Review: The Wonderful Egg, by Dahlov Ipcar

I flipped through this book yesterday at the Flying Eye Books / Nobrow booth at ALA Midwinter. From the appearance of Dahlov Ipcar's delightfully animated dinosaur drawings, it looked like something I might have checked out from the library when I was a child. (It's a re-issue, painstakingly restored, of a book originally published in 1958, so the time period was about right for me to have seen it at a young age, given how long books last in public libraries.) I went back to look at it again today, this time examining it more closely, including the words.

Suddenly it all came back to me. I had read The Wonderful Egg, from the library, many times! "Triceratops was big, too, but not as big as Brontosaurus." BAM! Take that, Proust! So of course I had to buy it. Such beautifully stylized drawings, simple but informative text, and a narrative twist to end it. Plus, at the back, "This is the Way to Say Their Names," which was most probably my introduction on how to pronounce the names of two dozen dinosaur types.

Now I want to read all the rest of the Dahlov Ipcar books that Flying Eye is re-issuing.

With a Winter White Ale from Bell’s Brewery.

The Wonderful Egg

By Dahlov Ipcar

Flying Eye Books, 2014 (Doubleday, 1958)

ISBN-10: 1909263281

ISBN-13: 978-1909263284

48pp., $19.95

Review: My Pet Book, by Bob Staake

Where was My Pet Book when I was young? It's beautiful, it worships the power of books, and there's lots of fun little bits to discover in the backgrounds of the images, especially in the signs of this pet-obsessed town. "Breed Limit 35"! "Central Bark"! "Bowowery"! (There's even evidence of a voyage to "Funky Town"!)

Bob Staake has become a Jack-of-all-trades when it comes to art (from newspaper illustration to posters to iconic New Yorker covers), but it's clear that he has a special affinity for children's books and the importance of reading. With its rhymed text and colorful, highly stylized (and stylish!) illustrations, My Pet Book will engage and charm you on every page. I can't wait to recommend this "frisky red hardcover" to all the young reading-lovers at my library.

Bonus! Be sure to check out this great, in-depth interview with Bob Staake at the Washington City Paper website, conducted by my good friend Mike "ComicsDC" Rhode! 

With a Swallow Wit from Middle Ages Brewing Co.

My Pet Book

by Bob Staake

Random House, 2014

40 pages, $17.99

ISBN-10: 0385373120

ISBN-13: 978-0385373128

Review: CDB! and CDC? by William Steig

One of my favorite books when I was a child was CDB! by William Steig. It was full of black and white drawings, each captioned by a series of letters which, when read aloud, would sound like a phrase or sentence: for example, "CDB!" translates into "See the bee!" Some were pretty straightforward, but some were trickier; the simple, narrative illustrations helped you to decode the captions.

I remember finding the book on a bottom shelf of my neighborhood library. I seem to recall feeling vaguely uneasy about checking it out, as if the book was for "littler kids" than I was (even though I was still very young, myself). After all, I was already reading full sentences, and here was a book that only used letters, not even real words! But I was still fascinated with it, and I've remembered it ever since.

Several months ago, I was amazed to discover that Steig also created a sequel, CDC? I hadn't known about it, but that is probably because it wasn't published until 1984, when I was a high school senior. I requested both books from the library, curious to see what they would be like now, four decades after I first read CDB!

My first shock came with the appearance of the pages. Steig added watercolor to CDB! in 2000, and to CDC? in 2003. So the stark, diagrammatic pictures in my memory here were a bit softer and more gentle. And some of the deciphering was probably just as challenging now as it was when I was a child. I didn't recall there being complex "words," but here they were, especially with names, such as "L-X-&-R." And letters can sometimes sound like different words: S can be either "is" or "yes," depending on context.

Both books are very similar, although CDC?, apart form being about 20 pages longer than its predecessor, contains more grown-up characters, situations, and vocabulary. In one instance, a middle-aged man with a pipe sits and looks at another man, bearded and wild-eyed, who holds bits of a broken chair in his hands. The caption? "M I B-N 2 V-M-N?"

