Can we read? No. 43

Jul 07, 2021

Good morning! I hope this issue finds you well. I am still in transition-from-vacation mode, in the midst of a cobbled-together week, but I got myself and my children up and ready and out of the house at our pre-Before Times time, I have dangly earrings and mascara and even nail polish on, I even had the wherewithal to roast vegetables last night and prepare myself a real lunch (gasp!), I have grave doubts about whether or not I can do this again — by “this” I mean my “normal” life as a work-outside-the-home mother with some semblance of sanity and health, not to mention a marriage and interests of my own, including writing this newsletter — but here I am, Doing It.

Wherever you are, whatever your situation (may it be good), I send you the energy, stamina, and hope to Do It.

Now let’s do this.

And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell, illustrated by Henry Cole (2005)

This book has been around for more than 15 years, it often makes booklists about families of all kinds, and it’s fairly well known, but: on the off chance it’s new to you I wanted to share it, because its heartwarming messages about love, being who you are, and what it means to be a family are welcome anytime.

The (true) story begins at the Central Park Zoo — the penguin habitat, specifically — where the reader learns that “every year at the very same time, the girl penguins start noticing the boy penguins… and the boy penguins start noticing the girls. When the right girl and the right boy find each other, they become a couple.” Except that in this penguin habitat, there is a boy penguin named Roy and boy penguin named Silo, and they wind their necks around each other, in love. Eventually they notice that the other penguin couples are doing “something they could not:” laying eggs and sitting on a nest until a baby hatches. Roy and Silo try to do this — they find a rock and Silo pours his energy into sitting on it but of course, nothing happens (am I the only one who finds this purely heartbreaking?) Finally their keeper helps the sweet couple out and gives them an egg, which they successfully hatch — the keeper decides to call the baby Tango, “because it takes two to make a Tango,” “the first penguin in the zoo to have two daddies.”

I love this book for its gentle story (and Cole’s lovely watercolor illustrations that detail every bit of the action, and there is plenty) as well as for the questions it inspires, though they’re not the questions you might think: my kids have never once asked why Tango has two daddies, they just take it for granted that families come in all shapes and sizes; I have, however, had to field all sorts of inquiries about penguins and their lives and why they sit on their eggs so differently than birds who nest.

This book was written and published before any of us knew the term “love is love” but it’s a beautiful example of just that. Highly recommended.

Whoever You Are by Mem Fox (1997)

I don’t normally cover books by Mem Fox because most of her work is so popular, and deservedly so — someone gave me Time for Bed at my baby shower and thus it became one of the very first handful of books in our home library, and later I added Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes as well as surefire crowd-pleaser Where is the Green Sheep? to our board books, because Fox really is that good, not to the fact that mention Harriet, You’ll Drive Me Wild! single-handedly normalized my biggest parenting struggle and made me feel less alone.

This title is worth pulling out and focusing on, though — it begins, “Little one, whoever you are, wherever you are, there are little ones just like you all over the world,” and goes on to explain that though there are differences among us (homes, skin, schools, lands, lives, words), inside we’re all the same. Staub’s paintings show the diversity in all these differences, with some details that have fascinated my children over the years (my youngest loves the page that shows the boy with the skinned knee and reads, “blood is the same” — who hasn’t experienced this injury at one time or another?) We share smiles and laughter, pain and hurts, and recognizing that “joys are the same, and love is the same” is a powerful lesson (and reminder) that peace begins in our commonalities, not our differences.

Read this book for its lovely messages about the importance of open-mindedness, identity, tolerance and equality. It’s a good one.

I love Saturdays y domingos by Alma Flor Ada, illustrated by Elivia Savadier (1999)

In this charming intergenerational bilingual tale, we meet a little girl with two sets of grandparents, each of whom she visits one weekend day: on Saturdays she visits her father’s parents, Grandma and Grandpa, and on los domingos she visits her mother’s parents, Abuelito and Abuelita (the Spanish words are emphasized in the text, so I have chosen to do so here as well).

The story details all the similar things she does with her grandparents in a way I can only explain as mirrored, with her European-American culture on the left-hand page and her Mexican-American culture on the right — e.g., her Grandma serves her milk, scrambled eggs, and pancakes for breakfast; her Abuelita serves her papaya juice and huevos rancheros, and the narrative continues the whole way in this manner, through a visit to the circus and the pier, all the way to a birthday celebration for the narrator.

This is truly a bilingual book — there is not just a smattering of Spanish here and there, there are full sentences, complete conversations (and even a song) throughout — so if you are not comfortable at least pronouncing Spanish, you won’t make it through this one (and if you can read Spanish but not comprehend it you will miss out on the story a bit, though Savadier’s amusing and expressive watercolor illustrations help). But if you can, it’s a wonderful portrait of a little girl’s relationship with her various grandparents — as a child who had many special days with my own beloved grandparents, I cherish titles that show how significant these times are — not to mention a peek into two different cultures and traditions, both full to the brim of fun and love.

The Circus Ship by Chris Van Dusen (2009)

“Five miles off the coast of Maine and slightly overdue, a circus ship was streaming south in fog as thick as stew.” Thus begins the perilous, riotous tale (based on true events) of a ship full of circus animals — overseen by a jerk of a circus boss — that went down in a storm, leaving the animals to swim to safety, arriving at the village on the nearest shore. At first the townsfolk are alarmed, though not hostile, just as surprised as you’d be if you found any amount of exotic animals in the tulips and the pantry — “There’s an ostrich in the outhouse! There’s a hippo in the spring!” — until the tiger, calling on the muscle memory of jumping through rings of fire in the circus, saves a little girl from a burning house, and the people welcome the animals wholeheartedly.

Van Dusen’s relentless cadence is a pure pleasure to read aloud, and children of all ages will enjoy his gouache illustrations, which are chock-full of the 15 lost animals, often hidden in clever ways that bring this title close to a seek-and-find in the best way. Readers will also rejoice in the ending — the circus boss gets the comeuppance he deserves, and who doesn’t enjoy a villian’s punishment?

This is one of my most recommend books to build your library or give as a gift — it’s a 10 out of 10 crowd pleaser. Run, do not walk, to get this one.

Dark Emperor & Other Poems of the Night by Joyce Sidman, illustrated by Rick Allen (2010)

The thing I love most about Joyce Sidman — beside her talent as a poet — is that she takes things from nature (insects, animals, colors, events) and illuminates their essence, the thing (or things) that is most amazing. Here Sidman takes the reader to the cool night woods, amongst the wild beings that hoot and howl as well as those that stand quiet and tall. With subjects ranging from snails and crickets to baby porcupettes (porcupettes!), she conveys both the magic and mystery of the dark world.

While not every poem hits a deep note, most of them do, offering not only nuggets of wonder but wisdom as well, as here, in the poem, “Night-Spider’s Advice:”

Build a frame
and stick to it,
I always say.
Life’s a circle.
Just keep going around.
Do your work, then
sit back and see
what falls in your lap.
Eat your triumphs,
eat your mistakes:
that way your belly
will always be full.

Sidman seems to have a knack for teaming up with illustrators who do justice to her words in a way that other collaborations don’t often match: in this case, Allen’s beautiful and finely detailed glimpses of the creatures and their habitats go hand-in-hand with the prose in exposing the diurnal beauty herein.

Sidman is a treasure and this is the perfect poetry book for the depths of summer. Read it at bedtime or when you decide to stay up late, outdoors if you can swing it — it will not disappoint.

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Thanks for reading today, and have a good one!
Sarah

Can we read?