Review by New York Times Review
MANY CREATORS OF picture books become so immersed in the lengthy process of bringing a book into the world, they can't help pitching the idea of making a book about books. I can relate. I have three or four such books in a shoe box under my bed. Looking back, I think I created them for the exclusive amusement of my bookish colleagues. Was I showing off? Maybe. The truth is, the very best picture books appeal to several audiences at the same time. These include parents, fellow bookmakers, librarians, award givers and, one hopes, even children. Four new books about books manage to thread that needle. One of the first such picture books I became aware of was "The Incredible Book Eating Boy," by Oliver Jeffers, the story of a boy who - as the title suggests - eats books. With every digested book, he grows smarter. "Flowers for Algernon" for the Velveteen set. The prolific Jeffers does seem to gravitate to subjects like letters, paper and numbers, and his new book is a collaboration with the fine artist Sam Winston, whose work often involves typography. "A Child of Books" is full of expressive text that provides the overall landscape and the forward momentum for a classic fairy-tale journey of exploration and discovery: A dreamy-eyed girl in braids and a pinafore dress invites a serious-looking boy in short pants to "come away" with her and "travel over mountains of make-believe." Winston uses excerpts from well-known lullabies and children's books as the building blocks to shape - literally - the terrain the two children traverse. For my money, the typography steals the show. At times, the typeset words become a mountain to scale; the branches in a forest of trees; the waves on the ocean; a rope to climb; and in one case, a monster to escape from. Jeffers's mostly understated illustrations are elegant, but also thoughtfully complement the illustrated typography. It is a fresh and fascinating collaboration between two gifted masters. "I Am a Story," the latest book from Dan Yaccarino ("Trashy Town," "Unlovable"), is a kind of historical biography of storytelling - the tale of one story that stands in for all the world's stories. "I am a story. I was told around a campfire," it begins, and we see a group of people huddled around a fire conjuring images in the night sky. The story moves on to be "painted on cave walls" and in Egyptian pictograms, eventually landing at a street scene populated with an assortment of modern humans from every corner of the globe - all carrying e-readers. Along the way, we meet a medieval scribe; a guy who looks an awful lot like Gutenberg (if memory serves); Hamlet, hamming it up with Yorick's cranium; and a kindly librarian about to whack a book with a rubber stamp. We learn about all the places that books can be found and the nasty things some people do to them. In the end, we're told, it's impossible to kill stories ("I was censored, banned, and burned, but did not die"). They will live on in one form or another, forever. As I write this I'm at a house in the country, where I've been leafing through a trove of classic 1950s picture books. Yaccarino's book - both its words and its pictures - wouldn't seem out of place in that pile. This is true even though, like many current illustrators, he clearly takes advantage of digital techniques that were not available back in the day. The careful palette helps hold the book together, yet Yaccarino chooses specific colors to help evoke a sense of place with each era he depicts: terracotta brown and orange for ancient Egypt, mahogany and blue for the 1950s. Drawn a little looser than his previous work, this simple and lovely overview of storytelling feels both contemporary and timeless. "How This Book Was Made," the newest collaboration between Mac Barnett and Adam Rex, the team behind books including "Guess Again!," is a look at the maddening, tedious, fraught and frightening world of publishing. Writers and illustrators will nod knowingly at Barnett's tiara-wearing editor: "She is like a teacher, only she works in a skyscraper and is always eating fancy lunches." (I silently added, there may well be a flute of Champagne and some oysters on the menu.) After Barnett submits the first draft of his manuscript, the editor calls to let him know she loves it, then says, "Now, here are all the things you have to change." From there, a lot of back and forth happens, and it's not clear who wins. Finally, after everybody is content with the words, the manuscript is passed along to our illustrator, Adam Rex. He tackles the story with a madcap mix of illustration and what appear to be photographic elements. Whatever it is he did, it works brilliantly. By this time, Barnett has grown a long Methuselah-like beard and complains, "It took the illustrator a very long time to draw all the pictures