Each book contains, on its final page, an "answer key." I only really needed it once, for an instance in CDC?: what in the world could "D-P" stand for? Turns out it means "dippy." (The slangier the coinages, the more difficult they become to decipher.)

I had a lot of fun re-encountering a childhood friend and meeting its sibling after all this time. They weren't "beneath" me at all. S X-L-R-8-10!

CDB!

by William Steig

Aladdin, 2003

ISBN-10: 0689857063

ISBN-13: 978-0689857065

48 pages, $7.99

CDC?

by William Steig

Square Fish, 2008

ISBN-10: 0312380127

ISBN-13: 978-0312380120

64 pages, $8.99

Review: The Monsters' Monster, by Patrick McDonnell

Patrick McDonnell, the cartoonist behind the already-classic comic strip Mutts, has created a picturebook about monsters whose bad behaviors are very much like those of this book's potential audience. "Who could complain the loudest? Who could throw the most terrible tantrum? Who was the most miserable?" Their most fiendish plot of all involves creating another monster, one whom they hope will be the most terrifying of all. But this Monster (a chunky, cartoonified version of Boris Karloff's portrayal of the Frankenstein monster) has other ideas. I won't give it all away, but I will note that jelly donuts play a part.

McDonnell's artwork is, as always, loose and playful and highly expressive. Little two-headed Gloom 'n' Doom is especially hilarious to watch throughout. The text is clever and a bit sing-songy in places, perfect for reading aloud. And the book's gentle lesson will warm the heart of any little (or big) monster.

"Dank you," Patrick McDonnell.

The Monster's Monster

by Patrick McDonnell

Lttle, Brown, 2012

ISBN-10: 0316045470

ISBN-13: 978-0316045476

40 pages, $16.99

Review: Moby Dick (Cozy Classics) by Jack & Holman Wang

Boardbook
Adaptation
Literature
Twelve:
     Words
     Photos
Art
Needle-Felt
Clever
Beautiful
Genius
(website)

Cozy Classics: Moby Dick

by Jack & Holman Wang

Simply Read Books, 2012

ISBN-10: 1927018110

ISBN-13: 978-1927018118

24 pages, $9.95

Review: Bluebird, by Bob Staake

Bluebird, the new wordless picturebook by Bob Staake, is, quite simply, gorgeous. It tells the relatively simple story of a lonely New York City boy who meets and has his life changed by a bluebird. It's a tale of sadness, friendship, loss, and renewal, presented in comics-style, multi-panel pages colored primarily in blues, greys, and white.

Staake's geometric style ("rendered," as the indicia informs us, "in Adobe Photoshop") seems at first glance as if it might be cold; but, as anyone familiar with his other books or his illustration work for The New Yorker and elsewhere already knows, his spheres and boxes and cones are capable of conveying and creating deeply emotional scenes, from the little boy's downcast eyes and defeated posture in the book's beginning; to the wonder of the city's architecture, both grand and mundane; to the threatening moments in the woods of the park; to the freedom and exhilaration of the skies. Rarely have such simple shapes seemed so full of life.

Wordless (or "silent") books of course rarely have no words at all; while these pages don't offer narration or dialogue, we can still see words on signs or on classroom blackboards. And Staake's backgrounds are always worth exploring. Young eyes will have a lot to take in once they've devoured the main plot. I particularly liked the poster on the classroom wall which hearkens back to Staake's dedication in the front of the book.

The publication design here is elegant. Picturebooks often provide immersive book experiences like this for their young readers, and Bluebird is no different: The story actually begins on the front cover, where we meet the bluebird and then follow its flight across the city over the course of the front endpapers and then the indicia and title pages.

At turns melancholic and joyous, but always lyrical, Bob Staake's Bluebird belongs on the bookshelf of every child who's ever felt alone in or confused by the world around them--which is to say, of course, all children, current and former.

Bluebird

by Bob Staake

Schwartz & Wade, 2013

ISBN-10: 0375870377

ISBN-13: 978-0375870378

40 pages, $17.99

With a Smashed Blueberry beer from Shipyard Brewing Co.

