Getting By With a Little Wit

Give it up, you baby boomers. You had a favorite Beatle, didn’t you? You cherished some bubblegum card or poster or magazine photo because it featured John or Paul or George or Ringo. Veteran children’s nonfiction writer Kathleen Krull has teamed up with her husband, author/illustrator Paul Brewer, to bring the band back to the spotlight for a generation too young to have experienced Beatlemania in all its craziness.

“From the time they got together

as lads until they became superstars, the Fab Four made music, made history, and made people laugh,” the authors relate on the first page of The Beatles Were Fab (and They Were Funny). That last component—the band’s sense of humor—supplies a creative spin on the oft-told history of the iconic band that blew in from Liverpool and swept the charts here, there, and everywhere.

The authors adopt a breezy, lighthearted tone throughout this spirited romp through Beatlemania. They employ a bevy of jokes and quips to show how the Fab Four used laughter to help them cope with life’s highs and lows. Entertaining quotes from each musician advance the story and reveal the quirky charm and resilience of each musician. Although adoring fans and ambitious reporters impinged on their private lives, the Beatles showed remarkable creativity in dealing with pesky people.

The authors devote a page of engaging Q’s and A’s culled from interviews with each musician. We learn, for instance, that when a journalist told John, “Some people think your haircuts are un-American,” John replied, “Well, it was very observant of them, because we aren’t Americans actually.”

When someone asked Paul, “Is your hair real?” he inquired, “Is yours?” George told a reporter if he stopped being a Beatle, he might “train elephants in the zoo.” And in response to the doltish question, “How did you find America?” Ringo quipped, “We went to Greenland and made a left turn.”

The star atop such quips is Stacy Innerst’s acrylic paintings full of personality, redolent with thick brush strokes, and rich with relevant details. Mr. Innerst, who illustrated the writing team’s Lincoln Tells a Joke, again shows what it means to be in synch with the authors’ intent.

Early in the story, Mr. Innerst shows readers a drum sporting the goofy names the band considered before choosing the one that made them laugh. As the authors describe the band’s heady taste of fame, the illustrator depicts a chunky golden hit machine with 45s popping out of a funnel, one smash hit after another. Later, on the page relating their wildly popular 1964 American tour, Mr. Innerst shows a huge black guitar case displaying the names of the cities where they performed. On top of the curvy case, the Beatles whiz along in a miniature roller coaster.

Such touches go a long way in adding crowd appeal to this confection, as sweet and as filling as the jelly beans fans flung at the Beatles. A timeline and bibliography serve to direct young fans to more substantive sources.

Reprinted with permission from The New York Journal of Books.

NOTE: I’m offering one free hardback copy of The Beatles Were Fab to a random U.S. reader! Just tweet, post this on Facebook, or become a new email subscriber, and you’ll be entered in the contest. Then leave a comment to let me know you’re entering the contest. The deadline is April 1, April Fool’s Day — but it’s no joke. I’ll announce the winner on the 2nd.

See also … my post on my favorite Beatle, John  and Yoko Ono’s site, “Imagine Peace,” with audio clips, photos, interviews, and details on Yoko’s current projects for peace. The couple married 44 years ago, on March 20, 1969.

50th Anniversary of The Beatles Album. Please Please Me 22nd of March 1963. (Photo credit: Jimmy Big Potatoes)

Let’s Hear It for the Women

Have you checked out the third annual KidLit project on Women’s History Month? This year’s theme is “Women Inspiring Innovation Through Imagination: Celebrating Women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics,” and diverse and divine writers are contributing posts on women who used their brains to accomplish great things. Feed your adventurous spirit over at http://kidlitwhm.blogspot.com/ 

The post I contributed to the 2011 celebration focused on the artist who invented the picture book. Wanda Gág’s story is beautifully rendered for children in Deborah Kogan Ray’s Wanda Gág: The Girl Who Lived to Draw. The author/illustrator uses evocative excerpts from Gág’s diary to great effect, weaving in highlights of the family’s roots in the German-speaking area of Bohemia (now part of the Czech Republic).

