Here's the first installment of our annual roundup of children's gift books for the holidays.
Family Read-Alouds
14 Cows for America by Carmen Agra Deedy, in collaboration with Wilson Kimeli Naiyomah, illustrated by Thomas Gonzalez (Peachtree, $17.95, 9781561454907/1561454907, 40 pp., ages 4-8, August 2009)
As Americans, we are accustomed to helping other countries in need, but this is a story of a small village in Kenya that wanted to help the people of the U.S. heal from the scars of September 11. Kimeli Naiyomah, who collaborated with Deedy (Martina the Beautiful Cockroach), was studying to be a doctor in the U.S. on 9/11. He returns to his village to tell his people the story of what happened that day ("Smoke and dust so thick they can block out the sun"), and asks his elders if he can give his only cow to America: "To the Maasai, the cow is life." Kimeli inspired his fellow villagers to contribute 13 additional cows of their own. Deedy, a gifted oral storyteller herself, creates a narrative with the pacing of spoken poetry. Majestic illustrations translate as effectively to a large audience as they do for a lap reading.
Julie Andrews' Collection of Poems, Songs, and Lullabies, selected by Andrews and Emma Walton Hamilton, paintings by James McMullan (Little, Brown, $24.99, 9780316040495/0316040495, 192 pp., ages 4-up, October 2009)
As the renowned artist for the Lincoln Center Theater, James McMullan (I Stink!) makes an inspired match for Andrews and Hamilton's selections. The mother-daughter team selected works from Ogden Nash, Jack Prelutsky, Nikki Grimes and Charlotte Zolotow, among many others, as well as some original poems of their own. A generous sampling of lyrics double as poems (and not all lyrics in the world do), and this is where McMullan's talents add immeasurably to their smooth transition. For "More I Cannot Wish You" by Frank Loesser, the artist pictures a father with his infant child; a crocus blooms in the shadow of a bare tree alongside the lyrics of "You Must Believe in Spring" by Alan and Marilyn Bergman (music by Michel Legrand). The editors organize the works into nine sections. Do not miss the frog that serves as mascot for the "Accentuate the Positive" section. In fact, this whole volume is not to be missed. Andrews and Hamilton read aloud a sampling of the works in a CD affixed to the inside back cover.
Testing the Ice: A True Story About Jackie Robinson by Sharon Robinson, illustrated by Kadir Nelson (Scholastic, $16.99, 9780545052511/0545052513, 40 pp., ages 7-10, October 2009)
Sharon Robinson (Promises to Keep: How Jackie Robinson Changed America) recalls an incident in childhood that demonstrated her father's courage: overcoming his fear of water to test the thickness of the ice before he'll allow his children and their friends to ice skate on a nearby lake. She likens this experience to his breaking the color barrier: "No one really knew what would happen. But he felt his way along an untried path." Fans of Nelson's We Are the Ship will find his illustrations here every bit as breathtaking, and family sharing offers the chance to celebrate this extraordinary man's history-altering achievements.
The TOON Treasury of Classic Children's Comics, edited by Art Spiegelman and Françoise Mouly (ComicArts/Abrams, $40, 9780810957305/0810957302, 352 pp., all ages, September 2009)
Spiegelman and Mouly, who spearheaded RAW, the comics anthology they published from 1980-1991, and who launched TOON books (comics for beginning readers) last year, now collect the best of the golden age of comics from the 1930s to the early 1960s in a beautifully designed, oversize (9¼"x11¼") volume. The board of advisers they assembled reads like a who's who of the comics world, including Jeff Smith (Bone) and Jay Lynch, who dates back to Spiegelman's Wacky Packages days (Shelf Awareness, October 7, 2008). While the introduction puts the comics in context, the editors gather the best aimed at kids: Sheldon Mayer's autobiographical Scribbly about a budding teenage cartoonist; Walt Kelly's "Prince Robin and the Dwarfs" in which kid-size heroes triumph over grown-ups; in an episode starring Carl Barks's Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge, Donald's nephews Huey, Dewey and Louie have the inside scoop on a hypnotizing gadget. Many readers will recognize John Stanley's Little Lulu, Walt Kelly's Pogo, Al Wiseman and Fred Toole's Dennis the Menace, plus P.D. Eastman's homage to Dr. Seuss's Gerald McBoing Boing. The comics, organized into thematic sections, start with a "Hey, Kids!" chapter, a nod to a pre-MAD Harvey Kurtzman (and the volume ends with Kurtzman, too). "Kids of all ages," as Spiegelman and Mouly put it, are in for a treat.
Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin, with full-color artwork by the author (Little, Brown, $16.99, 978036114271/0316114278, 288 pp., ages 9-12, August 2009)
In Grace Lin's first novel, she weaves a tapestry of stories inspired by Chinese folklore into a seamless whole about a girl who wishes to change her family's fortune. Minli, which means "quick thinking," and her parents toil in the rice fields all day with little to show for it. But Minli's father has a wealth of stories about the legend of Fruitless Mountain and the Old Man of the Moon, who possesses all answers to even the most difficult of questions. When Minli spends one of her two coins on a goldfish purported to bring luck, a chain of events commences that leads her far from home to a world where fish can talk and dragons cannot fly. Lin's full-panel, full-color artwork--mountain and village scenes that emulate Chinese silkscreens--is as transporting as her prose.
Yummy: Eight Favorite Fairy Tales by Lucy Cousins (Candlewick, $18.99, 9780763644741/0763644749, 128 pp., ages 3-up, September 2009)
The creator of Maisy knows just how to pace a tale to keep even youngest readers enthralled. Her illustrations tip toward humor more than fright, so that when the wolf devours Little Red Riding Hood's Grandmother, a giant "gulp" appears in painted letters, Grandmother's feet stick out of the villain's mouth, and his tongue hangs out as he holds her bonnet and shawl (which he then uses as a disguise, of course). Cousins amplifies the sound effects ("Trip-trap" go the Billy Goats Gruff's hooves across the bridge), and the enlarged painted text on each page nearly tells the story by itself: "Yummy," exclaims Goldilocks at the porridge; "crash!" goes Baby Bear's chair; and, when they survey the damage in the bedroom, Baby Bear says, "Look, there she is!" This will be a repeat request that parents will be delighted to indulge.--Jennifer M. Brown