Three Days of Summer Reading Recommendations: Day 2 – PSSST! by Adam Rex

by Tom B.

PSSST! by Adam Rex

Such a funny trip to the zoo…

Yesterday, I kicked off this short series in which I’m going to be calling out three fairly amazing picture books that have been on our family’s radar lately, books that I think are perfect for any bored early reader looking for something interesting to read this summer. These aren’t recent books or hot new best-sellers. They’re just what we’re reading and enjoying at the moment and I think they make for great summer reads. And, in my introduction to the series yesterday, I made an off-hand reference to a note I’d scribbled while looking for books to recommend. The note was “Best zoo book ever?” I was referring to today’s recommendation, Adam Rex‘s PSSST! (2007), a wonderfully original comedic gem of a picture book.

Adam Rex got on my daughter’s radar in a big way after we checked out Chloe and the Lion from the library a few weeks ago, so, when she saw PSSST! on a librarian’s pick shelf, his name stopped her in her tracks. “Is this the Chloe and the Lion guy?” she asked. When I confirmed that it was, without a word, she picked up PSSST! and dropped it into our tote bag full of all the other books we were planning to check out that day. (“We HAVE to get that one, OK?” she sternly informed me. I just smiled and nodded.)

The best part was, once we got home, we discovered that the book took place at a zoo – from the cover, we only knew it was about a girl talking to animals – and, coincidentally, my daughter was right in the middle of attending a week-long summer day camp at our local zoo. So, that weird piece of chance, mixed with the fact that my daughter found the book to be hysterically, uproariously funny, meant that we read PSSST! at bedtime every night for a week. It was a colossal hit.

PSSST! by Adam Rex

My daughter is now convinced that giant hamster balls are the future of the zoo industry…

The story opens with a young girl visiting the zoo by herself. And, before I get much further, I have to mention that this is one of the most visually arresting, hands-down coolest zoos I’ve ever seen in a picture book. Adam Rex‘s imagination is only matched by his tremendous artistic talent, and his vision of a zoo in PSSST! is so original and whimsical and grand that my daughter spent days poring over the details on every page. Details like the ticket booth shaped like the letters “ZOO” or the Egyptian-themed camel habitat called “Camel-lot.” This is a zoo where deer and rhino roam the grounds in giant hamster balls and a narwhal swims in a giant glass snowglobe. This is a very, very cool zoo.

(Quick nerd aside – I’m a big fan of Steve Purcell’s Sam & Max, a cult comic that has been turned into a series of very popular cult adventure video games, and Rex‘s oddball design work and tendency to drop deliciously-skewed details into his backgrounds reminded me a lot of the world of Sam & Max. But that’s just me.)

So, as the young girl makes her way through this amazing zoo, suddenly, she hears someone say “PSSST!” She turns around to see a gorilla looking at her. This is the conversation that follows:

GORILLA: Over here.
GIRL: Oh. Hi.
GORILLA: What’s up?
GIRL: Not much.
GORILLA: Great. Listen. Could you get me a new tire?
GIRL: Why do you need a tire?
GORILLA: My swing broke. See?
GIRL: Oh. Well… I guess so.
GORILLA: Great. Get two, just in case.

PSSST! by Adam Rex

I guess “stranger danger” doesn’t apply for gorillas…

And the girl walks away. And this situation repeats itself over and over again. She finds herself hit with requests from a javelina, some bats, a group of penguins, sloths, turkeys, a baboon, and a tortoise – all of whom ask for completely random items, ranging from bike helmets to flashlights. The girl is hesitant to help, but they give her money (the peacock collects coins from the fountain) and there IS a store that seemingly sells everything right across the street. As if the girl’s awkward interactions with the animals weren’t funny enough, the whole scenario is leading up to a tremendous punchline at the end of the book that I won’t spoil here. Needless to say, the animals have an ulterior motive and it’s very, very funny. My daughter cackled – CACKLED – at the end of PSSST!, and there’s a particular exchange at the end (that takes place one week later) that she INSISTED on reading herself, simply because she wanted the pleasure of performing such a great gag herself. [read the rest of the post…]

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Three Days of Summer Reading Recommendations: Day 1 – The Dunderheads by Paul Fleischman, illustrated by David Roberts

by Tom B.

