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My first instinct, when I saw these stains, was to freak. No, I knew it wasn’t blood. But markers are NOT allowed in bedrooms in our house! Especially not in bedrooms furnished with handmade patchworks! Especially not with mystery markers that may not be washable!
When I calmed down, I thought about my options. I could try to get the stains out, but with the mystery markers, there’s no telling what would happen. I saw visions of a splotchy pink stain covering half the duvet.
I finally decided to cut them out and replace them with appliques.
I like the results. I’ve been interested lately in mending that’s meant to be attractive, not invisible. Annekata has done several posts about beautiful mending, like this one. There’s a word in Japanese (wabi sabi) for the imperfect beauty of objects with a history. You’ll get the idea from this wabi sabi Pinterest page. It’s full of the most beautiful mending you’ve ever seen. I love to watch fibers age and weather.
For more of my patchwork projects, including more pics of this one, click here.
I’ve been working on a new dress. So far, so good, if I can just master the zipper. Crossing fingers.
Still reading Quiet and also This One is Mine by Maria Semple. Looking forward to the Austenland movie next month!
By:
Aline Pereira,
on 5/18/2009
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Celebrations are in full-swing for Asian Heritage Month which is celebrated in both Canada and the USA during the month of May. This a time to honor the legacy of generations of Asian Canadians and Asian Americans who have enriched their country’s history and are instrumental in its future success. It is a time to participate in festivities that celebrate the many achievements and contributions of Asians who, throughout history, have done so much to make Canada and the USA the culturally diverse, compassionate and prosperous nations we know today.
As part of their celebrations for Asian American Heritage Month, the Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association announced the winner and honor books in the 2009 Asian/Pacific American Awards for Literature. These awards promote Asian/Pacific American culture and heritage based on literary and artistic merit, and our congratulations go out to Wabi Sabi, written by Mark Reibstein and illustrated by Ed Young, which won the picture book award. Back in 2008, PaperTiger bloggers Marj and Aline were thrilled to see the proofs for Wabi Sabi at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair and Marj posted a great review of Wabi Sabi here.
Winners have also been announced in the Growing Up Asian in America Art and Essay contest, which is open to students in grades K - 12 who reside in the San Francisco area. This year’s theme was “Change- If you could change one thing to make the world a better place, what would that be?”. I was especially drawn to Claire Dworsky’s essay entitled Change Your Assumptions in which she wrote:
To me, growing up Asian is the same as any kid most of the time. I go to school, gymnastics, soccer, play with my dog, play outside – normal stuff.
But sometimes other people say things that make me feel sad or different. They make fun of my eyes and call me Chinese. They yell, “Hey Chinois!” They ask questions that aren’t really questions, like “Are you really adopted?” I say “Yes I was adopted from Kayakhstan, a country between Russia and China. I can show you on a map if you want.” But they’re really using these questions to make fun of me. And it’s even worse. When Asian girls pick on me by saying “Oh, you have blue eyes you think you are all that.” Racism is hurtful, no matter who says it.
Claire concludes her essay with a powerful statement that all of us, young and old, should take to heart: “When you know how it feels to be discriminated against you should use that feeling to imagine how others feel, and change yourself so you can help others.” The winning entries of the Growing Up Asian in America contest will be on exhibit at several locations throughout the Bay Area until February 2010. Click here to see the schedule.
I've been thinking more lately about what "child friendly" means in terms of children's books, and if it's a valid assessment to evaluate a book. This comes partially out of that old Newbery discussion, and partially because I've found myself using that criticism regarding some books (that will remain nameless). "I liked the book" I've said, "But I just couldn't see kids getting into it." But of course, when that same criticism is made about a book I've edited, I bristle. Who are they to say that a book isn't child friendly? They're underestimating children. A book that some kids hate, others will love. I know this! We all know this! There is a very wide range of work that can be child friendly.
So, shame on me.
