Reviewed Book:  Swan: The Life and Dance of Anna Pavlova – Laurel Snyder and Julie Morstad, Chronicle Books, 2015

This is a ballet book not only about beautiful fairies and exotic costumes. It is not even only about toe shoes and the fanatic discipline they require.  Swan presents to young readers the fantastically but ultimately tragic life of Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova (1881-1931).

Laurel Snyder’s simple but evocative language encourages readers to identify with Pavlova’s progress as the daughter of a poor laundress who becomes a world-famous icon of classical ballet.

(In a fascinating blog about the Jewish origins of ballerinas, children’s book author Yona Zeldis McDonough reports that Pavlova, whose parents were not married, may have been the daughter of a Jewish businessman and philanthropist.)

 

Continue reading “Not the Nutcracker” →

A Unique Out-of-Print Hanukkah Book by Newbery and Coretta Scott King Award Winners

Book Reviewed:  The Stone Lamp: Eight Stories of Hanukkah through History – Karen Hesse and Brian Pinkney, Hyperion Books for Children, 2003

This book is out-of-print, but it is well worth buying used.  My family is currently celebrating Hanukkah and we have a number of children’s books acquired over the years.  Each year new ones arrive, many imaginative or quirky, others traditional, some even bland.

The Stone Lamp is a collection of Hanukkah tales written as poetry by Newbery Award winner Karen Hesse.  She is the acclaimed author of Out of the Dust, a free verse narrative work about the struggles of young girl to survive the Great Depression, as well as The Music of Dolphins, which uses an experimental form as a meditation on the nature of language itself.  Brian Pinkney has illustrated, or illustrated and written,  numerous children’s books and has been honored with the Coretta Scott King Award for In the Time of the Drums, as well as with several Coretta Scott King and Caldecott Honors.  The collaboration between these two giants has produced a book about the holiday of Hanukkah that commemorates its different historical contexts with accessible literary language and painterly images.

Continue reading “Holiday Treasure:” →

Book Reviewed:  Singing Away the Dark – Caroline Woodward and Julie Morstad, Simply Read Books, 2017 (reprint of 2010 edition)

This is my second blog entry about Julie Morstad, an illustrator whose work should bring intense delight to your celebration of the winter solstice.

Her collaborator is Singing Away the Dark is author Caroline Woodward, whose simple poetic phrases mark the journey of a little girl making her way to the school bus in a snowy rural area.  Ms. Woodward, according to the bio on her website, lives on the Lennard Island Lightstation on the British Columbian Coast. Wow. I live in Manhattan, where we also have some lighthouses, but there any obvious connection between myself and the creators of this book ends.  However, I love this newly reissued book.

Continue reading “Welcome the Winter Solstice with Woodward and Morstad” →

Reviewed Book:  The Nutcracker in Harlem – T.E. McMorrow and James Ransome, HarperCollins Children’s Books, 2017

Author T.E. McMorrow and illustrator James Ransome have set the the story of “The Nutcracker and the Mouse King” in the extended cultural moment of the Harlem Renaissance. They are not the first African American artists to have reimagined this Christmas classic as an inspired vehicle for a little girl of color.  Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn’s did so in their jazz-inflected arrangement of Tchaikovsky’s music.

In the afterward to the book, McMorrow acknowledges that the specific characters of Uncle Cab and Miss Addie were created as homages to the great bandleader Cab Calloway and to Adelaide Hall, a singer with Ellington’s orchestra.  The Nutcracker in Harlem is much more than a transposition of the traditional story to a different era.

First, the book is elegant.  From the fur trimmed cloaks and black Mary Janes of the women guests to Uncle Cab’s bright red tie, the people in this Nutcracker are natural and life-like citizens of a cultural capital.  The dark blue sky and flat white moon are the background for Harlem townhouses and streets busy, but not as busy as today, with 1920s autos leaving white patches with their headlights on the blue streets.

Continue reading “The Nutcracker: A New Vision” →

A review of :  Queen of the Hanukkah Dosas – Pamela Ehrenberg and Anjan Sarkar, Farrar Straus Giroux Books for Young Readers, 2017

The child narrator of Pamela Ehrenberg and Anjan Sarkar’s Queen of the Hanukkah Dosas has a problem.  He looks forward to the yearly ritual of his Jewish and Indian family preparing their Hanukkah culinary specialty, dosas, a traditional Indian pancake prepared from fermented rice and lentils fried in coconut oil.

