Molly’s Pilgrim – written by Barbara Cohen, illustrated by Daniel Mark Duffy
Scholastic, 1998 (Revised edition); Original edition by Barbara Cohen, illustrated by Michael J. Deraney, HarperCollins, 1983

Molly is a Jewish immigrant girl living in a community where she stands out in a painful way. In this classic Thanksgiving story, Molly, called Malka by her Yiddish speaking mother, has left New York City’s Lower East Side to move to a small town where her father is better able to support their family.  She is lonely and alienated by the unfriendly atmosphere, and especially by the typical, but not less cruel, bullying of her classmates. Like some analogous books I have reviewed here and here, Molly’s Pilgrim is not only a story for Jewish children; it captures the difficult experience of immigrants regardless of their background, but also offers an optimistic picture of inclusion when a compassionate adult intervenes with an unforgettable lesson in both American civics and humanity. (This edition is marked as “revised.” I have ordered the original edition; when it arrives, I will post about whatever changes, perhaps in response to historical inaccuracies, have been made.)

The book, by the great writer Barbara Cohen, begins in Winter Hill, whose name evokes an idealized image of small-town life in early twentieth-century America. Elizabeth, Fay, and Emma, girls whose names probably do not represent English translations of the names used in their own homes, taunt Molly mercilessly. They are likely unaware that their nasty song evokes the antisemitic stereotypes associated with the violence in Eastern Europe which caused Molly’s parents to flee: “Jolly Molly/your eyes are awf’ly small/Jolly Molly/your nose is awf’ly tall.” Molly’s teacher, Miss Stickley, is not exactly a model for assertive protectiveness of her students; her intervention is limited to staring at the girls, temporarily causing them to stop their harassment.

When Molly reports to her mother the torment she is undergoing at school, the response is swift and unambiguous: “I’ll go to your school. I’ll talk to the teacher. She’ll make those paskudynaks stop teasing you.” (The author’s choice to leave this Yiddish term untranslated gives the conversation more authenticity. It means, in this context, a troublemaker.)

Molly is horrified. As almost any child who has been bullied knows, bringing the behavior to the attention of authorities may only make it worse.  But worse is, unfortunately, on the way. The class is learning about Thanksgiving, and Molly’s lack of familiarity with this holiday gives the mean girl a further pretext to punish her. (I do have one question here. If Molly had, like most Jewish immigrant children, attended public school in New York City, she would probably have learned about Thanksgiving.  Perhaps she was too young at the time.)

Evidently, Miss Stickley has a background in progressive education and projects-based learning, because she informs the class that, instead of just reading about Thanksgiving, they will construct a Pilgrim village. Her meticulous, not to say rigid, approach calls for the children to be assigned items to construct based on their seating arrangement: “If you sit in row one, two, or three, make a woman. If you sit in row four, five, or six, make a man.” 

Molly returns home, asking her mother for help in creating a Pilgrim woman out of a wooden clothespin.  Cohen captures the generational difference between the almost-acculturated Molly and her European mother.  At first, her mother is uncomprehending: “A clothespin? What kind of homework is a clothespin?” She has not attended school, but she knows that free public school in America is an incredible gift. (“In Goraduk, Jewish girls don’t go to school at all…They have to grow up ignorant, like donkeys.”). When Molly’s mother goes to great effort to support her daughter’s work, she creates a beautiful and intricate clothespin figure, modeled after her own experience:

She had dressed the doll in a long full red skirt, tiny black felt boots, and a bright yellow high-necked blouse. She had covered the yarn hair with a yellow kerchief. Embroidered with red flowers. But the doll isn’t a pilgrim.  In fact, it resembles the photograph of Molly’s mother as a child. When Molly explains to her mother who the historical Pilgrims had been, her mother accurately responds: “What’s a Pilgrim, shaynkeit? …A Pilgrim is someone who came here from the other side to find freedom. That’s me, Molly. I’m a Pilgrim!”