Review: A Wrinkle in Time: The Graphic Novel by Hope Larson and Madeleine L'Engle

My fifth grade teacher, Miss Wocher, read Madeline L'Engle's classic science-fiction children's novel A Wrinkle in Time to our class, one chapter each Friday afternoon. After a few weeks, I bought my own copy so that I could read along with her. It quickly became one of my favorite books; I was enchanted with its fantastic premise (a group of children travel through time and space, guided by three mysterious women, to rescue their father), its quirky characters, and L'Engle's overall way with words. (Although I was devastated when I looked up tesseract in my dictionary only to conclude that, apparently, she had made it up!) I never forgot the book, and, when I taught Children's Literature courses many years later, AWiT was always on my syllabus.

So I approached Hope Larson's adaptation, A Wrinkle in Time: The Graphic Novel, with no little trepidation, even though I had liked earlier work of Larson's that I had seen. Could this adaptation possibly compare to my experience with the original? (Even though, as I've written about before, hoping for absolute fidelity to an original work in an adaptation is a sucker's game.) However, my fears were for naught. Larson actually achieves a remarkable amount of fidelity to L'Engle's original novel, and the publisher (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) is to be commended for allowing Larson to produce a truly substantial adaptation: At just shy of 400 pages long(!), this book has the room few other adaptations are afforded to really slow down the storytelling and include the smaller, character-enhancing moments that almost always get sacrificed in adaptations for the sake of "just getting the plot across," usually as economically (i.e., briefly) as possible.

We get to see lead character Meg Murray's awkwardness, her hesitancy, her headstrong nature, and her bravery in full measure, and the other characters are also allowed to develop and to shine. For example, during the first and most difficult "tesser" (a sort of space/time dimensional warp), Meg's disconcerting reaction to the process is given about seven full pages to play out, really allowing the reader to experience her disorientation almost as fully as one does in reading the novel itself. If you haven't read many comics adaptations, you cannot imagine how refreshing this luxury of space is. Even most film adaptations of literary works must cut out more detail and texture than Larson needed to here.

The artwork, in black and white with blue tones, manages to be both straightforward and carefully delineated in equal measure. Larson's inkwork is lush and bold, appealingly simple and, yes, cute, but without ever seeming too cloyingly cartoonish. Larson is equally adept at depicting subtle character emotions and otherworldly dimensional realms. Some readers might find the more alien landscapes a bit thinly detailed in places, but I think this is very much in keeping with L'Engle's original book, which excels at creating feeling and mood over intricate technical descriptions. At these books' heart is the emotional arcs of the characters - especially that of Meg, a character with whom I identified a lot as a child - and not thick science-fiction detail.

Is reading the graphic novel the same experience as reading L'Engle's original? Of course not - but then, it's not meant to be. The original novel is still there to thrill and delight young readers. But Hope Larson's A Wrinkle in Time: The Graphic Novel is a more-than-worthy companion to L'Engle's classic book. It's a very assured and appealing work in its own right, one which offers readers a new and richly imagined version of a tale which has already endured for more than fifty years.

Madeleine L'Engle's

A Wrinkle in Time: The Graphic Novel

adapted and illustrated by Hope Larson

Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012

ISBN-10: 0374386153

ISBN-13: 978-0374386153

392 pages, $19.99

Review: The Shark King, by R. Kikuo Johnson

R. Kikuo Johnson's The Shark King is another wonderful comic for younger readers from TOON Books. I'm not sure if this tale is an actual myth or just feels like one, to its credit. Set in old Hawaii, the story concerns a woman who falls in love with and marries a mysterious man, and their child Nanaue who, born with special abilities, goes on adventures and meets his destiny. The cape you can see him wearing on the cover helps conceal the boy's strange and somewhat goofy birthright.

