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Ho ha!  So yesterday I met with the good folks of SLJ to discuss a Newbery/Caldecott related . . . something.  I can say no more at this time, but be prepared for a big time announcement on this blog soon.

But FIRST!  It is at last time for my final Newbery/Caldecott/what have you predictions.  The books have been percolating in my brain and by this time I’ve read most (I won’t say all since there might be a Moon Over Manifest winner lurking somewhere out there) of the contenders.  I’ve seen the Mocks.  I know what folks are saying.  For a fun time, see how I did last year.  It’s very fun picking out the winners on my lists to see where they rank.  This Is Not My Hat was particularly off . . .

And so . . . onward!!

For the book that I feel has the number one best chance of winning the 2014 Newbery Medal, my selection goes to . . .

Newbery Medal

The Year of Billy Miller by Kevin Henkes

You may recall that I’ve been beating the drum for Doll Bones by Holly Black all this time.  Now I leap into the air and do a complete spin, pointing instead at Henkes.  This is very much going to be a case of what kind of committee we’re dealing with.  I’d say that most Newbery committees are comprised of members who really enjoy complex and literary children’s books.  And that’s fine.  That’s natural.  The danger is that simple books, books that have the ability to say quite a lot in a very few words, get lost in the shuffle.  Billy Miller is one of these simple books.  And the more I think about it, the more impressive it becomes to me.

And then there are the books that I think have a really good shot at an Honor or two.  My thinking?  Something along the lines of

Newbery Honors

Doll Bones by Holly Black – As you can see by this handy dandy chart, this is the book that has appeared on the most Mock Newberys around the country.  Once my best beloved and surest chance, now I’m not so sure.  Personally, I think it has the chops to go all the way, but some are iffy on it.  In the end it may come down to something as simplistic as to whether or not the committee honestly thinks that Black was trying for horror or not.  To my mind it’s obvious that she’s using the tropes but keeping it kid-friendly and with BIG themes in mind.  We shall see.

The Thing About Luck by Cynthia Kadohata – If I fell down on the job not reviewing a book this year, it would be this one.  Its National Book Award win certainly gave me pause, and then I sat down and examined what my problem was with it.  Basically, it’s the threshing.  The interminable threshing.  Kadohata occasionally stops the action dead to tell you, for pages at a time, about the process of threshing.  To my mind, that pause in the narrative kills it for me Medal-wise.  But then I went back and looked at the characters and over time I’ve been convinced that it really is a strong little number.  So I’m calling it for an Honor.  Don’t know if it’ll go all the way, but it would sure be nice.  If it does win the gold it’ll be the first book to win both a National Book Award and a Newbery Award since Holes.  So, y’know.  No pressure.

Yup.  I’m only seeing three potential winning books.  We’ve had years like this, where the Honors are few and far between.  My favorite years are the ones where there are as many Honors as possible, but they’re rare.

Note that while I’ve heard a lot of people say that 2013 was a strong year for nonfiction, they don’t mean in terms of Newbery books.  The only title that would have a chance would be Courage Has No Color, and looking at past years I don’t see it getting the attention it deserves.  But I would LOVE to be wrong, folks!

Then there are the Newbery Wild Cards that might take it all away:

Wild Cards

Hokey Pokey by Jerry Spinelli  - Early in 2013 I would have said this was a shoo-in.  Now?  I’m not so sure.  The question comes down to whether or not the committee understands what Spinelli is going for and, more to the point, thinks he succeeds.  In a recent conversation with a buddy we came to the realization that if 2013 had a theme it was of children entering adolescence.  This book discusses it.  Doll Bones discusses it.  Picture Me Gone by Meg Rosoff, for crying out loud, discusses it (we tried extrapolating this into the picture books for Caldecott but it didn’t really work).  At any rate, I still think it’s a strong contender.

The Real Boy by Anne Ursu – This has the feel of my The One and Only Ivan prediction of last year.  I think it’s very strong but I’ve also heard from a lot of folks who don’t much care for what Ursu’s doing here.  I think it’s stronger than Breadcrumbs (which I loved) so it has a real shot.  At the same time, Ursu is usually ignored by award committees that should be lavishing her with pennies and praise.  Then again again it was nominated for a National Book Award this year.  Could this be The Year of the Ursu?

Africa Is My Home: A Child of the Amistad by Monica Edinger – Don’t discount Monica.  She may have debuted with a book that infused its fictional text with nonfiction but that’s to her credit.  It was a risky game and the final product can only fulfill that most difficult of Newbery criteria: distinguished.  It’s up to the committee to determine if the book works as a piece of writing.

Locomotive by Brian Floca – Because, and let’s face it, if it won a Newbery Honor (which it really and truly and honestly could) that would be an upset of the best possible kind.

Where the Heck Is . . . ?

Counting by 7s by Holly Goldberg Sloan – Definitely a strong debut, no question.  And this book had moments in it that I’ll never forget, no matter how long I live (three words: closet of underwear).  That said, there are some elements that don’t quite work for me on this one.  Consider, for example, the ambiguous nature of Willow’s race which appears to have been thrown in solely to keep folks from complaining about the fact that people of every other race bend over backwards to help her.  It’s just little things like that.  Then again, the book racked up four starred reviews, so what the heck do I know?

P.S. Be Eleven by Rita Williams-Garcia – You know those Oscar Award winners who don’t win for their best work but later in their careers as way of apology?  That could easily happen here.  Let’s face facts.  One Crazy Summer was a once in a lifetime book, and the fact that it didn’t take home the gold still makes me red in the face with anger.  But what’s done is done.  This book, which has a lot of lovely elements, didn’t punch me in the gut in the same way.  I liked elements of it.  Months and months later I can still remember it very well.  But for Newbery?  I’m not seeing it this time around.

The True Blue Scouts of Sugar Man Swamp by Kathi Appelt – Over at Heavy Medals they’re have conniption fits over this book.  Something about the voice, and they’re not the only ones.  When I attended BookFest at the Bank Street College of Education this year, this book was included in a room discussion of “divisive” 2013 publications.  I didn’t see it.  To me, it’s simply a hugely charming animal story with a few Bonnie and Clyde hogs thrown in for good measure.  Is it too cartoony to win a Newbery?  Possibly.  Bad guys defeated by snakes aren’t the threats they might be, after all.  That said, if it does win a Newbery (and that would be awfully nice) I insist that the Newbery/Caldecott Banquet serve cane sugar pies as dessert.  I am not joking about this.