When Molly returns to school, the girls are more than ready to retaliate at her presumption. No doubt, they even recognize, at some level, the artistic superiority of Molly’s Pilgrim figure.  Not only does Elizabeth point out its inadequacy, she tries to terrorize her by claiming that Miss Stickley will be angry at Molly’s failure to follow the rules.  Finally, the teacher has been pushed too far.  Realizing that her passive approach has failed, she calls Elizabeth to account for her actions, and praises Molly’s Pilgrim to the whole class. Not only that, she validates Molly’s immigrant background, pointing out the connection between the Jewish harvest festival of Sukkot and the Pilgrim’s celebration of abundance in their new home.

The teacher places Molly’s doll on her desk, the center of her lesson, a tangible reminder to xenophobes that immigrants are welcome in her classroom, and by implication, in our country. Miss Stickley pointedly includes both children and older immigrants, whose roots in their own culture will remain stronger throughout their lives as new Americans:

“ I’m going to put this beautiful doll on my desk….where everyone can see it all the time. It will remind us all that Pilgrims are still coming to America.   I’d like to meet your Mama, Molly. Please ask her to come to see me one day after school”

We never learn exactly what that visit will entail, but it represents a strong statement about immigration and assimilation. Many immigrant parents live in fear of their children making mistakes or failing to conform in their new environment.  Molly’s mother, instead, is a figure of dignity, whose contribution is acknowledged by her daughter’s teacher. This is a book for young readers  that could not be more relevant today.

Bear Meets Bear – written and illustrated by Jacob Grant
Bloomsbury Children’s Books, 2020

Bear Meets Bear is a picture book that successfully appeals to both children and adults, without patronizing the kids or relying on double entendres for the grownups.  The central premise of this appealing rom-com about a brown bear and a panda is that people, or in this case animals, may choose awkward ways to connect with one another.  The language is simple, the pictures bright and bold with familiar settings and retro accents.  The plot point involves Bear ordering a redundant number of teapots just to have the joy of seeing the Panda deliver them to his home. If young readers do not bring the same knowledge of human nature to the story as their adult caregivers, as they read, or listen to, the book, it all begins to make sense. 

If you are familiar with Jacob Grant’s two earlier books about Bear, then you know that he has a loyal best friend and roommate, Spider, who helps him to navigate difficult emotions.  (In Mike Curato’s wonderful Elliot books, a smaller animal, Mouse, also helps his large but vulnerable friend.) Bear’s eagerly awaited delivery of a new teapot turns into something more when he finds himself mysteriously attached to Panda, the delivery person who shows up with the item. Love-at-first-sight leaves Bear dumbfounded, “He stood there, nearly the dropping the teapot,” but his savvier friend seems to understand what has happened, “Spider found it all rather funny.”

If Spider’s attitude seems insensitive towards his smitten friend, readers will learn that, by allowing Bear to deal with the problem through trial and error, the nimble arachnid is actually helping.  We see him suspended from his web reading books, playing the banjo, and patiently watching as Bear’s dilemma unfolds.  Children will appreciate Bear’s logic: “One teapot is nice…But wouldn’t two teapots be nicer?” Who could argue with that? 

One of the keys to this child-friendly plot is that Spider both empathizes with Bear and occasionally loses patience.  When he first observes that his friend is “speechless” as Panda arrives with another teapot, he feels sorry for Bear. But when Bear persists in repeating the same ploy of ordering teapots without speaking to his soulmate, Spider “felt less sorry.” Waiting for his friend to change is not going to bear fruit. So, Spider intervenes with some practical advice and encouragement. The picture of a tiny spider gesturing with some of eight limbs while standing on top of carton, as Bear listens timidly, is a reminder to children that being bigger does not guarantee superior wisdom or confidence.

