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Book Review: The Very Busy Spider

Posted on August 28, 2010 | No responses

Rating:

In this pleasant sequel to The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Eric Carle introduces a spider who, carried by the wind, lands on a fence post and begins to spin her web.  In each two-page spread, a different animal approaches her, inviting her to participate in an activity familiar to them: the horse wants her to go for a ride, the cow invites her to eat some grass, the sheep invites her for a run in the meadow, and so on.  The spider’s response to each invitation is silence, because “She was very busy spinning her web.”  At the end of the story,, the purpose of the web is revealed when a pesty fly (which had buzzed around each animal in the preceding pages) meets its fitting end, and the spider settles down to sleep, satisfied after her busy day.

This great toddler book has a lot going for it.  Farm animals introduce themselves with their characteristic sound and behavior, we learn about a spider’s natural behavior, and each turn of the page page brings another pleasing repetition of greeting and silence that moves the story along nicely, while retaining the attention of preverbal listeners.

The spider’s example of steady, goal-oriented and satisfying work is a good model for children who need to grow up into productive adults.  While the book doesn’t have quite the brilliance of The Very Hungry Caterpiller, it is a good addition to a child’s reading basket.

Book Review: Dreams

Posted on August 24, 2010 | No responses

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This is another of Spier’s wonderful wordless books.  In it, the two Noonan children spend a pleasant summer afternoon cloudgazing, showing each other what shapes they see in the clouds.  The story is a series of changing scenes.  In the first two-page spread we see the actual cloud shapes as the children gaze upward; then we turn the page and see the clouds coalesced into imaginative shapes, and the children pointing them out to one another.  In our technology-driven society, this story about children exercising their imaginations together is a breath of fresh air.  Throughout the book there is a gentle, tender camaraderie between the two siblings that is a refreshment in itself.

This book is unfortunately out of print, but is available in public libraries and through the used book market.

Book Review: Night at the Fair

Posted on August 23, 2010 | No responses

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The community fair, complete with rides, games, and funnel cakes is an old American institution, imported from Europe, whose popularity persists despite many changes in our social rhythms.  Donald Crews gives a childs-eye view of the fair, capturing well the sense of noisy excitement and fun that pervades the event.  His bright colors, flashing against a darkened sky, show the rides and games up well, and it’s almost possible to hear the hawkers inviting visitors to try out the games.  In this fair there are no animals competing for prizes, only games, food, and rides; but there is an enjoyable self-portrait of the author on page seven.  As always, Crews captures the mood of a complex social phenomenon with what looks like effortless skill.

This book, with its bright colors, minimal text, and easy-to-understand pictures, and general sense of excitement, is a good choice for preschoolers who will soon attend (or who wish to relive) a local fair.

Book Review: One Wintry Night

Posted on August 22, 2010 | No responses

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There are a many well-written, poorly illustrated Bible storybooks, and even more well-illustrated versions which drift from the original meaning of the biblical text.  Ruth Bell Graham‘s Christmas Bible storybook, illustrated by award-winning artist Richard Jesse Watson, is visually one of the best Bible picture books I have seen, while remaining close to the original text of the Bible.

The book opens with a boy hurting his ankle during a blizzard in the mountains, near a mountain home that his grandfather helped build.  He respectfully knocks on the door and the woman who lives there puts him up until the storm abates.  While he enjoys the warm security of the home, she tells him Bible stories beginning with the Creation and ending with Jesus’ resurrection.  This meta-plot of an adult caretaker telling a Bible story to an eager young listener is quite overused in Christian literature, but in this case we can overlook it because the stories the old lady tells are so good.  Graham’s own grandmotherly voice comes through clearly, and you can imagine her practicing these stories on her grandchildren.  The stories progress from the Old Testament into the New, building to a climax with Jesus’ birth, life, death and resurrection, and a clear presentation of the Christian Gospel, the “real meaning of Christmas.”  Watson’s illustrations are breathtaking, full of vigor and splendor, with an unusual originality and excellence of artwork that is still true to the original spirit of the stories.

Not everyone will love Graham’s and Watson’s interpretations of the Bible stories: in giving them conversational warmth and visual detail each author has added a lot of details that are not in the original Bible.  The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil is renamed the Testing Tree.  When Cain kills Abel, Adam and Eve “wept till there were no tears left, and awoke the next day to weep again.”  Noah and his family, on exiting the ark, feel an impulse to “run and jump and turn cartwheels.”  Watson’s glorious scene of Eden gratuitously includes half-inch-tall back views of a naked Adam and Eve, and (strangely enough) the angel which guards the Garden of Eden against their re-entry resembles a female New-Age Native American.  Because of these and other interpretive choices, I recommend that adults read the book ahead of their audience to ensure that they agree with the way the Bible stories are presented.

Even with its minor faults, this book makes an excellent read-aloud for the Christmas season, and a good Christmas gift for most families.

Book Review: The Book of Jonah

Posted on August 22, 2010 | No responses

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Peter Spier has again brought us an enthralling rendition of a beloved Bible story.  Unlike his wordless Noah’s Ark, this book includes text that closely parallels the biblical story, but the intricate detail and visual drama are interesting enough to keep pre-readers engaged long after the story has been read aloud.  For older readers, there is a postscript containing a fair bit of historical background, maps and archaelogical information about the historical Nineveh.

The book has been reprinted with a paraphrased text, and according to a helpful Amazon reviewer, the reprinted version is of inferior quality.  It’s probably best to play it safe and stick with the original version, which is available in public libraries and the used book market.

