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Engaging in critical thinking about one’s own belief system does not often include laughing so much you end up breathless and hiccuping but that’s just what happened one evening last week when our bedtime read was Meet at the Ark at Eight! by Ulrich Hub, illustrated by Jörg Mühle, translated by Helena Ragg-Kirkby.

This witty, keenly observed and questioning novella retells the biblical flood story with wave after wave of philosophical observations and deadpan humour. Two (male) penguins smuggle a third aboard the ark when an overworked and stressed-out dove chivvies them along to avoid extinction.

Deep in the hold of the boat the friends continue what they started on land: trying to tease out in their own minds whether God exists, and if so, what he is like. Conundrums (“We’re birds, but we smell like fish; we have wings, but we can’t fly.“), chance (“Life is so strange. If two other penguins had been standing here, they’d have been given these tickets and we’d have ended up drowning miserably,“), honesty, guilt and the complexities of friendships are explored with a stark innocence that makes the penguins’ questioning all the more powerful.

And these questions are ones that I think come naturally to children when thinking about religion – about punishment, about proof, about the essence of faith. The answers, such as they are in this book, leave a lot of space for making up your own mind; this isn’t a black and white pot-shot at religious fundamentalism, but something much more nuanced, even if some may find the laser-sharp humour hard to marry with their own beliefs.

Whether or not you or your kids pick this book up because of its rich philosophical strand, two further aspects of this moral tale are worth pointing out.

Meet at the Ark at Eight! is extremely funny. One scene in particular had my girls and I barely able to breathe for all the laughter as I read the book out loud to them; when the dove comes to check up on the penguins, one of them hides in a suitcase and pretends to be the voice of God. This scene is just so theatrical (it comes as no surprise to later find out that the author, Ulrich Hub, has written many plays) with perfect timing and exquisite dialogue. “God”‘s game is up when he pushes the boundary just a little too far and asks the dove for some cheesecake; I am putting money on this becoming a family catchphrase that will stay with us all our book=reading lives.

Secondly, the illustrations by Jörg Mühle are wonderful. Nearly every double page spread has at least one illustration and the characterization, especially of the dove, is sublime. I’ve seen very few cases in all the illustrated books I’ve ever read where an apparently simple, nonchalant line can pack such a punch.

I can only heartily encourage you to read this multi-award-winning retelling to find out how three goes into two for the final disembarkation in front of Noah. This novella hides real delight and serious philosophizing in between its slim, sensational pages.

The day after we read Meet at the Ark at Eight! “God” came visiting in his suitcase. We supplied cheesecake, and I’m glad to report that penguins, kids and all the celestial beings we know were all very happy with such a delicious after school treat.

Whilst taste-testing cheesecake we listened to:

Other activities which might work well alongside reading Meet at the Ark at Eight! include:

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Disclosure: I was sent a free review copy of this book by the publisher.

First up: An Apology.

This post will mention Christmas.

Sorry.

Yes, I know it’s still months away, but Christmas cards are on sale everywhere I go at the moment and so I’m jumping on the bandwagon and giving you what may be my only Christmas post all year so be generous, and stick with me… please?

The Story of the Snow Children by Sibylle von Olfers is an utterly delightful wintry tale full of whimsy, sprinkled with magic and sparkling with charm.

You know how when parents are off out of the scene, all sorts of interesting things can happen that might otherwise never be possible? Well one day when Poppy is left alone, she spies a group of snowflake children dancing through the sky. She can’t resist going out to join them (who can blame her?) and they quickly invite her to visit the Snow Queen. Her palace is “a castle of ice all shining white – the turrets like sugar, the walls smooth as glass.”

Poppy and her new friends share a huge feast, a ball and enormous amounts of fun but at the end of it all Poppy is tired and wants to go home. The Snow Queen understands and returns Poppy back to her mother in a polar-bear drawn sleigh. All’s well that ends well, sweet and simple as that.

This tale is full of comfort, joy and excitement; Poppy’s Snow Queen couldn’t be further from that found in Narnia. And the final line is so deliciously tantalising, addressing the reader directly, as it does, about the possibility that we too might one day be able to visit the Snow Kingdom.

