Books for Halloween: Scary, but not TOO Scary

[Cross-posted on Librarian Mom]

[Note: I promised a post on Robert’s Snow this week, but am postponing it once more as Halloween waits for no blogger. If you just can't wait, take a look at this post--and many others around the kidlitosphere--for a quick overview.]

Spend any time around kids in first or second grade who are looking for books, and you’re sure to hear a request (or two, or seventy-five) for scary stories. Especially as the end of October draws nigh. Now, as children’s librarian Adrienne has rightly pointed out, not everyone likes to be scared. But more than once I’ve had some tiny, pudgy-cheeked child turn his or her adorable angel face away in utter scorn of whatever mildly frightening title I’ve proffered, demanding instead “Something REALLY scary.”

This presents the thoughtful librarian or relative with a book-recommending dilemma: if you’re too weenie about offering up scary stuff, the kid will decide you are just another clueless grownup and stomp off on his or her own to find the most irritating and/or product-placement-laden book possible, and then demand that someone read it to them over and over until all family members are driven insane. On the other hand, accede too readily to the “REALLY scary” imperative and as likely as not the child will end up having nightmares and/or hiding the book under a pile of junk in the basement so as to be spared the scary sight of it.

So, for those parents (and kids) who don’t have a taste for insipid junk, night terrors, or library replacement fees, here are a few picture books and early readers to take a look at. None of them are Halloween books per se, but they all aim for that sweet spot beloved of many kids at this time of year: scary enough…but not TOO scary.

King o’ the Cats, retold by Aaron Shepard. This retelling of an old English tale features, among other things, a spooky feline funeral in a church. The author even provides a readers’ theatre script of the story on his website.

Black Lagoon series, by Mike Thaler. Every book in this series follows the same pattern: a kid recounts the terrible, gruesome, scary things he’s heard about the (teacher, principal, librarian, custodian, bus driver…) only to be disabused by the actual niceness of the grownup in question. I used to read The Librarian from the Black Lagoon to 1^st graders at the beginning of every year, and they loved it even when they didn’t understand all the jokes. My favorite part is how if you talk too much…the librarian laminates you! Heh, heh, heh.

The Spider and the Fly, by Mary Howitt and Tony DiTerlizzi. A gloriously creepy illustrated version of the 19^th-century poem that speaks to the goth in us all. I know one very young kid who loved this book so much she simply took it home from the library and refused to return it.

For the rest of the year. Her mom wasn't thrilled, but I bet the illustrator would be if he knew.

Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich, by Adam Rex. In one gleefully silly (and perfectly illustrated) poem after another, monsters do things that you don’t usually see them doing: the Mummy demands a bedtime story before his eternal rest; the Phantom of the Opera (in a particularly crowd-pleasing running joke) gets a series of songs stuck in his head; and of course there is the titular sandwich. This is one of those books that is sophisticated enough for middle-schoolers to enjoy, but younger kids go crazy for it too even if some of it is over their heads.

Precious and the Boo Hag, by Patricia McKissack. Precious’s brother is just teasing her with his stories about the Boo Hag…or is he? I have to admit that this one is my favorite out of all of these. It is juuuust the right amount of scary, has a great refrain, a great story, and a spirited and smart heroine.

[Next week: for real, the big idea behind some little snowflakes.]

Environmental Books for Blog Action Day

(Cross-posted at Librarian Mom.)

In honor of Blog Action Day, all the books recommended today have something to do with the environment. "The Environment" is a pretty big, abstract concept, especially for kids. These books all do something to make that concept concrete. Mostly they're not treatises on global warming or any other specific environmental crisis; instead, they do what books do best: tell stories, bring characters to life, and help us understand that the big picture is made up of many small pieces.

Aani and the Tree Huggers, by Jeannine Watkins.
Aani, a young girl in rural India, marshalls the girls and women of her village to join forces and stop the nearby trees--a precious natural resource for the villagers--from being cut down. The story, which is based on true events, is told clearly and directly; when the women literally hug the trees to stop them from being felled, it's easy to see how much courage this simple action took. And the illustrations, by Venantius J. Pinto, are striking and rich.

Pearl Moscowitz's Last Stand, by Arthur A. Levine. [out of print, alas]
Another picture book about taking action to save trees, but with a very different setting. Mrs. Moscowitz has seen her neighborhood change: from Jewish, to African-American, to Latino, to Asian. But she's still there, and so is the gingko tree that her mother saw planted many decades ago. When a man from the city comes with official orders to have the tree cut down, Pearl and her neighbors try to distract him, first with plates of food, then with overloaded wallets of family photos. Finally, Mrs. Moscowitz chains herself to the tree, bringing on the TV cameras and saving the day.

