Waiting for Winter

Author/Illustrator: Sebastian Meschenmoser

There's not much to be said about this beautiful book that isn't already covered by Elizabeth Bird (as is usually the case), so make sure to read her review. The story is a simple one about forest friends who put off hibernation to stay up and wait for their first snowfall. While waiting, they hypothesize about the nature of snow based on the limited information at their disposal. It's a cute story to be sure and it captures the essential wonder that can come with discovery of the world around us.

I would go into more detail, but the interplay between the illustrations and the pacing of the text is so pitch perfect, it'd be hard to do it justice without spoiling the book. I've only seen two books from him, but Meschenmoser is already one of my favorite illustrators, so if you haven't seen any of his stuff yet, get thee to a library/bookstore! (and check out 7-Imp's feature on him to see some more of his amazing artwork).

Something I will say about the book is that it does a great job of allowing the child to play the role of, for lack of a better phrase, the arbiter of reason. As the furry friends throw out one misguided theory after another, the young reader is pushed from amusement into bemusement, which is a more complex form of humor. They'll be able to shake their heads and, with a wry smile, think something along the lines of "Silly animals, one day they'll realize how wrong they were... when they're older and wiser like me."

This is a rare space for a child to occupy because for the majority of their day they are the inexperienced ones fumbling to make sense of the world. It's a subtle form of role playing which is key for socioemotional development. (Just watch a kid parenting a doll or playing house and you'll see that pretending to be an adult is more than just putting on oversized clothes, they're trying on oversized emotions and roles that preview and help prepare them for the world that awaits.) Waiting for Winter gives the child this kind of temporary "promotion" in the hierarchy of reason... which is quite an achievement for a picture book that is also darned funny.


And speaking of winter, DC is about to get hit by another record snow today. Woohoo!

Note: An always welcome shoutout from the illustrious Fuse #8 at the School Library Journal:

If I have any objection to lodge against Minh of the blog Bottom Shelf Books it is that he appears to have a life of some sort. How else to explain why he chooses to post only once in a while about the picture book genre. Had I my way he would have a miserable existence where only constant blog postings provided him enough comfort and relief to get through a day. Then I could get daily posts out of the man. Ha ha! Instead, I will have to content myself with pieces like this truly lovely take on Sebastian Meschenmoser's Waiting for Winter. I reviewed it myself last year after finding it to be just the greatest little book in creation. Even if you don't believe either of us, believe The New York Times. Minh makes some excellent points about it that completely escaped my notice.

The Curious Garden

Author/Illustrator: Peter Brown

On the surface, this quietly beautiful book is about a boy who discovers and cultivates a garden in the middle of the city. Through persistence (think The Carrot Seed on Miracle-Gro), the garden thrives and takes on a life of it’s own, slowly spreading throughout the city. More importantly, the garden inspires more gardeners, and soon the formerly drab city is blooming.

There is more than meets the eye here. If you scratch beneath the charming tale of environmental stewardship, you'll find an interesting meditation on the nature of ideas in the internet age.

In Brown's book, more important than the spreading of the garden is the spreading of the idea of gardening. Ideas are curious things indeed, and it is true that with a little persistence and cultivation, an idea has the ability to take on a life of its own. In the blink of an eye (or with the click of a mouse) an idea can spread and take root in even the tiniest crack (or niche market). If enough people pick up on the idea and are inspired by it, they will carry it themselves. Like twittering birds that spread vegetation by carrying seeds to distant lands, an idea can be spread by individuals as they fly across the internet.

Indeed, it is when other people in Brown's city get bit by the gardening bug, that the city really begins to explode. One garden by itself has limitations, but a sprawling network of people dedicated to gardening, now that is when broad social change really blossoms.

Whereas the normal term for this hyperkinetic spread of information is the vicious term to "go viral", the Curious Garden presents the phenomenon of this growth model with innocent beauty and childlike wonder. A message in The Curious Garden is that it takes a combination of sustained curiosity and innovative persistence to allow our ideas to bloom (that and a little bit of luck). The flipside of which is that the fertile garden of the imagination can easily dry up into a bleak and desolate landscape without proper care.

So, upon finishing the Curious Garden, I was left with three questions.

The first question is: What is your idea?

The second question is: Whether it is gardening, an innovative plan for universal health care, or customized bobblehead dolls, do you have the curiosity and persistence to cultivate your idea and allow it to grow?

The last question is: Do you believe in your idea enough to see it spread and possibly take on a life of its own?


Note: For a full review and a compendium of other on-line reviews, go check out (as always) A Fuse #8 Production.

Joe Fenton's What's Under the Bed?

Author/Illustrator: Joe Fenton (obviously.)

