Picture Books Review

And Tango Makes Three (2005)

2013-02-22T21:35:00.000-08:00

Illustrated by Henry Cole

Watercolor

Text set in Garamond

It was mating season at the Penguin habitat in the New York Central Zoo, love was in the air. Penguins began pairing off, including two especially loving, sweet penguins named Roy and Silo.

Yes, they were both dudes, but that’s not the controversial part.

When the other happy penguin couples found themselves in a family way and began spending their days and nights keeping their eggs warm, Roy and Silo – not to be outdone – found an egg-shaped rock upon which to sit. They took turns sitting on that lifeless rock, determined to keep it warm and safe. In their own way, they loved that little rock.

Then, in a fateful moment of inspiration – in an action which would have profound consequences throughout public schools and libraries the country over and serve as a lightning rod for free speech and civil rights issues – a clever zookeeper got the swell idea to substitute that egg-like rock for the real deal.

One day, the egg hatched, and a baby penguin pup was born. His name was Tango.

And Tango Makes Three was published in 2005, written by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell. It is the true account of the birth of Tango, and of the attempts made by Roy and Silo to raise the young penguin pup as their own, and of the acceptance this unlikely family finds in the zoo. It is an incredibly sweet story.

The first I’d heard of the book was thanks to my good friends at Wolfgang Books. Distinctly do I remember that Saturday morning, browsing about their second floor bookshop in Phoenixville, Pa, with Arlo and a cup of coffee, when I saw the display table of banned and challenged books which they had set up in honor of Banned Books Week.

Just the words, “Banned Books” hold a certain, sexy allure. On the table were the usual suspects: Huckleberry Finn, The Giver, Animal Farm, all wonderful titles which I’d of course read and loved. But there was one book which did not initially seem to belong, and it was that book to which I immediately gravitated.

There is absolutely nothing about the look of And Tango Makes Three which hints at anything approaching even slightly controversial content. The cover depicts two gender-neutral looking penguins cuddling with their tiny pup, looking about as snug as a bug in a rug as penguinly possible. There is a golden sticker in the left hand corner showing that this book is a winner for the ASPCA Henry Bergh Children’s Book Award. On the back are glowing quotes from the likes of Maurice Sendak and John Lithgow. If it had been in any other section of the bookstore, I would have most likely barely given it a second glance, though – as I said – there is a certain undeniable allure to the banned book which I am powerless to resist.

Ten minutes later, I bought it, and was thus able to support not only gay rights, but also free speech and my local independent bookshop all with the same purchase.

Later that afternoon, with Arlo cuddled next to me on the couch at our home, I read it aloud.

“Every year at the very same time, the girl penguins start noticing the boy penguins,” I began. “And they boy penguins start noticing the girls…”

Arlo listened, enjoying the playful illustrations of Henry Cole very much, as the penguins swim together, walk together, sing together... They’re not exactly 100% anthropomorphic. I can tell Cole spent a long time studying actual penguins in order to get their look and their body language just right, but he does give them very expressive eyes and half-crescent eyebrows, a slight upturn of a smile superimposed upon their beaks. He does a great job of being simultaneously realistic and fanciful.

As the story moves towards its resolution, there is a loud CRAAAACK! after which which baby Tango emerges from his egg, to the delight of both Roy and Silo, and to the delight of all the schoolchildren who would come to the zoo forever after and celebrate the penguin family.

“At night the three penguins returned to their nest,” the book concludes. “There they snuggled together and, like all the other penguins in the penguin house, and all the other animals in the zoo, and all the families in the big city around them, they went to sleep.”

I shut the book and set it down.

Arlo silently absorbed what he’d just heard.

“So, what did you think?” I prodded. “Did you like it?”

“Yes,” he said cautiously. He had a bit of a disturbed look on his face. “Except, I didn’t like the part where there was no momma.”

“Oh.” I frowned. “Well… suppose it had been about two moms and there was no daddy? What would you think of it, then?”

In a moment, Arlo’s eyes twinkled, a wide grin spread across his entire face and he exclaimed, “Yeah! That would be great!”

Unspoken (2012)

2013-02-19T20:25:00.000-08:00

Illustrated by Henry Cole

Canson charcoal paper with Staedtler Mars 4B pencils

Adobe Garamond Pro Regular

Scholastic Press

This is a startlingly beautiful work. I can't quote any of it, because, as promised by the title, all is unspoken. The narrative relies only on the artwork to carry it along. The temptation is to flip through it quickly, but there is too much texture on each page. There's hardly any white space, practically every square centimeter is filled, even the cloudless sky, let alone the plentiful wood, brick and earth.

It seemed to me this book was as much about the setting and the environment as it was with the story. The first several pages consist of the young girl's life on the farm. Watching soldiers marching by, feeding the chickens, hanging quilts. I got a real sense of the passage of time, and the entirety of this young girl's existence.

When the story comes into play, it is with subtlety and mystery.

Do you see the eye in the corn?

That eye is all that is ever seen. Unspoken, indeed. There are layers of invisibility, just as the young girl herself, is practically invisible to the soldiers and bounty hunters come to her parent's home.

"Because I made only the pictures," writes Cole, "I'm hoping you will write the words and make this story your own."

Arrow to the Sun (1974)

2013-02-17T22:21:00.000-08:00

Retold and Illustrated by Gerald McDermott

Gouache and ink

16 point Clarendon Semibold

Viking Press

This is the complete tonal opposite of The Magic Tree, I can't help but wonder how intentional the contrast was. The Magic Tree was all blues and blacks - which perfectly fit the downbeat story - but Arrow to the Sun is full-on blinding yellows and golds and shades of orange.

The first image is - fittingly - the sun itself. Within its center stands a god, holding his bow, sending a fiery shaft to the earth, "the spark of life." But this isn't an origin story. It's divine conception.

He's called only 'the Boy,' and its not clear if he or his mother understand what has happened.

...the other boys would not let him join their games. "Where is your father?" they asked. "You have no father!" They mocked him and chased him away.