The Water Castle by Megan Frazer Blakemore – *sigh*  Fine.  I’ll take it off my list.  I really and truly did love it.  But I’ve faced down enough folks who don’t share my enthusiasm to know that it’s a bit of a long shot.  Still, it warms the cold cockles of my heart to see it on so many Mock Newbery lists out there.  That means it’s being read in droves.  My job here is done.

Flora and Ulysses by Kate DiCamillo – Folks wondered last time why I didn’t include this one, particularly since my review of it made it clear that I think it’s probably one of our newly minted National Ambassador of Young People’s Literature’s best.  Well, maybe it comes down to what the committee thinks about humor on the whole.  Usually when DiCamillo wins it’s for books that are a bit more serious.  This one involves a superhuman squirrel with a penchant for poetry.  But even that would be enough to carry it to the finish line . . . if it weren’t for the illustrated sections.  You see, a Newbery winner has to rely on words alone.  If there’s visual storytelling that shoulders the load of the plot at any point, it’s probably going to be considered invalid.  Consarn it.

As for my number one Caldecott Award pick?  I’m not going to surprise anybody out there when I say it’s all about the . . .

Caldecott Medal

Journey by Aaron Becker – It has a pretty good chance.  Weirdo concerns about concealed weapons aside, let’s consider the Caldecott Award criteria, shall we?  The Medal is to go to “the most distinguished American picture book for children.”  Now there are lots of books out there that were good.  Some you could even call “excellent”.  But for the lofty description of “most distinguished” I don’t know how you can look anywhere else.  The question is, are we dealing with a Lion and the Mouse Caldecott year (which is to say, a year where everyone independently determines this to be the winner) or is it more of a This Is Not My Hat year where the book gets drowned in other possibilities?  It all remains to be seen.

As for the Honors, there are some distinct possibilities:

Caldecott Honors

Locomotive by Brian Floca – I haven’t seen such universal acclaim for a picture book work of nonfiction in years.  There is a possibility that Floca could pull a Snowflake Bentley on us and win the Gold.  I would not object one jot.  History suggests that nonfiction Caldecott wins are rare beasties, but dare to dream, sez I!  More likely, though, it’ll Honor.  Not that the committees of years past have ever given Floca his dear due.  I mentioned earlier that I’m still peeved about the fact that One Crazy Summer never won a gold.  Well Moonshot, Floca’s brilliant (and I don’t use that word lightly) look at the Apollo mission got bupkiss the year it came out.  No Caldecott in sight.  Still fuming about that one.

Mr. Tiger Goes Wild by Peter Brown – Actually, Peter could run away with the gold this year very easily.  Who knew that in the final moments it would potentially all come down to a debut wordless book on the one hand and a dandified tiger on the other?  The art is fabulous here, but it’s how well it pairs with the language that makes it as good as it is.

The Dark by Lemony Snicket, illustrated by Jon Klassen – Klassen could potentially do a two year sweep of the awards, but I kind of hope he doesn’t.  It’s not that I don’t like the guy.  I adore him.  And it’s not that this isn’t a good book.  It’s really well done.  Seemingly simple on a first glance, there are loads of details hidden that just make you gasp when you read through on a fourth or fifth or sixth look.  I mean, were YOU aware of the lightbulb and how it relates to the lightbulb on the next page?  That said, while it’s really clever I don’t know if it has the heart to pull off a gold win.  An honor is far more likely.

The Matchbox Diary by Paul Fleischman, ill. Bagram Ibatoulline – Artists like Bagram Ibatoulline often get shunted into the category of Magnificent Artists Who Will Never Win Big Awards.  Barbara McClintock and some other folks often find themselves there.  To the best of my knowledge he’s never gotten a Caldecott of his very own.  Well maybe this year will be the year!  Pairing him with Fleischman was brilliant on somebody’s part.  The technical artistry required to do this book is almost over the top (the fact that these aren’t photographs alone should be enough to cause one’s jaw to drop in a downward manner).  But more than that, I felt like this book really had some serious heart.  And isn’t that what picture books are all about anyway?

And the Wild Cards?

Wild Cards

Mr. Wuffles by David Wiesner – Personally, I thought it was a hoot.  Aliens and cats and ants and all that.  Really a lovely piece of work from start to finish.  The question is how well it reads from panel to panel.  Though Wiesner’s books have always relied on visual storytelling to different degrees, this is the most cartoonish of his stories.  And depending on how fond the committee is of comics, that’s going to make all the difference in the world.

The Boy Who Loved Math: The Improbable Life of Paul Erdos by Deborah Heiligman, illustrated by LeUyen Pham – Because in a perfect world Ms. Pham would get at least SOME credit for how brilliantly she incorporated math into the art.  Is that something a Caldecott committee will consider?  Maybe not, but it sure as heck can’t hurt.  It’s not easy, and this book is definitely “distinguished” as a result.

Stardines Swim High Across the Sky by Jack Prelutsky, illustrated by Carin Berger – How is this not better known?  How are people not constantly talking about it?  Why do I feel like I’m in an echo chamber over here?  I’ve resigned myself to the fact that few love this book as much as I do, but y’all’re crazy.  This book rocks!

The Mighty LaLouche by Matthew Olshan, ill. Sophie Blackall – One of these days, Sophie’s going to surprise us all and get herself a Caldecott.  And maybe this is the year.  Maybe . . .

The sad thing?  I can’t be the only person who noticed that my Wild Cards are mostly women while my predictions are all male.  Doggone it.  Bad blogger!  No cookie for you!

Where the Heck Is . . . ?

Building Our House by Jonathan Bean – I’m not sure why I can’t commit to this one.  I love Bean.  Have loved his work for years.  I’m so happy to see him working again.  But this book felt almost too personal to me.  I’m not saying that certain kids won’t love it (I was actually thinking of checking it out for my kiddo, who’s into the idea of building houses right now).  I just don’t know how it’ll stack up in the Caldecott committee discussions.

And that wraps that up.

Say, do you like charts?  Then be sure to check out the following:

• Travis Jonker made this great chart of Publication Months of Newbery Award Winning Books.

