one of those parents who worries about their kids reading comic books. First of all, I read comics when I was a kid, and I moved on to reading lots of big books with no pictures at all. Also, I still read comic books, so I'm having fun reading the Tintin books to my kids.
The Tintin books, by Herge (real name Georges Remi) were mostly written in the 1930's, 40's and 50's. Herge was Belgian, but the books take place everywhere from England to Tibet to the moon. Tintin is a young reporter who travels the world (and beyond) to investigate smugglers and spies and dangerous criminals. He spends a lot of time being shot at, hit on the head, held prisoner, threatened with death, and escaping from police officers after he's been set up by the bad guys. Perhaps because there is a lot of humor in the books, my kids never seem to be too worried about his fate. And they shouldn't be - Tintin always gets away, and he always gets his story.
Snowy is Tintin's adorable little white dog and trusty sidekick. Sometimes the bad guys try to shoot Snowy, but he always gets away, and usually shows up just in time to chew the ropes used to tie Tintin's hands together in captivity. Professor Calculus is a brilliant inventor who is very hard of hearing, so he often misunderstands what everyone is saying. Captain Haddock is a sailor with a strong temper and an even stronger taste for whiskey.
Apparently the Tintin books have been criticized for negative portrayals of some ethnic groups, but the books we've read so far have not been egregious - in fact Tintin makes fun of Europeans who stereotype the Chinese in The Blue Lotus. So if you don't mind exposing your children to violence, criminality, and jokes about alcohol dependency, your family might enjoy the Tintin books too.

Usborne Farmyard Tales

My son is a train fanatic, and he will read almost anything about trains. However, as the parent who has to read stories over and over and over again, I am a bit more discriminating.
One series of books that I can happily read to the children is the Usborne Farmyard Tales train books. They are by Heather Amery, with adorable pictures by Stephen Cartwright. The books we own are "The Old Steam Train," "Rusty's Train Ride," and "Dolly and the Train." There is another called "Woolly Stops the Train" which I don't believe we have (but there are so many books in this house, who really knows?)
There is not a lot of plot in these 16-page picture books. For example: kids go on a field trip; the steam engine stops working; Dolly the horse pulls the carriage back to the station. However, the illustrations are not only cute, but there is a little yellow duck on each page for young readers to discover. A map of the countryside is on the endpapers so you can locate the events of each story, and there is a duck on the map too.
These are sweet, simple books for young children. I would recommend them for ages 2-6. There are other stories that don't involve trains, but we have not read any of them. They are probably equally cute and entertaining for children.

Little House in the Big Woods

While I grew up reading the Laura Ingalls Wilder books, they are not books that I kept and re-read over and over. So I was surprised by the number of whippings referred to in "Little House in the Big Woods". I suspect my memory of the books has been overlaid by vague memories of Melissa Gilbert and Michael Landon in the "prairies" of Southern California on the TV show. Surely Michael Landon didn't whip little girls, even if they slapped their sisters! Or maybe I've just forgotten that too..

Despite the whippings (which seem quite exotic to a child raised on "time outs" and the occasional empty threat of all her toys being taken away) my daughter loved this book. She was fascinated by the details of this family's way of life. The book describes everything from how the family stored food for the winter to what games the children played and how the wheat was harvested. We were both impressed by how hard people had to work in those days. We were astonished by the idea of children who are five or six years old who go to store for the first time in their entire lives. And, of course, I couldn't resist pointing out how grateful the children were when they received new red mittens and one piece of peppermint candy each for Christmas. Well, Laura also got a rag doll - but she was in rapture about receiving one homemade toy. I will leave you to imagine how impressed my modern child was about this little lecture on gratitude.

Personally, I'm feeling a great deal of gratitude that I'm not Laura's mom, working hard from sunrise to sunset and then mending socks by firelight after the sun goes down. Not to mention sleeping on a bed stuffed with straw in the same room as my children. However did Baby Carrie get conceived? Anyway, this book is great for anyone who wants to appreciate the joys of modern life, or wants to get a little nostalgic for the good old days when the women were strong, the men played a mean fiddle, and the children grew up to be world-famous authors.