This cinematically illustrated book plays on a familiar theme: the nighttime terrors that every child experiences. Shadows ooze with toe tickling fear and ominous bumps go bumpity bumpity in the night... the darkness is a fertile breeding ground for the underbelly of the imagination. The nervous boy lies awake conjuring up bizarre images of the elusive monster that is biding its time, waiting to devour him.

This book, while well illustrated, seems relatively unremarkable, until you read it with its timely companion piece: Paul Auster's Man in the Dark.



In Man in the Dark, a literary critic, bedridden and in the twilight of his years, lays awake at night in an insomniac's melancholy haze. In order to keep himself occupied and to prevent himself from wallowing in the painful memories of his past, he allows his imagination to spin fantastical tales of alternate universes that evolve into all kind of metafictional fun.



(I don't want to go into too much detail because I don't want to spoil the plot. I mean, have you seen a picture of Paul Auster? You don't want to get on his bad side or he might bump you off in the night with his evil eye (of which he has two).)



These two tragic figures represent the fears that bookend our lives. On the one hand, we have a young boy who is terrified of the unknown: his future lurking just beyond his grasp. On the other hand, we have an old man who is terrified of the known: his dark past that is filled with the montrosity of his own mistakes.

One is burdened by the nascent existential crisis that fills his youthful nights with trepidation, afraid that he has a lifetime of pain and suffering ahead of him (not to be melodramatic or anything). The other is and old man, afraid to look back on his past--desperately trying to avoid confrontation with the shameful past that haunts his guilt-riddled nights. But then, backing slowly away from ones past, he runs the risk of falling over the edge into the abyss of the ultimate unknown: death.

As a youth, the boy is afraid of the dark. As an old man, je is afraid because he realizes that he is the dark... that over the course of a lifetime, he has traded potential and innocence for the consuming darkness of failure and disappointment. The monster that teases you as a child is none other than your future, the dark fate that you know in the deepest darkest part of your soul that you cannot escape.

Together, these two works comprise the basis of what is becoming known as Post-Post-9-11 fiction. In the days immediately after those horrible terrorist attacks (Post-9-11), America's consciousness was filled with fear of the unknown, the illusion of safety was abruptly torn away from them and the world was once again a fearful place with shadowy caves filled with monsters waiting to attack.

Now we find ourselves in a place (Post-Post-9-11) where we have the ability to see beyond our fears and face ourselves in the mirror. As a nation, we are now marked by the stain of tortures at Guantanamo Bay, preemptive wars, Sarah Palin... our fears have led us down a twisted path and transformed us into that which we feared all along. We have awoken in the middle of the night to find ourselves lost... and in the dark.

Well, that ended up being much darker than I had meant it to be. Life is not that bleak, there is still hope! To prove it, let's end on a lighter note with that adorable laughing baby!



Poor kid... has no idea what's waiting for him...

No! That's Wrong!

Authors/Illustrators: Zhaohua Ji and Cui Xu

No! That's Wrong! is a lot of silly fun with wonderful illustrations... and a brilliant underlying message about the steady democratization of information.

Plot summary: A passing wind lifts a pair of underwear off a clothesline and sends them flying onto the head of a rabbit. The rabbit immediately thinks that this is a hat and goes off to share the fancy new accessory with his friends. The rabbit's friends all agree that it is a fabulous hat, but an invisible chorus keeps calling in from the borders of each page to correct the wayward bunny. (No! That's Wrong!) A vagabond donkey even comes up to correct the rabbit by showing him a men's underwear catalogue. The rabbit tries to conform to conventional wisdom, but in the end decides to rebel against the chorus and wear it as a hat... if he says it's a hat, then by golly, it's a hat! And a fabulous one at that!

The passing wind that serendipitously lifted that pair of underpants? That wasn't just some randomly mischievous breeze... those were the winds of change.

It is clear that Rabbit represents the current information revolution that is drastically altering the way in which we view the world. We live in a world where we no longer need to be confined by the definitions that are handed down to us from on high.

Look around you and you'll see the signs all over the place. The mainstream news media is being undermined by bloggers. CNN runs regular segments about the latest video on YouTube. The encyclopedia is being supplanted by Wikipedia. We no longer collect information, we create it.

All of which are signs that we no longer need to rely on the establishment for our information and that we are looking at the eventual demise of the traditional concept of authority. Case in point: The character of the donkey is an especially targeted attack on the waning reputation and crumbling prestige of Academia.












The donkey (or jackass) appears in thrift store suit like so many disheveled college professors in their ratty corduroy jackets. The donkey attempts to assert his authority on the matter of the underpants, but ultimately it is in vain. Academia, which for so long had the power of authority and an almost monopolistic claim over knowledge is slowly losing it's edge. The ivory tower has lost some of its sheen.