There is a brief glitch when a grumpy raccoon shows up on Panda’s day off, but eventually, with Spider’s intrepid search for answers, everything is resolved happily. The long-sought meeting between Bear and Panda shows them communicating as if they have known each other forever. When their conversation reveals that even couples don’t share all the same tastes, a community yard sale solves the problem. The book’s bit players show up, from the grumpy raccoon to other assorted animals, read to take the teapots off Bear’s paws.  Each customer is an individual, eyeing the teapots carefully, absorbed in their task, while Bear and Panda are a picture of contentment. Spider, sitting on Bear’s shoulder like a cartoon conscience, reminds readers of both the joys and limits of friendship. Ultimately, Bear had to make an effort, too.

Ten Little Dumplings – written by Larissa Fan, illustrated by Cindy Wume
Tundra Books, 2021

There are a seemingly unending number of books teaching children the lesson that girls matter, that their ability to achieve is unlimited, and that gender is no obstacle to fulfilling any dream. This is a good trend!  In many of these books, there is a spunky and inspiring heroine who learns the hard way that compromise is not the road to freedom. If she wants to be a scientist, athlete, or political leader, a talented girl will have to fight.  Larissa Fan and Cindy Wume’s Ten Little Dumplings is different. Inspired by a Chinese folktale and the background of her own family in Taiwan, Fan has created a heroine who is quiet and observant, seemingly willing to conform, but all the time building up her own strength and conviction.  Wume’s brightly colored and subtly expressive drawings in ink, gouache, and colored pencil, picture a world which blends the particular and the universal.  The little girl in this book may begin as the unobtrusive only sister of ten little dumplings, brothers who are the pride of their doting family, but by the end of the book she is an unforgettable woman whose patience and focus have brought her happiness.

The dumplings live in a specific village, Fengfu, yet Wume’s image suggest different backgrounds for the villagers. Some have straight dark hair, others have light brown curls.  Although there is no question about the book’s setting, Wume’s choice lends an air of universality to the story.  The era of the book is also ambiguous. A mouse listens to music on an old-fashioned gramophone at the beginning of book, but by the end the girl, grown to adulthood, seems to live in a contemporary city.  The dumpling-boys themselves are a classic image of confidence, and why should they not be? Their family is celebrated for having produced ten sons. 

Whether eating rice or riding their bicycles in a busy business district, “the boys seemed to take luck with them,” even inspiring a song. They are experts at calligraphy, and gifted athletes. Given the role of expectations in later achievement, it is not surprise that they grow up to be “ten fine men.”

We don’t even meet their sister until halfway into the book.  She has been there all along, an obtrusive presence. But her silence has signaled persistence, not surrender.  Sitting quietly under a tripod as adults ignore her and pass by, she happily draws.  “You may not have seen me,” she tactfully points out, “But I was there, too. You just need to look more closely.”

The advice to look closely may also refer to Wume’s marvelous art, each picture containing many allusive details about both the traditions which form the background of the story, and the girl’s acute sensitivity as she watches, absorbs the world around her, and turns her experiences into art.  When her brothers have fun in a museum by dividing their attention among several objects, and also socializing, the girl and her mother carefully view portraits of women. When she and her brothers listen to a book at night read by their father, she looks over his shoulder at the pictures.

The girl grows up to create both works of art and a joyfully complete life for herself. “And so I made my way in the world,” she remarks, as if she were a modernized version of a classic fairy tale. Sitting comfortably in front of her easel, she proudly displays a woman’s picture with echoes of Matisse, and a bright red rose that can only be an emblem of pride.  She shares parenting of a wonderful daughter, the little girl riding on her father’s shoulders, her outfit’s red circles matching the street’s red lanterns signaling success and happiness. No young reader will fail to understand the grownup girl’s expression of gratitude, “How lucky I am!”  Do not miss this book! If you have never met this girl or anyone like her, then you need to listen once more to her advice: “You just need to look more closely.”