We’ve spent a lot of time in the library this summer (insane heat will do that) and, as a result, my list of books that I’m aching to recommend keeps getting bigger and bigger. I literally have a notebook where I write down frantic notes like “Must share this with new dads!” or “Best zoo book ever? Have to tell people!” (I can’t decide if that behavior is enthusiastically earnest or borderline psychotic. I should probably ask my wife.) But the fact that I sometimes decide to write 3,000 words on a certain comic book series I particularly like – thank you again for your patience, dear readers – means that I have a pretty huge backlog of books that I’m anxious to recommend. So, as I prepare to spend a week away at a lovely little cottage by a lake, I wanted to call out three fairly amazing picture books that have been on my radar lately that I think are perfect for any bored early reader looking for something interesting to read this summer.

Quick word of warning – None of these books are recently published titles and at least one of them seems to be out-of-print, so this list isn’t about “hot new reads that just came out for Summer 2012!” These are just three books that happened to fall into our realm of interest recently, largely thanks to our local library and some friendly recommendations.

The Dunderheads

Your favorite heist movie conventions wonderfully packaged for kids.

So, for the next three days, I’ll be sharing one pick per day, starting today with…. The Dunderheads (2009) by Paul Fleischman, illustrated by David Roberts.

The Dunderheads is the picture book equivalent of a really smart, really entertaining, big-budget summer movie. And it’s a wonderful example of an author finding a great way to have some character-driven fun with genre conventions. In the past, I’ve discussed how, before my daughter was born, I was a little obsessed with how I would introduce her to classic fairy tales and folk tales. I was adamant that we had to have copies of all the canonical legends of the past, so I could teach her about all of the big storytelling archetypes, myths, tropes, and idioms that she’d be encountering as a new reader. In my mind, I thought, “How can she know when a picture book is riffing on Cinderella if she hasn’t read Cinderella yet?” While that turned out to be way less of a problem than my fevered “new dad brain” thought it would be, I’ve remained really aware of how my daughter has been introduced to new genres and story types through her reading.

We picked up The Dunderheads at the recommendation of a librarian and, little did I know, that it would serve as my daughter’s introduction to one of my favorite genres of all time – THE HEIST GENRE. That’s right, The Dunderheads is a heist movie for kids in picture book form, and it revels in playing with all of the glorious “heist movie” details, tropes, and quirks that any even casual film fan knows by heart. The Dunderheads was written by Paul Fleischman, a Newbery-winning author and poet, and gloriously illustrated by David Roberts (whom you may remember from Iggy Peck, Architect), and it’s apparent that both creators are having a blast with their “heist caper for kids” adventure. In the jacket copy, the creators of The Dunderheads reference Steven Soderbergh’s Ocean’s Eleven movies and it’s a totally apt comparison. This is a story about a kid putting together a team to right a wrong by stealing something back from a bad guy, and its creative influences seemingly come much more from classic movies (the Ocean’s movies, The Italian Job, The Thomas Crown Affair, The Great Muppet Caper) than classic literature. [read the rest of the post…]

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DC Super-Pets Trailer and Interview with Artist Art Baltazar

by Tom B.

Midway Monkey Madness

How can you not adore a book called “Midway Monkey Madness”?

In my last post, I went on and on about how fantastic the DC Super-Pets chapter books from Capstone Publishers are, and I still really recommend them for any kid who loves superheroes and who’s starting to read on their own. (Even if they aren’t a junior comic nerd like my kid, they’re still very entertaining reads.) Plus, be honest, you have to love a chapter book series with titles like Midway Monkey Madness, Attack of the Invisible Cats, Salamander Smackdown, and Battle Bugs from Outer Space. (Am I right? I’m right, aren’t I?)