• He also made this chart on the likelihood that a Newbery winner will win again.

• And this one on the average number of starred reviews.

• Here’s one for the Printz on the average number of starred reviews.

• And finally don’t forget this post, which culled info from all the available Mock Newberys.

So where have I erred tragically?  Correct me!

Mr. Tiger Goes Wild
By Peter Brown
Little, Brown and Company
$18.00
ISBN: 978-0-316-20063-9
Ages 3-7
On shelves now.

Here’s a fun exercise to liven up a gloomy day. Find yourself a copy of the picture book Mr. Tiger Goes Wild. Now turn to the publication page. It’s the green one opposite the title page at the beginning of the book. Now scroll down until you find the Library of Congress subject headings for this title. The very first one reads, “Self-actualization (Psychology)”. I am no cataloger, nor do I particularly mind it when they attribute terms of this sort to picture books, but anyone can see that this is a pretty amusing way to describe a book about a tiger with issues with civilization. It is rare to find a picture book this easy to love on sight, but author/illustrator Peter Brown is beginning to perfect his form. Hard to believe that the man who started out with Flight of the Dodo and Chowder has figured out how one goes about writing and illustrating modern day classics. With influences as diverse as Rousseau and 1960s Disney animators, Brown creates a wholly believable universe in a scant number of pages. Now prepare to turn said pages over and over and over again.

No one expected Mr. Tiger to be such a troublemaker. At first he was like everyone else. Sporting starched collars and silk top hats. Attending dignified tea parties and engaging in the usual chitchat about the weather that day. But Mr. Tiger is bored. “He wanted to loosen up. He wanted to have fun. He wanted to be… wild.” But wildness is not tolerated in the city, a fact Mr. Tiger discovers when his explorations into wildness involve pouncing across the rooftops, roaring in public, and going au naturel. It’s that final sin that has him dismissed from the city to the wilderness, where he gets to completely let go. It’s great for a time, but soon Mr. Tiger misses his friends and his home. When he returns he finds more comfortable clothes and the fact that the people there have loosened up a bit themselves, thanks in no small part to his influence.

Now I know there are folks out there for whom The Curious Garden is the top of the pops and Brown will never be able to make anything that good again. And that was a very nice book, no question but here is a book where Brown has hit his stride. First off, he has tackled the old anthropomorphic animal question; If you put a tiger in a suit, is he even a tiger anymore? Kids are very used to seeing animals wearing clothes and fulfilling human roles. I’ve always said that if you ever want to write a book about adults for kids, all you need to do is turn those adults into furry woodland creatures (hey, it worked for Redwall!). The idea that an animal might want to return to its wilder roots is a novel one for them. Imagine if Donald Duck tore off his sailor suit to peck at bread on the water, or Mickey Mouse removed those red shorts and started hunting down some cheese rinds. It’s almost, but not quite, obscene. Brown taps into that seeming obscenity, and uses it to give kids a mighty original tale.

2013 was a very good year for picture books with wordless two-page spreads. When used incorrectly, such spreads stop the action dead. Used correctly, they make the child reader stop and think. In a particularly Miss Rumphius-ish two-pager, Mr. Tiger walks alone in a wide-open field. He isn’t prancing or running or leaping anymore. His expression is utterly neutral. It’s just him and the flowers and the scrub bushes. Little wonder that when you turn the page he’s lonely once more. Brown uses this spread to bridge the gap between Mr. Tiger’s catharsis and his desire for company. Without it, the sudden shift in mood would feel out-of-character.

It’s hard to find folks who dislike this book but occasionally one comes out. The only real criticism I’ve seen of it was when I heard someone complain that Brown’s style is just like a lot of books coming out these days, particularly those of Jon Klassen. Hardly fair, though you can see what they mean when you hold this up next to This Is Not My Hat. But Brown is quite capable of manipulating his own style when he sees fit. Compare this book to others he’s made and you’ll see the difference. The noir feel of Creepy Carrots or the folksy faux wood border of Children Make Terrible Pets are a far cry from Mr. Tiger’s Rousseau-like setting. Brown has culled his influences over the years, and in this particular book he flattens the images purposefully, emulating the backgrounds of 1960s Disney films like Sleeping Beauty. The colors here are particularly deliberate. There’s the orange of Mr. Tiger (and his speech balloons), the green of the wilderness, and the orange of the sun. Beyond these and the blue of Mr. Tiger’s new shirt and the water of the fountain/waterfall, the palette is tightly controlled. And that doesn’t feel like anyone’s choice but Mr. Brown’s.

Another criticism I encountered came from someone who felt that the ending didn’t make sense to them. The animals all criticize Mr. Tiger then emulate him in his absence? But I have read and reread and reread again this book to my 2-year-old enough times that I know precisely how to answer such questions. Look closely and you’ll see that while some animals are very vocal in their disapproval of Mr. Tiger’s free-to-be-you-and-me ways, others are less perturbed. For example, in one scene Mr. Tiger is leaping from rooftop to rooftop. As he does so a bevy of onlookers comment on his actions. True, a bear shakes his fist and declares the tiger to be “Unacceptable” but look at the rhino and bunny. One is saying “Wow” and one “Hmm.” Then there’s the nude sequence (perhaps the only picture book centerfold shot in the history of the genre). First off, the pigeons are riveted. I loved that. And yes, a bunch of animals are pointing out of town, indicating that he should leave. But there’s a young fox that is absolutely enthralled by his actions, you can tell. It’s clear he has a far-reaching influence. I wasn’t surprised at all by the changes in his absence then.

Every child is a battlefield. In them rage twin desires, compelling in different ways and at different times. One desire is for the wildness Mr. Tiger craves. To run and yell and just go a little wild. The other desire is for order and organization and civilization. What Mr. Tiger Goes Wild does so well is to tap into these twin needs, and then produce a kind of happy medium between them. To entirely deny one side or another (or to entirely indulge one side or another) is an unhealthy exercise. We’ve not many books that touch on the importance of balance in your life, but let me just say that the lesson Mr. Tiger learns here would probably be greatly appreciated by large swaths of the adult population. Kiddos aren’t the only ones that chafe under their proverbial starched collars. A grand, great book with a lot of very smart things to say. Listen up.

On shelves now.

Source: Final copy sent from publisher for review.

