Can we read? No. 48
Hello and good morning!
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Onwards!
So Many Days by Alison McGhee, illustrated by Taeeun Yoo (2010)
“So many doors in all your days,
so much to wonder about.
Who will you be and where will you go?
And how will you know?”
This lovely illustrated poem asks a lot of questions and offers a lot of affirmation as it follows one little girl as she romps through nature — climbing trees, jumping in leaves, playing in puddles, flying a kite — and if it seems a bit simple, well, that doesn’t mean it’s not powerful. The repeated messaging here — “you are stronger than you know,” “you are braver than you know,” “you are wilder than you know,” speaks to that small scared voice inside all of us and reassures: sometimes you won’t know, but you are a part of everything and everything is a part of you, and, most importantly, “you are loved more than you know.”
Yoo’s linocut illustrations lend a meditative quality to the turning of each page and make a perfect pair with McGhee’s lyrical, lilting prose, a combination that is as useful as a morning incantation as it is as a lullaby (in other words, it’s perfect for any time of day). For years I read this to my little ones whenever I wanted them to go forth into the world with confidence, feeling grounded in who they are (so, I haven’t stopped reading it to them). We should all be so lucky to hear these loving messages, on “so many days.”
Raising Dragons by Jerdine Nolen, illustrated by Elise Primavera (1998)
The parents of the unnamed little girl in this story don’t know anything about raising dragons, but they’d taught their daughter about caring for living creatures from the day she was born, so when she finds a giant egg in a nearby cave and out hatches a dragon, it was love at first sight.
She names the dragon Hank. And though her parents don’t see the point of keeping a dragon around a farm, the little girl goes about her business anyway, feeding Hank fish, frogs, eels, and insects, and taking night rides on his back. When Hank takes to doing the work around the farm — planting, weeding, even popping a field of corn with his fiery breath — the little girl’s parents come around, eventually allowing their daughter to vacation on Hank’s home island, where he offers the family a gift that will change the future of the farm (and the future of the dragon-raiser) forever.
I love this title for its tender depiction of friendship and its sense of gentle adventure — the little girl and her dragon are two unlikely peas in a pod but their relationship just works, and little ones will love to see how it all unfolds in Primavera’s vivid illustrations, done in acrylic paint and pastel on gessoed illustration board.
Sometimes you just need a good old story, you know? This is one.
The Giant Jam Sandwich, story and pictures by John Vernon Lord, verses by Janet Burroway (1972)
If you are looking for a rollicking, rhyming read-aloud, look no further than this one.
I think of the town of Itching Down as a parallel universe to the one found in Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs by Judi Barrett (here’s a secret: I don’t like reading that book) — but instead of a weather system that provides food for all, “one hot summer in Itching Down, four million wasps flew into town.”
This is, of course, a catastrophe on the level of, well, four million wasps flying into one’s town — it makes life heinous and something must be done. A meeting of important people results in an ingenious idea: wasps like strawberry jam, right? Let’s trap them in A GIANT JAM SANDWICH. And that’s exactly what they do.
It’s hard to say which is better here — Vernon Lord’s wacky, 70s-vibe pen, ink, and watercolor illustrations (that offer a ton to be pored over again and again) or Burroway’s truly masterful verbal wrangling of this uproarious tale — they are both so incredibly well done. This is a delightful treasure of a book that will please any reader, young or old. Don’t miss this one.
Jo Jo Makoons: The Used-to-Be Best Friend by Dawn Quigley, illustrated by Tara Audibert (2020)
Jo Jo Makoons is my new favorite spunky character (I have a long list of them and they never get old). Even though this is an early chapter book — by which I mean, it’s not solid gold reading-aloud material, as early chapter books are meant for emerging readers and so the rich vocabulary and complex sentence structure just isn’t there yet — I read it aloud to my kiddos for the sheer joy of being able to offer them the story of a young, contemporary, Native girl (this is rare, and therefore special).
Jo Jo is a 1st grader who lives on the Pembina Ojibwe reservation (not a real place, but is entirely realistic) and though her life is filled with all the concerns one expects from a 7yo (she’s worried that her best friend no longer wants to be friends at all), she also gets into all sorts of situations that reveal her as a quirky, hilarious new character all her own (she brings her cat to school in her backpack and it escapes and pees in a mini tipi her Teacher has set up to help prepare for an upcoming community powwow).
Audibert’s black-and-white illustrations, which appear every other page or so, are exaggerated in an appealing cartoonish way (I love Jo Jo’s kokum’s enormous grandma glasses) and add to the sense of fun to be had here. Kudos to HarperCollins for their new imprint, Heartdrum, which intends to publish children’s books that “emphasize the present and future of Indian Country and the strength of young Indigenous heroes” — Jo Jo is only the second Native 7yo I’ve met in children’s literature (the first was Omakayas, from Louise Erdrich’s The Birchbark House — incidentally, both girls are Ojibwe) and that is not nothing, not in 2021.
This is an entertaining short read about an entertaining new girl, and, like my feelings for her spunky literary predecessors, I can’t wait to hear what Jo Jo gets up to next.
Once Around the Sun by Bobbi Katz, illustrated by LeUyen Pham (2006)
Katz is a masterful poet — as a former editor for Random House, she knows her stuff when it comes to children’s literature — and you can never with a book of hers. This one might just be my all-time favorite of hers, and I am happy to pull it out on the first of every month, to read during Morning Time with my kiddos.
One could consider this a monthly almanac, as there is one poem for each month, titled simply, “January,” “February,” etc., but in addition to charting the weather and the changing of the seasons, Katz captures all the small lovely things about the turning of the wheel through the eyes of one little boy: when your sled keeps whispering to you, “one more time;” when “the sky unties a secret song bag” and the birds fly out; when you want to “bottle slices of the sky” with Mason jars; when yellow pencils wear “brand-new eraser hats;” when “apples are not just apples but families with names: McIntosh, Northen Spy, Rome, Golden Delicious.”
Pham’s vivacious, feel-good digital illustrations are unmatchable, but then, that’s always true (there is a reason she has illustrated 100+ books and deservedly received all the awards and critical acclaim one could ask for). Here they exude such joy it’s hard for me to read aloud through the smile on my face. (My advice: if a book makes you smile hard, buy it and read it often).
This is just a lovely little gift of a book — I hope you receive it.
I’ll leave you with this quote from LeUyen Pham, which I discovered as I was digging around for the exact number of books she has illustrated:
“Why do I make books? That’s easy. A book sits with you in your secret corner or in your favorite chair on a rainy day, and whispers in your ear, “You’re okay, I’m here. Let me tell you a story…” It’s like a hug made solid. That’s what I do. I make hugs for a living.”
I love that.
Thanks for reading today (and always),
Sarah