Ray’s bright, lively paintings exude color and a full range of emotions. She shows the seven imaginative Gág children drawing and putting on their own plays, inspired by the folktales told by their imaginative parents. Ray also shows a quiet Wanda in the attic studio, observing her father, “happy in his soul” as he allowed himself the freedom to paint for pleasure on Sundays. Then there is the somber death-bed scene, with Wanda holding her father’s hands as he urges her to pursue art: “What Papa couldn’t do, Wanda will have to finish.”

His death from tuberculosis, when Wanda was just 15, might have precluded any chance that the eldest daughter would become an artist. Instead, her resolve strengthened. To reach her goal, she would have to battle poverty, pressure from her provincial neighbors to work as a store clerk, her friends’ conventional expectations for marriage, as well as sexism in the art world and in society at large.

Not only did Wanda and all her siblings finish high school, Wanda won a scholarship to study art, first in St. Paul, Minnesota, then at the prestigious Art Students League in New York City. That’s where a children’s book editor, taken with her vivid images, asked Wanda if she had ever considered writing children’s books. In fact, Wanda had a box full of ideas for children’s stories.

Gág’s success with Millions of Cats, considered the first picture book, led to ten other inventive children’s books, ranging from The ABC Bunny, the first alphabet book to tell a story; to her still-beloved picture books The Funny Thing, Gone is Gone, Nothing at All, and Snippy and Snappy, as well as Tales from Grimm, which she translated from her native German.

Suggested Discussion Questions

for Wanda Gág: The Girl Who Lived to Draw

Teachers, parents, and librarians can use Ray’s picture-book biography (for ages 7-10) to enhance children’s appreciation of creativity, community, and perseverance.

1.  Hold up the two-page spread showing the children acting out a play. Ask, “How did the family encourage the children’s creativity?”

2.  Wanda spoke only German until she went to school. How do you think it would feel to enter a school where you were expected to learn a new language?

3.  What did Wanda mean when she said her father was “happy in his soul” while painting in the attic? What kinds of activities make you feel this way?

4.  Why did Papa urge Wanda to look at the world in her own way?

5.  At bedtime, Wanda’s mom read her Grimms’ fairy tales. What kinds of books do you like to hear read aloud?

6.  Wanda wrote that many of her childhood memories centered on the “Grandma folks.” How did those experiences with older relatives contribute to her development as a person or as an artist?

7.  Wanda described her “drawing fits.” Have you ever been so engaged in an activity that you lost track of time? What were you doing? How did you feel?

8.  Why do you think Papa told Wanda she would have to finish what he could not do? What effect did this have on her goals?

9.  Why did the neighbors urge Wanda to quit school and get a job? Do you think you would have resisted, as Wanda did? Why or why not?

10.  How did Wanda manage to help her family survive while at the same time developing her artistic talent?

11.  Wanda’s motto became “Draw to live, and live to draw.” What did she mean by that?

12.  How did the art school and the culture of New York City assist Wanda in developing her own artistic style?

13.  Wanda was able to take advantage of the opportunity to create children’s books partly because she had a “Notebook of Ideas.” Do you have some kind of notebook or journal where you keep some of your ideas? What do you enjoy about that?

14.  How did Papa’s advice that Wanda see the world in her own way help her to succeed? What other qualities helped her?

Armed with a Conscience

The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which allowed slave owners to capture runaways anywhere in the U.S., not only brought terror and pain to countless people. It presented a daunting challenge to those who listened to their conscience when it told them slavery was evil. The Price of Freedom: How One Town Stood Up to Slavery reveals the true story of how the people of Oberlin, Ohio, risked their lives and, in some cases, their freedom, to save John Price, who had escaped from Kentucky.

The dramatic picture book, brought to life with gripping, realistic paintings by Eric Velasquez, describes how “rough looking” men keen on getting a reward, pulled guns on John and abducted him. As they drove the wagon toward the nearby town of Wellington, John noticed an Oberlin College student walking down the road. John called out that he was being kidnapped. The student kept walking and seemed not to hear him.

Soon, the kidnapper pocketed his ill-gotten money. The Kentuckian Anderson Jennings, who had paid the reward, squirreled away in the attic of Wadsworth’s Hotel with John Price until they could board the next southbound train.