I'm fairly out of touch with what kids think of the books I edit, especially picture books. I do give books to kids I know and watch them interact with them, but these occasions are few and far between. I'm mainly drawing on my memory of the types of books I loved as a kid, the ones I read over and over again, and hope that there are kids today that have the same type of sensibility I had/have. (For novels, in terms of feedback, teens will write reviews and post them on blogs. We also get feedback from our hip scouts. Six-year-olds don't generally have blogs.)
One specific example of a book whose child friendliness is in question is Wabi Sabi by Mark Reibstein and Ed Young. Perhaps you've heard of it? (I write about it enough, don't I?) I know that there are people who find this to be a book more for adults, or older kids, but from the moment I read an early draft of the manuscript, I had faith that younger kids would love this story about a cat trying to find out the meaning of her name, and that kids would also respond to the gorgeous collage illustrations. Not every kid, of course, but many of them. And now that the book has been out about six months, the only evidence I have to go on is from what people tell me and from the reviews I read. Some of the reviews on Amazon vary from:
My favorite seven-year-old girl bookworm (and cat lover) begged me to stop reading it at about page three. And my favorite nine-year-old boy bookworm and ravenous reader wanted nothing to do with it.
to:
My four-year old grandson enjoyed the story as did his nine-year old sister.
and:
What a wonderful way to expose a young audience to meaningful simplicity. One reviewer said this wasn't a children's book but I guess it depends on the child. Curled up in bed with his dog and his cat my son pays rapt attention to this story.
One of my
favorite reviews was one I read recently online. Here is the bit regarding its child appeal:
This is not your ordinary children’s book. But nevertheless, my almost 3-year old was completely absorbed as I read haiku after haiku. Sometimes I mistakenly believe that complex thoughts and art are beyond my toddler. But really I think if we as adults could appreciate art and words like a toddler must, we might have an unanticipated deep understanding of truth. That is, in one sense, the beauty of wabi sabi.
One thing I've been thinking about lately is how we in publishing will categorize books as "institutional" versus "commercial"--which maybe is another way of saying: "will sell mainly in libraries" versus "will sell mainly in bookstores" and also: "the type of books teachers and librarians need to introduce to a kid in order for him or her to like it" versus "truly kid friendly." I always hope that the books I edit will be successful in both ways, but generally, when I'm acquiring a book I do believe that it will be more successful in one over the other. And in the case of
Wabi Sabi, I'm sure my publisher thought it would have more institutional appeal. But now, as it reaches its
tenth week on the NYTimes Bestseller list, we've realized that it has become a true commercial hit (not that it hasn't been a success institutionally, too!).
Anyway, I suppose when people say "child friendly" they mean, "will be liked by
most children." A good example would be the
four "butt" books that Alison Morris highlighted on her PW blog recently (my personal favorite is the last one,
Chicken Butt by Erica Perl, illustrated by Henry Cole).
It would be an interesting study to see how many kids, when forced to choose between
Chicken Butt and
Wabi Sabi, would choose the latter. If any of you lovely blog readers want to do a test study, I'd love to hear the results!
A question: have you ever been surprised by a book, either one that you thought would be a no-brainer in terms of kids liking it, but they turned out to not be interested, or vice versa--a book you were pretty sure they would hate, that it turned out that they loved?
By:
Aline Pereira,
on 1/4/2009
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If you haven’t already found your way to the Cybils shortlists, then head on over there and check them out.
The pannelists had a huge number of books to read this year - word is definitely getting round! - and now the judges have some tough choices to make.
I’m delighted to see that Wabi Sabi made it through to the finals - now we’ll just have to wait and see!
Meanwhile, there are lots of books there that we haven’t read yet, and several are going straight on to our books-waiting-to-be-read lists - such as Wangari’s Trees of Peace: A True Story from Africa by Jeanette Winter (non-fiction picture-books); and Alvin Ho by Lenore Look and The London Eye Mystery by Siobhan Dowd (both in the Middle Grade Fiction category).
Happy reading, everyone - especially if you’re a Cybils judge!
