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Big Kicks by Bob Kolar

Reviewed by: Chris Singer

About the author:

Bob Kolar is the illustrator of the first AlphaOops book and the author-illustrator of BIG KICKS. He lives in Lee’s Summit, Missouri.

About the book:

Biggie Bear lives in a quiet corner of a busy little town. He collects stamps, plays jazz, and enjoys being by himself. One day, the town soccer team knocks on his door, and they need BIG help. But Biggie’s never played soccer before, and once they are out on the field, they realize that maybe there is more to soccer than just being big.

My take on the book:

This is such a fun book. The illustrations are big, colorful and eye-catching to young eyes. My daughter loves the animals, and knows what soccer is from watching me kick the soccer ball in the yard.

There’s lots of great lessons about friendships, sports and differences in the story as well. Just because Biggie is big doesn’t mean he’s going to be talented at sports. Even though Biggie kind of stinks (okay, he really stinks) at soccer, he has many other talents and qualities that make him a good friend. At the end of the book, his teammates even find Biggie a way to be involved in the games and part of the team.

This has quickly become one of our favorites to read. Check out author Bob Kolar’s blog, for more of his titles and to check out some of the cool illustrations and projects he has going.

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By Geoffrey Greif

Can you believe the word “bromance” has now made it into the accepted lexicon through its addition to the New Oxford American Dictionary? I, for one, could not be more tickled.  Imagine: men now have their own word that captures our platonic affection for each other.  Will “manfriend” be far behind?

To what can we credit this? Men have always had guy friends but, until fairly recently, showing affection physically and verbally toward that guy might brand you as gay.  Many years ago – think back to the 19^th century and earlier – it was okay for men to share their affection for each other.  Sociologist Peter Nardi notes that men would express love to each other in their letters.  Abraham Lincoln, before he became president, shared his bed with his good friend, Joshua Speed.  These non-sexual relationships, born in Lincoln’s case out of financial necessity and physical warmth on cold Springfield nights, became frowned upon by the late 19^th century.  With changing women’s roles and with blacks entering the workforce, white men were threatened.   They adopted a hyper-sexualized sense of masculinity, according to sociologist Michael Kimmel, which came to exclude the physical and emotional expression of positive feelings towards another man. Freudian psychology further concretized beliefs about “normal” development which did include homosexuality.  All of this fit well within the American culture’s sense of “rugged individualism” that obtains to some extent today.  Many heterosexual men would not feel comfortable today sharing a bed with another man or going to an intimate French restaurant and opening a bottle of Pinot Noir.  Relocate to the sports bar instead.  There, men can carry out their shoulder-to-shoulder friendships as they get together with friends to “do something.” Contrast that with women’s face-to-face friendships where they feel more comfortable talking to each other without the distractions of sports.

Given this, it is interesting that the culture has grown within the last few years to allow men the freedom again of expressing their affection for each other.  Movies like, “I Love You, Man” starring Paul Rudd have helped.  Commercials that joke about men being close with each other also help. To my thinking, anything that allows men (and women) to express themselves more openly is a good thing. If giving a term to close male friendships is what it takes, I am for it because people with friends live longer, healthier lives.

Geoffrey Greif is Professor at the University of Maryland School of Social Work and the author of Buddy System: Understanding Male Friendships.

Good Night, Tiptoe. By Polly Dunbar. 2009. [October 2009] Candlewick. 32 pages.

Hector yawned. Tilly yawned. Everybody yawned! Everybody except Tiptoe.

Doodle Bites and Good Night, Tiptoe conclude the six book series, Tilly and Friends. The series is by Polly Dunbar. And it's easily become one of my favorites since I discovered them last year. (You can read my reviews of the first four: Hello Tilly, Happy Hector, Where's Tumpty and Pretty Pru. I reviewed Doodle Bites just yesterday.) Tilly, our young heroine, lives with her five friends (all animals, by the way) in her yellow house. Each adventure has focused on one of the characters, one of the friends. And yes, while they are a series, and they all complement one another well, you can read them in any order.

In Good Night, Tiptoe, it's bedtime. Everyone but Tiptoe seems to get this. That the time has come to go to bed, to go to sleep. But Tiptoe doesn't want to go to bed. He's just not sleepy. As Tilly tries her best to put him to sleep, to get all of her friends ready for bed, she realizes that Tiptoe might have the right idea after all!

These books are so fun, so playful, so delightful, so charming, so sweet, so right. I have just love, love, loved reading them all. Tilly and her friends have become my friends. I think the characters have been done so well, so authentically. I definitely recommend the whole series!

© Becky Laney of Young Readers

When my husband goes to work, he wears his Air Force uniform. Some days, that's a green flightsuit; other days, it's his dress blues; and sometimes, it's his camouflage shirt and pants (the "battle dress uniform" or BDU.) But in most cases, no matter which uniform he wears, he carries a plain, black, inexpensive backpack slung over his shoulder. And in the outside mesh pocket of that backpack, he carries---for every passerby to see---postcards of the cover for Letters From Rapunzel.

Little Willow sent me some clever questions about Letters From Rapunzel, and graciously waited until I had time to answer them. You can find our conversation here. I want you to go read the whole thing, of course, but first, I need your help. One question she posed was:

When I show customers your book, their reaction to the title and cover art is frequently, "Is this a fairy tale?" Did you have any say in the jacket design?

No, I didn’t, and authors rarely do. I like the way Rapunzel is in a fairy tale tower, and yet, her letters are drifting out to a modern neighborhood. But I do think that the cover has been confusing to some. I’d be very interested in hearing what you think the cover should be, in case they decide to change it for the paperback version.

I'm seeing two very different things: Either a P.O. Box with the # and the title imprinted (a real photo, not an illustration) or a desktop cluttered with half-written letters (the title and author byline on the top sheet) other items belonging to [Rapunzel,] like her pens and school books, modern-day items.