Don’t You Know There’s a War On? – written and illustrated by James Stevenson
Greenwillow Books, 1992

Today is Veterans Day.  In the United States, many children have parents serving in the military, under very different circumstances than in the past.  The nature of war itself has changed, and it has been a long time since Americans had confidence that the sacrifices of those serving, and of their families, had a clear and valuable goal.  The wonderful illustrator, author, and cartoonist James Stevenson (1929-2017) produced a beautiful reflection on the experience of an American child growing up during World War II, struggling to make sense of the constant adult rejoinder to so many legitimate questions posed by kids: Don’t you know there’s a war on? (For my reviews of other books about children on the home front, see here and here.)

Stevenson’s pictures are in delicate pastels; his people have almost featureless faces, emphasizing the universality of their situation.  The book is not uncritically nostalgic about a time when Americans were fighting to destroy fascism.  It begins with a plane hovering overhead and a brown cloud of smoke emerging from a city: “In 1942 there was a war.” We then learn about the details of the war’s impact on the young narrator. Facts are presented in a regular font, while conversations are slanted in the style of cartoon captions.  There is no ambiguity about the detail that “My brother went into the navy.  I stayed home with my father and mother.” These sentences are accompanied by a figure of a sailor, facing straight towards the reader, an almost undefined blue swatch of color as the duffel bag by his side. The young boy is also a simple, lone figure, his red shorts and socks a contrast to the soldiers white and blue uniform. 

Then the confusion begins.  The boy’s requests for a ride to the movies, a Baby Ruth candy bar, and something for dinner besides Spam (inedible meant, not unwanted messages) are all met with the same confusing phrase, which adults have now seemingly adopted to avoid difficult explanations. In these scenes, people’s faces are in profile, hidden behind the side of an armchair or facing away from the child. Then, the child gradually becomes involved in the daily routine of defeating the enemy by participating in communal activities.  There are small, childlike drawings of war stamps and tin cans to be collected.  The child and his mother plant a victory garden, although “Nobody liked kale. It tasted awful.” Stevenson conveys the child’s confused acceptance of the way things are, whether the mysterious system of gas rationing or the fear that their neighbor with the German American name of Schmidt might be a spy.  The narrator is even free to express a normal childhood hope that his elementary school might be the target of feared attacks by the enemy.

There are maps and medals, references to mysterious places like Guadalcanal, and discussions among boys about whether they aspired to pilot a flying fortress. plane or a PT boat. The tone changes when the boy’s father reveals that he is joining the army.  Suddenly, even as he begins to cry, the boy is instructed that his adulthood has begun: “I want you to take care of your mother.” His father pulls away on a train and his home is transformed into a series of absences, every object a painful reminder.  For the first time, he articulates a terrible threatening thought: “If I wished hard enough, he wouldn’t get killed.”

Every image in the book is carefully selected and placed on the page, each one proving how words and pictures used together can express the inexpressible, whether fear, ambivalence, or grief.  There is even the paradoxical acknowledgement that sometimes, even if briefly, words cannot suffice, as when the children’s neighborhood newspaper goes on hiatus: “We stopped putting out The Blackout when Sally Ann Curtis’s brother got killed in Germany. We didn’t know what to say.”

The war ends in victory and the words change. Trains arrive, this bringing back the men who had lived an entirely different reality overseas. This one does not recede into the distance but rushes to meet the family members, their arms raised in greeting towards the returning soldier mirroring their gesture.  The conclusion of the book is definitely reassuring, but readers have learned that war, and service, are not the sum of supportive gestures or minor inconveniences.  Don’t You Know There’s a War On? is a subtle, empathetic, and accessible exploration of a child’s response to war on a distant home front, and its message is still unmistakably relevant today.

