Books I Wish I Had Written #2: Billy and Milly Short and Silly
Perhaps I should change this series to "Books I Admire and Want to Learn From". I'm featuring books I think are brilliant--books that I want to learn more about what I think makes them great. Last summer Candice Ransom encouraged us to type up the text of favorite picture books and study them. It helps to see the text without the pictures (if you are a writer-only) to see what makes these books "tick".
Billy & Milly Short & Silly
by Eve B. Feldman
illustrated by Tuesday Mourning
Penguin, 2009
This book comes in at a whopping 49 words. In the class I took last summer on picture books, we had to keep our manuscripts under 500 words. You can see why. So many of the phenomenal picture books being published are super short.
This text is told in individual words, grouped in threes or fours that tell the story. "Tee Tree Bee Flee" is on one spread. The illustrations show Billy hitting a golf ball off a tee, smacking the ball into a bee's nest in a tree, then running away when the bees come after him.
The first time I read this book I honestly thought it was an author/illustrator book. I thought--this text is brilliant, but I know it didn't sell on text alone because the pictures tell way more than a typical picture book. But I was wrong. The text and illustrations are by different people. Then I thought--even more brilliant!
Each set of words rhymes, and each set of words tells its own episode in Billy or Milly's world.
WHY I WISH I HAD WRITTEN IT: It's amazingly short, but each word works perfectly. The text allows for a lot of illustrative interpretation.
I definitely want to give this super-short text idea a whirl.
Books I Wish I Had Written: #1
I begin a new series of reviews on books entitled "Books I Wish I Had Written". While I was writing in the picture book marathon in February, I read lots of picture books to keep my mind in the "picture book mode." I came across quite a few books that I thought were utterly brilliant and I wish I had written. I will feature them and more as I come across them.
Chicken CheeksWritten by Michael Ian Black
Illustrated by Kevin Hawkes
Simon & Schuster, 2009
My ten-month-old was fighting a nap. I sat down with a pile of picture books I had requested from the library. He loves to listen and look at the pictures of books. In fact, he gets down right vocally angry if you leave him out of a book. If my daughter and I are reading a book, he will crawl over and grunt and make loud noises until we let him in.
Chicken Cheeks was next in the pile. I hate chickens. They are my one intense fear in life. I'll save my sob story of roosters clawing at my legs and leaving welps for another time when we talk about why I'm scarred for life over chickens.
But I was willing to give
Chicken Cheeks a chance because the cover is so darn funny. Really funny. And my son was enthralled with the bright colors.
This book is HILARIOUS--LMBO hilarious!!!! It's all about BUTTS of animals, but not in explicit detail. In fact you will never find the word BUTT in the book. Instead you see "moose caboose" and "toucan can" and "flamingo fanny" among others. In this 43 word picture book, you will probably read nearly every CLEAN word for butt you can think of. All paired with Kevin Hawkes bright, silly animal illustrations.
This book has to go back to the library soon because I owe nearly $30 in fines for overdue books. But, my little ten-month-old, who kept pointing and smiling at EVERY picture will probably find his very own copy of this book in his Easter basket.
WHY I WISH I HAD WRITTEN IT: It's brilliant. It's short. It's funny. ALL IN ONE BOOK!