The illustrations are full of pale blues, greens and white, with Poppy in her red coat, hat and gloves acting as a perfect foil to the cool wintry landscapes. Sibylle van Olfers’ style has often been compared to that of Kate Greenaway and Elsa Beskow, and in this book the snowdrop panels used to frame her pictures have echoes of Arts and Crafts design.

Image: http://www.steinerbooks.org/

The Story of the Snow Children has recently be re-published in mini-format (only a little bit bigger than an iPhone) and this little edition would make a perfect stocking filling, especially if you can conjure up some snow for Christmas morning.

Photo: CaptPiper

Having read The Story of the Snow Children we just couldn’t resist trying to create our own palace of crystal, all sparkling and bright.

First we made some snowflake crystals using powdered alum (also known as potassium alum or alum potash – we ordered ours online). We three-quarters-filled a clean jar with hot water and then stirred in powdered alum one spoon at a time until the solution was saturated (i.e. until we could see the alum collecting at the bottom of the jar and no longer dissolving in the hot water). We then hung a star made out of bent pipecleaners into the solution using a paper clip hooked round a pencil, making sure the pipe cleaner didn’t touch the sides/bottom of the jar. Within a couple of hours this is is what we had:

You can imagine how excited we were! We then tried to repeat the process but with many more snowflake shapes.

Perhaps because our solution wasn’t so saturated, the second batch of snowflakes took much longer to grown (several days), but an unexpected bonus was that beautiful crystals did grow on the bottom of the container we were using, so we turned that on its side to create our crystal palace.

We decorated our palace with the crystals we had grown, and then populated the palace with some painted figurines to represent Poppy and her new friends.

Around the side of the palace we stuck sugar cubes using icing sugar as glue, to further create the illusion of a building made completely from sparkly crystal.

Here are some of our crystals close up:

Growing the crystals was a great deal of fun, and definitely worth the price of a packed of powdered alum. Science, sparkles + a sweet story = success!

Whilst making our crystal palace we listened to:

Other activities which would be fun to get up to along side reading The Story of the Snow Children include:

So… is Christmas on your radar yet? Are any books you’re hoping to give or receive in mind?

Disclosure: I received a free copy of The Story of the Snow Children from Floris Books. I was under no obligation to review the books and I received no money for this post.

My blogging goals this year are twofold (1) to play a more active part in the online, book-celebrating community I so value and (2) to work on a more creative diet when it comes to playing and exploring with my kids. To help me with my first goal, I’m taking part in Gathering Books’ Award Winning Book Challenge throughout the course of 2012 (it’s not too late for you to join!), and today I bring you my first offering – a review of Invisible by Katja Kamm – Winner of the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis for best picture book in 2003.

Invisible is a wordless book about an afternoon spent in a seaside town full of interesting characters. Not only will you smile at the Kamm’s observations about the rich panoply of life, from nuns to peeing dogs, you’ll enjoy the tricks the pictures play on your eye; on each spread something appears invisible because it blends in with the background colour. Only the negative shape left behind gives a clue as to what has become invisible, and so it becomes a game to see if you can work out what that is before you turn the page.

The illusions are clever and witty, and the bright, bold, saturated colours give this book a fresh feel. The game is fun even (or perhaps especially) once you know what’s going on – there’s something delightful about being tricked, about falling for the illusion (in this way it reminded me a little of Tullet’s much acclaimed Press Here).

Image copyright: Katja Kamm

This spunky book might not appeal to everyone. There’s nudity (well, invisible nudity…), buxom punks, as well as an anatomically correct male dog doing what dogs like best to do on the pavement, and I do feel uncomfortable about the scene where the nuns are frightened by something in the (black) night – it turns out to be a black man. But it’s nevertheless a fun, original read that I’d definitely recommend to anyone interested in illustration or design: I thought Invisible was a breath of fresh air and am delighted to have discovered it thanks to Gathering Books’ Award Winning Book Challenge.

Of course the girls (and I) wanted to play at being invisible after reading this super book. Making an entire child (or mum) invisible is a little tricky, but I did show the girls how they could make a stamp or a sticker (appear to be) invisible.

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