Like This? Then Try:

• Four Legs Bad, Two Legs Good by D.B. Johnson
• Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed by Mo Willems
• Wild by Emily Hughes
• You Forgot Your Skirt, Amelia Bloomer by Shana Corey
• Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney

Misc:

• Click here to download the Mr. Tiger Goes Wild printable activity kit.
• You can’t help but love Elizabeth Rose Stanton’s version of Mr. Tiger.

Videos:
Peter Brown introduces his book to you:

And here he talks about his process:

Author and Illustrator Peter Brown On His Process from School Library Journal on Vimeo.

It is my supreme pleasure and honor today to present to you a little video that you shan’t find much of anywhere else. Many of you are aware that Aaron Becker’s debut picture book Journey is getting a lot of critical acclaim and book buzz. What you may not know is that back in 2011 he contacted a friend of his to film the book’s progress. The result is today’s video. Ladies and gentlemen I give you The Making of “Journey”.

The Making of “Journey” from Aaron Becker on Vimeo.

Thanks that I cannot repay to Aaron Becker for passing this along to me.

Knock Knock: My Dad’s Dream for Me
By Daniel Beaty
Illustrated by Bryan Collier
Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
$18.00
ISBN: 978-0316209175
Ages 4-8
On shelves December 17th

There is a perception out there amongst certain types of parents that the only picture books worthy of their little geniuses are those that reflect their own lives perfectly. I’ve complained more than once about this before, but there is nothing more disturbing to me than when a children’s librarian shows a parent a perfectly lovely book only to be asked, “Do you have anything a little less . . . urban?” And this in the heart of New York City no less. Of course we all know what “urban” is code for. Black, obviously (if I’m feeling snarky I’ll then follow up their request with Precious and the Boo Hag or something equally black AND rural). The ideal use of picture books, on some level, is to provide windows and mirrors for the kiddos. Mirrors that reflect their own worlds. Windows where they can see how other children live. So while Daniel Beaty’s Knock Knock: My Dad’s Dream for Me is ostensibly about a child with an incarcerated father, to my mind this is a book that has far reaching applications. It can be used with any child missing a parent, for whatever reason. It’s one of the very few picture books to talk about the process of growing into adulthood. And the art? Stellar stuff. So though I’m sure kids that find themselves exactly in the protagonist’s shoes will get something out of this book, they are not the only ones. Not by half.

It was the same every morning. The boy would pretend to be sleeping when his father went “Knock Knock” on the door. Then he’d “surprise” his father by leaping into his arms once he came in the room. That is, until the day his father didn’t knock anymore. The man is simply gone, poof! Like he was never there at all. Bewildered and lost, the boy writes his father a letter and leaves it on his desk in the desperate hope that maybe his dad’s in the apartment when the boy’s not home. He tells his dad that he was hoping that when he got older he’d teach him how to dribble a ball or shave or drive or fix a car even. Then, one day, there’s a letter from his father sitting on the desk. “I am sorry I will not be coming home,” it begins. It then proceeds to encourage the boy to seek his own path and grow to manhood without him. “Knock Knock with the knowledge that you are my son and you have a bright, beautiful future.” Years later when the boy has grown, his father returns to him. In his Author’s Note, Daniel Beaty discusses the effect his own father’s incarceration had on him when he was only three. As he puts it, “This experience prompted me to tell the story of this loss from a child’s perspective and also to offer hope that every fatherless child can still create the most beautiful life possible.”

As you might imagine, I vetted this one with some of my fellow children’s librarians and one concern that arose stemmed from the fact that the boy isn’t told what happened to his father. One day he’s there and the next he’s gone. Shouldn’t a kid be told? To this I have a couple answers. First and foremost, remember that you are getting this tale through the eyes of a child. For that very reason, you have reason to question the narrative. It is all too easy to believe that the kid has been told where his father is and he simply cannot process the information. This might be one of those rare picture book unreliable narrators we come across from time to time. Second, if the kid isn’t willfully ignoring the evidence at hand, it’s just as possible that his mother isn’t telling him. Whether it’s for what she believes to be his own good or because she can’t bring herself to explain, there’s a reality at work here.

But the explanation that rings truest to me is this; If the boy doesn’t know then it opens wide the possible applications of this book. The key to Knock Knock lies in the fact that Beaty’s tale is about an absent parent and not necessarily an incarcerated one. Lots of kids have one parent or another disappear on them. What Knock Knock is telling us is that even if they’re not there, you can grow up and become the man or woman you were meant to be. Now, obviously the book is primarily about incarcerated parents. The ending shows the boy, now grown into a man, hugging his father for the first time in years. Unless we’re going full on metaphorical here, that image is pretty clear. Nonetheless, I like to think that the book has a broader appeal than that. It’s not as if the word “jail” or “arrested” are ever in the text, and the images never follow the father but keep the focus squarely on the kid. As is right.

The art is the real kicker, of course. Not since Uptown has Collier lavished this much time and attention on the appearance and feel of Harlem. I should know. I live in it. From the Duke Ellington statue on the corner of 5th Avenue and 110th Street to brownstones and housing projects, Collier knows of which he speaks. Then there’s how he chose to bring Beaty’s words to life. According to Collier, he took a real interest in this text when he saw Beaty perform it in a monologue. In this book he then tries to capture the spirit of the performance. For example, he explains in his Illustrator’s Note at the end of the book that the watercolor and collage art affects the boy’s surroundings. “The sky in the art is not so blue”, a fact I’d completely missed. It’s true, though. You wouldn’t necessarily notice at first, but the dulled blue contrasts sharply with the vivid aquamarine on the last page.

To my mind, the eeriest image in the book is a two-page spread that shows the boy seemingly flying on the paper airplane message he’s trying to send to his dad. As his father’s oversized hat flies from his head you see below the fading faces of other children on the tarred roofs below. Their images are sometimes clear, sometimes eerily faint, like they’re memories being erased by time. There are also a fair number of elephants. The elephants are an interesting touch. I’m not entirely certain what to make of them. They trundle along the boy’s bedroom walls, then occasionally break free and appear in his memories, walking across the brownstones, partially obscuring a man’s face hidden behind the windows.

