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Developers want to replace the bookshop with a supermarket but hope arrives when an energetic and powerful superhero, Origami Girl, folds herself out of a newspaper delivery boy’s bag. She summons an army of friends out of the pages on the shelves of the bookshop and local library, and when builders and the local bigwig come face to face with characters they themselves loved in the books they read as children, do you think they can still continue with their plans to bulldoze the bookshop?
There’s so much to enjoy in this optimistic and not a-political picture book. From the very first illustration, which I’m sure is semi-autobiographical (Foreman himself was a newspaper delivery boy, and the blue and white scarf is perhaps a nod to his life-long support of Chelsea football club), to the final pages showing a completely different building project which really serves the local community, each spread from Foreman has something to make readers smile and feel empowered.
The story arc reminds me of Foreman’s piercing and brilliant War and Peas; Conflict and peaceful resolution are key themes throughout his oeuvre, perhaps unsurprisingly for one whose outlook on life has been so coloured by his experience of World War 2 and the Cold War (the former engagingly explored in War Boy).
Colour plays a powerful role in the illustrations in The Little Bookshop and the Origami Army. Yes, Foreman is known for his intense blue washes, and they are present here, but by counterpointing these with flashes time and again of rainbow hued details (the passing train, the children’s outfits, the railway bridge arches), the blue lifts and brightens, and the palette and composition of his spreads embody energy and hopefulness. For me, each rainbow splash is like a shaft of sunlight hitting the page.
Fictional characters coming to life have a long and wonderful history. Two of my favourite examples are to be found in Otto the Book Bear by Katie Cleminson and Eleanor’s Secret, a marvellous animated film which deserves to be much more widely known. Classics old and new are represented in Foreman’s visionary army, with McKee’s Elmer and Ross’ Little Princess marching alongside Alice, Puss in Boots, Toad of Toad Hall and many more, including some of Foreman’s favourites from earlier books of his. This playfulness seems to me a Foreman hallmark; when I interviewed him I was especially struck by the twinkle in his eye and joie de vivre. His sense of mischief shines through too: The spread showing politicians snoring in parliament is a hoot!
Unfortunately, the future for bookshops is not as bright and rainbow filled as Foreman’s rich book suggests. Just this week Saltaire Bookshop has announced that it may have to close in 6 months time, with takings currently averaging only £2 a day. The stats for the UK are bleak: Ten years ago there were 1,535 independent booksellers here, but by 2014 there were only 939. Interestingly, the situation in the US seems more hopeful: According to the American Booksellers Association, the number of independent bookshops (or should I say bookstores) in the U.S. has grown significantly in the last 5 years (figures differ, but if you’re interested, take a look here and here).
I can only encourage you to do your bit to ensure there continue to be local independent bookshops to feed our imaginations by getting your own copy of this loving ode to the impact books can have on us and the value of places which store stories for us all by seeking out your own copy of The Little Bookshop and the Origami Army. It will make your book-loving heart sing!
********************
Inspired by Foreman’s fabulous book we wanted to create our own bookshop full of origami characters. First we had to fill our shop with books, and not just any old books, but edible ones. These were made with little chewy sweets (fruit salads), but you could use any small individually wrapped rectangular sweet.
We also included in our inventory these enticing books:
I hope the image below gives you a good enough idea of how to make these books yourself. If you do use fruit salads or blackjacks (in the UK) you can use my printout for the words on the pages by downloading from here. Each double page spread is a excerpt from a different Grimm’s fairy tale so you can include everything from Rapunzel to The 12 Dancing Princesses in your bookshop.
The fairytale texts were attached to the sweets and book covers (small slips of cardboard) using tiny glue dots.The second type of book was made out of fig rolls (fig newtons) and strips of dried fruit / fruit leather (we used these), with writing icing to decorate the covers.
Once our bookshop stock was ready we had to build some shelves and create some origami characters to hide in amongst the books:
We used Densho Origami: Traditional Japanese Figures for Everyone to learn how to make origami figures. It was ideal for my 10 year old who quickly graduated to the more complex projects, but J, at 7, also found the instructions for the simpler patterns easy to follow.
Finally our bookshop had a grand opening. You can imagine how many books got eaten in the celebration!
Whilst making our little bookshop full with origami friends we listened to:
Indies! – For Independent Bookstores Everywhere. This is a parody of Lorde’s Royals.
All About Them Books! Another parody – this time of All About That Bass.
Reading (Happy Song) by Adreanna Clark
We also tried learning The Origami Song…. it’s surprisingly addictive!
Designing your own playground. I’m sure your kids will have loads of ideas about what would be in their ideal playground, but if you wanted some more ideas, you could show them this pinterest board with ideas.
Creating your own book bloc shields. These have an interesting and very real history, which I first learned about at the V&A’s exhibition Disobedient Objects. Full details on how to make your own can be found here (scroll down to the book block shields).
Disclosure: I received a free review copy of this book from the publishers.
If you liked this post you might also enjoy these other posts of mine:
April is National Poetry Month! All month long we’ll be celebrating by posting some of our favorite poems for Poetry Friday. For our final Poetry Friday post, we chose a poem from Dreaming Up: A Celebration of Building, written and illustrated by Christy Hale.
One by one,
block by block,
plastic shapes
interlock.
Yellow, red,
white, and black,
all connect
in a stack.
Build a world
brick by brick.
Hold them close.
Hear the click.
What are you reading for National Poetry Month? Let us know in the comments!
0 Comments on Poetry Friday: Dreaming Up as of 4/24/2015 12:21:00 PM
Sadly both author and illustrator are now deceased. Clavel was a French writer for both adults and young people who began his working life as a pastry cook apprentice, not becoming a full time writer until in his 40s. Nascimbene was born in France but studied at the School of Visual Arts in New York. Specialising in watercolour, he illustrated over 60 books and 300 book covers. You can see lots of examples of his work here.
But getting back to my dreams of building a castle with books, Clavel and Nascimbene’s picture book is a quiet meditation on turning dreams into reality. Benjamin has always wanted to live in a castle whilst his father, a poet, is always looking for just the right word or turn or phrase to include in his latest work.
Living in a house packed to the rafters with books, Benjamin realises he has the bricks he needs for his castle on the shelves in front of him and so sets to work taking books from the back of shelves (behind the second row of books at the front) so that his father won’t notice what is going on.