His sister Sadie, however, becomes the perennial younger sibling rival, possessor of some outrageous personality trait singularly dedicated to ruining any joyous experience.  Sadie “climbed too much.”  She scales a pyramid of coconut milk cans in the local Indian market and climbs onto the kitchen counter, knocking the salt out of her brother’s hands.  While this completely ordinary toddler activity seems a bit weak as a hook to hang a story on, author and illustrator put together a sweet picture of family unity, and of mixed ethnic customs that seem so normal to children who love them.

Continue reading “Fenugreek, Dal, and Hanukkah” →

Book reviewed:  Julia, Child – Kyo Maclear and Julie Morstad, Tundra Books, Random House of Canada, 2014

When you find an illustrator whom you like, the subject matter brought to life by her drawings is not always significant.  I am not a fine food enthusiast, a collector of cookbooks, or a follower of the late Julia Child.  I am awed, however, by the children’s book artistry of Julie Morstad, whose pictures accompany works by several different authors: Sara O’Leary, Caroline Woodward, Laurel Snyder, and here, Kyo Maclear.

In any successful author-illustrator partnership the two talents involved need to work together seamlessly, yet at the same time be identifiably separate. In some cases either text or image may stand out more; sometimes one is so strong that a book can survive a forgettable other.  Julie Morstad ‘s pictures are provocative delights which appeal directly to a child’s sensibility while at the same time sailing over their young heads directly to adult readers. All the authors with whom she works complement her images, which are idiosyncratic, but also adaptable. Let me describe one.

Continue reading “Julie, Julia, and Simca” →

Revisiting Oskar and the Eight Blessings – Richard Simon and Tanya Simon, and Mark Siegel, Roaring Book Press, 2015

It’s 1938. It’s the seventh day of Hanukkah for Oskar, a young immigrant boy fleeing Nazi persecution. It is also Christmas Eve, and Oskar must navigate his way through Broadway, which “stretched before him like a river,” as he seeks the refuge of his Aunt Esther’s home on 103^rd St.  Oskar has left his parents behind in war-torn Europe, not knowing if the adults he encounters will repeat the brutality and hatred he has come to expect, or offer the blessings promised by his father.

 

One year ago, I wrote a review of this moving story for Jewcy. During that past year, the terror confronting immigrants fleeing Syria, regions of Africa (can you add a specific region?) and other parts of the world has not diminished.

Continue reading “Hanukkah/Christmas Eve, New York City, 1938” →

Review of The Nutcracker – Niroot Puttapipat, Candlewick Press, 2015

Every version of The Nutcracker, like Tolstoy’s supposedly similar happy families, is beautiful in its own way.  Unhappy families, the author claimed, have unique ways to be miserable.  While the tale of the Nutcracker, the Mouse King, and Clara/Marie, originally presented by German author E.T.A. Hoffman in 1816, resolves happily, it also has dark overtones.  Author and illustrator Niroot Puttapipat has produced a lush illustrated version concluding with a delicately engineered pop-up stage set.

Continue reading “The Nutcracker: “Every Snowflake Tastes Unique”” →

A review of The Book of Gold – Bob Staake, Schwartz & Wade Books, 2017

Bob Staake is well-known as both author and illustrator of such inventive works as Look! A Book!, Look! Another Book!, and The New York Times “Best Illustrated Children’s Book of the Year” selection,  The Red Lemon (2006).  He has illustrated works by Dennis Shealy, Peter Stein, and Diane Muldrow, some under the Golden Books imprint.  Readers unfamiliar with contemporary children’s books (too bad!) may recognize his witty and politically committed New Yorker magazine covers.

In his latest book for children, The Book of Gold, Staake has penned a memorable fable about Isaac Gutenberg, a little boy whose mentors include a wise antique shop owner and the lions guarding the New York Public Library.

Continue reading “Not a Golden Book, but Gold” →

Instead of a review or commentary today, here is a poem about some famous literary lions in children’s books.  They each have to accommodate themselves to a different situation or environment and socialize with non-lions.  The illustrations for each book imagine their confused and incongruent status.  But don’t worry—either with human help or without it, they are all fine in the end.

Books referenced:
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz­ – L. Frank Baum, illustrated by W.W. Denslow, originally published 1900; Reprint edition: Dover Children’s Evergreen Classics, 1996
The Happy Lion – Louise Fatio, illustrated by Roger Duvoisin, originally published 1954; Reprint edition: Dragonfly Books, 2015
Dandelion – Don Freeman, Puffin Books, 1977
How to Hide a Lion – Helen Stephens, Henry Holt and Co., 2013
A Lion in Paris –  Beatrice Alemagna, Tate (translation edition), 2014

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Every king has descendants.
The Happy Lion leaves his cage,
puzzled by the chaos,
of baguettes and purses
flying in fear.

Continue reading “A Gift for the Holiday Weekend: A Lion in Winter” →