Johnson's art style is deceptively simple in its directness - clean and clear, with a muted palette almost out of the 1950s, the drawings often inhabit relatively complex page designs. Readers encounter lots of angular or jumbled panels along with more fairly standard griddings, giving the pages a real life and kinetic energy. (I'm reminded at times of Stephen R. Bissette's page designs in comics such as Swamp Thing and Tyrant - and coming from me, this is high praise indeed.)

The Shark King is what TOON Books calls a "Level Three" book ("Chapter-book comics for advanced beginners [...] Reader needs to make connections and speculate"), and Johnson's work certainly fits this bill. Parts of the tale are told via suggestion rather than statement, encouraging the child reader to ask questions, to guess what has happened or will happen next. This isn't lazy storytelling; it's exactly the opposite. Johnson knows what to emphasize and what to allude to, in order to engage young readers' imaginations. TOON Books expects that kids will be reading these books with their parents, and a story like this will certainly encourage the active engagement of both older and younger readers that can lead to thoughtful reflection and - that grail of grails - re-reading.

I think kids will really enjoy this book, for its artwork, for its imaginative and evocative setting, and for the impish pluck of young Nanaue. Plus, it will give kids yet another reason to tie a towel around their neck like a cape...

The Shark King

by R. Kikuo Johnson

TOON Books, 2012

ISBN-10: 1935179160

ISBN-13: 978-1935179160

40 pages, $12.95

Review: Everything Goes: On Land & In the Air, by Brian Biggs

The first work I saw by Brian Biggs was his poetic short graphic novel Frederick & Eloise, published by Fantagraphics in 1993, followed by the lovely Dear Julia, (1995-1997, 2000). Since that time, he's illustrated many delightful children's books written by various authors (I particularly like the Little Golden Book I'm a T. Rex!). I've been lucky enough to get to know Brian a bit, and I was excited when I learned, a couple of years ago, that he had landed a contract for his own series of picturebooks that he would not only draw but also write.

Even after seeing some preliminary sketches and such, though, I wasn't prepared for just how wonderful his series "Everything Goes" would turn out to be. These are large, beautiful looking books, overstuffed with fun, visual details that will keep young children busy, engaged, and entertained for quite some time.

Narratively, the books are extremely simple. In On Land, young Henry and his father take a car trip to the train station to pick up his mother and bring her home. In In the Air, Henry and his parents go to the airport, get on an airplane, and take off. Simple, right? But these books are all about the details - and they feature details in abundance. Along the way in On Land, Henry's father tells the young boy all about the different types of vehicles that the encounter on their car ride: not just automobiles and trucks, but also buses, RVs, motorcycles, bicycles, trains, and more. The presentation alternates between densely packed double-page spreads filled with vehicles and people, with labels and dialogue balloons pointing out various bits of information, and two-page cut-away views of the various vehicle types, showing and naming the various parts (engines, tires, gas tanks, gear shifts, seats - everything you can think of, as well as some things that you wouldn't, like the motorcyclist's "nice socks"). In the Air finds Henry similarly learning all about air travel from his Mom and Dad, from airplanes to helicopters to balloons and more.

But these aren't just dryly informative texts. The dialogue is often funny, especially that of the dozens (hundreds?) of background characters we encounter. Kids can have fun following the mini-stories of some of the characters who appear on multiple pages, like the man whose care battery dies, or the woman who keeps asking about the opposite of what she's doing, or the TSA agent who wonders why there's a single boot on the conveyor belt (hint: that pirate in the metal detector has a wooden leg!). Plus, there are games in each book: Find the numbers from 1-100 scattered throughout the pages! Spot all the birds wearing hats! Discover the things that don't belong! Even I had a blast examining the pages closely, and I'm a bit older than the "ages 4 and up" target audience.

It doesn't hurt - in fact, it helps tremendously - that Biggs' artwork is incredibly appealing. While his earlier comics work featured often delicate, fragile characters in carefully rendered environments, his picturebook style has become bolder, brighter, and perhaps more confident, boasting thick outlines, quirky colors, and slightly bulbous designs. Everything is cute without being "cutesy." But this style still manages to serve the more technical aspects of the books quite well: Even though the various vehicles have been "cartooned" instead of rendered photo-realistically, you still get lots of good information about how things work. There will be a time and place for older kids who need to see every single nut and bolt; but young readers will appreciate - and learn a lot from - Biggs' clear, direct illustrations.