This Land is Your Land – Words and Music by Woody Guthrie, Paintings by Kathy Jakobsen, with a Tribute by Pete Seeger
Little, Brown and Company, 1998, reissued with new design and material, 2020

Kathy Jakobsen is an artist who has captured the beauty of both rural and urban America in several beautiful picture books. Like Walt Whitman, she hears America singing and she captures both the sights and sounds of our country in visual images drawn from both the folk art tradition and her own imagination. In This Land is Your Land she brings to life our unofficial national anthem. As I walked around my neighborhood in New York City yesterday, listening to shouts of joy and banging pots and pans, I thought of her, and Woody Guthrie’s, interpretation of who we are as a people.

There is no wasted space in her pictures. Some two-page spreads use all of their space to showcase images of both suffering and resilience, such as Woody’s “By the relief office I seen my people,” and “Nobody living can ever make me turn back;/This land was made for you and me.” The pictures include specific details which form a kind of conversation with the song lyrics.  A community’s church reaches out with signs about drug rehabilitation programs, life skills classes, and a job center. 

A couple sits on the step of their brick building, doing nothing but watching and resting, while others engage in busy activity, from changing a car’s tire to loading trash into a sanitation truck. Carefully placed signs or words make the scene both unique and generic: Open 24 hours on the church, Baby Bag on a woman’s satchel, as multicultural mix of different religious symbols on the church. 

Other pictures are like annotated manuscripts, a group of central images surrounded by information and additional quotes from Guthrie, and other visual vignettes. (I’m not sure if Jakobsen would today include the Confederate monument on Stone Mountain, Georgia.)  Marjorie Guthrie’s dance class is framed by a performance of the Boston Pops, Pete Seeger singing at the Clearwater Festival, and small adjacent rectangles with the Watts Tower in Los Angeles and an Alaskan totem pole. A three-page foldout of the United States as a richly green map surrounded by blue waters offers a unifying dream.  America is a land of ceaseless human activity, populated by laborers, artists, children, the elderly, black, white, and brown.  The tribute by Woody Guthrie’s colleague and musical heir, the late Pete Seeger (in the 1998 edition), is a moving companion to the text; additional background information and the song’s lyrics, fill in the history behind Guthrie’s unforgettable poem to the American people.  Even if Guthrie’s, and Jakobsen’s, faith in America as a place where we all share a distinctively democratic purpose may seem more aspirational than real, This Land is Your Land is a reminder of its validity.

Madeline at the White House, by John Bemelmans Marciano
Viking, 2011

Towards the end of his life, Ludwig Bemelmans (1898-1962), corresponded with his friend, Jacqueline Kennedy, about an addition to his series of books about the little girl who lived in the old house in Paris. This time, she would visit another girl, one living in the house at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Bemelmans’ grandson, John Bemelmans Marciano, fulfilled the idea with his own text and illustrations, giving readers another chance to spend time with one of the most beloved and distinctive girls in children’s literature.  The White House which Madeline visits to spend time with Miss Penelope Randall, aka Candle, is not surrounded by walls which cannot be scaled by protestors or enveloped in an aura of paranoid power.  Instead, it is a child forced to put up with all kinds of restrictions has the opportunity to enjoy herself almost to the point of excess and delirious joy: “Had two girls ever flown so high/Up into the starry sky?”

Candle is lonely; her father is not Theodore Roosevelt or John Kennedy, allowing pony rides or watching his children crawl under his desk.  Instead, she is virtually imprisoned, and has not a single classmate in her home school. (She does, however, have the opportunity to learn about such feminist heroines as Sojourner Truth and Amelia Earhart, another contrast to today’s White House.) When her absent mother sends a postcard promising her a visit from a Parisian friend, things begin to turn around.  Soon Candle is welcoming not one, but twelve, little girls to her home, and enjoying the protective warmth of surrogate mother, Miss Clavel.  

Some of the pictures are full of bright colors, while others repeat the yellow, black, and white of Bemelmans’ original series.  Wearing a red dress, Candle stands happily surrounded by her friends dressed in leaf green. They draw, play with dolls, roller skate, and otherwise expose her to the kind of freedom which she has never experienced.