Henry Hikes to Fitchburg, by D. B. Johnson.
What's the faster way to get from Concord to Fitchburg: walking? Or taking the train? Henry, an amiable bear, poses this question to his friend, and they try it out: The friend works all day to earn the train fare, while Henry spends the same time walking to Fitchburg through fields, gathering flowers, and picking blackberries. This first volume in a series of four stories about Henry is based on a passage in Henry David Thoreau's journals, and is a great way to start kids thinking about the way people live (and don't live) our values through how we choose to spend our time and energy.

If the World Were a Village, by David Smith
The concepts in this book pack quite a wallop and could keep a family or a class busy thinking and discussing for days. The premise is simple: If the entire population of the world was represented by a village of only 100 people, how many would speak English? How about Chinese? How many would be children, and how many adults? How long would each person's life expectancy be? How many would have clean, safe water to drink? The answers are often surprising and sometimes sobering, and bring the issue of population growth and its effect on the earth into striking focus.

Material World, by Peter Menzel et. al.
Like If the World were a Village, this book takes a simple concept and uses it to completely crack your head open. It's brilliant: a team of photographers travelled around the world, finding one "average" family in each of over 30 countries and photographing that family surrounded by all their material possessions. The logistics involved must have been tremendous, and the contrasts are fascinating. Aside from the photo-essays on each family, there are pages devoted to individual items: televisions of the world, typical meals around the world, and (always a favorite among kids) toilets of the world. It's an eye-opener--literally--to see the evidence of how many millions of people get along the sheer amount of stuff that's amassed by many people in Western countries.
I have to admit that this is my favorite title of any on this list. Though it's not technically a children's book, I've used it many times with 4th, 5th, and 6th grade classes, and the kids are always fascinated and fight to check it out.

If you want to find out more about Blog Action Day, check out their website! You might also be interested in some of the environmental charities affiliated with Blog Action Day.

In Which I Scuff My Toe And Look at the Ground

So. I have an announcement.

Here's what happened:

Some months ago, I got a warm and informed e-mail from someone who asked if I wanted a paid weekly blogging gig.

What I felt like I honestly should say: "Um... are you sure you want me?? Because there are all these really fantastic kidlit bloggers out there [and you know I could link to way more, too] who are incredible writers and also post reliably, like, all the time. Here, let me give you some names..."

What I did say: "Sure!"

What happened after that: Nothing, for a while. And then, some more e-mails, culminating in the launch of a raft of new blogs at Scholastic.com's site for parents. Including one by me with the highly descriptive title Librarian Mom. My first post went live today.

I'm linking to it even though some of the layout is still a bit rough, because...well, because I'm happy about it and wanted to tell people.

I'll be cross-posting some posts from the new blog on this one, though the intended audience is somewhat different: the general book-friendly parenting public, as opposed to the kind of obsessive kidlit hounds (like me!) whose idea of fun is a rousing evening spent debating the relative merits of A Little Princess and The Secret Garden (ah! a post I haven't written yet!)*. I'm also going to focus over there on books for kids between the ages of 3 and 13, so ruminations on the far ends of the kid/teen lit spectrum will end up at this site.

Anyway. I would love to have visitors from those among you who are still reading this blog after what's been a rather fallow summer. Even if you just click over because you're curious to see a photo of me with what appears to be a halo emanating from the back of my head. (It was originally snapped against a background of kitchen cabinets, and transformed by the photoshop wizards at Scholastic.)

Now that I have a new library job, along with this new blogging one, my brain is buzzing with ideas for things to write about, and I'm looking forward to writing about them here and there and...well, not quite everywhere. Yet.


*Though actually, when you get talking kids' media with many parents who don't on the surface appear to be that involved with the genre, you find hidden pockets of obsession: I once heard a volunteer mom at my old job riff for a good twenty minutes on the themes and idiosyncrasies of the "Arthur" TV shows and how they compared with the books. So, you never know.

Cheese Balls and Tshuvah

Tonight marks the start of Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement. This is the first year in almost a decade that I haven't had the Jewish holidays off work, and I'm thinking wistfully of the holiday book collection at my old job and wishing I could get my hands on some of them now, to share with my daughter and to think about myself.

The central concept of Yom Kippur is tshuvah. Though tshuvah is generally translated as "repentance," it literally means "turning": turning from sin--however you define that, whether it be hurtful behavior or not living up to one's own potential--to something better. Trying, and failing, and apologizing to whoever you hurt, and trying to make restitution if you can, and then getting back on that horse and trying again.

This is a concept that even--or maybe, especially--young kids can understand, and there are several decent children's books on the topic. One perennial favorite is Gershon's Monster, by that doyen of Jewish holiday books (and Anansi stories, while he's at it) Eric Kimmel. Instead of repenting or apologizing for any of his little thoughtless acts, Gershon sweeps them up and puts them in the cellar. On Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, he tosses them all into the sea. Eventually all the un-dealt-with sins become a huge monster that threaten what is dearest and most precious to him. There are echoes of King Lear and other old, dark tales in this simple story, but it never seemed to bother the enraptured kids who sought the book out by name even in the off-season. I think they recognized the power and truth behind it. Or maybe they just liked the big scary monster, as illustrated by Caldecott Honor medalist Jon Muth.

