First up is Big Rain Coming, written by Katrina Germein (Clarion Books, 1999). The text is snappy and there’s plenty of expansive detail in the illustrations to pore over with a child. Everyone, but everyone is waiting for the rain to come, from Old Stephen, to the kids; from the dogs to the frogs. The clouds gather, and still they wait, right through each day of the week, until finally, on Saturday, it rains. It won’t be long till the child you share this book with knows the words by heart and is jubilantly shouting out the last couple of pages before you get a look in! My favorite illustration: the children swimming in the blue/green billabong, surrounded by tall pink flowers – gorgeous!

Next is Malu Kangaroo: How the First Children Learnt to Surf written by Judith Morecroft (Little Hare, 2007), which again is a finely tuned synthesis of word and image. Malu the Kangaroo boldly tells the people, “I will show you how to play with the ocean.” And then he shapes and polishes a piece of wood into a surf-board. As he tells them how it will feel to surf, Bronwyn’s illustrations underscore the joyous lyricism of Malu Kangaroo’s words, with birds soaring and dipping into the surf, fish flying, and dolphins leaping. The patterns and swirls that have their roots in aboriginal art, coupled with Bronwyn’s characteristic bright pallette are simply (yes I am going to use that words agian!) gorgeous. My favorite illustration: the birds that ‘sweep and fly’, breaking up the horizontal bands of sand, surf and sky.

And lastly, Ready to Dream written by Donna Jo Napoli and Elena Furrow (Bloomsbury Children’s Books, 2009). Young artist Ally’s Mamma is taking her to Australia for the first time. At Alice Springs, Ally meets Pauline, an artist who, with just a few gentle words each time, teaches Ally to get closer in her art to the animals and nature she sees and experiences on her excursions. In their last meeting they draw together in the sandy earth, and Ally’s reaction shows that, in Pauline’s culminating words, she is “ready to dream”. There is much for young people to ponder in this gentle story that will appeal especially to budding artists – and there’s no doubt that they could be trying their hand at something in Bronwyn’s style as a result. My favourite illustration: Ally throwing high the stone on which she has painted a kangaroo, so that it can hop free.

David’s Trip to Paraguay: The Land of Amazing Colours

How did David come to take this trip?  In 1927, a group of Mennonites in southern Manitoba, disheartened by the province’s ruling against the presence of German schools in certain immigrant communities like theirs, left Canada for the remote Chaco area in Paraguay.  David’s parents were of these Mennonites.  This long trip left a deep impression on a young boy, and later David would recount his memories of this trip to his grandchildren, one of them, being the author and illustrator of this book, Miriam Rudolph.

My daughter and I enjoyed reading this colorful book together, and maybe, some day she can read it with her Oma in German!

A young Buddhist monk lived alone at the top of a mountain.  Every day he had to fetch water from the foot of the mountain, using a yoke and two buckets.  That provided him with enough water for his personal needs and to water his small vegetable garden.  One day, he was joined by an older monk.  Their attempts to bring water up the mountain together, stringing a single bucket on a pole carried between them, were not very successful; and each felt it was the other’s task to fetch more water, so neither went.  The vegetables in the garden began to die.  Then a third monk arrived, and the situation worsened.  As each monk refused to give way, or compromise his stance in any way, the outlook became bleaker, and certainly none of them was composed enough to meditate or pray.  Then one day, disaster struck… Would they be able to let go of their antagonism and work together to put things right?

Three Monks, No Water is just the kind of fable that will appeal to young children with a strong sense of right and wrong.  The narrative certainly makes no excuses for the monks’ unreasonable behaviour, but leaves plenty of scope for young listeners to react.  Illustrator Harvey Chan’s background of acrylic on gessoed board gives the illustrations an interesting texture for the colored pencil drawings in soft, muted colors; and I love the monks’ facial expressions.  And on every page, like a heavy watermark, a line of calligraphy conveys the expression of the title.  Plus there’s a specially designed seal inside the front and back cover, with a short explanatory note, and together these add a nice extra touch.

This is a great story for conveying the importance of dialogue and reciprocity, giving as well as expecting and taking – and it can be applied to a directly parallel scenario of three individuals, or on a global level, or anywhere in between…

The Mouse and His Child  (previously reviewed by Marjorie a few years ago) is one of those novels that operates on several levels at once.  For my daughter, listening to the story as I read it aloud on our long drive westwards for our Christmas holidays, the story was essentially about a toy mouse and his child, trying to reunite with the original ‘family’ of their toy shop days and evading the devious trickery of one particularly villainous rat.  This basic plot kept my daughter engaged in listening even as other tempting devices like the IPad and the portable DVD player vied for her attention.  For my husband and I, the story was so much more.   Irresistibly existential in its peregrinations, unpredictable in its outcome, brilliant in its characterization, The Mouse and His Child was a deeply satisfying read-aloud for us.  It’s one of those books ostensibly for children, but also very much for adults.  It’s a book well worth re-reading perhaps at different stages in a child’s life.  I’d certainly be willing to revisit its pages again.   The book was made into a movie in 1977 but I’d try the novel first before going to its film version.  The Mouse and His Child is a true children’s literature classic and I highly recommend it.

