April 2012

Dust Jackets on Kids Books

Honestly, is all this paper REALLY protecting the books?

And now, I’d like to take a brief moment to talk about dust jackets and, specifically, the role of dust jackets on children’s books.  I’ve started this post several times before, but I’ve always found myself paralyzed with the fear that this mini-rant would turn into a bad parody of really awful 1990s stand-up comedy. “What’s the deal with dust jackets?” my hacky inner voice would ask. “Who were the ad wizards who came up with that one?” But, if this makes me sound like a bad Seinfeld clone, so be it. I just have to say this out loud – I really, really don’t get the point of dust jackets on kids’ books.

My wife and I have argued about this point from almost the first day we started reading to our daughter and I still don’t think we’ll ever see eye to eye about it. I’d sit to read with our daughter at bedtime and immediately take the dust jacket off and toss it on the floor. This drove my wife crazy. “Why are you doing that?” she’d ask, and I’d point to several other mangled dust jackets and say, “It just gives her something else to rip.” I loved reading beautiful, Caldecott-worthy picture books to my daughter long before she could speak and, as her questing baby hands enjoyed the tactile pleasures of touching those gorgeous picture books, inevitably, her hands would find the edges of the dust jackets and pull and rip and gouge and tear.

Eventually, when she could speak, my daughter started referring to the dust jackets as “wrappers” and she’d get FURIOUS if I left one on before I read the book to her. “Take the wrapper off, Daddy!” she’d yell. “I don’t like the wrappers!” After a while, since she had such an obvious aversion to the dust jackets, I just stopped putting them back on. We ended up with a pile of unloved dust jackets flattened down underneath her bedroom bookcase.  And I kept finding more and more situations where I would pre-remove the dust jackets from her books. Taking a book on a car trip? Just another piece to lose – let’s take it off. Planning on having my daughter read along with me? Let’s take off the dust jacket to give her little hands one less thing to worry about when she’s holding the book herself.

Again, this drove my wife nuts. “They protect the book!” she argued. “From what?” I’d counter. In my mind, they just made the books more fragile – they’re the most rip-able part of a book – and what exactly can a dust jacket protect the book from anyway? Dust? Is that really a big concern? Spills? Most paperbacks and hardcovers aren’t made out of newsprint. They have enough of a laminate finish that, if I spill some milk on the cover, it’ll wipe off pretty easily. I just don’t see how a dust jacket actually protects a book, particularly a children’s book, which is going to have a lot of wear and tear thanks to its target audience. If I’m SO worried about protecting the book, I’d almost rather pay the extra cash for a library binding edition of the book rather than putting my faith in a thin paper wrapper. [read the rest of the post…]

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The Knight and the Dragon

Some books are more important than others...

If the subtle, subversive charms of The Knight and the Dragon aren’t enough to convince you that Tomie dePaola is one of our most important children’s book creators, I dare you to watch the video below, in which dePaola describes the importance of reading and reading aloud, and not fall in love with the guy.

My favorite part of the interview is where dePaola talks about being asked the question “Why do you think reading is important?” and how he prepared a very “intricate sentence” as his response. And his response was fantastic:

Reading is important because, if you can read, you can learn anything about everything and everything about anything.

Isn’t that great?

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If you asked me to visualize in my mind a “book for children” – if you gave me a description that vague, asked me to roll with it, and said “just picture a kids’ book in your head” – chances are, the first thing I’d think of would be a Tomie dePaola illustration. Even if you’re not familiar with the name (and most of you probably are), almost everyone in the Western world and beyond probably has had some experience with a Tomie dePaola book. According to his website, he “has written and/or illustrated nearly 250 books”, which doesn’t surprise me. His visual style and storytelling skill are just so beautiful, iconic, and ubiquitous that Tomie books are almost a genre unto themselves. I think it’d be fairly hard to find a child’s home library that doesn’t have at least one dePaola title prominently featured in its collection.

The Knight and the Dragon

Such a fun take on the classic "knight v. dragon" scenario

It also doesn’t hurt that many of his books are card-carrying kids’ classics. When my daughter first started asking us about death at age three, we immediately turned to my wife’s dog-eared childhood copy of Nana Upstairs & Nana Downstairs – if you have elderly relatives, readers, you need to have that book on standby – and Strega Nona, possibly dePaola’s most famous work, is a home library essential and one of the most memorable books from my own childhood. (A local children’s theater company, The Wild Swan Theater, does a tremendous stage adaptation of Strega Nona that my daughter adores.) However, even though Nana Upstairs and Strega Nona are both must-own works and probably dePaola’s best known titles, my daughter and I have always had a special place in our hearts for The Knight and the Dragon, a rousing tale of dragon fighting, rejecting social roles, and the wonderful things that can happen when you take the advice of a librarian.