Once the castle is complete his father visits and is delighted because he rediscovers just the books he was looking for to help him with his latest poem. gently removing those ‘bricks’ from the castle walls.
Without realising it, Benjamin has helped his father, by bringing books hidden from view out into the light (I recognised myself here for I definitely discovered some long forgotten favourites last week as I handled all my books).
A gentle flight of fancy, with subtle and soothing illustrations, Castle of Books (unfortunately out of print) is a charming vision of a father-son relationship, and a testament to the inspiration to be found in books.
I’m so grateful to @storyvilled, who blogs about books for children and young people at https://specsisters.wordpress.com/ for telling me about this delightful book. If you know of a book you’d think I like, please don’t hesitate to get in touch!
3 Comments on Instead of a den, how about a castle built from books?, last added: 3/13/2015
It all began with a jokey conversation on Twitter.
Polly (who has her début collection of stories, Mango & Bambang: The Not-a-Pig, out this September, illustrated by Clara Vulliamy) shared a picture of an igloo built of books and from there, things pretty quickly spiralled out of control.
I just knew I had to build something out of books. It was one of those moments where you are vaguely aware that the idea is slightly bonkers but you know the thought won’t leave you alone until you succumb to it.
And so it was I set about planning to build a book den out of books, using the opportunity to raise some funds for a charity I’ve a long-standing relationship with, Book Aid International.
First I did my research and scoured the web for other buildings made from books.
Then I started stockpiling books from all over my home in one place.
It was rather disconcerting to see my shelves gradually empty.
I stocked up on coffee and cake and then World Book Day arrived.
It was time to start building.
The kitchen table was dismantled to create enough space for the den; I knew I wanted it to be large enough to comfortably sit inside and read.
Then building began in earnest. I used encyclopedias and other large non-fiction books to create foundations. The big Dorling Kindersley books were excellent for providing stability!
Although my hands got very dry handling all the books, and there were dust fairies flying everywhere, it was a sheer delight to go through my books, remembering when and where I’d read them, who had given them to me, who I’d given copies to. It was a little like watching my life on a screen before me, going through so many memories of people, places and times.
Much as I adore picture books, I soon learned that paperback picture books are not the best thing to build with; you need about a zillion to gain any height, and they tend to be rather slippy. Topsy and Tim books and Beatrix Potter books worked excellently for chinking, but the books I really loved building with were great tomes like SF Said’s Phoenix, or Marcus Alexander’s Charlie Keeper books; these are not only immensely satisfying to read, they give you a real sense of achievement and reliable strength when building!
My biggest worry in all the building was the roof. I really wanted to build using the fabulous technique seen in Maes Howe and other chambered cairns I’ve visited in Orkney, a technique known as corbelling (here’s a good example, and one I’m hoping to revisit this summer), but I felt that for safety’s sake I had to go for something more lightweight.
Thanks to inspiration from my engineer Dad I decided to give magazine and comic tiling a go instead. And I’m very pleased I did so! (Thanks, Dad!)
All in all, once the books were stockpiled, it took me about five hours to build. It’s only up for 24 hours, but we’ve made excellent use of it in this time.
We’ve eaten in it, read in it, simply relaxed in it, giggled in it and generally had a VERY good time!
Late last night I was going to treat myself to a glass of wine and a little bit of piece and quiet in it, but when I went into the kitchen I found my eldest has snuck out of bed to read in it!
I left her to it and took my wine elsewhere
And now it is the morning after the night before and shortly I’ll begin dismantling my dear book den. But what did I learn in the process? What are my top tips for building with books?
1. Prepare, prepare, prepare. Stockpile your books by approximate size for easy, level building.
2. Remove book covers. Dust jackets make books slippery when building.
3. Keep small or thin books in a separate pile – they are excellent for filling in little gaps and levelling things up.
4. Keep some moisturiser near by – as any librarian will probably tell you, handling lots of books, especially dusty books, can leave your hands very dry.
5. Give yourself time to stroke all your books. You’ll find books you’ve not looked at in years and you’ll want to sit down and re-live them.
6. Allow yourself more books than you think you will need; I had to raid some extra shelves as I was beginning to run out of books towards the end. I reckon I used about 1500 books and 40 odd magazines/comics to build this den (which easily accommodates two, with blankets, cushions and a small table).
NOW. Before you click on to your next blog or read your next email, here comes the serious bit.
I did all of this to raise funds for Book Aid International, and it’s not too late to add a small donation (you can donate from anywhere in the world, in several local currencies):
If you’ve ever enjoyed my blog or my banter on Twitter, please consider donating a small amount today. Book Aid International works in partnership with libraries in Africa, including in Zambia where I was born (hence my support of this charity), providing books, resources and training to support an environment in which reading for pleasure, study and lifelong learning can flourish.
I want to say an enormous THANK YOU to everyone who has already donated, including Daisy, Katherine, Anamaria, Elli, Zehra, Damyanti, Catherine, Polly, Jonathan, Ann, Helen, Anabel, Melanie, Abi, Book Island, my parents, my sister, Emma, Clare, Colin, Anne-Marie, Lizz, Natalie, Maxine, Sara, Kate, Bea, Tasha, Sam, Susie, Sandra, SF, Christine, James, Anne, Dan, @storyvilled, Alex, Nicky, @OlivaceousD and all the anonymous donors. YOU are the real stars in all of this.
3 Comments on Top tips on building with books and a BIG thankyou, last added: 3/6/2015
Oh Phil – do you know Castle of Books – a picture book about a boy who builds castles out of his dad’s books? Someone on twitter alerted me to it yesterday so I’ve just ordered it.
Zoe said, on 3/6/2015 3:56:00 AM
Thanks Claire, yes, fairy lights seem to make everything that bit more sparkly, don’t they?
Zoe said, on 3/6/2015 3:56:00 AM
It was enormous fun Rebecca. My arms/shoulders are aching a little from all the lifting, but it’s been worth it all.
To celebrate World Book Day 2015 and to support the work of Book Aid International, I’ll be spending most of Thursday 5 March 2015 creating utter chaos in my home, using hundreds of our books to build the largest book den I can.