(Question: Is the fact that the donkey pulls out a men's underwear catalogue meant to represent the conservative accusation of the uber-liberalization of the academic elite and its alleged disregard for "traditional" family values?)

By refusing to kowtow to the naysayers of the establishment and tearing down the borders of the page, Rabbit is releasing himself and his compatriots from the arbitrary confines placed upon them by the power elite. As noted linguist Noam Chomsky wrote:

"Unfortunately, the act of 'definition' is the most widely accepted form of oppression in the world today. By assigning arbitrary 'meaning' to arbitrary words, restrictions are being placed on the very way in which we are allowed to think. Limiting our ability to think limits the ability to communicate, which in turn limits the ability to act as a group, which ultimately limits our ability revolt. It is precisely these types of deviously subliminal mechanisms that undergird all modes of oppression. Now, this is not to say that Merriam and Webster are the worst tyrants of our time, but they may just be the most effective." (Language and Mind, p. 137)

However, this form of oppression has been slowly eroding over time. Jumpstarted by the advent of the printing press and continuing through with the rise of the internet, the spread of information has exponentially gained in speed and in breadth. Information is now so readily available that the classic vestiges of authority have lost their stranglehold on knowledge and meaning--the consolidation of information is a relic of the past. The world is no longer exclusively defined top down, now it is being defined bottom up as well. And when bottoms are up, the only sensible thing to do is to wear underpants on your head.





Viva La Revolución!
















Surprising Underpants on the Head News Update: Just when you thought Washington couldn't get any more ridiculous... during a Congressional hearing on possible violations of the Geneva Conventions regarding torture, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) hones in on the phrase "panties on someone's head" in an attempt to undermine the Inspector General's argument. Unfortunately, by distorting and making light of the situation, he only succeeds in demeaning himself and his office.

Though he's certainly not the first and he certainly won't be the last.

So You Want To Be President: YouTube Edition

Author: Judith St. George
Illustrator: David Small

So you want to be president? Well, be prepared to be sent through the ringer, my young friend.

All presidential candidates must endure an unbelievable amount of scrutiny, but this year the long arm of the internet has really taken it up a notch. This election will undoubtedly go down in the history books as the YouTube election. From Obama Girl to McCain's 10,000 years to Clinton's Bosnia travails, YouTube exposure is playing a huge role in selecting our next president.

So the burning question is: How would past presidents have been affected by the all seeing eye of YouTube?

William Howard Taft
About This Video

His 1909 election was nearly cut short when the embarassing footage of Taft winning the 1897 Cleveland Deviled Egg Eating Contest hits the internets.








Franklin Delano Roosevelt
About This Video

FDR's presidency was severely challenged by this leaked footage of him playing Murderball. His poll numbers took a plunge, not because America realizes that their president is in a wheelchair, but because he only scored one point and fouled out midway through the second quarter.



Richard Nixon
About This Video

This clip of Nixon's star-making turn as Eliza Doolittle in the Whittier College Drama Club's production of My Fair Lady actually helped Nixon's popularity by revealing his seldom seen human side.







We'll keep searching the archives for more long lost YouTube gems, so stay tuned!

Flotsam

Author/Illustrator: David Wiesner

In this Caldecott award winner (Wiesner's third!), a boy playing at the beach finds a camera that's been washed ashore. After developing the film, he discovers that the pictures reveal a surreal world hiding deep beneath the ocean's surface. The illustrations have a vibrant cinematic quality, and the fact that there are no words makes the book extremely friendly to the vocabulary-challenged. However, the book does force you to ask... what is this thing called "film"? And if the camera were adrift in the ocean, wouldn't that damage the memory card and erase all the picture files? If not, what is the ideal number of megapixels for capturing a portrait of a mermaid on the ocean floor under poor lighting conditions?

But i repeat... film? Come again?

Not a Box

Author/Illustrator: Antoinette Portis

Very simple, very cute. Cleverly designed to look and feel like a cardboard box, Portis and her rabbit defiantly remind us of the joys of using a simple object like a cardboard box as a springboard for the imagination. (Kind of like a precursor to the XBox but more engaging and less carpal tunnel.)

Used correctly, this book could also save you a significant amount of money come holiday season. Give this book to your kids sometime right after Halloween. Then when the holidays roll around, they won't be as disappointed when they find out that all their gifts are corrugated. It's a risky move, as your children may remember that as the day they started resenting you as a parent. But would you rather spend $69.99 on an obnoxious stuffed animal that will wear away your soul one day at a time? The choice is yours.