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Lyrics by Bob Dylan
Illustrated by Jon J. Muth
With CD of Dylan's original recording
Sterling, 2011
$17.95, ages 5 and up, 28 pages
In this sublime picture book adaptation, a paper airplane gliding across the sky becomes a breathtaking metaphor for the roles we all play in making a better world.
Award-winning Jon Muth meditates on Bob Dylan's remarkable 1963 protest song with sweeping illustrations steeped in symbolism, the most resonant being that of the toy plane.
Four children of differing skin color are taken by skiff across expanses of water and shown scenes that make them at turns reflective, sad, uncomfortable, and ultimately, ready to face up to a difficult truth:
That unjust things occur in the world and it is up to each of them to do something about them.
Passing overhead in almost every spread, a folded airplane symbolizes "the answer" in Dylan's refrain, "The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind," a figurative verse about opening one's heart to all of humanity.
The idea, it seems, is that if one's heart and senses are receptive, the answer to what to do about life's injustices can be heard or felt, though it's up to each of us to want to act on it.
"Just as each of the children in my illustrations has his or her own paper airplane, each of us knows what needs to be done in our worlds," Muth writes in an end note.
"Just as each of the children in my illustrations has his or her own paper airplane, each of us knows what needs to be done in our worlds," Muth writes in an end note.
Dylan himself in 1962 compared the "answer" in his song to paper, and one wonders if this played into Muth's choice of a paper airplane as his guiding metaphor.
"Just like a restless piece of paper it's got to come down some," Dylan wrote. "�But the only trouble is that no one picks up the answer when it comes down so not too many people get to see and know …and then it flies away. I still say that some of the biggest criminals are those that turn their
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By: James Preller,
on 4/28/2011
Blog: James Preller's Blog (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Dana Reinhardt, april Pulley Sayre, Donna Gephart, Candace Fleming, Carol Lynch Williams, Diane Muldrow, Barry Moser, Devin Scillian, Annie Patterson, Brian Pinkney, Ann E. Burg, Around the Web, Debbie Levy, Adam Gidwitz, Andy Mulligan, Bystander, Andrea Pinkney, Mo Willems, Justina Chen Headley, Jarrett J. Krosoczka, Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, James Dashner, Margaret Mahy, Jim Murphy, Kate Messner, Loren Long, Polly Dunbar, Patricia Polacco, Julie Danneberg, Marilyn Singer, Nic Bishop, Jill S. Alexander, Margaret Stohl, Kami Garcia, Jon Muth, Preller Bystander, Laura E. Williams, Josee Massee, Margie Palatine, Michael Tunnell, New York State Reading Association, Roseann Thong, 2012 Charlotte Awards, Audrey Couloumbis, Charlotte Award Ballot, Charlotte Awards, Tricia Tusa, Eleanor Davis, Tim Bowers, Ellen Potter, Thad Krasnesky, G. Brian Karas, Geoffrey Norman, Steven Sheinkin, Vicky Alvear Shecter, Add a tag
This is amazing good news. Great news, in fact. I’m happy and proud to say that my book, Bystander, is included on the ballot for the 2012 New York State Reading Association Charlotte Award.
To learn more about the award, and to download a ballot or bookmark, please click here.
The voting is broken down into four categories and includes forty books. Bystander is in the “Grades 6-8/Middle School” category. Really, it’s staggering. There are ten books in this category out of literally an infinity of titles published each year. You do the math, people.
For more background stories on Bystander — that cool inside info you can only find on the interwebs! — please click here (bully memory) and here (my brother John) and here (Nixon’s dog, Checkers) and here (the tyranny of silence).
Below please find all the books on the ballot — congratulations, authors & illustrators! I’m honored to be in your company.
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GRADES pre K-2/PRIMARY
Bubble Trouble . . . Margaret Mahy/Polly Dunbar
City Dog, Country Frog . . . Mo Willems/Jon J Muth
Clever Jack Takes the Cake . . . Candace Fleming/G. Brian Karas
Lousy Rotten Stinkin’ Grapes . . . Margie Palatini/Barry Moser
Memoirs of a Goldfish . . . Devin Scillian/Tim Bower
Otis . . . Loren LongStars Above Us . . . Geoffrey Norman/E.B. Lewis
That Cat Can’t Stay . . . Thad Krasnesky/David Parkins
Turtle, Turtle, Watch Out! . . . April Pulley Sayre/Annie Patterson
We Planted a Tree . . . Diane Muldrow/Bob Staake
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GRADES 3-5/INTERMEDIATE
The Can Man . . . Laura E. Williams/Craig Orback L
Emily’s Fortune . . . Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
Family Reminders . . .
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By: Kathy Weller,
on 3/28/2011
Blog: Picture Book Junkies (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: city dog countr frog, mo willems, book review, kathy weller, jon muth, Add a tag
1 Comments on , last added: 3/28/2011
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By: Dianne Hofmeyr,
on 11/6/2010
Blog: An Awfully Big Blog Adventure (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Zen Shorts, Dianne Hofmeyr, Stillwater, halloween stories, Jon Muth, The Three Questions, Zen Ghosts, City Dog and Country Frog, Add a tag
It was lovely to be back in New York after 15 years. I was visiting my editor (for the US editions of Eye of the Moon & Eye of the Sun which were complete rewrites). The city seemed gentler and Barnes and Noble seemed to have shrunk (maybe Waterstones has just grown bigger!) but B & N covered a huge range of picturebooks. So I would say the picturebook market is flourishing in the US. I hope it bodes well for co-productions with the UK
In the Scholastic Bookshop in SoHo (yes… a publisher with its OWN bookshop and huge at that!) I found some Jon Muth’s I’d been looking for. He’s known primarily for his giant panda character Stillwater, who won him the Caldecott Honour Book with a book called Zen Shorts. Jon Muth, from the website of the Allen Spiegel Fine Arts Agency has this to say…
‘My work in children's books really grew out of a desire to explore what I was feeling as a new father. At the time, I was working in comics -- a natural forum for expressions of angst and questioning one's place in the universe. With the births of my children, there was a kind of seismic shift in where my work seemed appropriate -- it became important to say other things about the world.’
‘ Zen Shorts came from wondering, "What it would be like to live down the street from a Zen master... who happened to be a Giant Panda?" My stories often come from questions, "Why is this so?"... "If this, then why not that?"... and of course, "What if...?" Sometimes words come first and sometimes an image will prod a story out into the open.’
Stillwater, the giant panda, tells stories about peace and love and taking the moment as it comes and not letting insults get you down. He suggests that adversity turns around when you are quietly attentive and aware of your surroundings. Stillwater has dark panda eyes that show no expression. Yet they somehow do… as I page through the book I feel he is imbued with the presence I need.
I picked up Zen Ghosts too which at first appears to be a book based on Halloween. But Muth is full of surprises and he weaves into it a story that was recorded long ago by Buddhist monks about duality. He says he offers it to children because at a very young age children come to recognize that the ‘me’ they are with their friends, is different to the ‘me’ they are with their mother. It poses the question who are they when they are with both their friends and their mother? Do they act differently?
There is a wonderful stillness to Muth’s illustrations that almost begs you to slow down as you are looking at them. The quiet calmness of them manages to echo not just the story but the cadence of the story. There are no right or wrong answer to these ancient Chinese questionings. One of his books is called The Three Questions, is based on a story by Leo Tolstoy. Another, for younger readers, City Dog and Country Frog, depicts friendship and loss.
This is one of my absolute favorites! Beautiful, sweet and poignant.
sf