Back in Oberlin, things were not so quiet. That student had raced to town to announce that slave catchers had their friend John Price. In no time, hundreds of citizens — young and old, men and women, rich and poor, black and white — clogged the road on the way to Wellington.

“Bring him out!” they chanted as they reached the hotel.

Anderson Jennings stood on the balcony and refused, saying the law was on his side. Anyone helping a slave escape could be thrown into jail, he reminded the crowd.

The train arrived, but Jennings dared not board.

Then a dozen bold men entered the hotel and made their way upstairs. The men fought, and one fired a gun (that missed). They rescued John just in time.

From there, the abolitionists’ network of safe homes known as the Underground Railroad led John Price to freedom.

The Price of Freedom, by Judith Bloom Fradin and Dennis Brindell Fradin, presents an exciting, little-known episode in our nation’s history. Highly recommended for ages 9 to 12.

For more thrilling nonfiction and historical fiction, see my post on Carole Boston Weatherford
and these titles …

Thanksgiving knocks at the door

After burning dinner, an elderly couple, Ann and Ed, decide to go to the New World Cafe for Thanksgiving. Finding the door open when they arrive, they see tables decorated not just with Pilgrims and Native Americans but also with figurines of what appear to be Russian dancers. Readers should suspect at this point that the restaurant is not, in fact, open for business.

The cafe owners, who are Russian immigrants, are wondering who has crashed their family party. Grandmother, though, generously welcomes the strangers, and they all go on to share songs, dances, and stories, along with the big dinner. As Ann and Ed leave, Papa tries to close the door, but finds a potato propping it open: “In old country,” Grandmother says, “Thanksgiving door is like happy heart, opened up big and wide. Potato good for that.”

Debby Atwell’s bright, folkloric illustrations add to the fun of this unusual Thanksgiving story, as she spices it with such details as iconic Russian onion domes in a picture in the restaurant, the starched-clean scarves on the women, and the telling cover image of Grandmother pushing the potato under the door. For ages 6 to 8, The Thanksgiving Door is a quiet treat to savor.

For rousing nonfiction, turn to Melissa Sweet’s fascinating Balloons Over Broadway: The True Story of the Puppeteer of Macy’s Parade.
Tony Sarg was already famous for his mechanical marionettes that attracted hordes of shoppers who came to gaze at Macy’s “Wondertown” windows. What more could the department store do to highlight the holiday?

The author points out that many of Macy’s workers were, like Tony, immigrants, who “missed their own holiday traditions of music and dancing in the streets.” Why shouldn’t Macy’s put on a parade for their employees? And who would be more perfect for the job than Tony Sarg?

The first parade was a dazzler: a procession winding its way from Harlem to Herald Square, resembling a European street carnival, with horse-drawn floats and even real bears, elephants, and camels from Central Park Zoo. That first parade was so successful, the store decided this was the beginning of a new Thanksgiving Day ritual.

The wild animals, though, caused concerns, and for the 1928 parade, Macy’s asked Tony to come up with a better alternative. Mulling over a vast range of puppets, Sarg fixed on the idea of an Indonesian rod puppet from his own toy collection. Voila! The parade would never be the same. “Part puppet, part balloon, the air-filled rubber bags wobbled down the avenues, propped up by wooden sticks.”

Melissa Sweet has infused every page of her award-winning picture book with her own inventive illustrations that show off her clever snipping and flipping and sketching. Beginning with end papers featuring vintage pages of The Tony Sarg Marionette Book and finishing with a dramatic 1933 New York Times ad (“HERE COMES THE PARADE!! IT’S IMMENSE! IT’S COLOSSAL! COME A-RUNNING!!), the author/illustrator has created a brief biography that soars with color and energy. Highly recommended for ages 7 to 10. 

Another exceptional nonfiction book, this one for ages 9 to 12, is 1621: A New Look at Thanksgiving, by Catherine O’Neill Grace in cooperation with the living-history museum Plimoth Plantation in Massachusetts. Sharp, full-color photos of re-enactors in period costumes help children understand some of the roots of the holiday. You’ll find no pumpkin pie, no silver buckles in this Thanksgiving account. You will, however, discover both sides of the story of how 52 English colonists came to celebrate their first harvest with 90 men of the Wampanoag tribe, in the town we now call Plymouth.

