Thursday marked the start of the Maori New Year in New Zealand, which falls on the first new moon after the constellation Matariki appears in the sky. Matariki, known variously as the Pleiades, the Seven Sisters, Subaru and more in other countries around the world, signals a time of celebration, including kite-making. So it’s time to reach for Libby Hakaraia’s book Celebrating Matariki for a rather more active bedtime than usual. Here in the northern hemisphere, as we approach mid-summer, the sky is far too light at bedtime to see any stars at all – but there is something about reading about them that just makes you go and look out of the window! Never mind – there are some wonderful photographs and it’s the kind of book you can dip in and out of, so a quick skim of a couple of pages may well whet children’s appetites to pick it up in the days following and look at it in more detail, maybe trying out some of the many activities for themselves.

For stories about the stars, there are some stunning anthologies out there: Sun, Moon and Stars by Mary Hoffman, illustrated by Jane Ray; or if you can get hold of it, Juliet Sharman-Burke’s Stories from the Stars: Greek Myths of the Zodiac (Abbeville Anthologies and also once published as a Barefoot Books collection), illustrated by Jackie Morris (who incidentally has also illustrated a number of Mary Hoffman’s books!). Demi’s The Dragon’s Tale and Other Animal Fables of the Chinese Zodiac has a very short fable for each animal – perfect for those bedtimes when for whatever reason, there’s only time for a very quick story.

One book I don’t know but which looks as though it might be a treat is Coyote and the Sky: How the Sun, Moon, and Stars Began by Emmett “Shkeme” Garcia and illustrated by Victoria Pringle… so if you know it, do let us know…

And I have to say, too, that Jane Ray, Jackie Morris and Demi are all on my list of favorite illustrators… now there’s a thought. How long would a permissible list be?

It’s been a while since we read any fairy tales but our local library has recently added a goodly number of fairy tale books to its collection so we thought we’d delve in. We came home with an armful… some of them are traditional, others are modern (re)tellings or parodies.

I knew that Jon Scieszka’s The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales and The Frog Prince Continued would both go down well – they are funny and wittily illustrated (by Lane Smith and Steve Johnson respectively); and both depend on the kind of superior knowledge that children delight in – all the stories would be somewhat lost in the telling if you didn’t already know the originals.

The Lost Happy Endings by Carol Anne Duffy and illustrated by Jane Ray was visually irresistible. Duffy’s rich eloquence also lives up to all expectations: but a word of caution. Although this is a new story, she takes the fairy tale genre back to its grass-roots level. No wishy-washiness here. The retribution meted out to the thieving witch is absolute. It is more suitable for slightly older children: and should be cherished for that, for it sometimes seems that the older children get, the harder it is to find beautifully illustrated picture books for them. Certainly both my children relished both the pictures and the wonderful, descriptive language and each bore the book off to read independently after I’d read it to them.

There were several anthologies of traditional fairy tales to choose from and I have to admit I was slightly dubious as to how my boys would take to several nights in a row of traditional “happy-ever-after” tales: they assure me every time romance is mentioned that all that stuff is yeuch… But of course, I had fallen into the trap of equating fairy-tale with romantic and there is so much more to the traditional stories than that. Anthea Bell’s name is a talisman for me so her translation of Henriette Sauvant’s selection of Rapunzel and other Magic Fairy Tales was the obvious choice (helped by the surreal cover illustration)– and has been bourne out. We have so far enjoyed stories we know well, as well as come across some new to us all.

Following on from Charlotte’s post the other day, I thought I would put together a list of a few of the books my family loves, which focus on that special bond between grandchildren and their grandparents.

I have already talked about the Katie Morag books, in which both her grandmothers are central. I wish we’d known about Nigel Gray’s A Balloon for Grandad when we lived abroad; as it is, we discovered it recently in our local library. Illustrated by one of my favorite illustrators, Jane Ray, it deals in such an uplifting way with the separation which is sometimes inevitable when generations live a long way from each other. Then there are Ana Baca and Anthony Accardo’s Benito books – look out for a review of their latest bilingual title Benito’s Sopaipillas/ Las Sopaipillas de Benito in next week’s update of PaperTigers (I’ll add the link to this post when it’s available… here it is!).

We also love Raymond Briggs’ typically quirky story The Puddleman. You have to be an indulgent grandfather to allow your grandson to lead you around by a dog-lead attached to your wrist and call you “Collar” – but the hint at the end, where Briggs thanks “Miles” for “the naming of puddles, Collar” etc. would suggest that he had real-life, grandson inspiration for the story! It’s a loving, imaginative tale that also provides a particularly special read-aloud experience. Since it is a cartoon strip, you can’t just read it as a narrative; you have to share the interpretation of the pictures alongside the reading of the dialogue and build it up together.

Sometimes we need books to help us talk about the illness or death of a beloved grandparent. (more…)