Plus I just discovered that Capstone makes a line of DC Super Hero chapter books that offer similarly designed, early-reader-friendly stories revolving around DC’s most famous heroes – Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Flash, and Green Lantern. While I’m not willing to endorse them sight unseen, I’ve had such a positive experience reading Capstone’s Super-Pets books to my daughter, I’ll definitely be checking out their DC Super Hero chapter book line in the near future.

But, if you’re not into comic books, no worries. If you just want to learn more about these visually compelling chapter books, I’ve grabbed two videos that might interest you. One is a book trailer for the DC Super-Pets chapter book series and the other is a fun interview with artist Art Baltazar, talking about his career and the books themselves. Enjoy.

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Are Art Baltazar and Franco Aureliani Responsible for the Best Superhero Comics for Kids Today? Aw Yeah…

by Tom B.

Superman Family Adventures

You know… for kids… who can read!

I may have mentioned this before, but I love comic books and so does my five-year-old daughter. Our bi-weekly trips to our local comic book store are among my favorite rituals we have. And, almost every time we go, my daughter gets to pick out a comic book for herself. Sometimes it’s a Scooby-Doo comic. Sometimes it’s a Simpsons comic or The Incredibles or The Muppets or a Looney Tunes comic. She loves all kinds of comics. That being said, the only superhero comics that she buys that I know she can read all on her own are created by two men – Art Baltazar and Franco Aureliani, the creators of Tiny Titans and Superman Family Adventures. And, in my opinion, they’re one of the few creative teams that are currently creating old-school, monthly, serialized superhero comics for developing readers. And I think that’s awesome.

(“Aw Yeah” is recurring catch-phrase in Tiny Titans, and Baltazar and Franco are two of the founders of Aw Yeah Comics, a comics store in Skokie, Illinois – hence the title of this post.)

Tiny Titans

They’re cute AND super-friendly for developing readers…

Don’t get me wrong – there are lots of great kids’ comics being created today. Last year, I wrote a totally mushy love letter to Toon Books, a groundbreaking comics publisher that creates comic books that are specifically designed to meet the needs of developing and emerging readers. They design comic books that kids can read themselves, which really shouldn’t be revolutionary, but it is. And, while I adore Toon Books, their comics come in these beautiful hardcover collections and it makes buying one a week a bit prohibitive on the monthly household budget side. Toon Books are both comics and books – the kind of books you could find in a brick-and-mortar bookstore. (And they’re amazing.) However, at the moment, my daughter is really into the kind of monthly serialized comic books that you buy off a rack somewhere. The kind you can roll up into your pocket and whack someone with. Old-school, paper-and-staples comic books.

But, while everything Toon Books publishes is top-notch, clever, and gorgeous, it’s much, much harder to find monthly serialized comics for kids that show the same craftsmanship – particularly when you’re talking about superhero comics. Bongo Comics does some remarkable monthly Simpsons comics and Roger Landridge‘s sadly-no-more Muppets comics deserved all the accolades they received, but SUPERHEROES are the new pre-occupation of my five year old. And, while superheroes can be just as problematic as princesses for young girls (check out my earlier post on Wonder Woman to see what I’m talking about), I knew there HAD to be some great, age-appropriate superhero reading material for a five-year-old girl somewhere in the world of monthly comic books.

Unfortunately, I didn’t find much.

In my post on Toon Books last year, I very begrudgingly confessed that:

Reading comic books with a kid can be a huge pain in the ass.

Oh, how it kills me to admit this, but most comics aren’t made to be read aloud, which makes it incredibly difficult to sit down and read them with a pre-reader child. My daughter was so excited to have me read them to her, but, as I began, almost immediately, we both realized just how dense and confusing comics can be. My finger was constantly bouncing around the page, trying to show her where to read next. The text was super-small and my daughter – who loves being able to identify words on her own – simply couldn’t read the tiny print. The jumble of thought balloons, narration boxes, and sound effects baffled her and, even when we tried to read through a whole comic, at a certain point, she’d get impatient and frustrated with my pace or with being lost all the time. She LOVED flipping through the pages and pouring over the art, the facial expressions, the action – but she’d completely abandoned comics as something she could READ.