As a reader of this blog, you’ll know that I’m utterly passionate about children’s books and doing crazy things inspired by them. It’s what gets me up in the morning. But building a large scale book den out of books is wackiest thing I’ve yet tried to do. I haven’t done a recent book count, but I reckon I’ve got about 3000 to play with, so that gives you some sense of the scale of the challenge.
It’s going to be pretty disruptive, probably physically knackering and quite possible a challenge to the laws of gravity so please donate to Book Aid International to make it all worthwhile! You can donate securely online here:
In sub-Saharan Africa 151 million people are illiterate. 72 million children still do not got to school, and most people simply cannot afford books of their own. But without literacy people are not able to access education or healthcare, their work opportunities are limited as are their opportunities for participation in the social, economic and political decisions which affect their lives.
Each year Book Aid International sends 500,000 brand new and carefully selected books to libraries in communities, schools, universities, prisons, cities and refugee camps and more. They also provide grants for purchasing books locally (especially those in local languages), and training and advice to ensure that books are targeted to the right groups of people and are well used.
When it comes to donations…
£2 will send one book to sub-Saharan Africa
£10 could send five dictionaries to a university library in Tanzania
£24 could send 12 health books to a community library in rural Eritrea
£60 could send 30 books to a refugee camp in Kenya
£100 could help purchase 70 HIV/AIDS awareness books for children
£380 will send a starter collection of 200 books to a community library
I’m aiming to raise £500.
I’ll be tweeting my progress throughout the day on March 5 (@playbythebook), and will then blog about it once the den is built and habitable. You can donate any time (before, during or after the build).
I first learned about Block Parties at ALA Annual 2013. The idea was to have kids come the library for a block building party. I knew I had to try this at my library, so I started our Block Parties during this year’s Summer Reading Program. They have become a huge hit and I am continuing the program after we had such a great success.
The Block Parties are easy to set up and run. The library has a large set of Legos already, but to add to the block collection, we purchased a set of wooden blocks and several sets of Duplos. I also have a large collection of styrofoam packing blocks from our computer packing (make friends with your IT staff!) that I use for block building. I also included other wooden blocks we had in our storyhour collection, shape sorters, foam blocks and any other block toys I had in our toy collection.
I put out all the blocks around the room and opened the doors for the kids to come build. Before we started, I read a book about building and talked about the types of things the kids could make with blocks. And then they were set free to build and use their imaginations to create whatever their hearts desired. I also put out a display of books on building and construction to give them ideas and hopefully keep the conversation about building and creating continuing at home.
The block parties run for an hour, but the kids would stay and build all afternoon if I let them! I’ve had success hosting them on Saturday mornings at 11am as well as Friday afternoons at 2pm. I roam the room talking to the kids about what they are creating and they are excited to show off their creations.
Our block parties are a fun, simple program that encourages creativity, imagination, and are a great way to get started in STEM programming. And with the partnership with LEGO DUPLO and ALSC with Read! Play! Build! this is the perfect time to start a block party of your own!
All the excitement surrounding The LEGO Movie sparked a renewed interest in the venerable building toys at my house. The following books that include all kinds of tips, ideas and techniques to re-purpose existing LEGO pieces for all sorts of fantastic creations.
Using pop-ups and a whole host of paper-engineering whizzery to bring to life exotically coloured urban scenes from cities both well known and surprising, this book has given us the dream ticket to travel the globe from the comfort of our sofa and duvets.
This book is no long, dry list of capital cities. In fact, it places locations together by type, creating interesting juxtapositions and taking you travelling via unexpected routes. For example you could travel London-Athens-Luxor-Xi’an-Dawson City (a historical cities tour), or Vatican City-Mecca-Varanasi-Salt Lake City (a religious cities tour). Perhaps Helsinki-San Fransico-Honolulu-Sydney-Cape Town (a coastal cities tour) is more your cup-of-tea. By grouping cities together by type the book explores answers to a question posed on its opening page, “Why do people live in cities?”, and what could have been a boring list of facts instead becomes a story with options and opportunities.
The 3-D city scapes are great fun, with lots of illustrative details partially hidden underneath and beside so that the views of the city are rich from which ever angle you look. We’ve enjoyed looking for photos which show the same city and seeing how closely the illustrations match real life; indeed I think the publishers, Templar, have missed a trick here in that they could have made this an internet-linked book (a little like many of Usborne’s non-fiction) as the facts and images have definitely left us hungry to find out more, amazed and intrigued by the facts and vistas inside this book’s covers.
“Further reading” (online or in a suggested bibligraphy) could also have provided background to the various statements throughout the book which are stripped of any (in its broadest sense) political commentary; mention is made of the Aral Sea and how it has shrunk but the causes of this change are not even hinted at. Likewise it is noted that the Dalai Lama used to live in Lhasa without any indication of why this is no longer the case. Some (adult) readers may feel it is better to leave such things out, but I believe facts work best when they are contextualised and linked to a bigger narrative – precisely why I think the themed grouping of cities works so well in this book.
A well produced, engagingly presented, and exciting book, My Pop-Up City Atlas will make young readers curious and no-doubt spark some wanderlust, quite possibly in their parents as well!
After reading My Pop-Up City Atlas we too wanted our own city to pop up at home and decided the best way to go about this was to use building blocks. But to give things a twist we first put our plain wooden blocks in the oven!
Once warm (about 10 minutes at 160C, starting from a cold oven), we illustrated our blocks with wax crayons, drawing windows, doors and other architectural features.
The warmth of the wooden blocks made the wax melt ever so slightly, creating a lovely feeling when colouring the blocks, and also an interesting effect with the oily wax melting slightly into the wood. Whilst the blocks were warm, it was easy to work them simply by holding them in a dishcloth. If they cooled too much in the time it took for us to decorate them, we just put them back in the oven for a couple of minutes.
Once our set of blocks was fully decorated, we laid down roads on the kitchen table, using masking tape…
And then it was time to start building architectural gems!
In no time at all an entire customised city had popped up in our kitchen. We used wooden blocks we already had (you quite often see them in charity shops), but I did order some more interesting shaped wooden pieces from Woodworks Craft Supplies (who also supply lovely wooden peg doll blanks).
