16-Page Read: Knuffle Bunny

January 13, 2008


Knuffle Bunny By Mo Willems
Knuffle BunnyWhen we’re young, we’re drawn to one item. One physical piece of matter that keeps us secure. Safe. Comfortable.

For me, it was a Scooby Doo stuffed animal. My parents had spent hell-knows-how-much in securing it during a vacation to King’s Island in Kentucky. It was three feet tall – a life size representation. The carny laughed all the way home, I’m sure. And it was my favorite toy.

I was concerned with every detail of that dog’s existence. I made him my confidant, my best friend. I wore the color off of his collar and pilled up his black spots. Without Scooby, I couldn’t survive. Or so it seemed.

Now, imagine grade school - Irving Elementary. Show and tell day. I brought Scooby Doo to school to show off. He was hard to carry around all day, but when the time came, he was a hit.

In the middle of show and tell, the principal came in and told us to evacuate the building. A gas leak had been suspected, and we were shuffled out onto the playground for an extended recess. It was a glorious day – sunny, warm and free; a day for playing and waiting, two things a grade school child knows best.

But Scooby was still inside.

I freaked out.

I was smart enough to know better. But I had a strange connection with that stuffed animal, and I was worried about what was happening to it. “Gas leak” sounded ominous – like some disfiguring fog that could eat flesh and cause radioactive-like mutations. I imagined my stuffed animal being taken away from me – burned like the Velveteen Rabbit, lost forever. I cried. I couldn’t stop. I knew I was being ridiculous, but I couldn’t help the feeling of helplessness. Over a stuffed animal!

It was a long day at Kindergarten, for both me and my teacher.

That’s why Mo Willems is brilliant. Knuffle Bunny is the story of every child who lost a stuffed animal. And it’s the story of every parent who had to both console and search, simultaneously, as their child’s world came crashing down around them. He makes it all real, because he’s been in the same place. You know he has – he has the parts down pat. Probably on both sides of the coin.

What makes Knuffle Bunny so compelling – so re-readable – is the details. The looks. The images of real New York layered with a scruffy post-yuppie parenthood. A walk to the Laundromat seems so luxurious, a front stoop so spacious. It’s life in a big city with a children’s story filling in the holes, with the freedom of life strewn across every page.

It’s also a classic story of child/adult miscommunication. Trixie’s father assumes Trixie is babbling, not freaking out over a lost stuffed animal. And Trixie’s attempts at clarification fall on deaf ears – that is, until mother saves the day.

This will be me, I’m sure – a father saving the day from his own mistake; a daughter so preoccupied with life that she nearly forgets the one thing her life revolves around. I look forward to it, actually – those hero moments of sheer normalcy, the stories we can share later on.

When I was in the situation, though, it wasn’t a fun story. And I relate with Knuffle Bunny on that level. I was there. We all were. That’s what makes it real. That’s what makes it irresistible. Because each one of us wanted only one thing that day.

We wanted that security back. And it took a hero to get it back – even though we didn’t realize at the time how mundane that hero’s act was.

Tags: 16-Page Read, Books |

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16 Page Read: If You Give a Pig a Party

November 1, 2007


If You Give a Pig a Party By Laura Numeroff (Illustrated by Felicia Bond)
If You Give a Pig a PartyA few months before Sierra was born, we made a trip to Barnes and Noble to peruse the children’s book section. Our idea was to decorate her room with children’s classics. You know - the unforgettable books of our childhood, books that she’d be unable to read until she turned five or six: The Little Prince, Where the Wild Things Are, etc.

It was here that I ran face to face with a mouse. And a cookie. Specifically, a small stuffed mouse holding an even smaller stuffed cookie: The If You Give a Mouse a Cookie mouse.

It was the first time I’d ever seen the character, and before even reading a word I was in love with the idea. For some reason, it just seemed so natural, giving a mouse a cookie, and I’m sure that if I lived in a larger city I’d have been moved to begin feeding the sewer rats small pieces of biscotti or leaving opened bags of Oreos in the basement in lieu of a mouse trap.

It wasn’t just the mouse, though - it was an entire menagerie of animals. All of the If You Give A… books are centered on a long, winding series of causes and effects. If you give a mouse a cookie, he’ll want a glass of milk, and if you give a mouse a glass of milk, he’ll want a straw. Or something like that. It goes on and on, and it’s rather fun.

If You Give a Pig a Party serves as a “greatest hits” book, bringing all of Numeroff’s friends together for a party. Naturally, it goes through the same cause and effect craziness; asking for balloons, decorating the house, calling her friends. They play hide and seek, they ask for cake, and at the end, naturally, you find out that she wants to decorate a fort with balloons and, just as naturally, she’ll want a party after the balloons are blown up.

It’s this cyclical nature that makes the books so fun. But I’ll admit - that’s not the reason I gravitate toward them when it comes to Sierra reading time. The fact is: the illustrations are cute.

You heard me. Cute. As in cute as a button. They’re adorable, and they make me smile every time.

Okay, so it’s out again. I love these children’s books because, yes, I think they’re cute. That vicious, horrible word - the bane of my existence. CUTE. I hate when people call my work cute - it makes my blood boil. Yet here I am, praising a book for its cuteness, a darling little pink pig drawn with hair and balloons and a mouse for a friend.

It’s cute. But it’s supposed to be cute. So there’s no danger in saying it. I can still be taken seriously.

Just don’t tell anyone, okay?

Tags: 16-Page Read, Books, Literature |

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16 Page Read: Hippos Go Berserk!