[read the rest of the post…]

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What Children’s Books Totally Creep You Out?

by Tom B.

Creepy

Strangely enough, I know children’s picture books that are WAY creepier than this…

We have many, many different kinds of books in my daughter’s home library. Funny books, beautiful books, repetitive books, moralizing books, movie tie-in books, over-her-head books – even though most of those books are either picture books or early readers, just within those two formats, there are so many different subtle variations and sub-categories that it boggles the mind. But, there is one category, perhaps more than any other, which remains constantly on my radar, particularly at bedtime. Those are the books that my daughter absolutely loves, but that totally and completely creep me out.

Last week, Time Magazine critic and author Lev Grossman wrote a great article titled “Hating Ms. Maisy: The Joy, Sorrow and Neurotic Rage of Reading to Your Children” that should resonate with any parent who’s had to suffer through their fiftieth straight bedtime reading of their child’s favorite Berenstain Bear or Magic Tree House book. (BTW, Grossman’s novel The Magicians is definitely on my “Books My Kid Will Read in the Future” list.) Grossman talks about the unhealthy relationship that starts to develop between a parent and a bedtime book that’s fallen into heavy rotation – in his words: “The fact that my children’s taste is not my own, while obvious, is one I’ve found strangely hard to accept” – and I know exactly what he’s talking about.

One of my favorite parts in Grossman’s article is when he discusses how, after multiple readings, a parent’s “own unresolved neuroses and secret fears” can start getting wrapped up in their child’s favorite bedtime stories. (“Picture books can be kind of like Rorschach blots that way. You see what you want to see.”) Citing some examples, Grossman mentions that:

I find Raymond Briggs’ The Snowman creepy beyond belief—that snowman reminds me of the frightful Other Mother in Neil Gaiman’s Coraline. The way he tries on the boy’s sleeping parents’ clothing… you can see he’s thinking about doing away with them, right then and there, with his bare, blobby snow-hands.

The Snowman

I don’t find this book nearly as creepy as Grossman does…

My first reaction to that paragraph was to laugh for two minutes straight. My second reaction was “Hey… my kid LOVES The Snowman!”

And she does. The Snowman might be one of our most frequently read bedtime books of all time. I’ve had magical experiences reading my daughter The Snowman after a long day playing out in the cold and building our own snowman. But, despite my family’s reverence for the book, I completely see where Grossman is coming from.

The story IS kind of freaky. A boy’s snowman comes to life. The boy invites it into his house late at night. The snowman and the boy sneak around the house, performing a series of random, mundane activities – staring at his sleeping parents, trying on clothes, playing in the family car, cooking a full sit-down dinner – that all seem fairly sinister in a house full of sleeping people in the middle of the night. The boy and the snowman then fly around the world (?), return home, and the next day, the snowman melts into oblivion. (Please understand that I’m deliberately summarizing the book in an odd fashion. We really do love that book.) And, while the potentially unsettling nature of the snowman’s nocturnal visit has never really emerged while reading the book to my daughter at bedtime, the second Grossman mentioned his own darker take on the book, as a parent, I immediately thought, “Oh yeah, I can see that.”

The Snowman

OK, Bobby, get the bungie cords and ball gags. Let’s show your parents what happens when they send you to bed without dessert.

And why can I see Grossman’s point so easily? Because I have my own list of books from my daughter’s home library that weird me out to my very core. [read the rest of the post…]

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The Dot and Ish by Peter H. Reynolds

by Tom B.

The Dot by Peter H. Reynolds

One of the best kids’ book about creativity that I’ve ever read…

At the end of June, I attended a technology and education conference in San Diego and had the great fortune to meet Peter H. Reynolds, a fantastic children’s author and illustrator, perhaps best known for his picture books The Dot and Ish, at the Upstart Crow Bookstore right next to my hotel. I detailed my family’s first exposure to Peter Reynolds in a post back in February about Plant a Kiss, a really warm, inventive picture book illustrated by Reynolds and authored by one of my daughter’s favorite writers, Amy Krouse Rosenthal.