Whilst decorating our blocks and building our city we listened to:
Istanbul (Not Constantinople) by They Might Be Giants (YouTube link)
What books and songs about cities do you and your family love?
Disclosure: I received a free review copy of My Pop-Up City Atlas from the publishers.
Every Monday is a celebration of all things non-fiction in the online children’s book world. If you’d like to read more reviews of children’s non-fiction books, do take a look at the dedicated children’s non-fiction blog: http://nonfictionmonday.wordpress.com/
3 Comments on Non-Fiction Monday: My Pop Up City Atlas by Jonathan Litton and Stephen Waterhouse, last added: 3/6/2014
My Pop Up City Atlas by Jonathan Litton and Stephe said, on 3/2/2014 11:06:00 PM
[…] If you want to see how this book influenced our play, or to get more creative ideas about how to bring this book to life at home or in the classroom, with activities and music, please visit Playing by the book. […]
Alex Baugh said, on 3/3/2014 9:03:00 AM
I love pop up books and this looks like a wonderful one. What great activities to go with it for kids. Your daughters architecture looks like it was lots of fun to do, especially since it looks like it was raining outside. Thanks for letting us know about this.
Rhythm said, on 3/6/2014 7:28:00 AM
Pop-up books are sooooo fabulous! And this one looks over the top! And I love the city that you built! Thanks for sharing!!
The last couple of weeks on the blog have really reminded me how books can take you everywhere and anywhere. From “pink” books, to the Holocaust, to environmental campaigning, I do love the journey my blog takes me on.
Rosie dreams of being an engineer. She loves collecting rubbish and creating contraptions. But people laugh at her creations and her emerging confidence is soon crushed. When Great Great Aunt Rose tells young Rosie how she built aeroplanes during the war, Rosie is once again inspired. But will Rosie’s engineering work this time? What if her plans fail?
An upbeat rhyming tale about the value of trying and trying again, Rosie Revere, Engineer encourages readers to hold on to their passions, and to never give up, even if things don’t work out the first time. Great for encouraging a can-do approach to whatever life throws at you, Rosie’s tale also leads naturally into discussions about women’s roles during the Second World War, and women who have broken the mould in various fields, notably that of flight.
Rosie is creative, thoughtful, passionate, full of a sense of fun, and with more than a nod to Rosie the Riveter, not least with her matching headscarf, and the slogan “We Can Do It” on her flying machine.
Roberts’ illustrations are a scrapheap challenge (junkyard ward) junkie’s dream come true. Littered with curious details to pore over (can you spot a Wild Thing, or follow the unwritten story of the baby bird?) the colours are bright and pen drawings clear. Often on expanses of white, Roberts’ work is vibrant, crisp and fresh, perfectly matching the confident and purposeful message at the heart of the book.
There is a decidedly American flavour to the text (some rhymes, I assume, work better with certain US accents than my UK one, and cheese spray may seem rather mind boggling to many on this side of the pond) so a little contextualisation might be handy, but my young engineers didn’t bat an eyelid at this. They were simply delighted by this Rosie and her take on life. Spunky, funky and full of fun and inspiration, three cheers for Rosie Revere!
To go alongside reading Rosie Revere, Engineer I set up a little after-school structural engineering project involving essential tools of the trade: tooth picks and sweets.
The aim of the game was to see what we could build and how we could build it using just these two materials, plus some imagination, and a little bit of concentration…
Space rockets and climbing frames soon rose from the kitchen table.
A spider’s web of construction emerged, with lots of experimental investigation as to what made our feats of engineering stand strong.
We also got to explore the roles of different materials, as we quickly discovered that most dolly mixtures aren’t very good for this type of project, whilst mini wine gums and gum drops are excellent. (If you want to go for just one, the wine gums are a better bet as they are less messy; the gum drops litter the kitchen table with sugar sprinkles, and also make fingers stickier).
We all thoroughly enjoyed this engineering project, and M is very keen to try it again soon to model chemical compound structure (her idea!); different sweets for different elements? Definitely sounds fun to me.
Whilst designing, engineering and building we listened to some brilliant music:
I’m Gonna be an Engineer, written by Peggy Seeger, performed in this video by her half brother, Pete Seeger. Full lyrics (which are just fabulous) here.
Rosie The Riveter by The Four Vagabonds
Dave Rawlings Machine’s The Monkey and The Engineer
Other activities which would be great fun to get up to alongside reading Rosie Revere, Engineer include:
Watching this classic car advert showing the domino effect, and invite the kids to try to set up something similar.
Tipping the lego all over the floor and seeing what you can build together. This lego website has lots of ideas, but we prefer to have this book open nearby.
This book is definitely at the top of our ‘to do’ list.
Working with engineers day in day out, and seeing the huge rise in female students moving into engineering, books like this are massively important and it looks brilliant (David Roberts illustrating it would’ve got my interest even if the subject wasn’t fab anyway!) Can’t wait to read it!
Polly said, on 9/18/2013 3:16:00 AM
yum. we have tried something similar with mini marshmallows but- WINE GUMS- inspirational
Helen D said, on 9/18/2013 3:39:00 AM
Love the sound of the book, and the activity – H is looking over my shoulder saying “I want to do that!!!”
Hale, Christy. 2012. Dreaming Up: A celebration of building. New York: Lee and Low.
As a youth services librarian in a public library, I don't have the same type of interaction with children as a teacher or school media specialist might. I see more preschool than school-aged children, and though my goal is to "teach" the love of reading and the power of information, children and parents often come to the library seeking pleasure and entertainment. Teaching and learning moments are offered in the form of story time programs, book clubs, or crafts.
That's why a book like Dreaming Up is so perfect! Imagine a book that "teaches" architecture, concrete poetry, design, and the power of imagination. Now imagine that book is suitable for preschoolers up to grade 4, that it sparks opportunities for imaginative play, that it is factual (Architecture, DDC 720), that it is properly sourced, that it is multicultural, and yes - it's attractive, too! On the page facing each illustrated poem is a photograph of the famous or architecturally significant structure which inspired the poem. Featured buildings are from locations around the globe and include the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in Spain, Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater in Pennsylvania. Back matter includes information on each of the fifteen structures as well as biographical information on each building's architect.