And so begins his quest. It's a classic game of threes. The Corn Planter, the Pot Maker, the Arrow Maker... Ah. It is Arrow Maker who has some answers, and the ability to shoot the boy back to the sun in order to become reacquainted his his father.

But all is not so easily resolved:

"Perhaps you are my son, perhaps you are not. You must prove yourself. You must pass through the four chambers of ceremony - the Kiva of Lions, the Kiva of Serpents, the Kiva of Bees, and the Kiva of Lightning."

I'm glad I'm not the only reviewer who noticed that the illustrations - especially here during the Kiva Trek - really do resemble the graphics from an old Atari game. I can imagine moving the Boy from brightly colored Kiva to brightly colored Kiva. However... this book was published in 1974, and the Atari console didn't come out until 1977! Strange... unless McDermott had some hidden connection with the Atari corporation!

Upon the completion of his tasks, the Boy is given his father's blessing, and he returns to the earth a second time - the Second Coming? - to bring his father's spirit "to the world of men."

"Father, it is I, your son!"

Gerald McDermott (1941 - 2013)

2013-02-03T21:28:00.001-08:00

I was saddened this past month to learn of the death of Gerald McDermott. His were some of the first that really got me thinking about the medium of picture books pointing toward something of deeper significance. Before he died, I had only reviewed Creation, which is a gorgeous, oversized book which would look lovely on any bookshelf, and used Raven when I spoke at the Common Grounds Festival last summer about origin myths. Since his death, I have decided to try and review each of his books in order, beginning with Anansi the Spider. I found a few obituaries and eulogies online, but I like this one best by author and illustrator Doug Cushman: From The Horn Book: During one of the last times Gerald was here in Paris, we went off hunting for an oyster restaurant. We finally found one in the Quartier Montorgueil on Rue des Petits Carreaux. The owner shipped oysters from his own farm on the Brittany coast so they were guaranteed to be fresh. We ordered a plate of thirty-six and a bottle of Muscadet and savored each sweet shelled beauty. After staring at the empty platter for a few minutes we looked at each other and ordered another twenty-four. Coffee was taken and I asked for the check. I handed the owner the money and told him to keep the rest as a pourboire (a tip, but literally, “for a drink”). The owner brought over a bottle of Armagnac and poured us both — and himself — a drink. In our bumbling French Gerald and I learned about our host’s oyster beds and hometown. We stumbled out of the restaurant and into the Metro station, said our good-byes, and promised that we’d return soon for another grand plat des huitres. Sadly, the restaurant has gone forever. Sadly, so has Gerald. Gerald McDermott died on December 26, 2012, in Los Angeles. He had been battling a long illness, deciding to convalesce in New Mexico at the edge of a Navajo reservation after his last trip to Paris, settle his affairs in L.A., and return to France in six months time. His body just gave out. He was determined to live in Paris for good. In May 2012 he arrived here completely convinced he’d be here full time. When I went to see him at his temporary digs after the first couple days he’d arrived, the door was opened by Gerald. In a wheelchair. I was flabbergasted. He’d been hobbling around on a cane the previous year during our oyster feast but I’d assumed he’d continue his physical therapy so he’d be a bit more mobile. “Things didn't turn out quite as I had hoped,” he said. “But I’m here.” Paris isn't the most wheelchair-friendly city on earth. For the next month I helped wheel him around Paris, grocery shopping, cashing travelers checks, buying art supplies, going out for meals and art shows. And looking for oyster restaurants. We established a routine when I’d arrive in the early afternoon to help him run some errands. First we’d have a small glass of wine and plan what he needed to do for the day. Then I’d roll him out into the hallway in front of the elevator (a typical Parisian lift, barely big enough for one person and a baguette). He’d stand up, take two steps inside, take the folded wheelchair and close the door. I’d race three floors down the stairs and meet him just as the doors were opening. Upon returning, we’d reverse the routine and I’d wheel him back into his apartment. All through the routine and the entire time out, Gerald always talked of what he’d do here in France. “I’d like to go back to the south for a while,” he said. “I lived there a long time ago, after I got the Caldecott. I always thought I’d be back.” He never complained about his handicap. He assumed he’d be back on his feet, more or less, and wander the streets of Paris, looking at her buildings, soaking up her museums, eating her cheeses, drinking her wine. He had a Frenchman’s love for wine, cheese, and saucisson. Paris was going to be his inspiration for getting back to work. He began drawing on the cheap sketch pads I’d leave around the apartment before I left. Wild animals running hither and thither, images from his imagination. One he showed me was some sort of rodent in medieval clothing pulling a wheeled cart with another rodent riding in the back. “Do you recognize it?” he asked. “That’s you…pulling me around in a wheelchair.” One evening I took him to a gallery opening. We bundled him into a taxi and drove to a small gallery in Beaubourg, near Les Halles. Greeted as an honored guest, he held court with a small crowd of well-wishers, outshining the artist on exhibition. Gerald was surrounded by his Parisian friends. We shared a lot of meals then. We’d gossip about all kinds of things: life, art, books, people we knew. He talked of his long mentorship with Joseph Campbell. During that time Gerald would bring his latest ideas and sketches to Campbell and they’d talk about what the focus should be on a particular passage in the myth. Afterwards, as Gerald would explain, “Joe would ask me if I wanted a drink, ‘straight up or ruined,’ he’d say.” There was a history between us. I’d met him back in 1976 when I was apprenticing with Mercer Mayer. We saw each other during various stages of our lives, tumultuous relationships and careers, moving from Connecticut to California (me to Redding, him to Los Angeles), and our latest writing and illustrating projects. We’d meet at trade shows and conferences and swap stories, sharing a coffee in L.A., a glass of wine in Redding, or a margarita on Cinco de Mayo in San Diego. He was a fighter, always in the midst of reinventing himself. In the shifting landscape of children’s literature, he shifted as well. Each myth he illustrated encapsulated the essence of each culture, but always with atypical mediums: pen and ink, pastel, colored pencil, watercolor, collage, fabric paint. He began as a filmmaker, then moved to picture books, and, in the last few years, theater. It was when I moved to Paris that I saw another, deeper creative side to Gerald. He was researching a book, poking around the old rooms of the Musée de Cluny. He discovered, or rediscovered, Odilon Redon on a visit to the Musée d’Orsay. He experimented with some printmaking as well. But most of all he was a storyteller. He was one of the few artists living that continued the venerable tradition of passing on the old stories from generation to generation. He captured the heart and soul of each myth he illustrated. His writing process was jotting down a few lines of the myth and then walking around the room reciting them over and over again, changing the words slightly here and there and listening to them until they was distilled down to only a few, grasping the heart of the myth in its simplest form. Then he’d create the art, borrowing symbols and images from the myth’s culture. But there would always be some part of Gerald in there, some wink or nod that said, “This is serious stuff, but not too serious. Let’s have some fun.” My last e-mail from him was in October where he was convalescing with a view of the Sandia Mountains in his beloved New Mexico (“although I still can’t figure out why the Spaniards called them ‘watermelons,’” he wrote). He still looked forward to his “bonne vie Française.” He loved Paris, even with its lopsided sidewalks and inability to tolerate the handicapped. He felt at home there. I’ll miss him. And not only during the months with an “r.”