Impressive though the art may be, there are moments in the book that seemed better than others. Faces and features vary, sometimes striking the reader as affecting while at other times they take you out of the book entirely. The aforementioned shot of the boy flying in a paper airplane while his father’s hat drifts towards the faces of other children on the roofs below is a bit unnerving if only because the roof faces are so much more affecting than the boy himself. When done straight on, as on the page that reads, “I am sorry I will not be coming home” the results are much stronger. And that’s even before you notice that the boy has draped his father’s ties around his neck (and did you notice that as a man the boy continues to wear those ties?).

Here’s what might be my favorite line in the book: “Papa, come home, ‘cause I want to be just like you, but I’m forgetting who you are.” Kids everywhere grow up without fathers and a single book isn’t going to necessarily change their lives. But maybe, just maybe, it really will touch somebody in the right way. When Bryan Collier writes in his Note that “This book is not just about loss, but about hope, making healthy choices, and not letting our past define our future,” he’s talking to kids everywhere that are dealing with a deck that’s stacked against them. They don’t get enough books, those kids, about lives like their own. Fortunately, once in a great while, a book comes along that fulfills that gaping need. This year, it’s this book. Next year? Who knows? But as long as there are children struggling along without their parents, Knock Knock is going to have a job to do.

On shelves December 17th.

Source: Final copy sent from publisher for review.

List This? Then Try:

• Visiting Day by Jacqueline Woodson

• When Dad Was Away by Liz Weir

• A Visit to the Big House by Oliver Butterworth

Interviews: Collier talks a bit about his work on this book with SLJ.  Turns out he was the one who had the idea of turning Beaty’s poem into a book!

Videos:

Want to see Beaty perform it for yourself?  Then it’s your lucky day:

Man, isn’t it nice when the award season has died down and we don’t have to deal with any more crazed speculations about who’s “Newbery worthy” or “Caldecott worthy” or any of that nuttiness?  We can just sit back and enjoy some books and not . . . not worry about . . . *gulp* . . . ah . . . . grk . . . .

I CANTS TAKES IT NO MORE!!!!

It’s March.  Heck, it’s spring.  Practically.  And so here we have loads of books, TONS of the things, out there and circulating and taking up brain space and all of them just begging to be speculated upon.  If it is too early in the season for this, I more than understand.  Skip this post.  Have some cocoa.  Come back in the fall.  But if you, like me, just can’t get enough of this stuff, enjoy.

First up, we are visited by the Ghost of Spring Predictions of the Newbery/Caldecott Past.  This is always fun.  Check it out:

2008 spring predictions: I get one Caldecott right (How I Learned Geography)

2009 spring predictions: I get two Newberys right (The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate and The (Mostly) True Adventures of Homer P Figg)

2010 spring predictions: I get one Newbery right (One Crazy Summer)

2011 spring predictions: I get one Newbery right (Inside Out and Back Again)

2012 spring predictions: I get two Newberys right (The One and Only Ivan and Splendors and Glooms), and one Caldecott right (Green).  I’m getting better in my old age!  Woot!

We could speculate about what this means about the publishing industry and when they choose to release books, but I’d rather get to the meat of the matter.  And I should warn you, I’m finding 2014 to be a VERY strong year in contenders.  Newbery anyway.

En garde!

2014 Newbery Predictions

Doll Bones by Holly Black – I am reminded of the year that Silence of the Lambs won an Oscar.  That’s the only equivalent I can come up with if this book took home Newbery gold.  The writing is superlative, but also creepy as all get out.  More so than the relatively recent Newbery winner The Graveyard Book, anyway.  But if Gaiman can win . . .

The Water Castle by Megan Frazer Blakemore – It looks for all the world like a fantasy novel when you see the cover, but what you’ll find inside is just the nicest little science fiction novel.  I can’t tell if it’s the first in a series or a standalone book that trusts the reader to pick up on certain clever clues.  Whatever the case, it’s a brilliant companion to Tuck Everlasting (which, admittedly, never won a Newbery).

The Bully Book by Eric Kahn Gale – If you’re anything like me then you’re sick to death of bully related books.  All the more reason to admire Gale’s for having the guts to take a tired, worn subject and inject some much needed life into it.  Gale’s topic pales in the face of his delivery.  It reads more like a mystery novel than anything else (with a bit of noir on the side) so expect it to take home an Edgar award at the end of the year at the very least.

Hokey Pokey by Jerry Spinelli – Already one of two thoroughly divisive Newbery contenders.  I was enthralled by it but stepping back I’m interested in the child responses.  Will the “Ulysses of children’s literature” be too much for them?  Is the writing distinguished regardless?  Yes to the latter, not sure on the former.  At the very least, everyone’s going to have to read this one.

Courage Has No Color, the True Story of the Triple Nickles: America’s First Black Paratroopers by Tonya Lee Stone – She sort of specializes in crushed dreams but in this particular book I think Stone has outdone herself.  The sheer subtlety of the writing has to be worth something.  Jonathan Hunt brought up a question of whether or not the book sets you up to expect action.  I think that’s rather the point.

One Came Home by Amy Timberlake – A book I continually want to call “One Came Back”, for some reason.  My brain is weird.  If you think Hokey Pokey‘s a divisive topic then you haven’t sat in on some of the Timberlake talks I’ve witnessed.  It’s full of life and vitality, and like Gale’s book could also find itself nominated for an Edgar this year.  It’s the kind of historical fiction I like to read.  The question is whether or not it’ll be the kind of historical fiction the committee likes to read.  No clue on that one.

The Center of Everything by Linda Urban – My frontrunner.  Maybe.  I go back and forth but there’s no denying that Urban gets better and better with each book and that this one is, if you’ll forgive a tired phrase, a gem.  Or maybe I was just enthralled by the short page count.  Whatever the case, it’s smart and to the point and just lovely from start to finish.  ADORE.

2014 Caldecott Predictions

Mr. Tiger Goes Wild by Peter Brown – Ladies and gentlemen of the jury I submit to you the following evidence here and here.  Now that the man has won a Caldecott Honor we know that he is capable of even more.  There’s a distinct Rousseau-like quality to this book.  Peter Brown, like Linda Urban, gets better with each passing book.  Remember this one when it comes out in the fall.