No need to dream; there is such a book and it's Dreaming Up: A Celebration of Building. Go. Read it. Share it. Get out some boxes, and blankets, and pillows, and playing cards, and Popsicle sticks and building blocks. Encourage the young people you know to "dream up."
STEM Friday may always be found at http://stemfriday.wordpress.com/ - use it as a great resource for children's books featuring Science, Technology, Engineering and Math.
Copy the STEM Friday button to use in your blog post.
Link your post to the comments of our weekly STEM Friday Round-up. (Please use the link to your STEM Friday post, not the address of your blog. Thanks!)
8 Comments on Dreaming Up - a review, last added: 2/9/2013
Thanks for this lovely review of my new book. Check out some fun activities and downloadable lessons at http://www.christyhale.com/activities-downloadable-lessons.html
H.O.U.S.E. by Aleksandra Machowiak and Daniel Mizielinski (translated by Elzbieta Wojcik-Leese) is a book about dreams becoming reality. About imagination taking flight and bearing fruit. It’s also a nonfiction book about architecture. And, it’s wonderful!
H.O.U.S.E. contains details of 35 unusual houses around the world. Illustrations of the actual houses are accompanied by short details on what was the inspiration for them, their location, a key to their construction and a portrait of the architect for each house. Kids love building dens and secret nooks, and this book is basically about adults who do exactly that. No wonder H.O.U.S.E. is so popular with my kids (and I’m 100% sure will excite your kids too).
Each of the houses in question is drawn, rather than photographed. I think this is an interesting decision given that these are houses which actually exist. Why would you draw something in a nonfiction book, when you could take a photo of it instead?
Perhaps the illustrations are somehow more inspiring, especially for children; photographs would make the object concrete and specific, rather than focusing on the imaginative side of the design.
By illustrating the buildings, Machowiak and Mizielinski have also been able to play with colours a lot; perhaps it’s because of the link in my head with Pieńkowski, but H.O.U.S.E. reminds me of the Meg and Mog books’ use of a limited range of flat, saturated, intense col
3 Comments on What would your dream house look like?, last added: 6/3/2012
Your colourful street facade reminds me of Balamory!
Would love to live in Ingall Wilder’s dugout myself! But other than that there these many cottages in this resort called Dune in Pondicherry (near Chennai), each cottage is unique and very interesting, but my favourite is the dollhouse – a little cottage with lots of traditional Indian dolls and doll furniture in it. Needless to say my girls went nuts! The tree house is next on my favourites list!
choxbox said, on 6/3/2012 7:54:00 PM
And that cover picture of the Richard Platt book is just like those dollhouses in the Museum of Childhood!
Anu said, on 6/3/2012 9:30:00 PM
awesome!!! now i just have to look out for these wonderful books!! my son loves looking at houses and keeps trying to build different ones with his legos… he will love these books! Anu recently posted..Wild Encounters in Gir
My girls are going through a phase where what they most want to do pretty much all of the time is create miniature landscapes, with building bricks, playmobil, sylvanian family furniture and animals, supplemented by all sorts of knick-knacks that little children have a magical ability to accumulate. These “set-ups” as the girls call them are often inspired by the books we’re reading, and the latest book to be given the landscape makeover is The Children of Hat Cottage by Elsa Beskow.
In a nutshell, The Children of Hat Cottage tells the sort of tale many parents will recognise – about children trying to be helpful, but ending up making a bigger mess than there was before.
A mother lives with her three young children in a cottage shaped like a hat. One day she has to leave them at home whilst she goes off to buy yarn to make new clothes (isn’t it liberating and exciting how in fairytale-like stories, it’s perfectly possible to leave children at home alone!). Whilst their mother is away the children decide to do something nice for her; they clean the cottage chimney. But one thing leads to another and disaster strikes… their beautiful little hat home burns down.
Fortunately there is a friendly neighbour who comes to the aid of the children, and together they work to save the day. The mother returns, and though initially shocked, everyone shows great composure, makes the best of the situation and out of hard times, lots of love (and a new home) flourishes.
This is a sweet little story with simple, but lovely illustrations. The themes of independence, triumphing over adversity, and keep one’s cool in the face of disaster are great for shared storytime. The fairytale aspects of the setting will delight children who want to believe in gnomes and little spirits, and the poise with which the mother picks up the remains of her burnt-out life and makes the best of it is something I shall aspire to when things are higgledey-piggeldy in my life.
There’s plenty to like about this story, but hand on heart, I don’t believe this is one of Elsa Beskow’s greatest books. The illustrations are somewhat sparse compared to some of her work. They are quick, fluid sketches rather than the detailed images you find in, for example, Around the Year or Children of the Forest. Still, we’ve enjoyed it and it has inspired plenty of play in our family, as I’m sure it will in yours.
Here are some scenes from one of M and J’s “Hat Cottage set-ups”, including a little cottage we made inspired by the one in the illustration above.
3 Comments on Minature landscapes and giant hats, last added: 2/8/2012
I love the term “set up”. It is a set up indeed! I am not familiar with Elsa Beskow. I will have to look for her work. Thanks as always for sharing! Stacey recently posted..Series Books
sandhya said, on 2/8/2012 6:51:00 PM
Wow! A lovely review. Sometimes I wish I had a child as young as your girls just so that we could experience the wonder of the lovely books you feature.:)
You had me at “supplemented by all sorts of knick-knacks that little children have a magical ability to accumulate.” A very accurate observation, if I may so say!
Hi everyone! I’m so excited my kid’s book I illustrated ‘Hear My Prayer’, by Lee Bennett Hopkins is finally available in stores. The stores websites have previews of what the book looks like inside. Here’s another preview of one of my favorite illustrated spreads from the book, which was a […]
Word play is something we all enjoy in our home – whether it is J making up rhyming nonsense words or me making a terrible joke based around the multiple meanings of a given word (what my husband calls “a Zoe joke”). Unsurprisingly, books that play on words are also favourites, and a recent discovery for us that we’ve really enjoyed is Word Builder by Ann Whitford Paul, illustrated by Kurt Cyrus.
Photo: extranoise
With just a single sentence or phrase per page, accompanied by outsized illustrations on a grand scale Word Builder instructs its reader on the steps needed to construct first words and sentences before moving on to paragraphs and chapters, ultimately leading to the creation of a whole book.