Diane Wolkenstein (d. Jan. 30, 2013)

2013-02-02T22:57:00.000-08:00

When I reviewed Esther's Story last year, I had no idea that its author, Diane Wolkstein, was such an accomplished storyteller. By friending her on Facebook, I was to receive all of her updates as she traveled all across the world performing a piece called The Monkey King.

I was saddened to find the notice of her sudden death the other day.

From her website:

Diane Wolkstein is more than a storyteller. She is an interpreter of life. Since 1967, Diane has occupied a unique place in the world of storytelling and literature. Through her performances, teaching, books, and recordings, she has played a major role in the renewed interest in mythology and the modern storytelling movement. Whether recounting epics, trickster stories or fairy tales, Diane enters and speaks from the heart of each story she tells.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg named June 22nd, 2007 “Diane Wolkstein Day” in honor of her 40 years of service to New York City where she initiated America’s first graduate storytelling program, pioneered a year–round storytelling program for parks and schools, hosted her own radio show on WNYC–AM/FM Radio, and taught mythology at New York University, the New School, and Sarah Lawrence. Diane has performed at the United Nations, Lincoln Center, the Smithsonian Institute, the American Museum of Natural History, and has been a frequent guest on PBS, NPR, and the BBC.

A message from Diane's daughter, Rachel:

"It is with profound sadness that I tell you that my mother, Diane Wolkstein, passed away very early this morning in Taiwan. She had had emergency heart surgery but the procedure was not sufficient to allow her heart to work on its own. She was not conscious and she was not alone. She had several of her close friends from Taiwan there with her and at the very end she had a rabbi say kaddish and Buddhist prayers were said as well. Her death is a terrible shock. Her life overflowed with joy, intensity, friendship, love and spirit. Her love for each of us and the stories she told live inside of us forever." —Rachel Zucker

Obituary by Karen Tate:

Diane Wolkstein, world-renowned storyteller, folklorist, mythologist and author of many books for children and adults, died following emergency heart surgery on January 31 while on a trip to Taiwan working on her most recent project, the Chinese epic story of Monkey King or Journey to the West.

Diane was the author of 23 books of folklore and performed to sold-out crowds throughout the world. What set Diane apart as a storyteller are her performing gifts as well as the depth of knowledge and research she devoted to the stories she told. Diane’s collection, The Magic Orange Tree, was the result of numerous visits to Haiti during which Diane recorded stories told on porches and in late-night gatherings. In Australia, Diane met Aboriginal storytellers who granted her special permission to tell their stories. Wolkstein spent years working with Samuel Noah Kramer, one of the world’s pre-eminent archeologists, to create the definitive telling of the great Sumerian epic, Inanna, Queen of Heaven and Earth, which she performed at the United Nations and the British Museum. Because of Diane’s work, Inanna has become an influential text in feminist studies and studies of ancient history.

Diane’s belief in story and its potential to transform people’s lives propelled her to the forefront of the modern storytelling movement as early as 1967, when she joined the New York City’s Department of Parks & Recreation and started a year–round storytelling program for the city’s parks and schools. Diane initiated America’s first graduate storytelling program at Bank Street College of Education and was a regular visiting teacher of mythology at New York University for 18 years. She is a founding member of both America’s National Storytelling Conference and the Storytelling Center of New York City, and has held hundreds of workshops on the art of storytelling throughout her long career. For thirteen years Diane’s radio show, Stories from Many Lands, was broadcast on WNYC–AM/FM bi–weekly, and in 2007 New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg named June 22nd of that year “Diane Wolkstein Day” in honor of Diane’s 40 years of storytelling for the people of New York City.

"Taking notes."

New York City’s children gathered at the foot of the statue of Hans Christian Andersen in Central Park to hear Diane tell stories every Saturday for more than forty summers. The culminating event of the storytelling season was her telling of Elsie Piddock Skips in her Sleep and the skip rope competition that followed.

Please keep Diane and her family in your prayers. She contributed much to women's studies, feminist studies, and taught much to those exploring the Goddess Inanna. Her work in the world seeded many minds across the globe to bring non-traditional myths to the masses. She was truly a contemporary bard.

May Goddess Embrace Diane in her Golden Wings,
Karen Tate

The Magic Tree (1973)

2013-01-29T21:00:00.001-08:00

Retold and Illustrated by Gerald McDermott

Henry Holt and Company

This was a really wonderful read, and hard to come by. I'd somehow missed this one all these years.

It has a much different feel than Anansi the Spider, which is readily apparent just from the cover. Anansi was bright red! Anansi was grinning right us! In The Magic Tree, the colors are muted. The expression on Mavungu's profile is hard to read. This is a downbeat tale.