Dahlia

Do you ever read a book that seems to be written just for your child? I don't mean a personalized book with your kid's name and birthday in it. I mean a storybook with a character just like your child, who reacts exactly the way your child would. And if the book is also illustrated in a style that your child loves, it seems like it is meant for your child.

I feel this way about "Dahlia", by Barbara McClintock. I blogged a few days ago about "Adele & Simon" a wonderful book by this author. On the back cover it mentioned that her previous book, Dahlia, had won several awards, so we checked it out of the library.

Dahlia appears to take place in the late 19th century. The illustrations reminded me of the pictures from my old Louisa May Alcott favorites. Charlotte is found at the beginning of the book with dirt all over her pinafore, making mud pies with her teddy bear, Bruno. She is less than thrilled to be called indoors to receive a package from her aunt. Inside is a doll, a prim-faced, frilly-dressed doll. Charlotte does not want a doll, and tells the doll that there will be no staying indoors and having tea parties. This doll, soon dubbed Dahlia, will have to learn to dig in the dirt and climb trees. But what will happen when Charlotte's aunt sees the doll after her outdoor adventures?

My daughter is not a tomboy. Her favorite colors are pink and purple, and she went through a loooong princess phase. However, she is the kind of girl who would wear a pink floral twirly dress to climb trees and dig for worms. She has some dolls, but is fairly uninterested in changing their outfits. Instead, they tend to spend a lot of time tied to jump ropes and being lowered over the banisters. Her dolls go on adventures with her, just as Dahlia goes with Charlotte. But she feels affection for them. When her doll, Sally, broke one of her china legs, I ended up sculpting a new one out of clay so Sally could be "healed". I don't want to give away too much of the plot, but let's just say that Dahlia also needs some TLC at one point in the story, and Charlotte is ready to provide it.

Even if your daughter (or son) isn't like Charlotte, I think they will enjoy this story about a child full of curiosity, compassion, and spunk. Be warned, however, that any child looking at Charlotte's bedroom full of bird's nests, shells, mushrooms, insects, plants and snakes may soon be begging to make their own room look the same. We were already well on our way, but we still need to add some bird's nests.

The Tail of Emily Windsnap

My daughter's 7th birthday party had a mermaid theme, so not surprisingly she received several books about mermaids, fairies, and unicorns. "The Tail of Emily Windsnap" by Liz Kessler was one of the books that we enjoyed reading. I have to confess that after strictly telling my daughter, "Only one chapter per night!" I would sneak a peek at the first page or two of the next chapter when she wasn't looking. Hey, if she wants to cheat too, she's just going to have to learn to read!
Emily Windsnap is a 7th grader with a secret. When she is immersed in water, her legs turn into a tail and she turns into a mermaid. She just discovered this, because her mother has a phobia about water and just gave in to years of requests for swimming lessons. And yet, despite her mother's water phobia, they live on a boat. In a marina. Obviously, there is more going on than Emily can understand, at least at the beginning of the book.
Despite my daughter's love of mermaids, I worried for a few chapters that this book was too mature for her. What does a first grader know about the social cliques of 7th graders? How can she understand the angst of a child who has never met her father? But she liked the book and never seemed bored by the parts that I thought might go over her head. It amazes me sometimes, the gap between the level of books she can read, and the level of books she can understand. No wonder she hates trying to read. If her choice is spending 20 minutes stumbling through "Hop on Pop" or 20 minutes listening to her mom reading "Emily Windsnap", should I be surprised that she would rather just listen?
Anyway, Emily eventually discovers all kinds of interesting things about herself and her parents. She makes a friend and has several opportunities to be brave, creative and persistent. Despite seeming aimed at slightly older readers, there was nothing in this book that I found inappropriate for a 7-year-old. Emily sneaks out at night and tries to write a fake note to her school, but the story has enough fantasy that I doubt my daughter will be emulating Emily anytime soon. All in all, a fun read for all 16 nights. Recommended for all lovers of mermaids.

