Give a Carrot a Chance?

Who knew carrots could be so wacky and wonderful? Creepy Carrots! reaped a 2013 Caldecott honor for its original, way-too-much-fun illustrations by the acclaimed Peter Brown (Children Make Terrible Pets and A Curious Garden and others). Feature this in your story hour, and you’ll harvest a bushel of laughs and a high demand for an original tale that appeals to many children’s taste for slightly scary stories.

A mashup of funny and frightening images done in retro black, white, and orange, Creepy Carrots! features a carrot-obsessed bunny who learns you can have too much of a good thing. The ridiculous nature of the plot — that carrots stalk a rabbit — supplies much of the frisson that sets this picture book apart from others.

The pacing of author Aaron Reynolds’ crazy tale will keep listeners wide-eyed and curious to hear more. Just after relishing his victory snack, Jasper the rabbit is puzzled by a soft, sinister sound: “the tunktunktunk of carrots creeping. He turned … but there was nothing there.”

And what expressions Peter Brown shows on the faces of Jasper and the carrots! Even though Jasper laughs at himself for even thinking carrots might be following him, the illustrator displays a range of conflicting emotions: eyebrows that look bewildered, eyes that seem anxious, and a mouth sporting a shallow smile. As for the carrots, some look like fierce, gap-toothed jack o’lanterns, while others look worried, surprised, intimidating.

The tale ends with a twist that will endear this book to many a reader. Make room for Creepy Carrots! in your story time or on your shelves. You won’t regret it … or will you?

A more lovable but still humorous perspective on carrots sprouts in Jan Peck’s The Giant Carrot, illustrated with verve by Barry Root.  Sweet little Isabelle, the youngest in the family, comes up with a special way to deal with a carrot that just won’t budge.

With visions of all the good stuff to come — carrot juice, carrot stew, carrot relish, and carrot pudding — each family member takes turns nurturing a carrot seedling. Papa tends the plant, Mama weeds around it, brother Abel waters it, and Isabelle … sings. And that’s what makes the plant grow and grow and grow.

At last, it’s as tall as Papa Joe, but it seems impossible to pull it out of the ground. Only when they all work together can they harvest the carrot that will supply a bounty of tasty treats.

Some of you no doubt will find this familiar fare, as it’s a riff on the Russian big turnip folktale. While there are many versions of the story, I recommend this charming one for children ages 5 to 8. The Giant Carrot illustrates the value of cooperation, while it also implies we should respect everyone, no matter how tiny. And that’s not all; it offers opportunities for multiple curricular uses. Science teachers can use this title in a unit on plant life, and reading teachers might employ it to teach the skill of predicting, or cause and effect. No matter the intention, you and your listeners will reap plenty of fun.

Another folktale that features sassy veggies is The Talking Vegetables
by Won-Ldy Paye and Margaret H. Lippert. The villagers plant a garden, but Spider doesn’t do his part. Finally, he tires of eating plain old rice and decides to help himself to the vegetables. But they won’t hear of it — and tell him so! This hilarious Liberian folktale, illustrated with exuberant paintings by Julie Paschkis, reveals the importance of working together to accomplish a goal.

Any of these fun read-alouds can be paired with Juanita Havill’s clever poem “The Monster,” from her collection I Heard It from Alice Zucchini: Poems About the Garden. The rhythmic, mostly unrhymed lines explore how the vegetables feel about the scarecrow in their midst. It’s one of twenty fun poems that celebrate the cycle of a garden, from winter’s seeds that “rattle their packets with chattering” to a potato buried in the snow.

And see my previous post, “How Does Your Garden Grow?”

Simms Taback and His Bright Creations

Without Simms Taback’s books, the land of children’s literature would look less colorful, less lively, less creative. One of my favorite stories to tell young ones is the old Yiddish tale of “Something from Nothing,” in which a tailor takes his worn-out coat and makes a smaller garment out of it, and on and on until there’s nothing left (in my version) but a story, which can last forever!

After telling that story, I’d read the group Taback’s cheerful Caldecott-winning Joseph Had a Little Overcoat, holding up each page with its fun die-cut hole so the children could guess what Joseph would make next. This lively picture book, illustrated with watercolors, gouache, pencil, ink and collage, provides a banquet of buttons, bright scraps of fabric, petite photos of flowers, all popping out from the pages’ dark background. Listeners get to peep through smaller and smaller holes, as the items — a vest, a tie, etc. — diminish in size.

Based on the Yiddish song “Hob Ich Mir a Mantl,” or “I Had a Little Overcoat,” which Taback loved as a boy, this book belongs in EVERY child’s school or home library. Not only does it make for a rousing read-aloud, its evocation of Eastern European shtetls provides a link to a rich culture. And the message of making the most of whatever you have is a timely and important one for us all. Educators or parents can tap this little treasure for lessons in recycling, music, social studies, art, and reading, especially in teaching the skill of prediction. Taback includes the lyrics to the song that inspired the story.