By:
Aline Pereira,
on 10/19/2008
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We will be publishing a full review of Wabi Sabi by Mark Reibstein with art by Ed Young in our next issue of PaperTigers so I’m not going to say much now - except that it is stunning and enriching, a gentle, heart-warming delight that lends itself to being read aloud in many different ways! It had already been nominated for a Fiction Picture Book Cybils Award by the time I got round to it (as had a couple of others on my list, making decisions much easier… I finally plumped for Colors! ¡Colores!, which I blogged about last week…).
We’ve been waiting for Wabi Sabi to come out for a while – and one of Aline’s and my thrills at the Bologna Book Fair in April was being shown the proofs for the book by Andrew Smith at Little, Brown and Company, where we learnt that we were not looking at the original but at the second version of art-work…
Yes, this book has an amazing, Wabi Sabi-esque story behind it. It’s hard to explain but Alvina, over at Blue Rose Girls, is the book’s editor and has blogged about its amazing story in four installments – read from Number 1 now! In the meantime, here’s what she says about what Wabi Sabi actually means:
Mark spent some time living in Japan, and while there he was introduced to the concept of wabi sabi. He asked many people about it, and they all paused and said, “That’s hard to explain.” but they would offer a poem, or a photograph, a small description, and gradually, Mark began to piece together the meaning of wabi sabi.
So, what is wabi sabi? Well, as I understand it, it is a Japanese philosophical belief in finding beauty in the imperfect, the unexpected, in simplicity and modesty. For example, a old, cracked clay tea cup is wabi sabi, but a fine china cup is not. Fallen leaves in muddy water is wabi sabi. A scruffy, multi-colored cat can be wabi sabi. Mark actually named his cat in Japan Wabi Sabi!
Her final post on the subject came out on Monday and has had me chuckling aloud – but only after I knew the outcome. All’s well, that ends well! Phew – if ever a book has gone through a parallel journey in real life, this is it!
Read Parts 1, 2, and 3.
I last left off when the lost art for
Wabi Sabi was found. The book printed beautifully, and it's now out in stores and has received two starred reviews so far, including one from Kirkus:
Reibstein's plain yet poetic text, which deftly incorporates original and traditional Japanese haiku, works harmoniously with Young's deceptively simple, vertically oriented collages of natural and manmade materials to create their own wabi sabi. Simply beautiful.
Our marketing department decided to make a short (3-5 minutes or so) video for the book to be distributed to some key accounts and also be posted on our website. We wanted to include the story of the lost art in the video, and as both versions of the art were at my office, I was to bring the art up to Ed's studio for the filming.
My assistant Connie carefully packaged up all the art so it would be manageable for me to carry by myself on the Metro North train. The film guy was due to arrive at Ed's studio at 3 pm, so I got on the train that arrived around 2:30. I had a rushed morning and no time for lunch, so I picked something up at Grand Central. The train was fairly empty at that time of day, and I had a row of seats to myself, but as I was about to eat some messy pasta, I thought it best to put the art on the overhead luggage rack to keep it safe and clean.
It was an uneventful trip, and I arrived at Ed's town right on schedule, gathered up all my stuff, and went out to find Ed who was picking me up. I saw him on the other end of the platform with his car and waved gaily at him. He waved back but had a bit of a perturbed look on his face. He put his hand out in a "what happened?" gesture, and all of a sudden, I knew.
I had left the art on the train.
I HAD LEFT THE ART ON THE TRAIN THAT HAD ALREADY PULLED OUT OF THE STATION.
ohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygodohmygod
"You left the art on the train?" Ed asked, with just a flash of irritation. Luckily for me, Ed is so Zen and understanding, and considering that he had been the one to lose the art in the first place, was even more understanding. Although, one might say this should have made him be less understanding--after all that the art had been through, how could I have been so careless?
"We'll get it back," he said. "It happens."