Begin your new construction
with twenty-six letters.
Hammer a through z into words.
Pile your words like blocks
into sentence towers -
measure some tall,
saw others short.
This is no dry reference book, but instead something like a poem. The use of the imperative gives the text and immediacy; the reader/listener is directly addressed, making it seem like the story has been written for them alone – a great device for engaging little people in the perhaps otherwise somewhat (potentially) dull subject of composition.
The large scale illustrations showing the construction process, with giant letters mortared and buttressed together, all overseen by a young yellow-helmeted boy are exciting; the sometimes unexpected perspectives on the building process are thrilling. All in all, an interesting example of a picture book great for those already at school rather than pre-schoolers, a super book for those interested in words, for children beginning to write and for anyone who loves a good digger, crane or bulldozer!
Having read Word Builder we set straight to constructing some sentences, paragraphs and word cities of our own. Inspired by this post from Letter Soup, and this post from Filth Wizardry I picked up a bag of construction blocks from a charity shop. M and I prepared stickers with various words on them: M chose many of the words herself and then I wrote them on the stickers before both girls stuck them on the blocks ready to start building with.
As the building blocks we had came in a lot of different colours I chose to use one colour for e
5 Comments on Building with words, last added: 11/2/2010
My 5 year old has been introduced to the first four parts of speech at school and homework regularly involves making and writing down sentences using a particular part of speech, identifying the parts of speech in a sentence and so on. She loves it possibly because it makes her feel all grown-up! Also she listens to her older sister doing the same stuff in Hindi, though it is far more complex as they go into further sub-divisions of each type.
This activity would therefore do well. Will try it and let you know. Thanks Zoe!
Zoe @ Playing by the book said, on 11/1/2010 1:47:00 AM
Hi Choxbox,
yes, the idea is a great one – and when I first saw it at Filth Wizardry I knew I would want to try it, I just had to find a good book to go along with the activity and Word Builder couldn’t be a better match. Do let me know how you get on with it if you try it yourself!
sandhya said, on 11/1/2010 11:08:00 PM
A great activity. I think this should work well for both of us-A and I -who are struggling with her third language at school. English and Hindi(both of which I’m fluent at) as 1st and 2nd languages do not pose a problem. But Kannada, which is the state language, and 3rd language for her, is new to both of us.
I think I should adopt this method to work with it.
sandhya said, on 11/1/2010 11:13:00 PM
And as far as wordplay is concerned, we love books by writers like Dr. Seuss, Peggy Parish, and are great fans of Edward Lear, Lewis Caroll. And the daily crossword in the newspaper is a must-do for both of us!
Zoe said, on 11/1/2010 11:31:00 PM
Hi Sandhya,
I’d be really interested to know how it works if you do try it out with Kannada – isn’t there a lot more morphology to get to grips with? And your list of wordplay authors is great – all lovely!
Hi, All I have just finished this and I wanted to post it here because I think it fits with this weeks challenge UP too so it’s Up and Under Construction.
Ashraf Ghani has taught at Johns Hopkins, Berkeley, and Kabul University, worked at the World Bank, served as Finance Minister of Afghanistan, and been credited with a range of successful reforms in Afghanistan in the years following 9/11. He is currently the Chairman of the Institute for State Effectiveness. Clare Lockhart is Director of the Institute for State Effectiveness. She has worked for the World Bank and the UN and played a key leadership role in developing the National Programs approach to Afganistan’s reconstruction efforts. Together Ghani and Lockhard wrote Fixing Failed States: A Framework For Rebuilding A Fractured World, which explains through vivid on-the-ground examples why past attempts to rebuild states have failed and advance a groundbreaking new solution to the crisis. In the original article below they outline what makes a successful state. Listen to a podcast of Ghani at the Carnegie Council here.
Given the historical and geographic variability of state functions, it might seem bold to declare that there are ten of them (why not nine of eleven?). Nevertheless, based on our reading of history, our engagement with international development, and our first hand experience with the challenge of state building in one of its most difficult contexts, we have concluded that states in the world today must perform the following ten key functions to succeed.
1) Rule of Law
The most crucial function of the state is law making (i.e. establishing the rules by which society operates). Laws define both the powers and the limits of the state and the people within that state.2) A Monopoly on the Legitimate Means of Violence
State controlled use of violence (military/police activity), encompasses three distinctive elements. Complete authority over the means of destruction and the use of force. The legitimacy needed to subordinate violence to the decision making process (voting/elections/laws). And in extreme cases, the use of force, according to the rules of law, against those citizens of the state who challenge its legitimacy.3) Administrative Control
The state must establish a bureaucratic system of checks and balances. A system that is managed by governmental professional who are accountable to the citizenry. Each division of the government performs specialized functions, has continuity over time, and is overseen at a higher level.
4) Sound Management of Public Finances
Create a budget and stick to it! A proper budget brings both the rights and duties of citizenship into balance. Each entitlement must have a line of expenditure and each expenditure must be matched by a source of revenue. The key elements are wealth creation and involvement of the citizenry in taxation and redistribution.
5) Investment in Human Capital
Among the many investments are the creation, development, and growth of institutions of Higher Education and the availability of a national healthcare infrastructure. Health and education produces a mentally and physically vital citizenry, which is in turn crucial to a successful state.
6) Creation of Citizenship Rights Through Social Policy
Empower citizens through equal opportunity. When the state uses social policy as an instrument for the establishment of equal opportunities, the social fabric created can lead to a sense of national unity and a shared belief in common destiny. Key social policy starts with the right to vote, and extends into regulating labor practices and establishing fiscal welfare programs.
7) Provision of Infrastructure Services
The state must provide everyday necessities such as adequate transportation, power, water, communications, and pipelines to establish its overall ability to produce less mundane functions such as security, administration, investment in human capital, and the necessary conditions for a strong market economy.
Formation of a Market
The state must support the creation and expansion of an open economic market through three major measures: setting and enforcing rules for commercial activity, supporting the operation and continued development of private enterprise, and intervening at times of market failure.
9) Management of Public Assets
Every state has three areas of natural resources to oversee: the management and allocation of rights to land and water, the sustainable use of natural capital, including extractive industries (i.e. mining and drilling), the management, and protection of the environment, including forests, and the licensing of industrial commercial activities.