"Anne is reading a recent favorite -- Sara Lewis Holmes' Letters from Rapunzel -- to a long-distance friend of hers. Over the phone. Because the friend can't find the book at her library."

I have a love/hate relationship with time. Mostly, HATE. My least favorite thing to do as a writer is struggle with the timeline of a story. I want to cram more hours in a character's day than is possible. I want some weeks to have at least nine or ten days. And then, when I need the story to get to the Next Big Event, I want months to speed by without attracting the attention of the Time Police. Yes, I know, as Writer Goddess of the story, I can manipulate the passage of time in my own telling of it. But there are limits to what I can do. The sun must rise, for instance. (I think that's known as the Hemingway rule.) Seasons must follow each other in order. If the characters go to school, I must keep track of the days of the week, and not send them to class on a Sunday.

I would really stink at a farm story, like Charlotte's Web, which demands that the writer pay strict attention to time and season, like how many hours of daylight there are in a early winter's day, the warming and cooling of the earth, and the lifespan of a spider. How did E.B. keep up with all that?

For Letters From Rapunzel, I tried to duck the whole issue of time in my rough draft by telling myself the story should have a "once upon a time" feel to it. My editor thought NOT. She said I should consider letting the reader know at least how much time passes between each letter. As I revised along those lines, I suddenly realized that I had made a major mistake in not dealing with time.

Of course, someone who feels as trapped as Rapunzel does in her tower would think about the passage of time! They would probably, in fact, obsess over it. Don't prisoners mark the days of their captivity on their cell walls? So I began adding, at the top of each letter, not only which day it was, but also which minute it was. I discovered that a letter written at 2:02 in the morning under your bedcovers with a flashlight has a completely different feel to it than one written at 3:02 in the afternoon in the boring confines of Homework Club.

I don't think authors should detail the passing of every second in their books, any more than they should dwell too much on descriptions of the weather. But this weekend, I made sure that the characters in my next book aren't showing up at school on a Saturday morning. They go to bed after enough hours have passed (if their parents make them) and if they don't, there's a mention of why not. I put a clock in their classroom, and the teacher looks at it (unhappily, I might add) and I even---this is a triple back flip---mention a time zone difference between one character and another.

What about you? Do you notice what an author does with time in her story? Or is it one of those things we writers slave over, give minutes---no, hours---no, days!---of our lives to that, when done well, is not marked by readers at all?

Lately, we've been talking process here and over at 7-Imp. Here's the main character (who is really me) from my first book describing how she writes a poem:

"Then something weird happened. I wrote a poem about it. I didn't mean to, but all of a sudden, it was like there was another SOMETHING in the room, like a ghost. You know how you feel like there's breath on your neck? I didn't know how long it would last, so I grabbed a pen and I wrote down everything I could about that moment.

What I wrote didn't make sense at first, but then I remembered what my dad told me once about his work––that he tried to make his poems like spells (good ones, not evil) so that when someone heard one, the listener would be haunted by the spirit of the poem, as he was when he wrote it. So I went back and tried to make the pieces I'd written fit into a pattern, like I was trying to make a picture of that ghost out of words." ---From Letters From Rapunzel

Strange as it may sound, I think of poems as enchantments. The poet is casting a spell, and the reader, by saying aloud or reading those same words, is casting the same spell. Or if you don't like magical metaphors, a poem is like a liturgy. Yes, it's written, but its purpose is to be a living ritual that takes you beyond the words.

(I'm posting this several days in advance so the word will get out. Feel free to forward it or re-post it anywhere you think it might be helpful.)

Is it a stretch to call clinical depression "An Evil Spell"?

When I had finished a draft of Letters From Rapunzel, and before I gave it to anyone else, I showed it to my sister and asked her: Is this how you feel?

"Yes," she said. "And more."

I had described The Evil Spell as:

"...being locked in a dark room, and you've forgotten your name, why you're there, where the door is..."

"Once upon a time, there were two little girls who slept in a wide bed under a rose-patterned comforter. Before they fell asleep, the younger (not by much) of the two would describe for her sister the spectral objects appearing before her eyes: 'Look...a wedding ring!...there's a piano!...now I see a mushroom...' The older sister strained to see what her sibling was identifying, calling out by name in the darkness. Sometimes, she could almost believe she saw those filaments of her sister's imagination, but mostly she enjoyed hearing her voice exclaiming, 'Look! There goes a...'

Reading Letters From Rapunzel, I heard my sister's voice again, saw her imagination forming images into words on a page. Piecing together letters, lists, fortunes, essays, free-writing, and fairy tales into a telling collage. Believing that if she can only name what she sees in the deep space of her imagination, others will glimpse the fairy trails also. Hoping that they will be as delighted and comforted as I was.

Thanks, Sara, for keeping me company in the dark and for having the courage to break the Spell of Silence."

Normally, I don't get all horn-tooty about my book, Letters From Rapunzel, here at Read Write Believe. I figure you're big kids and can do the clicky thing if you want to find out more about it. But I found this yesterday, and I...well...REJOICED is not too strong a word:

"Being gifted is awesome in some very real ways, but it also majorly sucks in some very real ways. Holmes really, truly got it. She absolutely nailed it." --- Read more of this review by Katie, who admits to once being a girl much like Rapunzel.

Thank you so much, Katie of PixiePalace. I'd be honored to meet you one day.*

And while I've got the horn out, I'm also pleased to announce that Tina Wexler of International Creative Management is my new agent. Huzzah!


*Full disclosure: I saw Letters From Rapunzel on PixiePalace's book wishlist several months ago. So I mailed her a copy, because she sounded like a cool person. But we've never met, and I didn't ask her to review it.