Related articles

• A Conversation with Melissa Sweet, Author of Balloons Over Broadway (delightfulchildrensbooks.com)
• City Giving Away 5,000 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade Tickets To Families Affected By Sandy (newyork.cbslocal.com)

Popping in on Schools Around the World

While many children groan at the prospect of summer ending and the school year beginning, it’s a ritual for children across the universe — or should be. Why not broaden our students’ perspective with a fascinating peek into other cultures?

In the follow-up to her fine My Librarian Is a Camel: How Books Are Brought to Children Around the World, Margriet Ruurs takes us on a lively tour of 13 diverse schools, all described with crisp prose and shown in sharp, engaging photos. Just imagine students who have to paddle in boats to arrive at school. That’s how you attend a floating school in Cambodia, where life is centered on the water.

Have your kids ever started their school day by chasing the chickens out first? That’s normal at the school under a tree, where Christian and Muslim classmates in Kenya study together, despite the tribal warfare around them.

Some children live at school, which might be a monastery in Myanmar or a boarding school in a castle in Edinburgh, Scotland.  Others, like a family in Oregon, stay home to learn. The children start their lessons around 8 a.m. but also pitch in with raising goats and chickens, which they sell to earn money for college.

And in Guatemala, many children travel 6.2 miles by boat to reach their brightly painted village school in the rain forest.

My School in the Rain Forest: How Children Attend School Around the World   provides fresh fare for an eye-opening read-aloud for children ages 7 to 9. For more great  back-to-school titles, see my prior post on libraries and these nonfiction books:

This Land Is Still Your Land and Mine

Woody Guthrie, born 100 years ago on Saturday, rambled his way into history, writing, singing and recording the hopes and frustrations of Americans yearning for a better life, for a more just society. His influence on music and culture reverberates in the lyrics of a host of troubadours, from Bob Dylan to Tracy Chapman, from John Fogerty to Bruce Springsteen. Earlier this year, Springsteen, speaking at the South by Southwest festival in Texas, highlighted Guthrie’s core conviction that “speaking truth to power was not futile.”

That Guthrie believed people of all income levels and even ages could act on that belief is evident in the broad reach of his songs, many of which he wrote specifically for children. An easy and appealing way to pay homage to Woody Guthrie is to share the colorful 2002 edition of This Land Is Your Land, which comes with a CD of nine folk songs sung by Woody and his son Arlo Guthrie.

“This Land’s” iconic words spring to life with Kathy Jakobsen’s folk art, ranging over the redwood forests to the gulf stream waters. Double page spreads display our nation’s varied topography and landmarks — its skyscrapers, its plains, the dusty fields of Oklahoma — throughout the seasons. Many children will recognize such significant sites as the Golden Gate Bridge, Niagara Falls, and Old Faithful.

In the midst of those pages you’ll also see the man himself, always a-wandering with his guitar.

Older readers will gain insight from the forward written by Woody’s daughter, Nora; and from the tribute by Pete Seeger. I call this book a keeper for all ages, an heirloom to be passed down to the next generation … and the next …

And have you heard

Little Seed: Songs for Children by Woody Guthrie?
Elizabeth Mitchell’s sweet, gentle voice highlights Guthrie’s playful, clear-eyed lyrics. This compilation provides families with a lovely way to share Guthrie’s songs with children. If you’re interested, you can click on the link to buy the CD or download any of the 13 songs, including the uncut version of “This Land Is Your Land.” You can hear a couple of tunes (“Bling Blang” and “This Land …”) on the free preview provided by Smithsonian Folkways.

Work Cited

Woody Guthrie still inspires, 100 years on from his birth(guardian.co.uk)

An Awe-inspiring Camping Trip

As screens continue to dominate our lives — even those of children — it seems to me essential to uphold the power of nature to teach, to heal, to inspire, to rejuvenate the world-weary. I’m fortunate enough to have an old-growth forest behind my yard, where I can ramble, get ticks, follow a meandering stream, and clarify my thoughts. We all need a green space, perhaps more than ever. And that’s why our parks are pearls beyond price.