One of the spectators at the Easter Egg Roll looks to me like Fiorello LaGuardia, but I can’t be sure. No one gets appendicitis, but they girls, and even Miss Clavel, overindulge to the point of illness.  They recover, to dress a rabbit in human clothes and dance to the accompaniment of an old-fashioned record player, which will be a wonderful conversation starter with children unfamiliar with pre-digital music. The visit culminates with some magical realism, as Candle, Madeline, and the rabbit fly over the reflecting pool and the Capitol.

The book and the visit have to end: “To say goodbye is always sad,/But coming home is never bad.” There is a list of the Washington sights included in the story, and the endpapers, rather poignantly, feature the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington Cemetery. As Bemelmans Marciano points out in his background note, his grandfather, a proud veteran of the United States Army, is buried there.  No, he wasn’t a sucker or a loser, but rather a grateful immigrant to America who accepted the idea of service to a larger cause.  Coming home to a White House embodying this idea should not require a magic carpet or even an airplane. 

Saving Stella: A Dog’s Dramatic Escape from War – written by Bassel Abou Fakher and Deborah Blumenthal, illustrated by Nadine Kaadan
Bloomsbury Children’s Books, 2020

Authors presenting tragic events in picture books for young children always face a challenge. They need to filter the most disturbing aspects of the book’s subject, while respecting young readers’ ability to learn about the darkest of situations.  In Saving Stella, authors Bassel Abou Fakher and Deborah Blumenthal (author of a biography of Judith Lieber) and illustrator Nadine Kaadan, succeed in telling the story of a boy and his dog’s escape from the chaos of Syria by focusing on truthful information within a reassuring and artistically beautiful framework.  Stella, the big, affectionate dog who is part of Bassel’s life, is not a mere symbol for human suffering, but nor is his peril equated with that of the thousands of people caught in the senseless violence of his homeland.  This is a book about one boy and the pet who serves as an emotional anchor, but also about the cruel injustice confronting refugees all over the world. Sharing the book with children offers the opportunity to discuss this painful reality, but also to highlight the ways in which at least some individuals may find a haven, and the freedom which had been denied them.

Both the pictures and text strike an appropriate balance, using understated but clear words and bold images to convey young Bassel’s fears:

The fighting grew wider.
Gunfire and explosives ripped through the city.
Bombs toppled buildings like wooden blocks.
Parents were afraid to go out to buy food.
Children were afraid to go to school.

The concise series of facts are striking.  Some of children’s worst fears involve the inability of their parents to protect them.  The daily expectation of attending school is destroyed.  Kaadan avoids graphic images of death, instead creating pictures that artfully combine metaphor and reality; the buildings do indeed reflect the wooden blocks of children’s play, at the same time that they depict Syrian architecture.

Bassel’s experience is one that children will easily understand; he is terrified, but still intent upon “pretending it was okay.” He knows that emigration is his only choice, but that this will entail the sorrow of leaving family and friends, as well as abandoning his dog, Stella. The image of Bassel crossing the Mediterranean, along with other refugees, in a fragile rubber dinghy is dreamlike and powerful. Appearing almost static although dossed by waves, four of the emigrants look out towards the sea, while a couple holding a baby focus on one another.  In the small vessel, the buildings of Damascus form the background, reminding both the characters and readers that the city which they abandon will still be part of their internalized past. (Kyo Maclear and Rashin Kheiriyeh made a similar point in Story Boat.)

From his safety in Brussels, Bassel develops a plan to save Stella, giving children some sense of comfort in the power of helpers to effect change.  The scene in the airport shows the reluctant dog watching, from his perspective, as human legs both wait and walk through the terminal. Stella is so fearful that she resists and determined people need to take control.  After Bassel and Stella are reunited, the authors emphasize their opportunity to start a new life, renewed “like a tulip in spring.” Detailed notes from author and illustrator, as well as background information and further sources follow the text, offering a useful context.  Throughout this subtle and affecting picture book, a consistent message emerges.  People can escape suffering and compensate for their loss by remembering the past and living their present lives: “One is lost,/And one is found.”