My mind was racing, trying to figure out what to do. I called information to get the MTA lost and found number. They informed me that they couldn't call the train because of federal regulations, but that when the train reached the end of the line, anything remaining on the train would be taken off, and would eventually be sent back down to the lost and found office in Grand Central. But I couldn't wait that long--we had a taping in 30 minutes! They said I could try the MTA police. I called Connie and she got on the case. In the meantime, I decided to get on the next train up (about 20 minutes later) and follow the art to the last stop, which luckily wasn't too far--about a half hour away.
Connie called and said that she spoke to the MTA police and that they were calling someone to check the train, and would call back to let her know the station where the package would be held. In the meantime, I also enlisted the help of the train ticket taker. When he took my ticket, I asked him if he was able to call other trains. He paused. "Why? What happened?" He asked. I explained my story. I told him that the MTA police was on the case. He shook his head. "They're not going to do anything," he said, "Let me see what I can do. I'll make some calls." He asked me some specific questions--which train, which car was I sitting in, what did the package look like, etc. I saw him making calls, but he had no news. Then he told me that at the very least, he now knew where the train was parked, and he would go on the train himself to look for the package when we arrived at the final station.
One stop away, he came up to me. "Someone will be waiting for us at the end of the platform," he said. "They have the package."
"THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!" I was so relieved and happy and grateful. I looked at him and blurted out, "Do you have any kids?"
His face lit up. "Two boys! Ages 2 and 5!"
"Perfect!" I said, "Give me your address. I'm going to send you a box of books for them."
"No, don't worry about it, I'm just doing my job."
But I felt that he had gone above and beyond. And it was the least I could do.
I got the package, called Ed, and hopped on the next train heading back. It turned out that the filmmaker had gotten lost and had arrived after 3:30. The train would get me back around 4. We were only an hour off schedule. The filmmaker, Ed, and I all had a good laugh about it. Of course, it was easy to laugh now that the art was safe and sound again.
The taping went quite well--here are a few pictures I took:
(Ed holding a wabi sabi material that he used in the art)
Half of the art stayed safely with Ed, and half of the art returned safely with me to the office for scanning. I kept it on my lap the whole ride back.
This video is still being edited--I saw a rough cut of it last week and it looks really great so far (Mark Reibstein was also interviewed in a separate taping out in California). I'll share it with all of you as soon as it's ready.
And that is the final chapter of my Wabi Sabi story. So far.
Oh, the stories that art could tell...
By:
Aline Pereira,
on 4/13/2008
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Ah, Bologna!
Aline and I have much to tell about our fantastic trip to the Bologna Children’s Book Fair at the beginning of this month. There really is no better event to take the pulse of the children’s book publishing world: and what a world that is!
We’ve met so many interesting people and enjoyed putting faces to names of organisations and publishers; we’ve attended inspiring presentations; and have been dazzled by the quality and endlessly varied styles of the illustrations we’ve come across, both in the books we have browsed through and as part of the fair’s special exhibits. The overall impression was of immense industry – people in deep discussion, buying and selling rights; looking through artists’ portfolios; rushing between presentations – what a buzz!
Over the next few weeks, Aline and I will be posting on a variety of topics. In the meantime, here are some of the highlights for us, in no particular order:
Looking at the proofs for Ed Young’s new book, Wabi Sabi (written by Mark Reibstein);
Meeting librarians from all over the world at a session organised by the IFLA (International Federation of Libraries Associations and Institutions) – so lively that we were asked to be quiet…! – and hearing IBBY President and Canadian Groundwood Books publisher, Patricia Aldana’s presentation entitled “Books as Mirrors”;
Attending the launch of the International Youth Library’s White Ravens 2008 catalog;
Listening to poets Michael Rosen (UK Children’s Laureate) and Jorge Lujan’s contributions to a panel titled “Poetry Break: Poetry in Children’s Books”;
Attending the award-presentation of the Bologna Raggazzi “New Horizons” Award to Chennai-based Tara Publishing, for the hand-made book The Nightlife of Trees, and watching how the book came into being;
Hearing illustrators Robert Ingpen and Paul O. Zelinsky talk about their contributions to the book Artist to Artist: 23 Major Illustrators Talk to Children About Their Art (the proceeds of which go to the Eric Carl Museum of Picture Book Art.)…
Well, I could just keep going – and I will. And so will Aline: so keep coming back as the full picture unfolds…
The trouble is, you can't talk about something like tonight without sounding either like a namedropping ass who is tremendously pleased with himself, or like someone with no soul, or both ("did Radio 3's The Verb, then junket at Claridges, then premiere, nipped over to Bafta screening for Q&A, then small afterparty. And so to bed").