The recently published nonfiction picture book The Camping Trip That Changed America: Theodore Roosevelt, John Muir, and our National Parks tells an engaging story of how two men with little in common experienced the wild beauty of our nation in a three-day trip that would result in protecting swaths of wilderness forever.

Barb Rosenstock has focused on an appealing angle that allows young readers to appreciate the thinking that went into the creation of our national parks. Her simple, kid-friendly language plays up  the elegant symmetry of the plot. She opens and closes with the contrast between the privileged, urban background of Pres. Theodore Roosevelt (or “Teedie,” as his family called him) and that of naturalist John Muir, the Midwestern son of poor immigrant farmers.

What brought the two together was a love of the outdoors. Roosevelt, in planning a trip out West in 1903, asked Muir to take him camping in the Yosemites so he could see for himself if, as Muir had written, the wild forests were vanishing.

“I feel like a runaway schoolboy!” Teedie cries, as they gallop away. Next we see a double spread where the grandeur of ancient sequoias comes to life. Readers must flip the book vertically to gaze at the stunning ink and watercolor painting by acclaimed illustrator Mordicai Gerstein. Quivering with green and golden light, this image is both inspired and inspiring, exactly what the author must have hoped for.

On their last night together, Muir explains to Roosevelt how people were destroying nature to profit from it, and there was no one to stop them. In a sickly yellowish cloud floating above the heads of the two men huddled by the campfire, Gerstein masterfully shows the ruthless forest clearing, the mining, the haphazard building of hotels. The two men could imagine something better for America:

“What if everyone owned the wilderness?
What if both rich and poor could spend time out in the open?
What if we could save the forests for all the children to come?”

The author’s note provides additional background information sure to interest older readers and many of their parents or teachers. The quotes from both Muir and Roosevelt are powerful:

Muir: “God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches … but he cannot save them from fools — only Uncle Sam can do that!”

Roosevelt: “Lying out at night under those giant Sequoias was lying in … a temple grander than any human architect could by any possibility build, and I hope for the preservation of the groves of giant trees simply because it would be a shame for our civilization to let them disappear … We are not building this country of ours for a day. It is to last through the ages.”

Wow! This is exemplary nonfiction for children, cleverly created to enlighten and entertain ages 6 to 10. For more ideas on using the book, see the teaching guide by Jennifer Ward.

See also … my prior post on summer fun and these titles:

Related articles:
John Muir’s Home (journeyleaf.typepad.com)
The New Moses (thenormaleye.com)

The Way to a Child’s Heart

“A house without a cat is like life without sunshine!” Taking those words right out of Julia Child’s mouth (by way of her memoir), Susanna Reich has whipped up a refreshing biography light on conflict but filled with humor and sensory appeal. 

The nation’s most celebrated chef, whose passion for food shone in her quirky yet authoritative cookbooks as well as on her television show, did, in fact, take in a tortoiseshell cat when she and her husband Paul Child lived in Paris in the late 1940s. The author picks up on this angle to craft a child-friendly story of Julia Child and her picky feline, which displays a finicky taste—for mouse, rather than for gourmet food.

Cat lovers will be tempted to paw the cover of Minette’s Feast, which frames Julia smiling and stirring some stock in a copper pot with one hand and with the other, offering a tasty spoonful to the cat perched upon her shoulders. Ms. Bates infuses her watercolor and pencil illustrations with spirited lines and warm colors such as egg-yolk yellow, mustard, and rust, and with touches of French blue and slate gray. Her full menu of other delectable touches includes end papers with a homey pattern of red-and-white checked tablecloths and a mélange of cozy scenes of the kitchen, the outdoor markets and, of course, atmospheric cafes.

Ms. Reich’s pleasant plot captures the energy and curiosity of the tall, big-boned Julia, as well as the loving relationship between her and her shorter, affectionate husband, Paul. The couple shared many simple joys as they made themselves at home in Paris: “They munched on baguettes in bistros where birds warbled in cages. They dined on rolls in restaurants where little white poodles nestled at ladies’ feet.

‘You are the butter to my bread,’ Paul told Julia.”