There are also Everything Goes board books (by Brian) and "I Can Read!" books (by another writer and artist "in the style of Brian Biggs") available, too. I haven't had a chance to see any of them yet, but I think it's great that the series is getting a good push from the publisher. I know that children in the library where I work really enjoy spending time with these books, and I bet the kids you know will, too.

Everything Goes: On Land

by Brian Biggs

Balzer + Bray, 2011

ISBN-10: 0061958093

ISBN-13: 978-0061958090

56 pages, $14.99

Everything Goes: In the Air

by Brian Biggs

Balzer + Bray, 2012

ISBN-10: 0061958107

ISBN-13: 978-0061958106

56 pages, $14.99

Review: The Secret of the Stone Frog, by David Nytra

David Nytra (a cartoonist I'd not heard of before) has the honor of creating the first "graphic novel" to be published by TOON Books, those purveyors of fine, hardcover comics for kids, edited by Françoise Mouly. TOON has made a solid choice. The Secret of the Stone Frog is a beautiful, beautiful book, a fantasy adventure starring a sister and brother who find themselves lost in a confusing, magical world. Sound familiar? Of course; it's the stuff of so much great children's literature. And while Nytra clearly knows his fantasy tropes and tellers, his tale is nevertheless fresh and inventive.

Older readers will recognize nods to John Tenniel's illustrations for Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (see especially the large-headed woman who keeps giant bees as pets) and to Winsor McCay's seminal comic strip Little Nemo in Slumberland (see especially the art nouveau-inspired character design and young Alan's Nemo-esque nightshirt) and many other fantasy favorites. Younger readers will lose themselves in exploring every square inch of the book's hyper-detailed black and white pages, from the ornate corner designs to the amazingly detailed landscapes and architecture. (See the sample pages at the TOON Books website for some examples.)

On their travels the siblings also encounter talking, dandified lions; giant rabbits; deep-sea subway riders; a boistrous huckster; and other equally bizarre characters. But the progression from one to the next follows a dream-like logic that takes you safely (if a bit disorientingly) across the book's eighty pages. And while our heroes eventually find their way home, it's as beautiful as any other place we've just encountered on our readerly journey.

If I have one complaint, though, it's that the book uses typeset text instead of more elegant and expressive hand lettering (or even, as I think their other books do, a typeface made to mimic hand lettering). Nytra's word balloons take non-standard shapes, looking at times to have been rendered almost with french curves; to see them filled with serif text is to experience an aesthetic jolt. Emphasized words are printed in a blocky sans serif typeface, further confusing the visual balance of the page. This is of course a small matter that might very well be of no concern to anyone but me, I realize; still, I found it a jarring misstep in what is otherwise a truly lovely overall package.

I definitely look forward to more work by David Nytra, and to more novel-length books from TOON. I've been a fan of their shorter books of comics from the start, and The Secret of the Stone Frog is a worthy addition to -- and expansion of -- their growing library of classics.

The Secret of the Stone Frog

A TOON Graphic Novel by David Nytra

TOON Books, 2012

ISBN-10: 1935179187

ISBN-13: 978-1935179184

80 pages, $14.95

Review: The Truth About Cousin Ernie's Head, by Matthew McElligott

What a strange little book! Crazy family arguments are "settled" in an unusual way, through the discovery of old home movies, with disastrous results. Some innovative visual storytelling (which I won't give away here) adds to the fun. The library categorizes this children's picturebook as a Holiday book, because the story takes place at Thanksgiving, but it would make a good read for any time.

The Truth About Cousin Ernie's Head by Matthew McElligott Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing, 1996 ISBN-10: 0689801793 ISBN-13: 978-0689801792 32 pages, $16.99[?]

This review was originally published in slightly different form at Goodreads.