Book Review: King Midas and the Golden Touch

Posted on August 18, 2010 | No responses

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King Midas, with his greed for gold, learned an important lesson when he got his wish that everything he touched would turn to gold.  This gift became a curse, and he realized almost too late that the things most precious to him could not be purchased with money.  This ancient Greek myth, with its timeless themes of love and greed, has been told and retold for centuries.

Charlotte and K.Y. Craft have produced a beautiful rendition of King Midas and the Golden Touch.  Charlotte Craft’s well-crafted retelling (based on Nathanael Hawthorne’s version) moves the story along at a good pace, giving enough details to satisfy an elementary-age audience.  The great appeal of this book, however, comes from K.Y. Craft’s stunningly beautiful paintings.  Lush with details, Craft’s use of light and shadow evokes a medieval mood, bringing the ancient story a little closer to the present day; and the glimmer of gold shines on every page.  This is an excellent book to introduce the classic myth to young readers, providing them with an imaginative framework for engaging the full version of the story at a later age.

Book Review: Sheep Out to Eat

Posted on August 17, 2010 | No responses

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The sheep are back in a new installment of hilarious bumbling humor, as they enter a restaurant (operated by cats) and proceed to misunderstand the menu, add sugar to spinach custard, send it back, add pepper to their cake, sneeze, and upend the tables.  Ejected from the restaurant, they note that the lawn looks tasty, so the story ends happily after all, as they leave tips at the front stoop and promise to return again.

The concept of sheep acting like people in the context of primary societal institutions is original and educational.  It allows for plenty of humor, while giving a sideways lesson in courtesy and manners: while laughing at their ridiculous antics, children learn the appropriate way to act in a restaurant, as they see the strain this bad behavior places on the restaurant staff.

This rhythmic, rhyming story is best for toddlers and preschoolers, but it can also serve as practice for early readers, and the humor is sophisticated enough that older children will enjoy it.

Book Review: Sammy and His Shepherd

Posted on August 16, 2010 | No responses

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Susan Hunt, best known for her Christian ministry to women, has written a wonderful narrative exploration of Psalm 23.  In this story, Sammy the sheep befriends a lonely, neglected sheep in the next pasture.  Through their successive conversations, it becomes clear that Sammy’s shepherd is skilled in taking care of sheep in a number of crucial ways.  When the lonely sheep decides to join Sammy in his pasture, the good shepherd buys her from her surly keeper; then My Friend (renamed “Precious” by the shepherd) has to learn to be part of his flock.

Each chapter begins with a line from the 23rd Psalm and develops the idea in it by explaining quite a bit of background information about Middle Eastern shepherding practices.  This provides even the youngest listeners with practical and detailed insight into the Psalmist’s intent when he penned Psalm 23, poetically comparing the Lord to a shepherd.  This narrative approach to interpreting scripture is especially effective in helping children internalize the important themes of faith, trust and dependence on God.

Unlike most children’s devotionals available, this one is a pretty good story all on its own, with better than average illustrations.  There are also discussion questions provided in an appendix to help adults review and interpret the story with their listeners.

The book has also been reviewed by Discerning Reader and The Children’s Hour.

Book Review: The Ugly Duckling

Posted on August 14, 2010 | No responses

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Hans Christian Anderson’s story tells of a swan hatched into a family of ducks, who lives his life trying to fit into a situation where he doesn’t belong.  When this “ugly duckling” finds himself in the company of swans and realizes that he is really one of them, he understands that all the qualities which caused him to be rejected were actually signs of his true character.  This story lends a hope-filled perspective on social difficulties, suggesting that may be seeds of greatness even in the most awkward individuals.  It brings a gentle moral lesson both to those who are ostracized and those who are tempted to judge others by their appearances.

Jerry Pinkney’s adaptation brings the story into a visual splendor, with lushly detailed watercolor paintings full of drama and life.  His text is smoothly written, although heavily abridged from the original version.  It’s a perfect adaptation for children who are not quite ready to transition from picture books to chapter books, because its visual representation of the story establishes the story line so vividly; reading the full text version at a later time will be easy if they can picture Pinkney’s scenes in their minds.

Book Review: We the People

Posted on August 14, 2010 | No responses

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Peter Spier’s book presents the United States Constitution in a format that is particularly attractive to young people.  Following a historical introduction to the document’s inception and historical importance (supplemented with an 1787 map of the US), the book presents an illustrated version of the Preamble to the Constitution.  In Spier’s lavishly detailed style, he presents many scenes from Colonial America, juxtaposed against comparable scenes of America in 1987.  Through these images the audience sees changes that have taken place in the intervening centuries: clothes washing-boards have traded in for washing machines, the pillory changed to an isolated jail cell.  Men in Colonial dress lined up to cast their ballot have been joined by modern women, and a black and white child can reach across the modern grocery aisle to play with one another.  The book includes a reproduction of the document’s signatures (with images of the signatories) and the full text of the Constitution, both typed and in its original handwritten format.

In this book, the character of the American people (to whom the book is dedicated) are shown with a heartfelt affection that is made more significant when you realize that Spier immigrated to the United States in his mid-twenties, in 1952.  His Dutch roots give him a uniquely perceptive insight into American culture, and they make this patriotic tribute to our nation’s founding especially meaningful.

This excellent book is unfortunately out of print, but is available in public libraries and on the used book market.

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