In that review, I commented that:

Illustrator Peter Reynolds is also a pretty big deal in children’s lit – his picture book, The Dot, is supposed to be fantastic – but, I’d admit, he’s one of those children’s book creators whom we’ve somehow missed entirely. Plant a Kiss is actually the first Peter Reynolds book we’ve ever read (it won’t be the last)…

After reading Plant a Kiss, during our very next trip to our library, my daughter saw a copy of The Dot on the shelves and, recognizing the artist, asked if we could check it out. Three weeks later, when we had to return The Dot to the library, my daughter brought the book over to the children’s librarian and asked if they had any more books by Peter Reynolds. Coming from a five year old, that’s a fairly huge endorsement.

Ish by Peter H. Reynolds

The sequel ain’t half-bad either…

Reynolds is a bit of a renaissance man. Aside from writing and illustrating his own children’s books – titles like The Dot, Ish, So Few of Me, and The North Star – he’s also illustrated the Judy Moody series by Megan McDonald, Someday by Alison McGhee, and a whole host of other titles by authors like Rosenthal, Gerda Weissman Klein, Bob Raczka, Eleanor Estes, and Judy Blume, among others. As if that’s not enough, he’s also the co-founder of FableVision, Inc., a “turn-key educational media developer and publisher committed to creating positive programming and products that help all learners navigate their full potential.” (I’m not entirely sure what that means, but it sounds fascinating.)

There are many reasons why I think my daughter really liked The Dot. It’s a wonderfully illustrated story. It has a very relatable protagonist – a young girl named Vashti, who is convinced that she simply CAN’T draw. And it has a very strong message at its core about creativity, confidence, and using art as a means to express one’s self.

Personally, one of the major reasons why I liked The Dot so much was because it was came along at the perfect time in my daughter’s life. My daughter just graduated from kindergarten back in June and she was one of the younger students in her class. (Just FYI, new parents – the debate surrounding whether you should send children with late-in-the-year birthdays straight to kindergarten or to a “Young Fives” program first is EASILY the most contentious parenting issue I’ve ever encountered. Certain parents go NUTS when the topic is brought up. I understand about being defensive about choices you’ve made for your family, but, jeez…)

The Dot by Peter H. Reynolds

Reynolds is a very cool guy in person and my daughter LOVES this inscription.

Because my daughter was almost a year and a half younger than some of her classmates, there were some developmental differences we noticed between her and some of the older students in her class. Yes, my daughter could read them all under the table, was great with numbers, and has memorized Batman’s almost entire rogue’s gallery (reminder: nerd dad), but, in terms of motor skills, my kid was undeniably on the younger side, particularly when it came to handwriting and coloring in the lines.

And, because such things are inevitable, one of her classmates picked up on this and began to tease her. He laughed at her pictures, he called her a “scribble-scrabbler”, and he called her a baby. The little jerk even picked up a term used by their teacher and weirdly chided my daughter for “not producing quality work.” (I won’t even tell you the names I told my daughter to call him back in return. Honestly. I really can’t. Whenever I tell people, I never come out looking good.) [read the rest of the post…]

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What We Took Out From the Library Last Week: Book #5 – How to Cheat a Dragon’s Curse by Cressida Cowell

by Tom B.

How to Cheat a Dragon's Curse

My daughter BEGGED me to find this book at our library.

And we’ve come to the end of our week! (Cue the Rebecca Black song.) Welcome to the FIFTH installment of What We Took Out From the Library Last Week, our new series in which we spend an entire business week profiling the various books that my five-year-old daughter and I checked out from our local library last week. We came home with five books and we’ve been listing the books in the order they were selected, so today we’ll talking about the fifth and final book we chose to take home with us. Our fifth title was a chapter book – How to Cheat a Dragon’s Curse, the fourth book in the “How to Train Your Dragon” series by Cressida Cowell, which follows the “heroic misadventures” of a young Viking-in-training named Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III.