It begins with brothers - Mavungu and Luemba - one inexplicably favored, and one not. Mavungu leaves his home in shame. McDermott is so sparse with his prose: "One night he left his home," is all we're given, but the dark, highly stylized images show an epic journey through the nighttime rivers of the Congo.

Finally, Mavungu finds a thick tree growing from the water which blocks his path, and from the unfolding of the leaves comes a beautiful woman. These images remind me of the unfolding of a paper snowflake, colorful and mysterious, I could imagine the movement of it. The woman loves Mavungu, and transforms him into a lover worthy of her, with the only caveat that he must never tell of the Magic Tree.

It is hard to keep such a delicious secret, and the maddening dilemma along with his return to his home forms the remainder of the story. I have to say, I was surprised at the ending, and the finality of it.

He forgot those who loved him. And he gave his secret to those who did not love him at all.

Anansi the Spider (1972)

2013-01-15T22:10:00.002-08:00

Retold and Illustrated by Gerald McDermott

Henry Holy and Company

Gerald McDermott died on December 26th of last year, just a couple of weeks ago, as I write this. He was 71 years old.

I think back on it, and I think that his books - and especially this particular book, Anansi the Spider - were the most influential in getting me interested in storytelling through picture books.

I always loved picture books since I had been a kid, but it was when I was put in charge of the children's section at the Penn Bookstore that I really came into contact with picture books in a meaningful way, and Anansi the Spider was a book I found right away.

I am drawn to the Trickster tales more than any other, and Anansi is the Trickster of all Trickster. I read this book often to groups of children who would come in for storytime. The story is about Anansi and his six sons: See Trouble, Road Builder, River Drinker, Game Skinner, Stone Thrower and Cushion, and how they each use their unique skills to rescue their father from a series of unfortunate events. It's a very fun read for children, and uses elements of puzzle-solving in addition to storytelling.

Re-reading through it tonight, however, I realize that there isn't very much tricking going on in this particular Anansi story, which makes it stand in contrast to many of the Anansi picturebooks which have followed. Anansi seems strangely passive. Events happen to him, and the story ends with him being unable to make up his mind. I think McDermott became a much more engaging writer as his career unfolded, but there's still a wonderful elegance in this story - its both simple and complex - and the colorful, geometric illustrations are such a standout it feels as though you've read something elemental.

"Mythology transforms, making the ordinary into the magical," he writes in the prologue. "It brings beauty to the ways of man, giving him dignity and expressing his joy in life. Folklore prepares man for adult life. It places him within his culture. With oral traditions, retold through generations, the social group maintains its continuity, handing down it culture."

I like that word, 'continuity,' in this context. It shouldn't come as a great surprise to learn that Gerald McDermott was good friends with Joseph Campbell, and was the first fellow of the Joseph Campbell Foundation. The subject of storytelling is one he took quite seriously, and permeates his entire career, as we shall see.

The God of All Things,

He took

the beautiful white light

up into the sky.

He keeps it there

for all to see.

It is still there.

It will always be there.

It is there tonight.

Mazel and Shlimazel (1967)

2012-09-27T22:24:00.000-07:00

Written by Isaac Bashevis Singer

Illustrated by Margot Zemach

Farrar, Straus & Giroux

In a faraway land, on a sunny spring day, the sky was as blue as the sea, and the sea was as blue as they sky, and the earth was green and in love with them both.

This kind of prose always comes as a surprise when I pick up a picture book, a genre in which words are typically chosen for their conciseness. I had assumed - incorrectly - that Margot Zemach was simply adapting an Isaac Bashevis Singer story as a picture book. It didn't occur to me that the Nobel Prize winning author of Enemies, a Love Story and Yentil the Yeshiva Boy was equally well-regarded for his contribution to children's literature, and that he actually wrote picture books.

As far as I can tell, this story springs entirely from Singer's imagination, but it certainly reads like a classic folktale from long ago, beginning with one of my favorite folksy motifs: the wager.

Mazel and Shlimazel - which sounds like something Laverne and Shirley would chant on their way to work - are the names of two spirits, walking unseen through the world of humans, one representing good luck, the other bad luck, and of course they get to arguing about who is more powerful. They decide to test their powers on a young, poor boy.

"What can take you a year to accomplish, I can destroy in one second," boasts Schlimazel.

Mazel, on the other hand, has a full year - an entire year! - to use all of his powers of good luck to turn a poor boy into a great man with riches, with power, with a beautiful princess by his side, the whole deal. Page after page, Singer details all of the great, lucky things which happens to this boy, one triumph begets another, and another, on and on. "Cards and minstrels sand of his deeds. High officials came to him for advice." It seems he could not possibly be more assured of his fortune.

But then, after the lucky year is up, Schlimazel is given exactly one second to destroy absolutely all of it, which he does in an extremely clever and effective manner. I'll leave it to you to find the book and see how he does it.

A part of me kind of wishes that had been the end of the book, that it had ended on such a clever punch line, but it continues on toward a happy ending, in which all is not lost and Mazel is shown to be in the right. Ah well. I kind of wanted Mazel to be taken down a few pegs. I admired Schlimazel's craftiness more than Mazel's altruism.

The Great Ball Game: A Muskogee Story (1994)

2012-09-11T11:09:00.000-07:00

Retold by Jospeh Bruchac

Illustrated by Susan L. Roth

Cut paper

("Cut paper?" you ask. "Is that really the best description you can give for the interior artwork? You can't even tell us what kind of paper?" Okay fine. According to the book: The illustrations are rendered in collage using paper collected from all over the world: red umbrella paper from Thailand, a cranberry colored envelope from Tibet, a blue from Japan, a dark green from Italy, and many other places. Several kinds of paper were handmade, including the mottled white of the rabbit, made by Sheila Swan Laufer, and the gray of the squirrel, marbled by the artist. So there.)

Dial Books

This is a fun book which, for me, went in a surprising direction. What would you have supposed the story to be about, judging from the title and from the cover? A great ball game? Indeed, but that's only the backdrop to the more pertinent tale of how it is that bats are considered mammals and not birds.

