Friends and foes (and books!)

Can we read? No. 83

Hi there, and good morning ☀️ Thanks for reading today.

Sometimes I plan ahead and actually take PTO that has nothing to do with holidays or vacations or long appointments or what have you. Last Friday was one of them, and I had a spontaneous day date with myself: I dropped my children off at my mom’s house (priceless, invaluable; there are no words) and then hastened to one of my lovely local independent bookstores, Mystery to Me.

I was trying to buy my mother a copy of Sara Nović’s True Biz (SO GOOD), which they didn’t have in stock, but I won’t leave a bookstore without buying something, so I got myself a book called The Inland Island: A Year in Nature by Josephine W. Johnson, which was originally published in 1969 and tells the story of a farm that the author and her husband reverted back to wilderness. Do I have 10, 20, 30 books like this already? Yes, I do. Will I stop buying them? Not until my two acres no longer involve grass to be mown. So there.

I bought Lynda Barry’s latest (reprinted from 1990) Maybelle/Marlys installment, Come Over Come Over, because have you read these comics? They’re so skilled (and hilarious), it’s kind of stunning. And, a Roald Dahl mug. Yes, I know Dahl was an asshole who wrote some dark things for children and probably held some atrocious views — though he always contended he didn’t — but I’d be lying if I said his books didn’t mean the world to me as a child, and I never tire of Quentin Blake’s illustrations, which bring me right back to those pages. Also, once, in Afterschool, we staged a production of James and the Giant Peach and I was Aunt Spiker and it was my best performance ever. (Were there more performances, you ask? Oh yes, I was an owl, too. I can’t remember the play, only that I got to stand on a ladder and hoot a lot. I am still very good at hooting a lot.)

Bookish adventures are my most frequent — and certainly most favorite — kind of adventure.

Now, onto these books…

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Sun and Moon Have a Tea Party by Yumi Heo, illustrated by Naoko Stoop (2020)

“One late afternoon, the moon and the sun had a tea party.”

They get to talking, as you do, and find that they disagree on how people and things and animals behave — for instance, Sun thinks that children go to school and that streets are busy and that the sky is filled with birds, whereas Moon thinks that children go to sleep and streets aren’t busy at all and birds “are always snuggled down in their nests.”

They go back and forth for awhile until finally, their friend Cloud intervenes and suggests that they each stay up past their bedtime and see what happens.

Well, of course, this shift in perspective changes everything: Sun stays up into the night and sees all the things that Moon knows, and Moon does likewise. Not only does this repair the rift between them, it helps each to see the beauty they’d been missing out on by insisting they were right.

Stoop’s glowing illustrations, rendered in mixed media on plywood and finished digitally, perfectly complement this warm, charming story of friendship and the power of changing one’s mind.

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Grandmother and I by Helen Buckley, illustrated by Jan Ormerod (1994)

This gentle, loving tale of a girl and her grandmother and the tender relationship they have — the best moments of which occur in their beloved rocking chair — was on repeat in our house when my kiddos were tiny. Revisiting it recently I realized what a gem it is, especially for little ones in need of some comfort.

Ormerod’s story is quiet — comprised of the small things that make up a little life, like a mother braiding one’s hair, or “playing cowboy” on a father’s lap, along with Buckley’s evocative watercolor and pencil illustrations — but don’t let its simplicity fool you: her warm depiction of the safety of grandmother’s lap is powerful in her skilled hands.

There is also a certain truth that mirrors the experience of the youngest listeners, offered through the only repetitive lines in the book, emphasizing the circular nature of small children: the going-away from your grownups and the equal-and-opposite return (what I have always called “the check-in,” which lasts far beyond the baby and toddler years). The little girl in this story goes out into her world and enjoys it, but comes back to her grandmother in their rocking chair, again and again:

We sit in the big chair
And rock back and forth, and back and forth.
And Grandmother hums little tunes.
And her shoes make a soft sound on the floor.

As someone who spent much of her childhood in the arms of her grandparents — I still vividly remember my grandpa wrapping me in an old red paisley blanket and holding me like a baby during a bad storm — I find this to be a deeply touching and basically perfect book. It’s a lullaby, in the best sense — soothing, settling to the heart and soul, a beautiful reminder to any child that they are deeply loved and protected and safe.

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Rabbit Makes a Monkey of Lion by Verna Aardema, illustrated by Jerry Pinkney (1989)

A note at the beginning of this highly entertaining, crowd-pleasing story, which emphasizes ingenuity and brain-over-brawn, explains that once, “of all the creatures of the world, Monkey was considered most foolish.” Therefore, anyone who has been tricked might say, “So-and-so made a monkey out of me!”

This idea is the basis of this tale, where a honey guide (a type of bird) tips off Rabbit to the presence of a bee tree — which he of course goes to find, along with his friends Bush-Rat and then Turtle, where they feast on honey. The problem is that Lion thinks this calabash tree is his tree exclusively, and he rushes up to it again and again, trying to protect it. This doesn’t work for the smaller animals, as you can imagine — no one is ever looking to get eaten.

Preschoolers and early elementary readers will delight in the myraid ways the little animals outwit Lion over and over. On almost every page, Aardema adds onomatopoetic action words (“TWOM!” for Lion’s pounce; “pesi, pesi, pesi” when Turtle slips away into mud, and so on), which adds a level of auditory interest and enjoyment for listeners (and would make this especially fun to read-aloud to a group of children in classroom or library). Add to this Pinkney’s lush signature watercolors — Bush-Rat’s super creepy realistic feet! Lion’s amazing open mouth when he catches a flying yam! (see below) — and you have a winning tale that’s easy for nearly everyone to love.

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Friends and Foes: Poems About Us All by Douglas Florian (2018)

“How Do You Say ‘Friend?’”

In Spain they say “amigo.”
The Danish word is “ven.”
Italians say “amico.”
In Afrikaans it’s “vriend.”

The Maltese say “habib.”
While French folk say “ami.”
The Irish word is “cara.”
Swahili “rafiki.”

In different countries friendship
may have a different name.
But though the spelling’s different
the meaning is the same.

In this pitch-perfect collection of poetry about friends and friendship, the ever-masterful Florian names and celebrates every facet of the experience, complemented by his vibrant colored pencil and crayons on manila paper illustrations, which are playful and full of life.

My kiddos and I always appreciate Florian’s poetry — you can rely on him to offer delightful rhymes and ideas, pretty much no matter what — but this title stands out especially for the reality and honesty of the subject matter: he doesn’t shy away from the anger, jealousy, and frustration that can arise amongst friends, nor does he pretend that sometimes things happen in a way we’d rather they not (like when friends drift apart, or one moves away).

This is the perfect one to pick up ahead of a new school year and into the fall, when children are learning how to be with new people in new classrooms and in new situations, though to be perfectly honest, friendship — and its joys and challenges — is a topic that never gets old, so neither will this book.

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That’s it for now! Paid subscribers, next week you’ll hear from me at the same bat-time, same bat-channel, with this year’s special edition on fall. Everyone else, I’ll be back in your inbox on September 7.

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I appreciate you.
Sarah