for this book. ... I sat around and waited." Tedious toe-tapping months pass as the book makes its way to Malaysia to be printed. Then a long, dull journey on a slow boat carries the printed books to the United States. A series of mishaps with an eagle, a toad and a bad poker hand further delay its arrival. By this time, Barnett's beard is so long, it bleeds off the bottom of the page. Without giving too much away: It all ends well, and the book finds its way into the right hands. I loved it. Kids reading this book will be fascinated by all that went into making the object they hold in their (grubby?) little hands. And they'll be reassured that it takes a lot of work and patience to make any piece of literature. "A Squiggly Story" is a charming little book that may help first-time storytellers keep trying to write stories, even if they lack the ability to draw proper letterforms, let alone put a complete sentence together. Written by Andrew Larsen ("See You Next Year") and illustrated by Mike Lowery ("The Day My Mom Came to Kindergarten"), it has a clean, modern look and a positive message. A wise and thoughtful older sister - one who loves to read and is able to write big and little words - lovingly helps her brother begin to write a story. The next day, the boy arrives at school with his unfinished manuscript. He reads it aloud : "It's sort of squiggly," he says, "but here goes." The story builds to a climax, with a menacing shark sporting a toothy smile: "It was getting closer and closer! And it was getting bigger and bigger!" And that's where the story ends. What happens next? Fellow students chime in with "helpful" suggestions, including adding vampires. His response? "Vampires can't swim. Everyone knows that." That night he is still struggling with an ending. With his sister's help, there is a breakthrough involving a bored shark and a giant rocket ship. What happens next... doesn't really matter. What we're celebrating is the boy's small, triumphant success, and the fact that it will, no doubt, spur him on to even greater achievements. FRANK VIVA, a frequent cover artist for The New Yorker, is the author of picture books including "Along a Long Road" and "Outstanding in the Rain." His first middle-grade novel, "Sea Change," was published in the spring.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [September 14, 2016]
Review by Booklist Review
From the first pages, festooned with writing utensils, this story invites readers to think and create. The young protagonist, a cheery, brown-skinned boy, watches as his sister, an avid reader and writer, scrawls a story in a notebook. I wish I could write a story, he says, but I don't know many words. His sister encourages him to try anyway, and soon he's using individual letters and doodled squiggles creatively to tell a tale. A circle is a ball, Vs become waves, and soon he and his sister, I and U, are playing soccer on the beach. An upside-down V adds conflict: a shark has arrived! As his story grows with his sister's encouragement It's your story. You're the boss the narrative moves from his scribbled symbols to cartoonish inset images, which become even more elaborate when he shares his story with his class and they begin to offer suggestions. This playful multilayered story about sparking the mind is loaded with opportunities for readers to consider different kinds of storytelling.--Greengoss, Annie Copyright 2016 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 2-What happens when you have a story but you're not sure how to write it down? Larsen introduces a boy as he struggles to write a story, even though his sister tells him it's easy. The feeling of frustration at not being able to form letters, the excitement of reading a story aloud to the class, and the just-a-little-bit bossy older sister will all be relatable elements to young readers. Because the book shows the boy employing several real-life strategies for prewriters, like starting to write with well-known letters and drawing pictures in place of words where the letters are unknown, this is especially recommended for school library collections. Teachers may find it can be used as a model text during writing units for preschool and kindergarten. The title is illustrated in a graphic novel-style, with speech bubbles and boxes for different images on some pages. The palette of greens, beiges, pinks, yellows, and blues is cool, and the simply drawn cartoon characters are stylized but expressive. The boy and his sister and the students in the boy's class are illustrated with a wide variety of skin tones, giving this volume an inclusive feel. VERDICT A solid read-aloud for most any children's collection, but especially where writing is emphasized at an early age.-Celia Dillon, The Brearley School, New York © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