This story has apparently been told in Native American tribes all over, but Bruchac writes in the introduction that this particular version is based on a story told to him by an Oklahoma Muskogee elder, Louis Littlecoon Oliver, who died a few years before this book was published. Here is the argument which is central, which type of animal is better? Those with teeth or those with wings? The argument rises in intensity throughout the animal kingdom, until finally Bear and Crane decide to settle things through a friendly little bout of lacrosse.

This is apparently how real conflicts were resolved, quarreling tribes, rather than going to war, would instead play the game. Would that out present-day international conflicts could be decided as easily. We already have the perfect platform for it - the Olympics! If there is ever need to encourage public interest in the Olympics, why not say that in addition to watching athletes compete, actual foreign policy will be decided and rests on the outcome?

Anyway, the lines are drawn and the game is about to commence, when suddenly Bat swoops down, trying to determine which side he belongs on, for he has both teeth and wings. Grudgingly, the toothy-animals accept him on their team.

The game then commences, and takes place over the course of a full day. I really like the way Susan Roth is able to imitate darkness settling in using only her cut paper collages. And lest you think that there is some larger moral emergent, as the animals realize that both teeth and wings are equally important, not so. The story ends with clear winners and clear losers, and the repercussions help to explain some puzzling present-day animal behavior.

A Conversation with Willy Claflin

2012-08-25T22:21:00.002-07:00

I have now posted reviews for three Maynard Moose books, all written by the great Willy Claflin and illustrated by James Stimson. But who is this Willy Claflin, you have no doubt wondered all throughout the series. His website informs us that he was born before television, but I felt certain there had to be more to him.

Willy is a professional storyteller first and foremost, who has only recently ventured in the realm of picture books. For me, that immediately made him interesting, and I became curious about the relationship between storytelling and storywriting.

But first, I thought I'd start with Maynard.

Maynard the Moose has been telling stories to children and adults for the past thirty years. He's very popular at the National Storytelling Festival, even at the late night cabaret; and is always featured in my performances for children. Although I'm not really a puppeteer, I'm a storyteller. They heard Maynard, and came to think of me as a "puppet guy."

How has he evolved over those thirty years?

Well, the puppet was a lot smaller than the current one. He had a major growth spurt in the mid 90's, when he began performing for larger audiences! And listening to Maynard's older recordings from the 80's and early 90's, I can also hear how his voice grew much deeper as he grew.

His repertoire has also expanded. He used to do only fractured fairy tales; but in the last few years he's taken to Greek Moosology, epic doggerel Mooseboy Poetry, and tales of Moose life in the Northern Piney Woods!

Now how did the notion to do picture books first come about? Was it something that was put forward to you, or something you actively sought?

It was something I'd often thought of, but up until a few years ago, we couldn't figure out how to do it, given Maynard's unusual use of language! Then I teamed up with artist James Stimson, and I felt that he captured Maynard's spirit very well. We decided to add audio CD's, to help the readers understand his personality, and included the Glossary of moose words at the beginning to make his meanings clear. It's interesting to see how James imagines the characters, and the collaboration has been fascinating.

The advantage of having pictures, though, is also the disadvantage. I mean, when you tell a story, everyone in the audience is imagining it in their own way. This is the magic of storytelling: the audience helps create the tale. With books, that particular magic is lost.

However, when the illustrator is someone as good as James, much is gained. For instance, in Rapunzel, when the dwarfs charge all the animals 25cents to see her, and set up the Punzel museum...I never imagined anything near what James created - an entire Punzel Amusement Park! And James has his own set of visual jokes and surprises to match Maynard's turns and twists of phrase.

Sounds like some real symbiosis. I’ve heard that in other cases, the writer and the illustrator barely interact.

It is indeed an interesting collaboration, and I am very lucky. He is also helping me see that these tales need to be changed subtly to make them suitable for children's books. The stories have, over the years, become quite ironic, full of adult humor, and often have no conventional resolution at the end. James helped me re-learn what is satisfying to children, especially when it comes to tidying things up at the conclusion, so everyone can live "happily for never afterwords."

In Rapunzel and the Seven Dwarfs you make a very specific point that Maynard can’t quite figure out what the moral of the story is supposed to be. It sounds like maybe you yourself were likewise struggling to shape it into a conventional resolution.

Well, Maynard is a very different persona from Willy. Willy is opposed to morals at the end of stories. Rather strongly opposed, in fact. I feel that putting a moral at the end of a tale narrows and limits its meaning.

It seems to me that true works of art, from simple children's stories to great symphonies, express our humanity, in all of its complexity, with all of its contradictions, revelations and conundrums. A moral at the end of a story, from my point of view, turns a minor miracle into a didactic tool, radically diminishing its significance. If you live with a story for years, and revisit it from time to time, new meanings are constantly emerging. In fact, I would go so far as to say that didactic art can't really be art at all. Art exists for the sake of itself, to reveal who we are.

Maynard, however, comes from a Moose culture that highly values moral lessons. According to him, mooses say that "a story without a moral is just mindless entertainment - might as well just stay home and play video games."

So part of the odd humor is the difference between me and Maynard, especially to those who hear us live. The morals to Maynard's stories are always quite bizarre. [For example, the moral of the story Turtle and Bunny from his live CD is: "The fastest person wins the race."]

Except in the case of The Uglified Ducky. In the original oral version, there was no tidy summing-up at the end (everybody is a beautiful something or other, etc.) Instead, it closes with the humorous observation that some us do, indeed, feel as if we've been born into the wrong family.

Yes, there is a lobster in his pocket.

I lost the battle over the ending here, as I did in The Bully Goat Grim. Typically, I wanted the old (bizarre) Moose Moral from the oral version: "Learn to recognize a double negative - it could save your life!” But James fought for - and won - a pointed comment at the close: "Demember - nobody likes a dubnoxious beasty."