So I'm going to tell you my favourite part of the evening, which was talking to Kate Magowan about Una (which is the part she plays in the film), and her calling over her husband to meet me, a husband who turned out to be John Simm, who interrupted my stumbling burbles of "ulp Life on Mars erk The Master" with his own starry-eyed "glunk The Sandman!" and pointed out that that meant he'd been a fan of mine for much longer than I'd been a fan of his so hahah and there you go.
I sort of floated out of there, after that. Holly said it was the alcohol, and she may have been right but honestly I do not think so.
(I just googled for photos of the event, and found http://icydk.com/2007/10/03/michelle-pfeiffer-at-the-stardust-uk-premiere-in-london-october-3/ and http://www.flickr.com/photos/sky-news/tags/stardust/ More will turn up tomorrow I have no doubt.)
I saw lots of old friends, and I had a wonderful time, and I am glad that I had my family here, and now I am going to sleep excuse me.
Alvina,
A number of years ago, one of my second grade students, a girl, told me that her favorite illustrator was Thomas Locker. She had fallen in love with his paintings in a poetry book that I kept in my classroom--SNOW TOWARD EVENING, with poems selected by Josette Frank. The illustrations in the book are oil paintings of landscapes that look like they should be hanging on the walls of a fine arts museum.
I guess one never knows what book, what text, what kinds of illustrations may speak to a child. That's why it's good tohave such a variety of writers and artists creating picture books for kids.
In my opinion, WABI SABI is a book for people of all ages.
I feel strongly that publishers should be publishing picture books for older kids. They love them. When I was a school librarian, I often read picture books aloud to my fourth graders--and they relished sitting and listening to great stories and looking at the illustrations.
Great post!
I will think about this question and answer it in a minute.. the first thing that came to mind is an experiment our school librarian did.
I was in 6th grade. She read (and showed) our class two picture book versions of the same story (song?) that had been published in the same year. Then she asked us which we liked better.
EVERY SINGLE KID -- including me - liked the same book.
Then she told us that every class had responded the same way and that the OTHER book's illustrations had won a big prize.
Could it have been the Caldecott? I don't remember the name of the book, or the story, except that it was I think a song and the last line was:
"Daddy better go back again 'cause it must a mighty fine town-o, town-o, town-o."
This is going to sound really self-serving; but it's true, The firs time i ever met Adam, I brought a big stack of books with me (explaining to him that since I didn't know him I didn't know what he liked) and he could have ONE. He looked at them all really carefully and finally -- after much thought -- chose MY NEW YORK. Then I told him I had written it (for those blog readers who don't know: I ghostwrote this book so my name isn't on it and I certainly didn't tell Adam).
Another time, he came over and I let him choose a book to read. He chose ALIENS and LOVED the story. It made a huge impression on him -- he was SHOCKED that the people believed the radio story. And he loved the fact that it was true.
Another surprise: I gave an eleven-year old in town (a girl who's very hip and has parents who don't read much -- she doesn't either) a copy of THE SECRET GARDEN and she loved it. My neice loved HARRIET THE SPY and her mother, my sister, then said that had been her favorite book in 4th grade, which I had either never known or forgotten.
Other surprises? I gave an eleven-year old a copy of THE GOLDEN COMPASS and she stopped reading after 10 pages: she said it was "too scarey." She and I like a lot of the same books and this really surprised me.
Fun question and I hope my answer isn't way too long!
LIbby
PS Elaine, I absolutely agree!