For Audrey with Love: Audrey Hepburn and Givenchy – written and illustrated by Philip Hopman, NorthSouth Books, 2017

In the comic adventure and love story How to Steal a Million, Peter O’Toole’s character, upon seeing Audrey Hepburn dressed decidedly down as part of their caper, comments that her choice of outfit gives Givenchy a night off. Philip Hopman’s charming picture book about the friendship and artistic partnership between Hepburn and the brilliant designer, there is never a day or night off. The bond between Audrey Hepburn and Hubert de Givenchy was based on a mutual love of beauty and of one another.  The Dutch-born actress and the French couturier each had a vision of expressiveness and innovation in their respective fields. Hopman’s story of their lives emphasizes the individuality that characterized both of these gifted artists.  Young children may not recognize every character or allusion to the worlds of fashion and film, but they will definitely enjoy the vibrant pictures and the reassuring lesson that Hepburn and Givenchy supported and inspired one another.

The young Audrey at first aspires to be a ballerina, but realizes that acting is really her métier.  Hubert is drawn to design clothing; we see him busily dressing his dolls, a tape measure, pin cushion, and tailor’s shears surrounding him as the tools of his future trade. Both artists have mothers who encourage their gifted children.  As an adult, Givenchy develops a specific style, noting that clothing is “much too complicated,” and that simplicity equals elegance. The sketches of his early work, and the parade of famous women who eventually wear his creations, are a visual feast for adult readers.  From pastels to jewel tones, Marlene D., Greta G., Jackie K., and others, show off his outfits; at the bottom of the same page, the much less self-important young actress, Hepburn, is frustrated with the inexpert designs she is expected to wear in her movies.  Then, the two meet; in a Cinderella metaphor, Givenchy’s dresses fit Hepburn off-the-rack, “as if I made them for you.”

Each scene features a different perspective.  A vertical two-page spread shows two facing Holly Golightlys, introduced to young readers as “a frivolous woman who liked having breakfast at a jewelry store!” Denying the idea that beautiful clothes are only for the rich and slim, Hopman gives us a series of individuals as different as could be in face and form, but all dressed in the basic black of Funny Face. The author also casually summarizes Hepburn’s seeming contradictions: “Audrey had a glamorous life. Meanwhile, she traveled the world to raise awareness for children in need. She always wore Hubert’s clothes. Even when she baked chocolate cake.” 

Children’s books about people not necessarily of the greatest interest to children have a task; they need to justify the portrayal of their subjects for a young audience.  Hopman does an admirable job of conveying the connection between these two stars, and the importance of their loyalty and affection to each one’s professional trajectory.  Perhaps the most touching lines in the book, ones that define their relationship in a way that children will understand, are:

A Boy and a House – by Maja Kastelic, Annick Press, 2018

This is a wordless picture book about creating a home. The home is not only a building, although the buildings which grace the streets are beautiful and mysterious. It is not only the dark interiors with their carefully placed objects: a red wing chair, a teakettle, an aging pile of magazines.  The home is not the domestic setting for a nuclear family. Instead, it is the bond between two children, beginning inside, and ending outside in a vision of freedom. A Boy and a House, by Maya Kastelic, asks readers to question what constitutes a story and a picture book, by presenting an alternative possibility.

When we meet the boy he is walking down a street of townhouses with double doors, sculptural elements, and iron balconies.  We are in a world of literature, with one placard labeled Grimm Street, although its carved cherubs are smiling.  The boy is smiling, too, although he looks puzzled as he finds an entrance on Andersen Street, where a cat peers out of the doorway and the silhouettes of mice in conversation appears in the window.