In other words, I had to drop my focus on an ironic 'adult' sort of joke at the end, and go with something that would give children a sense of closure and fair play.

Do you think there’s a sense that the picture book medium – just by virtue of being a physical product - is limiting the story?

It is a little like putting a butterfly in a glass case. Stories are like living things, and the old ones feel almost like autonomous spirits, making their way down through the generations.

I have often thought of jazz and storytelling as very similar in certain ways. Not only are tales and tunes different every time they're performed, but live performance allows for a whole variety of solos. The best tellers, in my book, are the ones who can go off on extended tangential asides--ad lib observations, riffs and extensions of the material, eventually bringing things back to the narrative melody. Obviously, that's lost in a book.

The other issue, of course, is the pictures. It's great to have a talented illustrator - a wonderful thing! But does it compare with the hundreds of individual illustrator/animators in the minds of a live storytelling audience?

But I have finally made peace with what happens when the spoken word becomes the written word. They’re just different.

Do the stories you've turned into picture books continue to live and change in your storytelling?

Yes, but they don't morph quite as much with the telling as they used to, and I now even occasionally go back to the book and see if Maynard is telling it "right."

What’s the future for you and Maynard?

I've thought of other projects. Worked on a TV pilot, but nothing came of it. I also have a side career as a singer and guitar player: Traditional roots music, especially a capella ballads from the British Isles and Appalachia, which I often sing together with my son. And there are other oddments and detours, some of which are mentioned on my website…

For Maynard, his Piney Woods world will be the entire setting for the fourth book in the series, The Little Moose Who Couldn't Go to Sleep.

Who knows how many Maynard Moose books there will be? There are two dozen tales in his repertoire, so we'll see... The future is impenetrable, as my Buddhist friends say.

Watch Willy and Maynard in action in the video below!

The Bully Goat Grim (2012)

2012-07-27T21:08:00.000-07:00

Written by Willy Claflin

Illustrated by James Stimson

August House

This is the third Maynard Moose book I've reviewed, and it's the best of the lot. With each book, the world of Maynard Moose becomes more fully realized. It's really interesting to see how the look of this book contrasts with - for example - The Uglified Ducky.

There’s no formula for what a Maynard Moose tale might involve. With just three books, Willy Claflin and James Stimson have covered a variety of artistic territory.

In this outing, Maynard the Moose tells the story of a mean, vicious bully of a goat who terrorizes a poor family of bridge-dwelling trolls. But the story doesn't just rely on this reversal of archetypes for its punchline, but in the various ways in which the troll family attempts to outwit this mean beasty.

The two-headed patriarch of the troll family can't stop arguing with his other head about which tactic to take, eventually coming to blows, and knocking himself, Maynard tells us, "unconshable as a muffin." Meanwhile, the triple-headed momma troll begins discussing the situation with herselves over tea, debating and discussing and re-thinking endless propositions until sleeps takes hold, "because the effect of too much process is soporific." But it is the single-headed baby Troll who is able to think the most clearly about the situation, leading one to presume that two heads is decidedly not better than one - much less three.

What is it that the Bully Goat says everytime he crosses the bridge?

The Troll Family

"Beware, beware, the Bully Goat Grim! Nobody better not mess with him!"

This is fairly typical vocabulary for a Maynard Moose book, but the baby troll dissects the sentence structure, realizes the presence of a double-negative in the Bully Goat's speech, and thus deduces that what the Bully Goat must actually desire is for everybody to mess with him!

This leads to a plan involving a pillow, a parachute, a case of Random Hostility Syndrome, and an extremely clever turning of the so-called tables.

There are a lot of nighttime sequences in this book, and I think James Stimson really enjoys playing with light sources and shadows, giving everything a full three-dimensional feel to it. The troll dwelling is especially marvelous, worth an extra glance after the story is over. He doesn't just illustrate the text of the story, but gives an insight into who the trolls are and how they live. The Bully Goat is genuinely fearsome, yet the two-page spread in which the animals of the forest drift "slowly down on the morning breeze, saying Good Morning to the birdies and buggies and busterflies" is filled with all the whimsy that the narrative describes.

At the end, it is Maynard the Moose who once again delivers the moral: "Learn to recognize a double negative!"

Which Side Are You On? (2011)

2012-06-11T20:41:00.001-07:00

Retold by George Ella Lyon

Illustrated by Christopher Cardinale

Cinco Puntos Press

Phew, this one is great, great, great. A great book and an important book. This is only the second Cinco Puntos Press book I've reviewed (the other being the amazing Crossing the Bok Chitto), and I am extremely impressed. They know what's up.

My wife bought me a Pete Seeger album a couple of years ago, containing two CDs. The first had all of Pete's kid's songs and stories - Abiyoyo and the Foolish Frog and the like. But the second disc was filled with old union and labor songs. I'm happy to say, my 5-year old son Arlo took to the union songs just as well as the others, especially the rousing, "Solidarity Forever!"

One of the songs on the album was, of course, "Which Side Are You On?" and though I had no idea of the story behind the song, the tempo always strikes me when I listen to it. Most of are upbeat and filled with pride. They had to be. This one, however, feels mournful to me, creeping with dread.

"Come all you poor workers, good news to you I'll tell, of how the good old union has come in here to dwell."

It was written by Florence Reece in 1931, the wife of a coal miner and the mother of seven, and this story is told in the voice of one of those seven children, talking about her pa working in the mines, blasting and loading coal, putting food on the table, how they live in a coal company house on coal company land, and how their Pa gets paid in money that can only be redeemed at the coal company store.

"He says the company owns us sure as sunrise. That's why we've got to have a union. Pa says if miners get together and say what they want and refuse to dig coal till they get it our lives will get better," she tells us, adding, "They ain't better yet."

From there, the book takes a startling turn. Without explanation, the next page finds the children peeking out from under their bed while their mom hides behind a beam. Their pa is a union organizer and the thugs are after him. Should they call the sheriff? No. The sheriff is the man who hired the thugs in the first place. The book even calls him by name: Sheriff Blair, as does the song:

"If you go to Harlan County, there is no neutral there. You will either be a union man, or a thug for J.H. Blair."