Once, when my daughter was two and half, I took her to our local bookstore and told her that she could pick out whatever book she wanted. She headed off into the stacks and, though I’d mentally prepared myself for coming home with an Elmo book, instead, she eventually emerged holding a paperback copy of The Knight and the Dragon. “I really want this, Daddy,” she said.

The Knight and the Dragon

Wait, am I supposed to be the good guy or the bad guy in this story?

Though I was familiar with Tomie dePaola, I’d never read The Knight and the Dragon, so we sat down in the store and we read it together. Minutes later, we reached the end of the story and we both just sat there with goofy, delighted smiles on our faces. “We need this book, Dad,” she told me and, while I totally admit that she might have been manipulating me into buying her something… well, it worked. Despite my best efforts, I am a very manipulatable daddy, particularly when it comes to buying books. We bought it and it’s become a big favorite in our house.

What I like the most about The Knight and the Dragon is how it plays with the expectations that readers have for certain kinds of stories. Before we read the book, I asked my daughter, “What do you know about knights and dragons?” And she replied, “That they fight.” I’m not even sure how she knew that. At the time, I’m pretty sure we didn’t have any books with dragon-slaying on her shelves and I’m not sure where – in her limited TV and movie watching – any knightly combat could’ve come up. Maybe it’s just one of those cultural landmarks that people just KNOW about. I knew that Rosebud was a sled long before I ever saw an Orson Welles movie, so maybe, kids just know deep down in their collective unconscious that knights and dragons don’t get along. [read the rest of the post…]

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Charlie Cook's Favorite Book

Is that book appropriate for a child to read? What about a pirate? Should I be worried about an alien being offended by the content within?

I’ve started to get some questions from readers about how I cite “age ranges” for certain kids’ books and whether or not, when I talk about “age ranges,” if I’m actually talking about “reading levels.” I understand how the distinction between the two can be confusing, so I’m going to try to clear things up a bit.

(Note to Readers: There is a 95% chance that, in the act of trying to “clear things up,” I will, in fact, make things “infinitely more confusing.” The best thing to do is probably just sit back and enjoy watching me dig myself into a hole.)

So, when I list the “age range” in one of my book reviews, what exactly am I talking about? In my interpretation of “age range,” I’m talking about whether or not the material in the book is appropriate for a child of that age. When I state a certain age range – let’s say “3 and older” – I’m saying “it should be fine to READ THIS BOOK to any kid who’s three years old or older.” (And I’m also implying that it’s OK for your child to browse the book on their own.)

Since I have a five-year-old kid, almost every book I’ve profiled on the blog, in my opinion, is appropriate for any other five-year-old and most should be fine for any kid younger than five too. The only books that I’ve written about so far that I wouldn’t share with my own daughter right now are the books I’ve labeled “Books My Kid Will Read in the Future” (that should’ve been insanely self-explanatory).

However, don’t think that “age range” means the same thing as “reading level.” To me, “reading levels” are all about independent reading. A reading level is an estimation of “a child this age should be able to read the text of this book on their own without much help.” While most of the books I’ve profiled fall within my daughter’s “age range” – i.e. the material is appropriate for her – far, far less fall into her “reading level” – i.e. she’d be able to read the entire book on her own.

Is that clear?

In my opinion, age ranges are fairly easy to identify. It’s basically you, as a parent, asking yourself, “When do I think my kid would be old enough for me to read this book to them?” But, to me, reading levels are much, much harder to calculate. Maybe it’s because my daughter is relatively new to independent reading, but I’m not much good yet at looking at a book and estimating whether or not my kid will have trouble with the vocabulary. [read the rest of the post…]

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Baby Reading a Book

Question: What's cuter than a baby reading a book? Answer: Almost nothing.

The upside to having your own kid lit blog is that now, when friends’ kids have birthdays or when a new baby is born, the expectation is that I should be the one who gets to go out and buy new books for the kids. This fact delights me, since I really enjoy buying books, and vaguely annoys my wife (which also kind of delights me). Granted, the existence of the blog also adds some added pressure to my book picks as people now expect that I’m only going to select profoundly great titles for their children, which is a hard expectation to live up to. So, it was with this mixture of joy and anxiety that I headed out to the bookstore last night to buy some new books for friends who just had a new baby. (A girl named Scout – how cool is that?)

I decided to stick to board books because there are years and years to make sure that your kid has a great library of paperback and hardcover classics at their fingertips, and I love actually giving babies books that they can start abusing right away. Board books are solid, sturdy, and, if your baby HAS to chew on something, I’d rather have them chomping on some high quality kid lit as opposed to just some old binky or blanket. Plus I think one of the best things you can do to encourage your children to read is to just have lots of books around and available for them to experience. Books need to be a part of their daily environment, and board books are very safe, very accessible reading material for developing kids.