The Boy Who Loved Math: The Improbable Life of Paul Erdos by Deborah Heiligman, illustrated by LeUyen Pham – In an era of Common Core Standards and increased attention on nonfiction, why can’t a book on math and a mathematician win the highest Honor in the land?  Sometimes I fear that there are certain talented artists that are passed over by the award committees each and every year without fail for no reason other than the fact that they’ve been passed over before.  And if anyone deserves a medal it’s Ms. Pham.  She’s a delight.  So is her art.  So is this book.

Stardines Swim High Across the Sky by Jack Prelutsky, illustrated by Carin Berger – Just a second.  I’m trying to envision how Mr. Prelutsky would react upon learning that one of his books had won a Caldecott this late in the game.  Wouldn’t that be rad (mentioning a poet from my youth apparently causes me to break out the late 1980s jargon)?  Berger, for her part, went above and beyond the call of duty when she created the art for this book.  Models do NOT fare well in Caldecott races, but certainly an exception can be made once in a while, yes yes?

Unicorn Thinks He’s Pretty Great by Bob Shea – But only if there were any justice in the universe.  Which, last time I checked, there is not.

The Dark by Lemony Snicket, illustrated by Jon Klassen – Like Peter Brown, Jon “I just won an Honor and an Award in the same year” Klassen is now considered verifiable Caldecott bait.  Admittedly this book is subtler than his previous fare and there’s a lot of black space.  I think a forward thinking committee, however, could have a lot of fun parsing where exactly he chose to put one shadow or another.  Worthy of discussion, at the very least.

Mr. Wuffles by David Wiesner – I’m just going to imagine for a moment what it would be like to hear lofty librarians parsing the merits of something with a name like “Mr. Wuffles” amongst themselves.  It’s a return to form for Wiesner, as weird and wacky and funny as they come.  However, he may have handicapped himself by making the book in a comic book style complete with speech balloons.  A certain breed of adult reader would have some definite problems with the layouts and action.  That said, you have GOT to see this puppy.  Nothing else out there is like it.

And that’s the long and short of it.  Something for your What To Read Next lists in any case.  And as ever, be sure to check out Jonathan Hunt’s 2014 reading list, when you’ve a chance.

Stardines Swim High Across the Sky and Other Poems
By Jack Prelutsky
Illustrated by Carin Berger
Greenwillow Books (an imprint of Harper Collins)
$16.99
ISBN: 978-0-06-201464-1
Ages 4-8
On shelves February 26th.

To non-children’s librarians the statistics are baffling. Your average poetry book isn’t exactly a circ buster. It sits on the shelf for months at a time, gathering dust, biding its time. When kids come to the reference desk to ask for titles, they don’t tend to ask for poetry unless they’ve some sort of assignment they need to fulfill. Yet for all that poetry books for kids are shelf sitters, it’s hard to find a single one that hasn’t gone out in the last two or three months. How to account for it? Well, there’s Poetry Month (April) to begin with. That always leads to a run on the 811 portion of the library shelves. But beyond that kids read poetry in dribs and drabs over the course of the year. Maybe as Summer Reading books. Maybe as class assignments. Whatever the reason, poetry has a longevity, if not a popularity, that’s enviable. Now Jack Prelutsky, our first Children’s Poet Laureate and creator of Behold the Bold Umbrellaphant is following up his work with yet another delve into (in the words of Kirkus) “iambic ‘pun’tameter”. And while Prelutsky gives us a second round, illustrator Carin Berger steps up her game to give these hybrid birds and beasts a kick in the old artistic derriere.

Forget everything you ever knew about animals. Not since On Beyond Zebra has the world seen a menagerie quite as wild as the one on display here. Step right up, folks, and take a gander at the rare and remarkable Fountain Lion. “The only lions no one dreads, / They all have fountains on their heads.” Delicious crustaceans more your speed? Then come and observe the rare Slobsters. “Their sense of decorum / Is woefully small. / Slobsters don’t have / Many manners at all.” Or for the kiddies, how about an adorable Planda? “They plan to learn to roller-skate, / To juggle, and to fence. / They plan to go to clown school / And cavort in circus tents.” With his customary clever verse, Jack Prelutsky invents sixteen imaginary animals of varying degrees of odd. Accompanying his rhymes is his old partner-in-crime Carin Berger, who has moved beyond mere collage and has gone so far to construct elaborate shadow boxes of each and every poem. The end result is impressive, hilarious, and one of the most original little poetry collections you’ll see in many a year.

The shadow box, that staple of undergraduate art projects everywhere, is a relative newcomer to the world of children’s literature. A shadow box, once you’ve designed it and filled it with cool images, needs to be photographed perfectly if it’s going to work on a flat page. That means you need an illustrator confident in their abilities to produce art that will look as good in two dimensions as three. Berger is clearly up to the challenge. A master of collage, in this book she bends over backwards to make her images the best they can be. She’s very good at conveying distance. She also conveys perspective quite well. A cut image of a bicycle makes it appear to be three-dimensional because it is photographed from above. I know the image itself is just a flat piece of paper, but the illusion is complete. Everything, in fact, appears to have been planned with a meticulous eye.

Even within the boxes themselves Berger’s job is not easy. Consider an early poem called “Bluffaloes” which combines the word “Buffaloes” with the word “Bluff”. It’s about buffalo types who are scaredy cats should you call their bluff. Fair enough. Now how the heck do you illustrate that? In Berger’s case it looks like she may have considered an alternative definition of the word “bluff” as in “a cliff, headland, or hill with a broad, steep face” since her bluffaloes look like nothing so much as little pieces of a cliff running hither and thither on newly sprouted legs. Artistic creativity is much called for when wordplay is open ended.

Of course, as an adult I’m going to be naturally inclined towards artsy fartsy styles. But this all begs the obvious question: Will kids dig it? Well, let’s stop and consider for a moment. What precisely has Berger done? She has made little boxes and put action-packed scenes within them. Who else does that kind of thing? If you said, “Kids who make dioramas for school” you have earned yourself a cookie. Yes, it appears to me that Berger has taken one of the oldest homework assignments of our age and has turned it into a book. An enterprising teacher would find a goldmine of assignment material here. What if they had their kids write their own poems in Prelutsky’s style? What if they made pairs of kids come up with the idea for the poem and then one kid could write it while the other made a diorama to go with it? Can you now say, “instantaneous original poetry project for Poetry Month”? I knew you could.