10) Effective Public Borrowing
Put simply, do not take on bad debt or take on too much debt. Beware of the sovereign guaranty from international lenders. Maintain public disclosure and monitoring of the fulfillment of debt obligations.
The performance of these ten functions produces a clustering effect. When the state performs all ten functions simultaneously, the synergy creates a virtuous circle in which decisions in the different domains reinforce enfranchisement and opportunity for the citizenry. This supports the legitimacy of the decision makers and their decisions, builds trust in the overall system, and thereby produces a “sovereignty dividend.”
Conversely, when one or several of the functions are not performed effectively, a vicious circle begins: Various centers of power vie for control, multiple decision-making processes confuse priorities, citizens lose trust in the government, institutions lose their legitimacy, and the populace is disenfranchised. In the most extreme cases, violence results. This negative cycle creates a “sovereignty gap.”
Did you know I have written a Valentine’s Day book called Bear Hugs? It’s now available in paperback. I should have posted about it earlier but I forgot (there is a poem about a forgetful elephant in the book). It’s actually a collection of goofy “Love Poems” about various animals.
Funny aside: The original title was supposed to be Rhinocerkiss (a poem of that name appears in the book), but the sales force determined it wasn’t “cuddly” enough. I liked it. But the sales team won. What do you think? Here’s the Rhinocerkiss poem.
Rhinocerkiss
Rhino Mister and Rhino Miss
gaze at the moon in rhino bliss.
They rub their rhino tusks like this.
And now you’ve seen
rhinocerkiss!
After the fall poems, I headed into the weather batch of photos. This group was full of more stunning images. I was so glad I got to start with two subjects--autumn and weather--that really appealed to me. I love pictures of nature, and that's, of course, mostly what the weather pictures were.
I flipped through all the images and began making notes on them. Basically, I just wrote down whatever occurred to me, right there on the page. Sometimes it was a certain poetic form I thought the image lent itself to, but other times it was a thought about the topic or mood of a possible poem. On the lightning bolt image, I wrote "haiku?" For a boy playing on the beach wearing goggles and a towel cape, I imagined a poem about a superhero. For boys looking out a rainy window, I wrote, "magic of rain, how it softens everything."
I did have a slight problem, though. There were a number of images with kids in them, and you could almost always see their faces. I found this really hard to work with! I was surprised by that. Actually, I don't know why I was surprised. I don't tend to like artwork with people in it, especially if I can see their faces. (That probably reveals some horrible psychological defect in me!) And with these images, I had a hard time imagining anything but the mood and thoughts of the kid in the image. So it felt very restricting to me. I wanted to focus on the weather phenomena, but I needed to work on the relationship between kids and weather, too.
And on top of that, there were kids of both genders and various ethnicities, and I needed to be balanced. Capstone did not want a book full of kids that all looked the same. But I had a few choices for most topics. Caucasian girl flying a kite. African-American girl with her hair blowing behind her. Asian boy with his hat blowing off. That kind of thing. So whatever image I chose for the wind poem, I needed to keep that in mind when I was choosing the rain poem, which also offered several choices of ethnicities.
So, it was a little tougher that Shrinking Days, Frosty Nights for me. More logistics to consider.
Also, I turned in a couple of poems that showed the fascination and even appeal of deadly weather. One was about a tornado, and it was kind of light-hearted. The other was about the deadly beauty of a hurricane seen from space.
From a Tornado (That Doesn’t Know Its Own Strength)
My whirling funnel’s a windy slide!
I’m a twirling jump rope— Step inside!
I’m a monster roller coaster ride!
I don’t know why you’re terrified!
I knew this might not fly, because the book is for young kids, and tornadoes are scary things! But poetry for me is about seeing the other side of things, and I loved imagining the tornado's point of view. The editor apologetically passed on that this poem, though she liked it and so did the higher-ups, at first, didn't make the cut. They were worried about parents or some reviewers having trouble with it. And while I thought that was too bad, I could understand their point. I actually revised the poem somewhat and put it on my website.
Here's the tornado poem I wrote on revision for the book. Please note: None of these images are from the book. I just wanted to add photos to give you a tiny idea of what they go with.
So, those were a couple of issues I ran into with this collection. But I still loved writing these poems. Here are a couple more poems from this book.
Softer
Through a windowpane Streaked with sliding rain Outside world has changed: Blurry, velvet stain
Every house and car— Soft where edges are… Waterpainting sky makes each light a star
Wind Is An...
Expert blower Seed sower Sailboat go-er Hat thrower And, best of all, a Kite tow-er
And this one goes with a glorious image on rime ice on trees against a Parrish blue sky.
Winter Blooms
branches blooming with ice paint a shocking picture of frosty white trees on winter's blue sky
[cinquain]
Speaking of weather, we're dropping 30 to 40 degrees today here in Minneapolis. Yesterday it was almost 40--barely jacket weather--and today the high is 10, which is the temp right now and should be dropping all day. So I think I'll go read a few of the summer poems from my book now:>) Stay warm!
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Last night, the friendly UPS man brought 2 heavy boxes to my door, and they were the author copies of 4 more of my 6 Capstone poetry books. Woop! Woop! I now have copies of all of them except Flashy, Clashy, and Oh-So Splashy.
So, as promised (or threatened!), I'll be sharing a little of my process about each of the books. Today is the day for patriotic poems.
This book, Tiny Dreams, Sprouting Tall, was one of the toughest of the first set of 6 books. In fact, I think it was the toughest. Part of the reason for that was that my other collections all had a certain degree of silliness to them, even with serious pictures. In Then There Were Eight, for instance, the picture of the Mars Rover is a silly dog poem, because it looked like a metallic dog to me. Tiny Dreams was the last book of the 6 that I wrote. So my editor, Jenny Marks, and I had a good system down, and I followed it. I wrote my manuscript and turned it in the same way I had done all the other collections.
But then came the feedback. My revisions on the other books had been fairly specific and minimal. But on this one, there was a bigger change underway. They wanted the poems to be more specific to the United States. She explained that "For some photos/poems, the connection is obvious—like MLK Jr. or the flag. They are uniquely and obviously American. Other subjects, like surfers, light houses, beaches, cows, etc..., are definitely American, but those things are found in other countries, too. For those subjects, especially, the poems must make a more explicit connection."