Adele & Simon

I bought "Adele & Simon" by Barbara McClintock for my daughter as a Christmas present, after seeing a good review in the New York Times. Sometimes I do well with gift books, other times I fail miserably. This book was a big hit.
Adele & Simon is a charming picture book about a brother and sister in Paris. Adele picks up her little brother at school, and he has his hat, gloves, scarf, sweater, coat, knapsack, books, crayons, and a drawing of a cat. In each two-page spread that follows, Simon loses one of his belongings. Don't worry, there is a happy ending when everything shows up again.
The pictures are what really make this book wonderful, and worth reading over and over. You have to search each detailed page to find the missing item, and there are lots of other things to find. For example, when Simon loses his books in the park, there is a line of little schoolgirls with hats who look suspiciously like Madeline and her fellow students (and why not, they live in Paris too!). The illustrations have the old-fashioned look of Kate Greenaway, who I loved as a child.
After the story, McClintock gives a description of the Paris location of each illustration, complete with historical information. We haven't read that part yet -- maybe when my daughter is a bit older she'll be interested. What she does love is the book's endpapers, which are a map of Paris with each scene from the book marked so you can follow Adele and Simon's journey.
At our house, stories about older sisters and little brothers are generally a hit (hello, Max and Ruby!) but I think many children ages 4-9 would love this book as much as we do.

Bad Dog Max!

Max is a very, very bad dog. She eats socks, steals food off the table, and digs up the neighbors' yard. Her family even has to move the mailbox because the mail carrier won't come in the yard anymore.
Luckily Max's vet is a fan of the Dog Whisperer. She explains that Max doesn't mean to be bad -- she just needs lots of exercise and play time. At the end of the book, Max is still getting in trouble sometimes, but the family loves her anyway, and thinks she is a Good Dog.
My kids and I love Max, even at the beginning of the book when she is being so naughty, because she is pictured as such an adorable bundle of energy. The kids like using the pictures to figure out what the text leaves out. For example, the story says the cat, Monroe, thinks Max is a bad dog. Looking at the picture of Max ignoring her own bowl and eating out of the one labeled "Monroe", you understand why.
This is a fun book to read aloud, especially for dog lovers. I'd say it is best for ages 3-8. "Bad Dog Max" is by Marina Windsor, with pictures by Steve Haskamp.

PETA Would Burn This Book

If you've read my previous posts, you know that I like old-fashioned children's stories, not modern versions that have been sweetened up and had all the scary, non-PC parts taken out. "Pierre Bear" is a tale so non-PC that it has been removed from the modern reprints of Richard Scarry books. Luckily my mother-in-law kept the copy she used to read to my husband, because "Pierre Bear" was his favorite story. Over 30 years later, she can still recite the first few pages, starting with, "In a windswept cabin, away up North, lived brave Pierre Bear."

Pierre Bear is a trapper in the north woods, who lives alone. One day he brings his skins into the trading post, and tells the lady bear he meets at the store that he is lonely. The next day she marries him. Pierre is happy because she cooks for him, and when he played his guitar she "giggled and clapped." Then they have a baby bear. Pierre and his little boy go seal hunting together, then Mrs. Pierre sews warm coats out of the seal furs for the whole Bear family. They live happily ever after, clubbing dozens of baby seals every spring...

Okay, I made up that last part. Pierre and little Pierre actually shoot the biggest seal they can find with their adorable matching father/son shotguns. But really, the only way to make this story more offensive to feminists and animal rights activists would be to club some baby seals. Interestingly, this story was written by Patricia Scarry, not Richard, which makes the line about Mrs. Pierre giggling and clapping even funnier to me. I love this story mostly because it is such a story of its own era, that would not be written today.

"Pierre Bear" can be found in "Richard Scarry's Best Story Book Ever" -- the third printing, copyright 1968. The newer versions leave out Pierre Bear, but do include other classic tales such as, "Is this the House of Mistress Mouse" and "A Castle in Denmark" which helps children learn important household rules such as, "Don't let down the drawbridge to strangers."