Then there’s Prelutsky. He always scans. He always rhymes. And he throws in big words that will give some children a good dictionary workout. For example, in the Sobcat poem he writes, “The SOBCAT is sad / As a feline can be / And spends its time crying / Continuously. / It has no real reason / To be so morose. / It’s simply its nature / To act lachrymose.” Nice. Of course the unspoken secret to many of these poems isn’t that they simply make clever pairings of words and phrases with animals but that they say something about certain types of people. The Planda makes eternal plans and never carries them out. The Sobcat “delights / In its own misery”. You can find many a friend and a relation found in the animals of these pages.

The pairings of the poems is sometimes key. It works particularly well when you place the “Jollyfish” poem next to the “Sobcat”, for example. There are other moments when you suspect that the layout and order of the poems was a carefully thought out process. The book begins, for example, with the titular poem “Stardines” which comments that “In silence, these nocturnal fish / Are set to grant the slightest wish.” That’s a good note to begin on. The book then alternates between animals with physical attributes that are their primary lure and animals with one-of-a-kind personality quirks. It’s interesting to see how all this ends with, of all the animals, the Bardvark. “BARDVARKS think they’re poets / And persist in writing rhyme. / Their words are uninspired / And a total waste of time.” So it is that book of poetry for kids ends by highlighting an animal that’s an atrocious poet. The final lines, “Undeterred, they keep on writing / And reciting every day. / That’s why BARDVARKS are a problem – / You can’t make them go away.” One can’t help but think Prelutsky is taking a little jab at himself here. Not a significant jab, but small enough to allow him to laugh at himself a little. Not a bad way to finish, really.

Perhaps a key at the back of the book explaining which animals and concepts were combined would not have been out of place. I found myself baffled by the “swapitis” (pronounced swap-uh-teez) and found myself wishing I knew what animal it hailed from. It looks somewhat deer-like. After a bit of internet searching I discovered an animal called a wapitis, which is a kind of North American deer. Good to know, though I suspect it won’t immediately pop to many folks’ minds unless prompted and prodded a bit. Of course having kids find the animals referenced could be a fun homework assignment in and of itself. There are possibilities there. Just no answers.

Jack Prelutsky is a staple. Folks my age still associate him with The New Kid On the Block. Kids these days have a lot more Prelutskyian choices to pick from. Berger, in contrast, is new and fresh and bright and shiny. Combine the old school rhymes and chimes of a Prelutsky with the crackling energy and visual wit of Berger and you’ve got yourself a heckuva team. Stardines may tread familiar ground once trod before, but its method of presentation is anything but overdone. Hand this one to the kid who moans to you that they “have” to read a book of poetry for school. Who knows? It may hook ‘em before they realize what’s what. One of a kind.

On shelves February 26th.

Source: Galley sent from publisher for review.

Like This? Then Try:

• Behold the Bold Umbrellaphant by Jack Prelutsky, illustrated by Carin Berger

• But Who Will Bell the Cats? by Cynthia von Buhler

• Wabi Sabi by Mark Reibstein, illustrated by Ed Young

• Steady Hands: Poems About Work by Tracie Vaughn Zimmer

Other Blog Reviews: Book Aunt

Professional Reviews:

• A star from PW
• Kirkus

Misc:

• Read this great little short interview with Ms. Berger at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast as she discusses how, “This seemed a perfect opportunity to reference my passion for wunderkammers and early science — and crusty old museums.”

• And here’s one shadow box that didn’t make the cut.

• It’s Poetry Friday!  Head on over to Teaching Authors to see the round-up of other great poetry books of the day!

Video:

Take a studio tour into the world of Carin Berger to see some of the fantastic art from this book.

The Boy Who Loved Math: The Improbable Life of Paul Erdős
By Deborah Heiligman
Illustrated by LeUyen Pham
Roaring Brook (an imprint of Macmillan)
ISBN: 978-1-59643-307-6
Ages 6 and up
On shelves June 25th

Make a beeline for your local library’s children’s biography section and learn firsthand the shocking truth about picture book bios of mathematical geniuses. Apparently there was only one and his name was Einstein. End of story. The world as we know it is not overflowing with picture book encapsulations of the lives of Sir Isaac Newton or Archimedes (though admittedly you could probably drum up a Leonardo da Vinci book or two if you were keen to try). But when it comes to folks alive in the 20th century, Einstein is the beginning and the end of the story. You might be so foolish as to think there was a good reason for that fact. Maybe all the other mathematicians were dull. I mean, Einstein was a pretty interesting fella, what with his world-shattering theories and crazed mane. And true, the wild-haired physicist was fascinating in his own right, but if we’re talking out-and-out interesting people, few can compare with the patron saint of contemporary mathematics, Paul Erdős. Prior to reading this book I would have doubted a person could conceivably make an engaging biography chock full to overflowing with mathematical concepts. Now I can only stare in amazement at a story that could conceivably make a kid wonder about how neat everything from Euler’s map of Konigsburg to the Szekeres Snark is. This is one bio you do NOT want to miss. A stunner from start to finish.

For you see, there once was a boy who loved math. His name was Paul and he lived in Budapest, Hungary in 1913. As a child, Paul adored numbers, and theorems, and patterns, and tricky ideas like prime numbers. As he got older he grew to be the kind of guy who wanted to do math all the time! Paul was a great guy and a genius and folks loved having him over, but he was utterly incapable of taking care of himself. Fortunately, he didn’t have to. Folks would take care of Paul and in exchange he would bring mathematicians together. The result of these meetings was great strides in number theory, combinatorics, the probabilistic method, set theory, and more! Until the end of this days (when he died in a math meeting) Paul loved what he did and he loved the people he worked with. “Numbers and people were his best friends. Paul Erdős had no problem with that.”

There are two kinds of picture book biographies in this world. The first attempts to select just a single moment or personality quirk from a person’s life, letting it stand in as an example of the whole. Good examples of this kind of book might include Me…Jane by Patrick McDonnell about the childhood of Jane Goodall or Lincoln Tells a Joke: How Laughter Saved the President And the Country by Kathleen Krull. It’s hard to pinpoint the perfect way to convey any subject, but it can sometimes be even harder to tell an entire life in the span of a mere 40 pages or so. Still, that tends to be the second and more common kind of picture book biography out there. Generally speaking they don’t tend to be terribly interesting. Just a series of rote facts, incapable of making it clear to a kind why a person mattered aside from the standard “because I said so” defense. The Boy Who Loved Math is different because it really takes the nature of biography seriously. If the purpose of a bio is to make it clear that a person was important, how important was a guy who loved math puzzles? Well, consider what the story can do. In a scant number of pages author Deborah Heiligman gives us an entire life synthesized down to just a couple key moments, giving the man’s life form and function and purpose, all while remaining lighthearted and fun to read. Who does that?