This hadn't been planned from the start. But upon reading the manuscript, the product planning committee felt this title could come under greater scrutiny than the other titles, and would be more likely to be criticized for what was included or left out. So they wanted every poem to really have a strong, overt connection to the United States somehow.
This new directive meant heavier revisions just before I was leaving for a family reunion--so I was a bit stressed out about it! Jenny was, as always, encouraging and supportive, so there was no feeling of having screwed up. It was just an unanticipated shift or tightening of focus. Still.
I ended up going to the reunion and finishing up the revisions afterward, and I was really happy with the completed book. But boy, was I happy to be finished!
Something else unique to this manuscript was trying to express pride in my country but being honest as well. An early draft of a poem about the Statue of Liberty was a cinquain:
Doorway of the U.S.A.
Statue of Liberty welcomes all refugees streaming in seeking the promise:
freedom
I knew this was an idealized vision, but it was sometimes hard to know how far poetic license could go. Not this far. Jenny pointed out that, sadly, this was not true. I tried working on a more historical perspective to a time the U.S. was more welcoming of immigrants, but I ended up going with something else entirely.
Lady Liberty
Liberty carries a golden torch She wears a copper skin She’s broken free of all her chains, and sways upon the wind
This book, like the others, contains poetic forms that kids often write in in school. One common form is the diamonte. I love using them to express the relationship between two opposing forces. Here's one from this collection:
Grand Canyon
rock hard, red rising, rippling, towering water flowing, canyon growing carving, wearing, eroding sunken, brown river
While the book isn't stuffed with uber-patriotism, I did want to show pride, too! Here's one I had fun with:
Flag Music
Luff-luff-luff-luff like a clipper’s great sail
Rat-a-tat-tat Like a stormy day’s hail
Creak up and down Like squeaky old brakes
No matter the sound that our flag outside makes
Still day or windy
Quiet or loud
It makes me feel safer
And stronger and proud
As with the other books in the collection, gorgeous, dramatic photos complement the poems, and impressive design work makes the poems themselves visually interesting. I'm thrilled my words got such great treatment!
Last week I started getting author copies of my 6 poetry books for Capstone Press. I've only gotten one of the six so far, because the others are backordered. But soon, I hope!
Anyway, some people have asked about what it was like to write work-for-hire poetry, and I thought I'd share my overall process. Plus, I'll probably do one post about each book as I get my copies of it. I want to have some record of the whole experience.
A woman who used to be with Lerner (and whom had assigned my Isaac Newton bio) and was now with Capstone Press (which I've been writing for for years) emailed me to say that she saw I had a poetry book coming out from Clarion and was writing a Write Your Own Poetry book for Compass Point. She wanted to know if I'd like to get together for lunch to talk about a possible poetry project. Of course I would!
Over lunch, she shared her vision of poetry books illustrated by striking photos for young kids. But the photos would not, for the most part, be studio shots; they would be stock images. She asked about the best way to work, and I said that I thought it would be fun to actually write the poems to the images, rather than have them try to find images that illustrated my poems.
Her idea hadn't been approved yet. She was trying to convince whomever she had to convince that poetry was viable for them. That enough school libraries would buy it.
And within a couple of months, she had approval and the project was moving forward.
The actual hands-on editor I would be working with was Jenny Marks at Capstone Press. She was a delight to work with, and this is basically how our process went.
She would tell me when the team was meeting to discuss images for each title. I would brainstorm my own list of possible images that I thought would be inspiring for poems and fun to look at. I'd email her the list, and they'd include my ideas in the meeting.
I had 4 weeks for each of these first 6 books. So here's how the schedule shook out.
Week One - I receive the images. The batch always includes extras, because I won't be inspired by everything! Each collection needs 14-16 poems. I need to submit 18 or so so that they have a couple of extras to allow for variety, design decisions, etc. They send me images of 20 or so objects/scenes, and I have more than one choice for some of those. For weather, for instance, there were 2 or 3 different pictures of a kid with a kite. I could choose which one to write to.
I spend a few days sifting through photos. I jot notes on the ways certain images strike me. If an image has a capacity for opposites (like a rainbow and a cloudy sky in the same image), I might write "diamante" on the page, because it's an image that lends itself to that form. Or I might note a silly picture that could make for a good limerick. I also jot words or phrases that occur to me, that might or might not make it into the poem, as well as angles/topics for the possible poems. (I'll give examples of this when I talk about the individual books.)
Then I start writing. I write like mad. I do research along the way, as necessary--more for space poems than for color poems! For the 20 or so images that I choose, I write a poem rough draft for each one. Many of these are bad! I try to have the rough draft complete that first week. I often end up with closer to 25 poems.
Week Two - I go back through the poems and revise them. Sometimes I write entirely new poems at this point, but mostly I'm reworking, rewriting, reseeing these poems.
Week Three - I let the poems sit. I am sick of them now and need a break! Sometimes, my wonderful critique groups have time to do a quick read and give me feedback on which poems work, which don't, and how I might fix them.
Week Four - I write the end matter (glossary, poetry terms, read more, etc.). I polish and tweak and make decisions about which poems to submit. At the end of the week, I submit the poems to Jenny. Another deadline met--hurray!
After a week or so, Jenny gets back to me with comments on the poems. She has had a group of people read them. I think, but am not sure, that her group consists of teachers and librarians. She passes along their comments/feelings about various poems and her own, too. She is incredibly encouraging and complimentary, and also points out what doesn't work about various poems.
I do revisions the following week and turn it back in.
With few exceptions, the process went really smoothly. (I'll share stories when I do the individual books.) I wrote these books last spring, and I was so thrilled to see the galleys this past fall. The books are gorgeous! The images look spectacular, and the design work is fabulous. I have no say in any of that, of course, and I was a little nervous. But I couldn't be happier with how they came out. I can't wait to hold every one of them in my hot little hands, in fact.
So that's the (too long--sorry) story of how I wrote these books. If you look at them on my site, you can read one brief excerpt from each title and see each cover. I hope you like them!
What a beautiful story with beautiful illustrations.
I look forward to the castle! I expect a full moat and drawbridge.
beautiful. Now it´s on my wishlist.
I must have this book.