How to Find a Lost Love

No, this is not going to be an advertisement for one of those services that helps you find that guy you thought was cute in 9th grade. This is about true love - the love you feel for a really great book.
Now, sometimes you can remember the face of that cute kid from 9th grade math class, but you can't actually remember his name. Books can be like that too. That is one of the reasons I am writing this blog - as premature senility creeps in and I lose my memory, it helps me to keep track of my reading. But what about the books I loved as a child? Sometimes I can remember the plot or a character, but have no memory of the title of the book or the author.
So, somehow I stumbled upon the Loganberry Books website. They have a section called "Stump the Bookseller." For a fee of $2, you send in a note with all the information you remember about your favorite, forgotten childhood book. Then you wait, to see if somebody can identify your book from the measly clues you provide.
Well, I quickly signed into Paypal and sent in my clues - "Three generations of a family, maybe in Pennsylvania. First generation builds log cabin, makes soap. Second generation sees stagecoach go by. Kids ride on steam train, boy gets cinder in eye." Sadly, these were all the specifics I could remember.
I waited about a week to check back in - and found that two people had identified my book, days earlier! So I ordered my book, received it, and sure enough it is the exact book that I remember. As I flipped through the pages, every illustration made me say, "Yes! I remember this! And that! And oh yeah that one too!" It takes place in Indiana, not Pennsylvania, but the boy does get a cinder in his eye. There are plenty of other events in the book, so I have no idea why the cinder is what I remembered.
The cute boy from math class is probably an alcoholic with anger management issues and an ulcer, but this book is still the same book that I loved back in elementary school. It's not great literature, but it is somewhat similar to the Laura Ingalls Wilder books, in that it shows you what life was like for families living long ago. It is full of details about how they made their own soap, and what everyone wore and ate at a wedding, and of course the famous steam train ride.
I'm having a great time reuniting with my old love. Who is this long-lost darling? It is "Smiling Hill Farm" by Miriam E. Mason, copyright 1937. Many thanks to the helpful readers who brought us back together. May we never part again!

Signs in Our World

Two nights in a row, my son has asked me to read "Signs in Our World" by DK Publishing. Notice that there is no author. It is not that kind of book.
My son opens this book and points to a color photograph of a street sign and says, "What this sign say, mommy?" and I say, "No U-turn" or "Truck Route" or "Kangaroo Crossing." If I try to point to signs, my hand is gently brushed away and my son says, "No, I do that." There is a strict protocol for reading this kind of book. He points, I name.
Reading this kind of book bores me silly. I have no chance for dramatic reading or funny accents, because nothing happens and there are no characters. Because I am bored, my mind wanders to thoughts like, "Why does my son like this boring book? Is this a sign of Asperger's syndrome? But if he had that, wouldn't he be smarter?" and of course these are not helpful thoughts to have so soon before my own bedtime. I don't need to lie back and fret more than I would anyway.
But of course the reason I let the kids pick their own bedtime stories is so they can pick the books they are interested in. Sometimes those aren't the same ones that I am interested in, because my kids are not me. And I don't want them to be me, or just like me. I just want them to learn to read so they can get through these boring books without me.

It's So Amazing!

