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Every Monday, Jen and Kellee at Teach Mentor Texts host a What Are You Reading? meme. Since there’s no question I like better, I’ll chime in.

Things we read around here today:

(To Rilla)
Peter and the Talking Shoes by Kate Banks, illustrated by Marc Rosenthal. I’ve enthused about this one before. One of my family’s longtime favorites. Peter has new (hand-me-down) shoes, whose rich life experience comes in handy when he has to fetch a series of necessary objects for local merchants: a feather to make the baker’s bread light, a key so the carpenter can unlock the door to the house she’s working on, and so on. It’s one of those delightful cumulative tales with a satisfying ending, and Marc Rosenthal’s art is priceless. We have mad love for this quirky book (now sadly out of print).

A Wonder Book for Girls & Boys by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Rilla knows the Greek myths pretty well (thanks to Jim Weiss and D’Aulaire), but it’s hard to beat Hawthorne’s elegant retelling.

(To Huck)
Inch and Roly and the Very Small Hiding Place. What can I say? He begged.

(Many times this past week, to all three of my youngest kids)

Open This Little Book by Jesse Klausmeier, illustrated by Suzy Lee. A series of quirky creatures is reading a series of little books, each smaller than the next. Very clever way to play with the convention of the codex. All those adorable nested books are irresistible to my kids. And the art, oh the art: utterly to swoon for.

(To me, at bedtime; at least, that’s the plan)
The Girls of Slender Means by Muriel Spark. So far this is my favorite Spark yet. (I think the Monday meme is for children’s/YA titles only, but I can’t do a roundup without including my own current read.)

How about you?

Nursery Rhyme Comics
Edited by Chris Duffy
Introduction by Leonard S. Marcus
$18.99
ISBN: 978-1-59643-600-8
Ages 9-12
On shelves October 11, 2011

Nursery rhymes. What’s up with that? (I feel like a stand up comedian when I put it that way). They’re ubiquitous but nonsensical. Culturally relevant but often of unknown origins. Children’s literary scholar Leonard Marcus ponders the amazing shelf life of nursery rhymes himself and comes up with some answers. Why is it that they last as long as they do in the public consciousness? Marcus speculates that “the old-chestnut rhymes that beguile in part by sounding so emphatically clear about themselves while in fact leaving almost everything to our imagination” leave themselves open to interpretation. And who better to do a little interpreting than cartoonists? Including as many variegated styles as could be conceivably collected in a single 128-page book, editor Chris Duffy plucks from the cream of the children’s graphic novel crop (and beyond!) to create a collection so packed with detail and delight that you’ll find yourself flipping to the beginning to read it all over again after you’re done. Mind you, I wouldn’t go handing this to a three-year-old any time soon, but for a certain kind of child, this crazy little concoction is going to just the right bit of weirdness they require.

Fifty artists are handed a nursery rhyme apiece. The goal? Illustrate said poem. Give it a bit of flair. Put in a plot if you have to. So it is that a breed of all new comics, those of the nursery ilk, fill this book. Here at last you can see David Macaulay bring his architectural genius to “London Bridge is Falling Down” or Roz Chast give “There Was a Crooked Man” a positive spin. Leonard Marcus offers an introduction giving credence to this all new coming together of text and image while in the back of the book editor Chris Duffy discusses the rhymes’ history and meaning. And as he says in the end, “We’re just letting history take its course.”

In the interest of public scrutiny, the complete list of artists on this book consists of Nick Abadzis, Andrew Arnold, Kate Beaton, Vera Brosgol, Nick Bruel, Scott Campbell, Lilli Carre, Roz Chast, JP Coovert, Jordan Crane, Rebecca Dart, Eleanor Davis, Vanessa Davis, Theo Ellsworth, Matt Forsythe, Jules Feiffer, Bob Flynn, Alexis Frederick-Frost, Ben Hatke, Gilbert Hernandez, Jaime Hernandez, Lucy Knisley, David Macaulay, Mark Martin, Patrick McDonnell, Mike Mignola, Tony Millionaire, Tao Nyeu, George O’Connor, Mo Oh, Eric Orchard, Laura Park, Cyril Pedrosa, Lark Pien, Aaron Renier, Dave Roman, Marc Rosenthal, Stan Sakai, Richard Sala, Mark Siegel, James Sturm, Raina Telgemeier, Craig Thompson, Richard Thompson, Sara Varon, Jen Wang, Drew Weing, Gahan Wilson, Gene Luen Yang, and Stephanie Yue (whew!). And as with any collection, some of the inclusions are going to be stronger than others. Generally speaking if fifty people do something, some of them are going to have a better grasp on the process than others. That said, only a few of these versions didn’t do it for me. At worst the versions were mediocre. At best they went in a new direction with their mat

I Must Have Bobo!
By Eileen Rosenthal
Illustrated by Marc Rosenthal
Atheneum (an imprint of Simon & Schuster)
$14.99
ISBN: 978-1-4424-0377-2
For ages 4-8
On shelves now

Picture books in which beloved toys go astray are the heart and soul of the industry. The reasons are infinitely clear. When dealing with a four-year-old reader, you want to present them with a tale that taps into their insecurities and fears without going overboard. Showing them losing their mom or dad would be WAY too serious for the format, and that goes for the family pet as well. Better to keep it low-key. In this way books like Knuffle Bunny (in all three of its various incarnations) remains a beloved institution. The newest entrant to the field is the beautifully named I Must Have Bobo! by Eileen Rosenthal, illustrated by her husband Marc Rosenthal. Part epic rage against the dying of the light/losing of the toy, part battle of wits between a boy and a cat, Bobo is about the kind of struggle that any preschooler can understand. And while I might have put a different ending on it, when it comes to stuffed monkeys, Bobo is where it’s at.

Willy wakes up one morning to find there’s something wrong. Something, or someONE, missing. Bobo, Willy’s stuffed monkey, is always on hand when the boy needs to go down a scary slide or sneak past a large dog. So where is he now? After a quick investigation it becomes clear that Earl, the family housecat, is the unapologetic Bobo snatcher in question. Thus begins a battle of wits between Willy and Earl as each find and take back the beloved Bobo. Finally, when Earl has proved particularly clever, Willy finds the two on the couch and surprisingly enough envelopes BOTH in a big, affectionate hug.

It’s a great little readaloud if you’re willing to give it your all. I mean, if you intend to read this to a group of kids then you really have to let you lungs rip with this book. Interestingly, the story begins between a third personal omniscient narrator but after that first sentence of “When Willy woke up, there was trouble” it switches over entirely into Willy’s own dialogue. This means that the reader has to embody Willy and his pain. That first cry of “I must have Bobo!” has to come from the heart or you might lose your audience. Plus it’s a lot of fun to scream. So really, win-win.

Of course, one thing you really want when you’re reading a picture book aloud to a room of kids is a kicking ending. You want something that’s gonna stop `em dead in their little sneaker-wearing tracks. Good endings to picture books can go the surprise twist route (