Sadly, Simms Taback died of pancreatic cancer last Sunday. He has bequeathed us his bright, unforgettable books to share with children:

                

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• Simms Taback, Author of Wry Children’s Books, Dies at 79               (nytimes.com)

Architects of Memories

Wells, Rosemary and Secundino Fernandez. My Havana: Memories of a Cuban Boyhood. Illus. by Peter Ferguson. Candlewick, 2010. Ages 8-12.

Memories can move us forward or backward, depending on how we use them. My Havana: Memories of a Cuban Boyhood evokes the intensity of one child’s connection to his home in 1950s Havana. Prolific children’s book author Rosemary Wells once heard a radio interview with the Cuban-American architect Secundino Fernandez and years later located Fernandez and worked with him to produce this resonant little historical novel burnished with hope and light.

Secundino, or Dino, relishes his city avenues “lined with coral-stone archways, ancient doors, and window frames painted bright as birds-of-paradise.” As twilight arrives, neighbors begin their checker games, and the cafes fill with people. Dino loves to sketch the buildings, with their porticoes and marble columns. The first time Dino leaves the city of his heart, he crosses the Atlantic to spend time with his grandparents in Spain. When he finally returns home, he expects to stay. Dictators — first Batista, then Castro — take over, though, and the family abandons their restaurant to join relatives in New York City.

So homesick in this dark and dreary new environment, Dino relies on his memory to recreate his beloved Havana in the confines of his bedroom. With great care, he cuts out cardboard to represent its archways, balconies and cafes. Aluminum foil glued to plywood and glazed with blue nail varnish becomes a sparkling turquoise harbor. The double-spread illustration depicting the imaginative boy, scissors in hand, beautifully captures his resourceful nature. The novel closes with Dino adapting to his new world: “New York sunlight, shimmering with the promise of summer, settles round my shoulders like the arms of my mother. It is almost like my Havana.” This brief novel would brighten units on immigration, Cuba, or architecture.

Macaulay, David. Built to Last. Houghton Mifflin, 2010. Ages 9 and up.

In my decade as a school librarian, I often watched children poring over Macaulay’s remarkable architecture books. Rather than merely compiling his acclaimed books, Castle, Cathedral, and Mosque, Macaulay has created new colored illustrations, revised the text, and clarified some explanations.

While some might still long for the previously published cross-hatched illustrations, Macaulay’s changes enhance the reader’s experience of the architecture of the past. He ushers us into his Castle, for instance, with a double-spread illustration of a purple-robed king surveying a map, with pawns awaiting strategic placement. The castle Macaulay highlights is imagined but based on castles built for the conquest of Wales between 1277 and 1305, His interesting perspectives of the workers and how they go about building still capture the hearts of readers, young and old. In Cathedral, Macaulay was inspired by the 13th-century Gothic cathedrals of France. It’s hard to resist sharing Macaulay’s passion for the plans, methods and tools used by those builders “whose towering dreams still stand today.” Finally, the least changed and most recent of the three, Mosque, is another dazzler. The section opens with a map showing the intersection of Africa, Asia, and Europe, with major cities such as Mecca, Baghdad, Cairo, Istanbul, Jerusalem, and Damascus noted. This time, Macaulay’s model is based on structures built around Istanbul, between 1540 and 1580, when the Ottoman Empire was the largest Muslim empire in the world. Again, Macaulay uses color to great effect, as when the intricate designs of ceramic tiles from Anatolia shine with heavenly shades of blue. Built to Last includes a glossary that will further enhance readers’ understanding of significant architectural feats.

Try a Little Tenderness

Stead, Philip C. A Sick Day for Amos McGee. Illus. by Erin E. Stead.Roaring Brook, 2010. Ages 3-7.

This year’s 2011 Caldecott went to a sweet, whimsical story of kindness. Amos McGee works at the zoo and sets aside time each day for the animals; he would play chess with the elephant, run races with the tortoise, sit with the shy penguin, lend a handkerchief to the rhino, and read to the owl. Then one day Amos gets sick and stays in bed. The lonely animals decide to take action; that afternoon they make their way to Amos’s home. Throughout the book, Erin Stead’s pencil and woodblock illustrations sprinkle humorous details guaranteed to make readers smile. My favorite is the double spread showing the animals riding the bus, while others will be charmed by the last illustration, showing the quiet penguin gazing at the moon while the others snooze away after a busy afternoon taking care of their friend.

Looking for more kindness? For ages 4-7, try last year’s Caldecott winner, The Lion and the Mouse, illustrated by Jerry Pinkney, and, for Valentine’s Day, reach for Somebody Loves You, Mr. Hatch, by Eileen Spinelli. For older children, consider Tale of the Mandarin Ducks by Katherine Paterson and the Cinderella variations that focus on the protagonist’s kindness:  The Talking Eggs by Robert San Souci, Papa Gatto by Ruth Sanderson, and Gift of the Crocodile: A Cinderella Story by Judy Sierra. Also, see my December 27th post on being kind to animals.

What are your favorite children’s books featuring kindness? Please leave a comment!