Recently, my six-year-old daughter has been asking a lot of questions about where babies come from, and the old "from mommies' tummies" line wasn't cutting it anymore. Based on referrals from two good sources (Asha Dornfest at Parenthacks http://www.parenthacks.com/ and Marjorie Ingall at The Jewish Daily Forward http://www.forward.com/articles/learning-the-facts-of-life/) I ordered "It's So Amazing! A Book About Eggs, Sperm, Birth, Babies, and Families" by Robie H. Harris and Michael Emberley.
Well, this book answers every question my daughter had and a few she hadn't thought of yet. This really is a soup-to-nuts book that covers everything: anatomy, puberty, sexual intercourse, fetal development, "not okay touches", adoption, birth control, masturbation, and AIDS. I have to admit, I skipped over the last two topics because I was a little overwhelmed over the amount of information we covered in a short time. My daughter, on the other hand, took it all in stride. The book is for ages seven and up, but it seemed like it would be at the right level for any early elementary student.
The cute, cartoon-style illustrations show everything from the anatomy differences between males and females of various ages to a syringe shooting a sterilized egg into the uterus after artificial insemination. And Emberley makes that look cute! My three-year-old son is endlessly fascinated by the illustrations of the sperm speeding through the vas deferens, but I'm not sure he has any idea what the book is actually about. His time will come soon enough!
I would consider myself a pretty open, non-repressed person, so I was surprised that it was difficult to talk about reproduction with my kids before we got this book. I wasn't sure how much information my kids needed to know. I wanted my daughter to have honest information, but I didn't want a vagina monologue at the dinner table. This book really helped me. It provides enough information to answer a young child's questions, and presents it in a cheerful, matter-of-fact way.
Like I said, I did skip a few sections, but I'll go back and cover those soon. And this book will make it a lot easier. I'm hoping that by starting the conversation now, my kids will feel comfortable talking to me about all of these topics as they grow older.
The same team has written a book for ages 4 and up called, "It's Not the Stork" and a book for ages 10 and up called, "It's Perfectly Normal." I'm eagerly waiting for their adult books, "It's Not Hot in Here -- You're Having a Hot Flash" and "It's Perfectly Normal to Need Viagra at Your Age."

All Aboard!

Tonight's bedtime story was "All Aboard!" by James Stevenson. This is a comic-book style story with panels and dialogue balloons, but the artwork has a loose, watercolor look using muted colors, not superhero brights. The story takes place in 1939, as Hubie and his family take a train to New York City to see the World's Fair. Hubie accidentally gets on the wrong train, then falls off that train, gets lost in a sandstorm, and has lots of wild adventures before finally meeting back up with his family at the World's Fair. Hubie and his family are mice, a friendly train conductor is a pig, and Miss Betty Beagle, the famous aviatrix, is of course a beagle. This is a fun, exciting story, made even better for my audience by the TRAINS.
Tonight I noticed for the first time that there are two more Hubie stories, so I've ordered "The Stowaway" from the library. I'll probably be blogging about it soon!
Also coming soon will be a full report on "Peter and the Starcatchers," as we have only a couple more chapters to go.
I have no books to report on myself, because between window shopping on Etsy, baking brownies and graham crackers, and reading the Sunday New York Times, I just haven't gotten much (other) reading done.

The Story of the Three Little Pigs

My son chose this classic tale by Joseph Jacobs for his bedtime story - and this is definitely a classic version, not a sweetly modernized and non-violent version where the three little pigs end up making friends with the wolf.
On the title page, the mother pig (referred to as "an old sow" in the book) is shown throwing up her hands because her cupboard is bare. As the story begins, she sends her little pigs out to seek their fortunes as she cannot keep them. The first two little pigs make their houses out of straw and furze, and are promptly eaten by the wolf. The wolf, of course, cannot blow down the third little pig's brick house, so instead he tries to lure the pig out by offering to show him fields of turnips and apple trees. The pig is more clever than the wolf, and outwits him at every turn. When at last the wolf comes down the chimney, the little pigs boils and eats him. The final illustration shows a satisfied pig with a big round tummy, ready to live happy ever after. It's a lovely picture, complete with crackling fire, steaming mug, quilt, and houseplant. All the illustrations, by Lorinda Bryan Cauley, are pretty and rather old-fashioned looking.
I personally love the classic fairy tales, complete with gory punishments for the bad guys. I would hate to read a version where the pigs convinced the wolf to be their friend. What kind of a weird lesson does that teach kids? Next they'd be telling me that our gecko should make friends with the crickets we toss in her cage every week, instead of eating them. I prefer that we continue to enjoy watching her snap those crickets up with grace and speed.
There is a fun, updated version of the three little pigs story that we liked, called "The Three Little Rigs" by David Gordon. Instead of pigs, there are little trucks sent off to build their own garages, where they are threatened by the mean magnet, the cruel cutter, and the wrecking ball. And no, they don't learn to be friends - the bad guys end up in the melting pot. Good riddance!