Each scene offers clues, not to a specific plot, but to the purpose of the boy’s journey.  The author’s name is affixed to a note asking that anyone entering care for the house. The lobby is a visual puzzle, including a baby carriage with a peace sign painted on its side and a number of post cards nailed next to a group of mailboxes, as if the cards’ recipients had never claimed them.

The book continues with more objects framing an as yet untold story.  There is the weighty suggestion, “GIVE DESTINY A CHANCE,” as well as assorted keys, toys, and children’s pictures placed in locations which may or may not be significant. Literacy is everywhere. Rather than showing children eagerly opening a book or listening to an engaging story, there are books and other reading matter stacked and collected everywhere. Some have titles, like a New Yorker magazine, and titles by Provensen (Alice and Martin?), Tove Jansson, and Uri Shulevitz. Some of the titles are difficult to read, in small letters against a low-contrast color. 

The world of people finally intrudes in the form of an exquisitely or oddly laid table with food and playing cards.  The boy has been collecting a child’s drawings left on the floor, assembling them as a kind of entrance ticket.  He finds a gallery of paintings, and then, finally, the young artist who has been producing the drawings.  She is sitting in the attic and carefully folding them into planes, set to take flight.  Normally, a paper folded and launched this way connotes fun, mischief, and disregard for whatever is written on it.  Here, the two children set the works free from a balcony, into the town below.  The town looks peaceful, but momentarily, the image of birds and planes floating above seems to allude to a scene of war, transformed into reconciliation by the magic of art.  There are endless ways to share this story with children, by inventing a story, encouraging them to do so, or talking about what it means to create and share.

Moon Babies – by Karen Jameson, illustrated by Amy Hevron, G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2019

Moon Babies is not a STEM book. Not only that, but it negates all the carefully selected astronomy-for-kids books that are designed to teach children about their tiny place in our huge universe.  In the realm of fact, it would be part of the same genre as the moon made of green cheese, and the soothing nursery rhyme about the man in the moon reminding children of their approaching bedtime. 

Instead, it is a charming fantasy about multiple celestial creatures, infants and some adult caregivers, who either live on the moon or are themselves individual moons, twirling around some unspecified planet, presumably Earth.  They have a lot in common with human babies, but they are just different enough to create an offbeat and appealing parallel world for bedtime reading.

Each baby has its own “crescent cradle; several cradles form a “pod.”  There may be more than one way to interpret each picture and accompanying poem, but these babies inhabit a system of collective childcare, unless they are all siblings.  The float through space, holding a small doll, sipping a bottle, and, from the expressions on their faces, dreaming.  During the day, or “moonrise,” they get busy, supervised by “grammies.” One grammie wears glasses; the other does not. This might have been a multigenerational team of caregivers, but they are identified as grammies. The babies have the usual difficulties in learning to walk, but that may be partly due to gravity issues.

The world of the moon babies has a park and a swing set, even a barking dog, although the latter is actually a constellation. Their carousel glides around a central planet, causing one baby to drop its doll and shed tears into the atmosphere.  Each identifiably human activity is just different enough to be easily recognized by children listening to the book, but also flagged by them as distinctive.  When the moon babies enjoy bowls of “steamy porridge, smooth and white,” drops of food float away, some landing in a smiling Big Dipper. Bath time is fun “in a grand celestial tub,” but one baby frowns from the ordeal of having her hair washed. At bedtime, the stars become sheep ready for counting, after a reading of the cow jumping over the moon.

The refreshing element of this book is its almost countercultural overlap of fantasy and the natural world. In classic children’s books, this fluidity was often the norm. Today concerns with presenting the world of science and technology accurately have made this choice somewhat less common, at least for the youngest readers. (Fantasy and magical realist novels for older readers assume that, by a certain age, they can understand when the laws of nature are subverted for narrative purposes.) You will want to explain to Moon Babies fans that the points of contact between their own world and that of these space-soaring infants are outnumbered by differences.  The point of this lovely book is that the comforts of eating, playing, and going to sleep surrounded by protective love are as enchanting as fictional stardust.