I loved Wabi Sabi but I also love ”NG’s Newberry Book”
I even blogged about this Newberry Award winning book on my blogsite today. My husband loved it too and now my 24 year old son is reading it. Okay, so we are a family of Peter Pans - we never grew up but we all love Neil's books.
Dear Alvina,
My name is Thomi Liebich. I'm a big fan of Wabi Sabi, and it's been a great pleasure to read your lively blog about its long journey toward publication. To continue the journey of the book beyond the English language, I would like to contribute a German translation of the story.
As a native German, with all of my family still living in Germany, I sometimes translate English books that I want to share with them, if German translations don't exist.
For Christmas, I sent out five copies of Wabi Sabi to members of my family in Germany, promising that I would send a translation soon. I must say that, at the time, especially the prospect of translating Haiku felt daunting. I have a nuanced second draft of the translation completed now and feel quite happy with the result, almost surprised (the way writing sometimes happens).
I hope there are plans to publish Wabi Sabi in Germany. If that's the case, I would like to offer my translation for that publication.
I'm a public school teacher of English, Art, and German with a Bachelor's Degree in English and an MFA in painting and drawing. For about eight years, I have been studying Haiku, together with Taoism and Buddhism, which allows me to bring my knowledge and experience to the translation-table.
Here are example translations of the three Haiku composed by Wabi Sabi, in order:
Gelber Bambus beugt
Sich tief vor der Teehaustuer --
so auch der Kaiser.
Dunkle Gebaeude
Schwimmen auf weissen Sandseen.
Kiesel singt im Bach.
Ein Moench streut Blaetter
Ueber frischgeharkten Sand.
Jetzt versteht sie es.
I don't know if you are personally involved with the publication of this particular book in languages other than English, but I hope that you could help me get in touch with such a person or the author, so I can offer a full presentation of my translation.
My email address is [email protected]
My home phone # is 801.363.3878
My cell phone # is 801.503.2958
Thank you for reading. I hope to hear from you soon.
Sincerely,
Thomi Liebich
I think Robert Munsch's "Love You Forever" could be considered a surprise. I don't think children view the book as a favorite, and adults are torn between love it, hate it but it continues to be a best seller since /86. PW named it an all time best seller for paperback, over 6,970,000 copies and not including the hardcover sales, well over 1,00,000.
Children do, however, love the song.
On the flip side, I think there are probably a lot of parents who are not fans of "Walter the Farting Dog" yet kids are and it is a commercial success.
It is very hard to know which books children are loving, since adults buy them. I suppose the best gauge we have is our own local librarians.
Funny that you posted this today. I was in a bookstore this very weekend and was happy to see Wabi Sabi. As I walked closer, two women stepped in front of me and were also headed to the same book. I let them go ahead and I was listening to their comments.
One woman was saying she liked it and the other was saying she didn't think it was for kids, and didn't like the design because she thought the way it opened was cumbersome for a kid.
I was standing right there, and I couldn't help myself. I said that as a mom of 4 and as an artist I think it is beautiful. Daring to be different, and opening minds up to what a book can be. Outside the box thinking. Not everyone in the world reads left to right after all. I write arts in education programs for my school visits and wabi sabi is a perfectly timed concept for where we are in our nation's situation today to teach children to see beauty in the ordinary... .. I love the youtube clip with Ed Young, so much so, that I rethought my studio space when I saw his studio!
As an artist in residence it is my job to create art with students that has curriculum relevance and here is a beautiful book, a work of art, and a wonderful learning tool.
Not a book for ONLY children, but a book to soak up WITH children. I think it is wonderful and I hope that many other people can see that too!
Laura
(sorry this is so long.)
It would be an interesting study to see how many kids, when forced to choose between Chicken Butt and Wabi Sabi, would choose the latter.
Another study that would be interesting would be to set up "Chicken Butt" or "Wabi Sabi" beside the Presidential books listed on the Times page and see which children choose. As a child I really don't think I would have begged my mother to buy a picture book about a president.
Granted one of the books is intended for "all ages" which makes me wonder, should it still be called a picture book even though it has pictures?