After they adopt the cat they call Minette, Julia shares the leftovers of the splendid lunches she makes in their apartment near the Seine. Minette turns up her nose at a platter of fish heads in broth, as “mouse and bird were much preferred.” Even after Julia enrolls in classes at the famous cooking school, Le Cordon Bleu, the cat persists in her preference.

With her delicious use of quotes from Julia Child’s memoir, My Life in France (2006), and from the couple’s letters, the author provides a savory little slice of life for young readers. Ms. Reich provides added value with her afterword, notes, bibliography, a crisp black-and-white photo of the chef and Minette, and a glossary with a pronunciation guide.

Julia Child (1912–2004) no doubt would have chuckled upon reading this charming biography. This reviewer can’t help but echo her with a hearty “Bon appétit”!

Reprinted with permission of New York Journal of Books.

Circles of Hope for Earth Day

Make Earth Day a hopeful one with rousing outdoor and indoor activities, complemented by a colorful mix of fiction and nonfiction. One of my favorite picture books for ages 6 to 8 is Karen Lynn Williams’s Circles of Hope, set in Haiti. Williams, the author of many acclaimed multicultural picture books (Four Feet, Two Sandals, 2007; and Beatrice’s Dream, 2011), situates her simple tale of a  boy’s struggle to keep a tree alive within the larger context of his homeland’s economic struggles. Facile decides to plant a mango tree for baby sister Lucia, but it turns out to be a difficult task. Goats eat the first sapling he plants … rain washes away the second … and a fire destroys the third. Then the observant boy realizes he can use stones to protect the tree, and hope blossoms. The illustrator, Saport, adeptly uses pastels of orange and yellow to depict Haiti’s sunny, dry hillsides and creates charming fat circles for the green trees, the rounded hills, and the stones surrounding more and more trees on the island.  Williams closes her gentle story with “One year at a time, little circles of hope began to grow on the mountainsides of Haiti, and inside each circle grew a tree.” She supplies a fine teacher’s guide, as well, for her sensitive, positive story. Pair this with the nonfiction book This Tree Counts! to instill in children a greater appreciation for the importance of trees.

Older children (ages 8 to 10) adore the exciting and true story John Muir and Stickeen: An Icy Adventure with a No-Good Dog.  John Muir initially feels a dog has no business on a treacherous expedition in Alaska. He changes his mind, though, when he and Stickeen become lost on a glacier during a storm, and the dog behaves courageously.  Farnsworth’s splendid, realistic oil paintings heighten the reader’s awareness of the perilous, frozen landscape. This adventure tale provides children with a fabulous introduction to the remarkable American conservationist and founder of the Sierra Club.

For another aspect of John Muir, try Emily Arnold McCully’s Squirrel and John Muir, featuring the possible relationship between the real-life rebellious Floy Hutchings, nicknamed Squirrel, and John Muir, who inspired her love of nature.

Looking for middle-school novels relating to respect for the Earth? See my post on One Day and One Amazing Morning on Orange Street, as well as novels by Carl Hiassen, such as Hoot.

Related articles

• Muir Woods National Monument (sheryllrea.wordpress.com)

Wilma Rudolph Beat the Odds

Who says true stories can’t be more thrilling than fiction? Whip out Kathleen Krull’s acclaimed picture-book biography Wilma Unlimited for a rousing read-aloud experience for all.

Many children don’t know Wilma Rudolph made history by winning three gold medals for running in the 1960 Olympics in Rome. That won’t stop them from cheering for the athlete who contracted polio at the age of 5 and was told she would likely never walk again.

Born in 1940, in Clarksville, TN, Wilma was the youngest of 19 brothers and sisters. She defied others’ low expectations of her by relying on her own strong will. Not only did she manage to shed her leg braces and walk, she went on to play high-school basketball. That’s how a track and field coach discovered her talent and offered her a college scholarship, thereby enabling her to become the first in her family to attend college.

Neither physical hardships, poverty, nor racism could hold back Wilma Rudolph. Enhanced by striking illustrations by David Diaz, this story can’t help but inspire others and show how perseverance can lead to triumph. Why not get this Women’s History Month off to a running start with this winner?

Author Kathleen Krull Provides Tips on Using Biographies in the Classroom.

Check out the 2nd annual KidsLit CelebratesWomen’s History Month. 

and see …