Suddenly, a bullet zips through the wall, just as their mom yells out, "Any of you youngins got a pencil?" and so the song comes to be written.

"When the thugs finally quit shooting and we crawl out of hiding, we're sore and hungry, and our house is busted up, but Ma has written us a song."

I felt pretty swept up in the telling, but the author's note brought me down a bit, as she writes that there are "many accounts of how Florence Reece wrote the song and they won't all agree."

This version, however, comes only twice removed. A woman named Bev Futrell heard this version from Reece herself at her 85th birthday celebration. The story changes and grows, the song changes and grows. Verses have been added to the original song to reflect struggles through the years.

Here's the woman herself singing it.

And here's the group Rebel Diaz singing a version of it.

Please listen to both of these versions, in their entirety, one following the other, for an out-of-body experience.

Education is a Story: A Conversation with Stephani Sarnoski

2012-05-19T22:06:00.000-07:00

Stephani and some of her children following
a Stone Soup neighborhood walk.

"Storytelling is the heart of everything. Education is a story. It's not about isolated events or cardboard cut-out tests, it's about the story." -Stephani Sarnoski

Epiphany Community School - located just outside the city limits of one of the greatest places in America, Flagstaff, AZ - was the brainchild of Stephani Sarnoski. "Our educational philosophy is grounded in an inherent respect for each child as an individual and diverse learner," she writes on the school's website. "We are inspired by the philosophies of Free Schooling, place-based education, Montessori, Expeditionary Learning, Waldorf, Homeschooling, Service-Learning, Inclusive education and the idea of democracy in education."

What does all that mean, exactly? And what does it have to do with a blog about stories and storytelling?

I first met Stephani about ten years ago when she showed up at the Grand Canyon International Youth Hostel, where I was working at the time. She had moved to Flagstaff to finish her degree in Special Education and took a job tending bar where I became a regular fixture, little suspecting that one day we would live thousands of miles apart with families of our own and having a conversation about storytelling.

What role does storytelling play in the development of a child?

Storytelling is as key as imaginative play, and in the same developmental framework. Some children truly struggle with it and I think every early learning center should understand its importance in helping children develop social and emotional competence into adulthood. Storytelling/Imaginative Play is learning, period.

The San Francisco Peaks!

We have a fun activity called Storytelling Yoga we often do after our Quiet Rest period of the day. We start with an animal position, for example: Camel pose. There’s a die that has ‘Who,’ ‘What,’ ‘Where,’ ‘Why,’ ‘When,’ and ‘How’ written on each side. We roll it to help extend the story and act it out as we go. We often use pictures as prompts for stories or sit outside with the goats, llamas, ducks and chickens, sending them on adventures with our imaginations.

Those are some more organized activities to help extend and isolate skills, but I'm always amazed at how children are just natural story tellers even without prompts! Just sitting and listening to them play while building, painting, running or drawing can be enough to inspire a litany of picture books! As the year goes on, the storytelling in their play becomes more complex and directed. It has been amazing to watch.

What about picture books, what role do they play in your classroom?

They are integral, and they play many different roles in my classroom. Sometimes they are the inspiration for an art exploration, or even some cooking or snack lessons!

Picture books tell a story in a non-threatening way that allows for children to process what might be considered a stressful situation much in the same way as pretend and imaginative play. For example, we read The Fall of Freddie the Leaf: A Story of Life for All Ages by Leo Buscaglia to discuss the cycles of life and death as the seasons changed and the leaves fell.

Grinding corn into flour. See Epiphany's blog for more!

Stories can also give the children another perspective, whether it be about the challenges of making new friends or the uniqueness of their feelings and struggles. One of my students who happens to have some learning challenges chose to repeatedly listen to Leo the Late Bloomer by Robert Kraus and I think it helped him gain perspective.
.
We also use them to teach about cultures, celebrations and different religious customs as they come up. Is there anything picture books can't be used for?

Ah, speaking of cultures and customs, there's a definite Native American presence in Flagstaff. How has that aspect of your community influenced the school?

There is such an abundance of rich cultural history in Flagstaff – specifically Navajo and Hopi - that incorporating it into the school's curriculum through literature, music, food, and activities comes naturally. We grow a Hopi variety of blue corn at the school that the children helped to care for, dry, harvest, and eventually grind into flour.

The summit! See Epiphany's blog for more!

We also regularly use a version of Navajo Peace Making to help the children resolve the inevitable conflicts between children in a way that focuses on them strengthening their relationships with one another and find peaceful resolution.

I don't know how we could call ourselves a community school that promotes a social justice curriculum, and neglect to actively introduce children to such an important part of their community!

In addition, our outdoor classroom provides a clear view of the sacred San Francisco Peaks and we often discuss their tribal significance. On one of our recent hikes up to Caves Crater, the students and I sat under an Alligator Juniper and were introduced to some of the stories of Kachinas while we ate our lunch over looking the mountain. On that same adventure we were also lucky to discover pottery shards and explored a few of the 70-80 rooms/caves that were the home of the ancient Sinagua from about 1250-1300.

Exploring the dwellings of the Sinagua tribe.

Wow, I can hardly imagine being exposed to those sorts of concepts from such an early age. Do you find that being exposed to these sorts of concepts is getting your kids to ask deeper questions about themselves and the universe?

Kids do have a logic and many times that logic is a lot less scrambled than the "adult" type. I've learned a great deal about myself and my own belief system by listening to their conversations with each other. To be honest, they have taken it all in with stride and none of them seem to have nearly as much trouble taking it in as an adult would. To them it's often just the way things are- different for everyone.