You might be familiar with the name “How to Train Your Dragon” from the successful (and actually very good) 2010 DreamWorks animated movie, which was based on the original book.

But before I start talking about How to Cheat a Dragon’s Curse, you need to know THREE things:

1. The How to Train Your Dragon movie was a very, very loose adaptation of the original book. (There are some significant differences.)

2. We have not actually finished reading How to Cheat a Dragon’s Curse. We’ve only had it out for a few days and it’s a 272-page book. My daughter and I read a few chapters at bedtime most nights (but I don’t out her down every night). So… I won’t be talking about many specifics regarding How to Cheat a Dragon’s Curse.

3. I absolutely love – LOVE – the How to Train Your Dragon series. For me, it will forever be the first chapter book series that my daughter ever fell in love with, which has won it a very special place in my heart.

Are we all set on my three very important things? (Insert self-mocking emoticon here.) I opened with those because I really wanted to establish exactly why my five-year-old was checking out the fourth chapter in a series of juvenile novels for young readers. It’s because she’s over the moon for the adventures of Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III and she’s INSISTING that we read every single book in the series.

How to Train Your Dragon series

The first eight books in the “How to Train Your Dragon” series. The ninth book – “How to Steal a Dragon’s Sword” – is not pictured.

So, how did we start reading the How to Train Your Dragon series? Well, long-time readers of this blog will remember that, in the past, my daughter would never, ever let me read longer books with her at bedtime. At the time, the longest title we’d ever read to her at bedtime was probably one of Kate DiCamillo’s Mercy Watson books. But several parents we knew were already reading their children chapter books and early YA novels at bedtime, raving about how their kids were just LOVING the first Harry Potter books, Brian Selznick’s The Invention of Hugo Cabret, and so on. And my wife and I – we wanted in on that action. It just sounded like way too much fun. [read the rest of the post…]

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What We Took Out From the Library Last Week: Book #4 – Awful Ogre Running Wild by Jack Prelutsky, illustrated by Paul O. Zelinsky

by Tom B.

Awful Ogre Running Wild

Wonderful poems about gloriously gross things…

Welcome to the fourth installment of What We Took Out From the Library Last Week, the newest chapter in a weekly series where we take a look at the FIVE books my five-year-old daughter checked out at our local library last week. I’m listing the books in the order they were selected and this fourth book definitely falls into the category of “old favorite.” Every time we hit the library, we end up coming home with, at least, one book that we’ve checked out multiple times before. My daughter loves to re-read books that connected with her in the past and so, when she saw  Awful Ogre Running Wild by Jack Prelutsky and Paul O. Zelinsky sitting on the “Librarian’s Picks” shelf last week, I KNEW we were coming home with it.

I know some parents are hesitant about reading poetry to their children. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because “poetry” is a loaded word for certain people. Maybe, to them, “poetry” conjures images of Sylvia Path, Emily Dickinson, beatniks, hipsters, and holier-than-thou coffee shop readings, and they just can’t get past that. While a part of me sympathizes with that prejudice, the vast majority of me just wants to slap them. Parents, perhaps without them even realizing it, read poetry to their kids ALL THE TIME, whether they’re singing a nursery rhyme or reading Dr. Seuss aloud. In fact, a huge percentage of picture books are actually poetry books – they’re narrative poems with rhyme, meter, etc. – but I guess those parents just see the images as the focus point. Who knows?

But one of the many reasons that I’m so fond of Awful Ogre Running Wild is that it’s a picture book that REVELS in its poetry. It’s a book that proudly classifies itself as a poetry book and announces on its cover that its author, Jack Prelutsky, is the Children’s Poet Laureate. (Ooh la la.) And, in cooperation with renowned illustrator Paul O. Zelinsky, Prelutsky has created one of the most kid-friendly poetry collections ever, a book that wonderfully taps into the Id of children everywhere and turns all things gross and boorish into something beautiful.