What festival foods did you and your family consume over the holidays?  Are there kids books about those foods?  Do drop us a line and let us know the title.  Reading is a kind of feasting, after all!

Poetry Friday this week is hosted by Tara at A Teaching Life.

In Winnie the Bear, Appleby recounts the story of Colebourn’s encounter with the bear and how he came to bring this cub over to England at the advent of the first world war.  Eventually, Winnie was donated to the London Zoo where she became the inspiration for A.A. Milne and E.H. Shephard’s Winnie the Pooh stories.  Meticulously researched and illustrated with vintage style drawings by P.R. Hayes, Winnie the Bear is a wonderful book.  Appleby has worked on this book for over six years but the germ of the story goes back even further in Appleby’s own life; her father was a good friend of Harry Colebourn’s son, Fred.   My daughter and I are enjoying this book very much and we hope this wonderfully local story (for us!) might find readers all over the world as Milne’s books certainly have.

My braces have been on for years.
They’re coming off next week
I can hardly wait to see
if there are teeth beneath.

I wonder if her fascination has to do with her brother’s braces which, rather coincidentally, came off this week!  As is our usual custom, we read the poems alternately — she reading one poem and I reading the other — and it was an enjoyable poetry reading experience for both of us.   The illustrations by Westcott were as down-to-earth as the poems and my daughter quite liked the pictures.

Poetry Friday this week is hosted by Robyn at Read Write Howl.

The Phantom Tollbooth celebrated the 50th anniversary of its publication this year.   There’s a Youtube video I watched recently of Norton Juster and Jules Pfeiffer talking about the genesis of the book.   A commemorative annotated edition of the book is now available, and a  documentary film, The Phantom Tollbooth Turns 50, is currently being produced, set for release in 2012.   I didn’t discover all this information, until after I’d selected this book for our bedtime reading ritual, so I was quite surprised by the serendipity of my choice and hope that my daughter might remember this book fondly herself when she begins reading to her children in the future.  (If she doesn’t, Grandma certainly will!)

In The Ogre of Oglefort, a motley crew of supernatural creatures – a hag whose familiar has refused her, a troll who works as a hospital porter, and a Mama’s boy wizard along with a young human boy, Ivo  – set out on a task appointed to them by the Norns.  The Norns are three wizened old women that are like the Fates who reside in a gigantic bed from which they issue the yearly task to the annual Summer Meeting of Unusual Creatures.  This year’s task is to slay the terrible Ogre of Oglefort and free the imprisoned princess.  Can this unseemly and bumbling crew manage?  Will they succeed?  But on the other hand, what does it matter?  Is the Ogre really that bad?  And what if the princess doesn’t really need rescuing so much as an understanding ear as to why she’d rather live with an Ogre than her parents?  Ibbotson comes up with some rather surprising turns in this story that will keep you reading (as well as having a good laugh now and then!)   The cover of my copy of The Ogre of Oglefort notes that the book was shortlisted for the Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize and the Roald Dahl Funny prize; such shortlisting is well warranted.  Although my daughter claims Ibbotson’s earlier title Which Witch as her favorite, I do think this title is just as witty and charming (in the antithetical sense) as her earlier comic novels for children – all very good reading, whether for Halloween or any time.

You can read more about the book in Charlotte’s review for PaperTigers- I totally concur with her concluding words: “Chee-lin is superb.”  The book is visually stunning, with bordered paintings in casein on the right hand page and text on the left, set against a rich array of backgrounds reproducing “African baskets and cloth, Persian tiles and India rugs, Chinese brocades, porcelain, and cloisonné.”  At the end, there is a fabulous map showing Tweega’s journey, and an Author’s Note giving more information about Shen Du’s painting and poem, including Rumford’s own calligraphy and translation.

Chee-Lin is also one of those precious picture books written for older children.  It would make a perfect bedtime book for sharing, where children and grown-ups are taking it in turns to read; or if you’re looking for a longer readaloud to last a few days but don’t want to forgo quality illustrations: each double-page is like a chapter with its own heading and separate episode in the story. It’s also just the kind of book that children will then pick up to read again on their own.  That’s what’s just happened in our home!

Another of Rumford’s books, Rain School has recently been selected as one of our 2011 Spirit of PaperTigers book set.  Do also read our wonderful interview, in which you can find out more about Chee-Lin, and find some of the illustrations in our Gallery.