I did a feature a while back on “Five Great Board Books That Aren’t Goodnight Moon or The Runaway Bunny and, while those are all great board book titles that I recommend HIGHLY – don’t get me wrong, Goodnight Moon or The Runaway Bunny are still must-own canon classics – I decided to pursue a few different options this time, picking out a mixture of classic and newer titles. If you’re in the market for some new board books or if you’re about to buy a gift for a friend with a young baby or toddler at home, here are the five board books I bought last night, all of which I’d definitely recommend.

Board Books

Note the gift receipt as I hedge my bets....

1. The Monster at the End of This Book by Jon Stone, illustrated by Mike Smollin

OK, after yesterday’s post, I kinda had to buy this one, didn’t I? But it’s still one of the best board books ever.

2. Dinosaur vs. Bedtime by Bob Shea

Dinosaur vs. Bedtime

Always bet on bedtime...

We actually don’t own any Bob Shea books ourselves, but he’s been on our radar for a long while – my daughter read I’m a Shark at a friend’s house and loved it – so I decided to pick up Dinosaur vs. Bedtime and give it a read at the store. I’m glad I did. Shea’s illustrations are fun and bombastic, and the whole book just has this wonderful anarchic energy that I think kids will really respond to. (Also, Dinosaur reminded me of the six-year-old older brother of the new baby I was buying for, so that was an added bonus.)  In the book, Dinosaur throws him up against obstacle after obstacle – a pile of leaves, spaghetti, his parents, etc. – and, after tackling his opponents, he throws his hands up and declares “Dinosaur WINS!” However, at the end of the book, Dinosaur discovers the one opponent he can’t defeat – bedtime. [read the rest of the post…]

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The Monster at the End of This Book

One of the most essential kids' books of all time... seriously

I’ve mentioned several times (probably too many times) on this blog that the very first book I bought for my daughter was The Phantom Tollbooth. But, dear readers, do you know what the SECOND book I ever bought for her was? It was The Monster at the End of This Book by Jon Stone and Mike Smollin.

So, with the entirety of children’s literature in front of me, why did I choose to purchase a Sesame Street book, a book based on a TV show,  as the second foundational text of my unborn daughter’s home library?

It’s a simple answer – The Monster at the End of This Book is an AMAZING book. It’s a groundbreaking book. In my humble opinion, it is one of THE greatest read-aloud books ever written, it is one of the best “books about books” in the history of literature, and, personally, I have a hard time of thinking of more than a few other titles that do such an effective job of showing kids how breathtakingly FUN reading a book can actually be. And, yes, it’s a book about Grover, a small blue puppet from TV. It’s freakin’ great.

The Monster at the End of This Book was the first “meta” book I ever remember encountering as a child. I know hipsters throw around the word “meta” almost as frequently as they line up for overpriced brunches, but, for the rest of you, a good working definition of “meta” is: “a term, especially in art, used to characterize something that is characteristically self-referential.” In other words, The Monster at the End of This Book is a book that is wonderfully aware that it is, in fact, a book. And that’s a really, really fun and potentially mind-blowing concept to introduce to a young reader.

The Monster at the End of This Book

This book might have my favorite typography of all time

The lead character, Grover – lovable, furry old Grover – is one of Sesame Street‘s friendly monsters and, as the star of this “meta” picture book, he can talk to the readers, he knows that we’ll be turning pages… unlike most characters in children’s literature, he is fully aware that he is a character in a book and he understands the mechanics of reading books. He knows that, in the act of reading a book, we as readers turn pages until we get to the end of the book. And that’s a problem for Grover because, in his post-modern “meta” world, he was able to read the title of his own book and he now knows that “there’s a monster at the end of this book.” And poor old Grover is afraid of that monster and, to prevent us from ever encountering the rumored beast, he wants us to stop reading RIGHT NOW.

That sounds like such a simple idea, but it’s as complexly absurd as anything Lewis Carroll ever proposed in any of his Alice books. Who ever heard of a character asking you to stop reading their book? And he’s not just asking you – he’s BEGGING you. Grover realizes that, every time you finish reading a page and turn to the next one, you are bringing him that much closer to this so-called monster. So there is this tangible countdown, this almost inherent drama at the core of The Monster at the End of This Book, in which, more than in reading almost any other kids’ book, you are in-your-face AWARE that you’re moving towards SOMETHING. And, by asking us to stop reading, Grover has ensured that any curious kid worth their salt absolutely MUST reach the end of this book. [read the rest of the post…]

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I may have mentioned once or twice that I’m kind of a big fan of Norton Juster and Jules Feiffer’s The Phantom Tollbooth. 2012 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the book’s first publication and, as a result, there have been lots of Tollbooth-related events, appearances, and reflections popping up here and there. (I’m most looking forward to the upcoming Phantom Tollbooth Turns 50 documentary that filmmaker Hannah Jayanti funded via Kickstarter in 2011.) Last weekend, in recognition of the anniversary, CBS Sunday Morning did this nice piece on Juster and Feiffer and the continuing legacy of their timeless masterpiece. It’s definitely worth a watch.

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