Awful Ogre Running Wild

There’s a carbon footprint joke here somewhere, but… I can’t get there…

The book introduces us to Awful Ogre, a giant immature cyclops who smashes and destroys everything in sight. (Awful Ogre actually first appears in Prelutsky and Zelinsky’s Awful Ogre’s Awful Day, but… though I’m ashamed to admit it… our library doesn’t have it.) And Awful Ogre – he’s rude, he’s dirty, he’s destructive, and… he looks like he’s having a great time. Zelinsky does a really amazing job of making Awful Ogre into something distinctly monstrous, but in a really lovely, charming way. He’s a brute, but he’s a loveable brute. In the world that Prelutsky and Zelinsky create, the people that have to interact with Awful Ogre recoil at the very sight of him, but, as readers, the authors make it tremendously fun to watch the Ogre’s oblivious, joyful destruction from a distance. [read the rest of the post…]

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What We Took Out From the Library Last Week: Book #3 – Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures, Volume 1

by Tom B.

Clone Wars Adventures, Volume 1

The children have to learn about The Clone Wars sometime, right? Right?

Welcome to the third installment of What We Took Out From the Library Last Week, a good-natured peek at the FIVE books my five-year-old daughter checked out during our last trip to our local library. We’re going in order, so let’s talk about the third book my daughter picked out, otherwise known as “the book I have no control over.”

Remember, in my introductory post to this series, when I said that my daughter gets to pick put one book every time that I can’t veto? Well, per usual, for her no-veto pick, she went for a book based on a movie or a TV show. Usually, that means Scooby Doo, but this week it meant… Star Wars.  Specifically, a Star Wars comic book anthology called Clone Wars Adventures, Volume 1.

And, as a big pop culture geek, Star Wars is kind of a hot button issue with me. Like a lot of people, I adore the original trilogy, despise the prequels, and beyond-despise the various unnecessary and artistically-suspect revisions George Lucas has made to the original trilogy. But, after observing my daughter’s first year of kindergarten, I have to say – there is NO other pop culture property that is more prevalent in the minds of young children than Star Wars right now. Maybe it’s the due to the popularity of Star Wars Legos or maybe it’s because the children of the ‘80s grew up, had kids, and decided to share their favorite trilogy with their offspring at a very young age, but, man oh man, in my experience, five- and six-year-old boys and girls will NOT stop talking about Star Wars.

(I said “boys and girls” right there to be inclusive, but I will say, in my limited sphere of experience, boys do seem to be WAY more into Star Wars than girls. And I don’t know why. It might be the guns. It might be that the overwhelming majority of Star Wars characters are male. It might be the big, glowing, phallic swordfights… who knows? But I will say, earlier this year, my daughter was the only girl invited to an all-boys Star Wars birthday party and… yeah, I’m still brimming with pride.)

Darth Vader and Son

Being a parent in the Star Wars era isn’t easy… (Image taken from the very funny “Darth Vader and Son” by Jeffrey Brown.)

However, the Star Wars issue is difficult in our house because, while it is VERY much on my daughter’s radar, I won’t let her watch the movies or the Clone Wars TV series yet. I just think she’s too young and it’s too violent. And that’s hard because almost ALL of her friends watch the movies frequently. So, instead, since she is really, really eager to learn about Star Wars, we talk about the Star Wars universe A LOT. (Fortunately, as a card-carrying geek, I have an almost-photographic memory about Star Wars lore.) I’ll flip through Star Wars books with her and she has some Star Wars toys (including some of mine from my childhood). I also show her a decent amount of YouTube clips – a selection of short glimpses of Star Wars-related material that I deem appropriate.

For example, there are some pretty funny animated Lego Star Wars videos online at the moment. Or there are these crazy “Star Wars Dance-Off” videos from the Disney Studios Star Wars Weekends that have to be seen to be believed. (You haven’t lived until you’ve seen Chewbacca’s Axl Rose impression.) Or, at times, I will show her small clips from the actual movies. I normally keep these short, but I have given her brief looks at lightsaber fights, space battles, Ewoks, etc. Since it is SUCH a front-of-mind topic with her peers, I have no problem sharing with her knowledge of the Star Wars universe – showing her videos, having discussions, letting her play with the toys – but I’ll be damned if I let peer pressure force me to show her the movies before I feel she’s ready for them.