October 8, 2007


Hippos Go Berserk! by Sandra Boynton
Hippos Go Berserk! by Sandra BoyntonSometimes, the simplest things in a children’s book appeal to us adults. It might be a subtle artistic detail – the rolling of an eye, the distracted look, the cobweb in the corner that validates the fact that I, too, haven’t bothered to dust my bookshelves for the ten weeks since Sierra arrived. (And, to be honest, the 25 weeks before that.)

It might be a cleverly worded sentence – blunt enough to cause a burst of laughter, a rat-tat-tat that awakes a snoozing baby, rendering the story useless unless read during the waking hours.

Sandra Boynton has packed her short, board-designed books with these looks and sentences. And no one line amuses me more than the titular sentence from her book Hippos Go Berserk!

The book – as all children’s books are wont to do – features a lesson; counting from one to nine. The lesson is told through a boring day in the life of a hippo – a sad, lonely looking hippo who invites two friends. These two friends invite three more, etc. until nine hippos dressed as wait staff arrive at the lonely hippo’s door.

And, as promised, the hippos exhibit some darling looks. A wary glance over the shoulder. A stone bored stare at a fellow hippo. A shifty look of deceit. The 45 hippos that end up in the house may all look the same, but trust me; they all have a special place – a unique trait, a personality unlike any other hippo in the room.

So 45 hippos are packed into one house. What happens?

ALL THE HIPPOS GO BERSERK!

Just like that, I’m satiated. It’s a line that always fills me with joy – usually wondering how five words in a children’s book could make me laugh so hard. It’s improbable. Why is it funny? Really?

Maybe it’s the fact that none of the hippos are actually going berserk. Maybe it’s the fact that it was so unexpected the first time I read it. Maybe it’s because after they go berserk over the two pages in the middle of the book, they all start leaving.

Probably, it’s the idea of these sarcastic looking hippos all attempting to go berserk in one place, surrounded by waiter and waitress hippos, some in fancy clothes, some simply looking around wondering why they ever bothered to arrive, while the lonely hippo who started our tale dances on the table with a phone receiver on his head – the only hippo to actually bother going berserk.

Or, maybe it’s just the unknown power of the “sense of humor,” a collection of remembrances and triggers that are as different in humans as fingerprints or dental records. The simplest things can trigger laughter. No one knows why. It just does.

One by one, the hippos leave. Actually, more accurately, nine by eight by seven, etc. until one hippo, alone once more, finds he misses the other forty four.

I always seem to miss them too. So, to the chagrin of my daughter – resulting in the first of a series of perceived eye rolls, I’m sure – I read it again.

Reading fathers go berserk!

Tags: 16-Page Read, Books, Sierra |

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16-Page Read: Wiggle

September 11, 2007


As a father, I’ve begun delving a little deeper into the world of children’s books. Sure, Sierra can’t read. She can barely see the pictures right now. But I’m learning a lot about children’s books – namely, that they aren’t as sappy and cheesy as I remember. In fact, a few of them are quite clever.

So I present the 16-Page Read – a short review of one of these children’s books.

Wiggle by Doreen Cronin and Scott Menchin
Wiggle by Doreen Cronin
I love children’s books.

Many of us new parents do. We take it as a rite of passage – the realization that children’s books are way better than we ever remembered, and a secret passion we all possess with our children.

I’ve totally embraced the genre, finding a simple joy in reading them aloud, reveling in their brevity and admiring their design. They’re unlike a novel in nearly every way, focusing on artistic merit rather than literary content; on color and rhyming and interesting word combinations that may or may not be grammatically correct, fun instead of enrichment.

Not to say that novels aren’t fun. They are. But they can be so burdensome.

Think about when you were younger. Imagine a colorful book with nonsense words. Lying next to it is a brown covered edition of The Grapes of Wrath. You chose the children’s book, because reading shouldn’t be work. And at that age, The Grapes of Wrath is work.

So I’m reminded of easier times when I open the bright cover of a children’s book. Lately, the book reminding me of my wasted youth is Wiggle by Doreen Cornin.

Wiggle is a case study in wiggling. It features an adorably drawn dog that asks the reader several questions about wiggling. That’s really all there is to it. Sample pages include: “When you wiggle with gorillas, do they make a wiggle noise?” or “Wiggle slowly when with polar bears. They’re very wiggle shy.”

Aside from the concerns of teaching children that they can freely walk up to wild animals and shake their tushes to and fro, the book is pretty neat. What I keep realizing is how sophisticated children’s books have become – how abstract in both words and illustrations. Years ago, when I was gnawing on Little Golden Books with slobbery gums, the stories were straight forward, with a beginning and end, and they all featured the same watercolor paintings or hand drawn illustrations. If you wanted abstract, you had to go down to the Dr. Seuss section.

Now, hundreds of children’s books are being placed on the market that feature arbitrary stories, nonsensical construction and design-oriented illustrations. Wiggle, for instance, pairs a loosely colored set of illustrations with at least one real-life image. The dog is standing on a roughly cut out picture of real grass, while on another page he’s staring up at a real pancake that has recently landed on his head. I love the combination – it’s something you’d see on an award-winning AIGA sanctioned design, not in a children’s book market once dominated with traditional illustrations and narratives.

So I guess books like Wiggle give me a lot of faith in the area of children’s books. The days of Dick and Jane are gone – these are great books that appeal to parents and kids, featuring wonderful design and great, clever writing.

I’ll admit, I thought children’s books would be boring. I thought they’d be too simple for my attention. I imagined myself searching high and low for the perfect books in order to convey a love of reading onto my child.

Not with Wiggle. Instead, I love it. When you wiggle where your wings would be, wiggles fill the sky indeed.

Tags: 16-Page Read, Books |

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