Jacqueline Jules's The Hardest Word is more nakedly didactic, but still enjoyable. The Ziz (an imaginary huge bird creature that apparently has its origins in Jewish mythology), after destroying a vegetable garden, must do repentance by finding and saying the very hardest word of all. Any guesses what it is? (hint: it starts with an "S.") Kids enjoy this one, too, and can identify with the well-meaning but hapless Ziz.

For my money, though, the best book about tshuvah is a title doesn't even refer to Yom Kippur, or to Judaism at all. In Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse, by Kevin Henkes, Lilly goes through all the important steps of true repentance after drawing a mean picture of her teacher, Mr. Slinger, in a burst of temper: She owns up to what she did, she feels true remorse, she makes restitution by drawing a nicer picture and writing a story and bringing in home-baked cheese balls, and she apologizes in person. She even does the hardest thing of all, which is to confront the evidence of her wrongdoing when Mr. Slinger gently brings out the dreaded picture and asks what she thinks he should do with it.

I'll be thinking of Lilly tomorrow night when the final shofar blast sounds and everyone cheers, and then the whole congregation--like Mr. Slinger's class--eats some tasty snacks. Tshuvah like hers deserves a celebration.

What to Do with the Babies-O at Story Time

My new job, as new jobs tend to, involves doing some stuff I've never done before. Among other things, I'll be creating and performing a weekly story time for babies/toddlers (take your pick of terms) aged 12-24 months.

Now, I adore this age group. Back in my distant youth, I even taught toddlers full-time, at a childcare center. But I have to admit that after nine years of mostly dealing with elementary-aged kids, I'm daunted at the prospect of keeping the attention of preverbal crowd, even with parents in the mix.

I'm going to stick to mostly songs and finger plays, and just slip a couple of books in each week. I spent a fair bit of work time in the past week flipping through picture books, immediately discarding anything that had more than four or five words on a page.

One side-effect of all this planning is that is What'll I Do With the Baby-O? by Jane Cobb has become my new favorite book in the world. I've been shamelessly cribbing from Cobb's preschool story time resource book I'm a Little Teapot! for the last several years, and now she has once again saved my bacon. Or my little piggies. Or my thumbkins. Whatever. In any case, Baby-O is a treasure trove of songs, finger plays, bouncy rhymes, and simple circle games for the very youngest storytime-goers.

Cobb lays out step-by-step outlines of a few sample story times for babies and for toddlers, and even includes suggestions for low-key informational asides to make to parents in between songs: "When you bounce your baby to the beat of the rhyme, you're helping her absorb rhythms and language with her whole body"-- that kind of thing. The accompanying CD, which I've been listening to somewhat obsessively on my commute, provides sung/spoken versions of 35 of songs. It's a teaching CD, so the versions are pretty bare-bones, but some of them are very sticky and I was surprised at how many were new to me and how many were quite lovely. I've found myself singing her version of "Mr. Moon/T'was On a Summer's Evening" at odd moments, hoping to find someone to sing it with as a harmonized round as Cobb demonstrates on the CD.

(Does it count as bragging if I mention that Cobb is not only Canadian, but a librarian at the Vancouver Public Library?)

What'll I Do With the Baby-O? doesn't seem to be available yet through Amazon. But it can be purchased through its publisher, Black Sheep Press. Independent bookstores may also be able to order it. If you do any programming for this age group, it's more than worth the list price, even with international postage.

Moving: In Praise of Bibliotherapy

I've been pretty cagey about it on this blog--at first because I hadn't given notice at work yet, and then because things were so frantic there was no chance to sit down and write a substantive and literary post about it--but we've spent the summer moving to Vancouver. That's Vancouver, Canada. We have a new home, with new jobs and new school, in a new city, in a new country.

It hasn't been a painless move for any of us. I'm probably the most jazzed about being in a new place (all those British editions!), and my just-turned-7-year-old daughter is easily the least enthusiastic. And why shouldn't she be? She had a nice life, good friends, great school, comfy (if somewhat snug) home. She didn't ask to move. But she had to, anyway, just because her parents got this crazy idea in their heads.

Just before the end of the school year, I snagged a copy of Alexander, Who's Not (Do you hear me? I mean it!) Going to Move, by Judith Viorst, at my school's used book sale. I thought the book might be too blatantly bibliotherapeutic for my kid--that she might feel emotionally manipulated, or put on the spot--but I gave it to her anyway in early July, and she's glommed onto it. Not every day, but once every week or two, all summer and now into the fall, she asks for it for her bedtime story.