Clone Wars Adventures, Volume 1

How do I explain Jedi haircuts to my daughter?

That’s a long preamble to say that, when my daughter showed up with a Star Wars book in her hands at the library and asked if she could check it out, I definitely went through some conflicting emotions. (Particularly since it was a Clone Wars book. Why did my child have to be born in the age of the prequels?) I eventually let her check out the book in question – Star Wars: Clone Wars Adventures, Volume 1 – and here are the three reasons why:

1. It wasn’t a mindless retelling of the movies. It was a new story. Granted, Clone Wars Adventures is set during the Clone Wars – the dumbest of all wars – but nothing is worse than a corporate-produced kids’ book that just recounts what happened in a movie. At least, the author had to try to create something new and not just say “and then this happened… and then this happened…”

2. It was a graphic novel – a format that I really love and that my daughter is really enjoying. She’s very into comic books right now and Clone Wars Adventures is a neat little Star Wars comics anthology series, published by Dark Horse Comics, with three separate stories per volume. The format is also pretty cool for young readers – big readable text, only 2-3 panels per page, and the library-binding editions are hardcover and super-tough. [read the rest of the post…]

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What We Took Out From the Library Last Week: Book #2 – People by Blexbolex

by Tom B.

People by Blexbolex

These are the people in your neighborhood… your incredibly eclectic neighborhood…

Welcome back to the second installment of What We Took Out From the Library Last Week, a brief glimpse at the FIVE books my five-year-old daughter checked out during our last trip to our local library. We’re going in order, so I can now tell you that the second book we picked out is… a very unusual book. It’s a picture book. (OK.) And a word book. (Seems a bit young for a five-year-old.) A 200-page word book. (What? Really?) A 200-page word book that teaches kids about contortionists, centaurs, fakirs, tattooed men, rabbis, cat burglars, and more. (You’re messing with me, right? Right?)

It’s an extremely cool book called People by Blexbolex. That’s right. Blexbolex.

Reason Why France Is Pretty Cool #497: A guy can rename himself “Blexbolex” and it doesn’t seem completely ridiculous. I mean, it’s a little odd, but I think the guy pulls it off. Maybe I’m just cutting him some slack because I’m so fond of his book. People is easily one of the best designed and most visually stunning titles we’ve checked out from the library all year. We’ve danced around it for the past few weeks. The past three times we’ve been at the library, my daughter has taken it off the shelf, paged through it, considered it, and put it back. For whatever reason, last Friday was the day the book finally came home with us and I’m glad it did. I suppose you could call People a word book – it just has a single illustration of a person and a word describing that person on each page – but it’s really so much more than that.

(For those of you who don’t know, a “word book” is a pretty common kind of picture book for really young readers. It’s primary purpose is, simply, to teach children new words. They’re filled with images of common, everyday things and the word identifying each object appears right underneath the image. Richard Scarry is the KING of the word book.)

The illustrations in People are beautiful. They’re wonderfully simple and iconic representations of different kinds of human beings, done in a fashion that almost makes them look they’re screen-printed or stamped onto each page. But Blexbolex’s concept goes way, way beyond where normal word books leave off. People is a big book – 200-plus pages – and Blexbolex fills each page with extremely insightful images of a HUGE variety of people. And we’re not just talking about firemen and doctors.

People by Blexbolex

They’re like flash cards for humanity…

The book starts with a two-page spread of Man and Woman, but, after that, the pairings get more and more specific and unique. You get match-ups like Couple -Bachelor, Corpse-Retiree, Friend-Foe, Builder-Demolisher, Monk-Rabbi, Nudist-Invisible Man, Amputee-Cyclops, Princess-Werewolf, and so on. Some of the people-types are a little on the unusual or almost macabre side, but there’s nothing mean-spirited or inappropriate about them. My daughter loved encountering words, terms, and personality-types that she’d never encountered before. (“Daddy, what’s an Emir?”) [read the rest of the post…]

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