Did you know that there are kids out there who like math? I mean, reeeeeeally like math? The kinds that beg their parents for math problems to solve? They exist (heck, Ms. Heiligman gave birth to one) and for those kids this book will come like a present from on high. Because not only does the author highlight a fellow who took his passion for numbers and turned it into a fulfilling and fun life, but thanks to illustrator LeUyen Pham the illustrations are overflowing with math equations and puzzles and problems, just waiting to be interpreted and dissected. I have followed the career of Ms. Pham for many years. There is no book that she touches that she does not improve with her unique style. Whether it’s zeroing in on a child’s neuroses in Alvin Ho or bringing lush life to a work of poetry as in A Stick Is an Excellent Thing, Pham’s art can run the gamut from perfect interstitial pen-and-inks to lush watercolor paints. I say that, but I have never, but ever, seen anything like what she’s done in The Boy Who Loved Math.

It would not be overstating the matter to call this book Pham’s masterpiece. The common story behind its creation is that there was some difficulty finding the perfect artist for it because whosoever put pen to paper here would have to be comfortable on some level with incorporating math into the art. Many is the artist who would shy away from that demand. Not Ms. Pham. She takes to the medium like a duck to water, seemingly effortlessly weaving equations, charts, diagrams, numbers, and theorems into pictures that also have to complement the story, feature the faces of real people, capture a sense of time (often through clothing) and place (often through architecture), and hardest of all, be fun to look at.

But that’s just for starters. The final product is MUCH more complex. I’m not entirely certain what the medium is at work here but if I had to guess I’d go with watercolors. Whatever it is, Pham’s design on each page layout is extraordinary. Sometimes she’ll do a full page, border to border, chock full of illustrations of a single moment. That might pair with a page of interstitial scenes, giving a feel to Paul’s life. Or consider the page where you see a group of diners at a restaurant, their worlds carefully separated into dotted squares (a hat tip to one of Paul’s puzzles) while Paul sits in his very own dotted pentagon. It’s these little touches that make it clear that Paul isn’t like other folks. All this culminates in Pham’s remarkable Erdős number graph, where she outdoes herself showing how Paul intersected with the great mathematicians of the day. Absolutely stunning.

Both Heiligman and Pham take a great deal of care to tell this tale as honestly as possible. The extensive “Note From the Author” and “Note From the Illustrator” sections in the back are an eye-opening glimpse into what it takes to present a person honestly to a child audience. In Pham’s notes she concedes when she had to illustrate without a guide at hand. For example, Paul’s babysitter (“the dreaded Faulein”) had to be conjured from scratch. She is the rare exception, however. Almost every face in this book is a real person, and it’s remarkable to look and see Pham’s page by page notes on who each one is.

Heiligman’s author’s note speaks less to what she included and more to what she had to leave out. She doesn’t mention the fact that Paul was addicted to amphetamines and honestly that sort of detail wouldn’t have served the story much at all. Similarly I had no problem with Paul’s father’s absence. Heiligman mentions in her note what the man went through and why his absences would make Paul’s mother the “central person in his life emotionally”. The book never denies his existence, it just focuses on Paul’s mother as a guiding force that was perhaps in some way responsible for the man’s more quirky qualities. The only part of the book that I would have changed wasn’t what Heiligman left out but what she put in. At one point the story is in the midst of telling some of Paul’s more peculiar acts as a guest (stabbing tomato juice cartons with knives, waking friends up at 4 a.m. to talk math, etc.). Then, out of the blue, we see a very brief mention of Paul getting caught by the police when he tried to look at a radio tower. That section is almost immediately forgotten when the text jumps back to Paul and his hosts, asking why they put up with his oddities. I can see why placing Paul in the midst of the Red Scare puts the tale into context, but I might argue that there’s no real reason to include it. Though the Note for the Author at the end mentions that because of this act he wasn’t allowed back in the States for a decade, it doesn’t have a real bearing on the thrust of the book. As they say in the biz, it comes right out.

I have mentioned that this book is a boon for the math-lovers of the world, but what about the kids who couldn’t care diddly over squat about mathy malarkey? Well, as far as I’m concerned the whole reason this book works is because it’s fun. A little bit silly too, come to that. Even if a kid couldn’t care less about prime numbers, there’s interest to be had in watching someone else get excited about them. We don’t read biographies of people exactly like ourselves all the time, because what would be the point of that? Part of the reason biographies even exist is to grant us glimpses into the lives of the folks we would otherwise never have the chance to meet. Your kid may never become a mathematician, but with the book they can at least hang out with one.

One problem teachers have when they teach math is that they cannot come up with a way to make it clear that for some people mathematics is a game. A wonderful game full of surprises and puzzles and queries. What The Boy Who Loved Math does so well is to not only show how much fun math can be on your own, it makes it clear that the contribution Paul Erdős gave to the world above and beyond his own genius was that he encouraged people to work together to solve their problems. Heiligman’s biography isn’t simply the rote facts about a man’s life. It places that life in context, gives meaning to what he did, and makes it clear that above and beyond his eccentricities (which admittedly make for wonderful picture book bio fare) this was a guy who made the world a better place through mathematics. What’s more, he lived his life exactly the way he wanted to. How many of us can say as much? So applause for Heiligman and Pham for not only presenting a little known life for all the world to see, but for giving that life such a magnificent package as this book. A must purchase.

On shelves June 25th

Source: Advanced readers galley sent from publisher for review.

Like This? Then Try:

• On a Beam of Light: The Story of Albert Einstein by Jennifer Berne, illustrated by Vladimir Radunsky

• Play, Mozart, Play by Peter Sis

• Me . . . Jane by Patrick McDonnell

• Odd Boy Out: Young Albert Einstein by Don Brown

Misc:

• Read what Ms. Heiligman had to say about the book on a recent NYPL panel Ethics in Nonfiction for Kids.