Even though it's about a boy and she's a very girly girl, even though he has siblings and she doesn't, even though she's only moved a hundred-some miles from her old home, not a thousand miles as in the book, this story speaks to her. She likes the humor; she likes the eponymous refrain; she likes the litany of people and things that Alexander is going to miss; she loves the variety of places where the hero contemplates hiding (at the friendly neighbors'; behind the clothes racks at the cleaners'; inside the pickle barrel at the market). And I think she likes the hope held out in the end, that there can be new things to love in the new place where you live.

It calms her and makes her laugh, knowing that someone else, somewhere, has been through the same thing that she's going through, and felt the same things, and that there's a story about it. And it doesn't hurt that it's a decent, funny, well-written one, at that.

Here are a couple more good books about moving, that focus especially on friendship:

The Shelf-Paper Jungle, by Diana Engel. (o/p, alas.) When Frannie has to move away from her best friend, the two create a huge mural on a roll of shelf paper, dive into their creation and have one last adventure together, then cut it in half and each take a portion.

Ira Says Goodbye, by Bernard Waber. In this book, it's the hero's best friend, Reggie, who's moving away. Ira acts like he doesn't care, but at the last minute he's able to say goodbye to Reggie.

Anyone have any other suggestions?

Grace Paley, 1922-2007

It's been a hectic few weeks in our household, and it was only today that I heard of writer Grace Paley's death last week. The New York Times printed a moving and literary obituary. If you've never read any of her writing, this is a great introduction, quoting some of the most delicious bits from her short stories and giving a great sense of Paley as an activist as well.

Paley never wrote for children (though her friend and sometime collaborator, Vera B. Williams, did and still does), but her stories have the honesty and immediacy that I associate with the best writing for kids, and there are kids all over them: dumping sand on each other in the park; riding daredevil between subway cars; carried on their fathers' shoulders, and always, always, worried over and talked about and arguing with the mothers who are the heroes of most of her writing.

It's killing me right now that I can't find in our box-stacked living room a copy of Paley's first book, The Little Disturbances of Man, which includes the first short story of hers that I ever read, "The Loudest Voice." It's the story of a little girl, Shirley Abromovitz, who gets a coveted part in the Christmas pageant at her (circa 1930's, somewhere in New York City) school. You see, she has the loudest voice: so strong and clear it can peel the paper off Campbell's soup cans, so she's a cinch for the narrator's role in the school's annual reenactment of the Nativity story.

Naturally, Shirley's mom and several of the other parents in her Jewish neighborhood are horrified at this "creeping pogrom" of a public-school activity. But theirs isn't the only opinion; Shirley herself is thrilled, and her dad is encouraging, and the conclusion is more nuanced than anything I've read before or since on the whole Jewish-kid-at-Christmas topic. The important and unquenchable thing is, indeed, Shirley's voice; at the end, after her triumph in the pageant, she hunkers down and prays for everyone: her family near and far, her teachers, and "all the lonesome Christians." She's sure her prayers will be heard: "my voice was certainly the loudest."

Paley herself has quite the voice, zippy and sneaky; she started off as a poet, and it shows. Her verbal path is loopy but at the same time direct--straight to the heart. She's a master of first lines. One story starts out: "There were two husbands disappointed by eggs. One was livid and one was pallid." The narrator refers to the two men as Livid and Pallid throughout the rest of the story. (Not surprisingly, neither of them comes off very well, either as a husband or as a dad.)

After reading and admiring her since high school, I got to see her in person, once. The Seattle Arts and Lectures series hosted an evening with Grace Paley and Anne Lamott, a possibly inspired combination that nonetheless was pretty much a disaster as far as literary events go (Anne Lamott wrote about it in Salon here, and also in one of her recent books). They tried for an unscripted discussion, which resulted in Anne Lamott, nervous and fast-wired, stepping into any pause before Grace Paley got a chance to say much. As the evening wore on and Lamott got more visibly anxious about how it was going, she only talked faster, until I thought the audience would start throwing things.

I only remember one thing Grace Paley said that evening, but it was worth the price of the ticket all by itself: one audience member asked what advice she would give to a new writer, and she said that she would give the same advice she gave her writing students: "Keep a low overhead, and don't live with anyone who doesn't respect your work." Nothing about "write what you know," or "kill your babies"--just smart common (or maybe not so common) sense on how to live and survive as a writer.

Grace Paley always struck me as one of a very few people (Jessica Mitford was another, and maybe Molly Ivins too) who managed pull off three tough feats simultaneously: she knew how to have great time in life; she stayed committed to serious political activism over several decades; and while she was at it, she wrote some kickass books. Not too shabby. But I wish she'd had just a little more time to do all those things.

Her voice will be remembered. It might not have been the loudest, but it was, and is, one of the strongest.