I will have to look for it at our local Chapters to form a fair opinion.
Then there are books that, for one reason or another, score huge with adults AND children. The most recent success that always comes to my mind is the "Scardey Squirrel" series by Melanie Watt. Two years ago I was at the OLA convention in Toronto, standing near the KidsCan booth. Suddenly two Library Tech's flew past me, to get to the soon to be released copy of Scardey on the publishers shelf. They were flipping through the pages and laughing to each other over every sentence and commenting on how funny and cute the little nerotic cartoon squirrel was.
I love the books too and we talked about the first book for a while. They said they had a huge waiting list at their libraries for it, it had been a year and it had never touched the shelf.
First, I need to echo Elaine in saying that I'd also like to good picture books for older readers - and that's how I saw Wabi Sabi. Not as a preschool book - though some young kids may like it too. We need to stop saying that picture book equals preschool book, because then a different definition of child-friendly comes into play.
Wabi Sabi made it on the Cybils Fiction Picture Book shortlist with some of the same reservations you mentioned about being kid friendly - which is actually in the Cybils award criteria. But the end thought was that it would certainly be enjoyed by many kids and needed to be on the list.
For what it's worth, I loved the background story about it and I loved the book. It's simply beautiful and I'm glad that you brought it to us.
I was actually just thinking about this sort of issue myself tonight, although not in nearly so eloquent a way. My son is only 15 months old, but I'm often surprised by best selling favorites that he refuses to look at. I struggle with whether to review them or admit this in our reviews, because it seems sort of unfair to punish the author with a bad review from one fickle toddler. A few examples from the top of my head (from authors who can withstand the criticism!): Is Your Mama a Llama (after 100 or so attempts, he's slightly better about this one now), Guess How Much I Love You (never more than a page or two), the Runaway Bunny (forget it, can't even get through one page)...
Thanks all for these anecdotes--and thanks for the compliments for WABI SABI--I wasn't fishing, I swear!
Infant Bibliophile, what are the books your toddler loves? (I assume there are some!)
Christine, I LOVE YOU FOREVER is certainly polarizing, but I would say that many more love it than hate it. I was always surprised by how many people (adults) asked for it when I worked at B&N, although I don't know what kids thought of it.
Alvina,
Hmm, some current favorites include:
Bubblebath Pirates
Goodnight Moon
In The Town All Year 'Round
Richard Scarry's Biggest Word Book Ever
Counting Colors
Hand, Hand Fingers Thumb
Nina Laden's board books
Moo Baa Lalala
A Lion in the Meadow
I could go on forever, but you can see all of our reviews on our site (http://infantbibliophile.blogspot.com) - not fishing for traffic, but I include a section for his perspective in each review.
I have learned through the years both through personal experience as a parent, in gifting books and through working a couple of college summers in a bookmobile setting as well as through my work at RIF there are SO many factors that go into "child friendliness" or a child's affinity for a particular book or lack of desire to read it, hear it, check it out, buy it. My nieces and nephews tell me books their children would not previously touch are genuine favorites when it arriving as a gift from Aunt Carol which puts some real pressure on me to choose a variety of genres! Thank you for a great post!
I LOVE YOU FOREVER is certainly polarizing, but I would say that many more love it than hate it. I was always surprised by how many people (adults) asked for it when I worked at B&N, although I don't know what kids thought of it.
There have to be more love then hate votes for sure Alvina, can't argue with 8 million copies sold, for sure. I know that at every baby shower, someone will enevitably give a copy of "LYF" to the expectant mom. It brings the strongest of us to tears (or at least a lump in the throat)
I don't "think" many kids love the book, at least not enough to ask to buy it. I think it is more bought FOR them, sort of a see, see how much you'll miss me when I'm gone, so be good!!!!:)
My granddaughters favorite books as a toddler were ALL of Sandra Boynton's little board books. The humour got to her, through the simple words and the cartoons.
She's 3 now, and sadly she only likes Dora. Mass market kid!
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Ruth
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