That's not to say they don't ask questions. Asking questions is integral to learning and being in a space where it is safe to ask questions is the key to a healthy classroom environment. The students all have different belief systems and family traditions that they share with one another

One of the reasons I like our community investigations so much is that we bring a list of questions for them to ask and they always expound upon them once they get going. The questions they asked the vet when we when were there were amazing. ("How do animals get sick? What happens if you can't fix them?") They were also filled with questions about the caves at the top of Caves Crater ("Do you think they were comfortable here? Where did they go? Why aren't they here anymore?")

Feeding the goats outside the school.

During the winter holidays, we spent a good amount of time reading about the different cultural traditions of that season. One student explained that it was Jesus' birthday for him and his family. That started a whole discussion between the students about why they chose to celebrate this particular person's birthday, why was he so special? What did Jesus have to do with Santa? Was he friends with Jesus or was Jesus his mom's friend? These questions were asked in such a simple and innocent way. It made me wonder if an adult conversation about the topic would have been as cordial or productive.

What was your own early schooling like, and how do you reckon that evolved into Epiphany?

I started out in public school for K-1st grade. I clearly remember not being allowed to eat lunch with the other students because I was constantly being sent to the Principal's office. I had to eat my lunch most days on a bench outside the office and wasn't allowed to go to recess because I couldn't sit still or keep my mouth shut during class.

I was transferred to Catholic school by the 2nd grade because my parents were incredibly religious and felt that the nuns might be able to instill some discipline in me. In other words, I think they hoped the nuns would break my spirit! It didn't work and I continued to spend a good amount of time explaining my impulsive and passionate actions to the principal. I got nearly straight A's in my classes, but D's in conduct. Catholic High School was basically a repeat of that situation, only there was no recess to take away from me anymore!

I was offered little-to-no opportunity for hands-on activity throughout my schooling. My classes were lectures that resulted in me spacing out or putting my head down, and then getting into trouble for it. I was an honor student with a GPA close to 4.0, so I think that caused a good amount of frustration amongst my teachers. I would memorize for the test the night before and forget it all within a week. School to me wasn't about learning, it was about a hoop to jump through, good grades, and approval from an external source. No one wanted me to think outside of the box- I was punished whenever I tried, so I stopped offering it. Creativity wasn't valued, but test scores and being quiet were.

Hanging out with llamas.

Had I grown up in a different time, I would have been diagnosed with ADHD ( I was later, as an adult) and been provided some accommodations to help me adapt to the teaching situations presented to me. Maybe I would have been able to knit (that's how I got through college lectures) or been allowed to move around or take a walk. Punishing me didn't help, and neither did excluding me from recess! I've never understood why teachers force the kids who can't stay still or focus to stay inside. It doesn't make any sense! I probably would have been more focused if I had been given more opportunities to move.

As an educator and director I'm constantly thinking of my schooling and often trying to unlearn how I learned to teach from my teachers growing up. Looking back on it made me ask a lot of questions. Why do we want to teach our youth to sit for most of the day? What does that teach them to do as adults? Why is innovation and creativity not valued? How can we educate instead of "school" children? Why don't youth have choice and direction over their learning? What kind of adults would they become it they learned to analyze the world and be part of it, instead of passive participants looking for approval?

Epiphany is a huge step in the other direction from what I grew up - it's my attempt to answer and resolve those questions. It is my opportunity to offer something different and to teach children they are valuable to our communities. Research has proven how developmentally inappropriate it is to expect young children to sit and listen for long periods of time. My Master's in Special Education convinced me that learning is individual and all education should meet the needs of the student, not the teacher.

Rock on!

For that to happen, though, we need to get youth invested in learning, we need to get them excited about it! School shouldn't just be days filled with kids doing things they don't want to do. How can we expect our youth to spend their lives in a dictatorship and grow up to live successfully in a democracy? We have a democratic system here at Epiphany and the students are part of the decision making process. They have control and a say in their lives and they know it. It not only involves them in their education but it extends beyond any classroom. Learning about the world and how it works is invigorating - so why can't education be more individual fun, exploratory, and creative?

I think there are benefits to every type of education. I don't disagree with lecture based or more linear styles of education at the older grades for some students. I just don't believe in a "one-size fits all" philosophy at any grade. We all learn differently.

You first began envisioning having your own school when you were ten. To what extent does Epiphany resemble that initial concept?

I didn't have as many details, but in my young mind Epiphany was a safe haven for kids like me. It was a place for the "misfit toys," so to speak, a place that never turned anyone away and appreciated the unique gift of every individual who entered it's doors. Even as a kid I had the dream of starting a school where kids had a choice and were a big part of deciding what happened there every day. I was a huge proponent of democratic education even before I knew what the word meant!

My original plan had been to buy a block of abandoned homes in Detroit and turn it into a school that provided cheap or free housing for families who want to be actively involved through teaching, gardening, caretaking, or repairs. I've always felt that school and family should be more intertwined and that our busy work lives little time for families to spend with their children. I'm just waiting for someone to fund me. ;)

School shouldn't be a building, but a community that expanded out to children participating in service-learning projects and being actively involved in their community. Education isn't a place-it's a well-written story-kind of like a good book.

Storytelling is the heart of everything. Education is a story-it should be unique and individual and a beautiful process, not an end product. It's not about isolated events or cardboard cut-out tests - it's about the story. That's what makes it real. Without the journey, it's meaningless.

Learn more about Epiphany.

Flagstaff sleeps.

We Are All In the Dumps with Jack and Guy (1993)

2012-05-18T21:44:00.002-07:00

Written by... Mother Goose?

Illustrated by Maurice Sendak

Harper Collins

Sendak has said in interviews that he is obsessed with Angels, ever since he was a child and had an angelic encounter of his own. He likes to incorporate them into his books in honor of his departed friends. Whereas the angels in Dear Mili are of the classic mould, the angels in We Are All in the Dumps with Jack and Guy are seen doing nothing more romantic than reading the New York Times.

We Are All in the Dumps... was published in 1993, and in it Sendak returns to his usual cartoonish playfulness. The colors are bright and bold, the words are hand lettered and large (and rhyme!). The children are short and pudgy and have that Nutshell Kids way about them.

Here is the complete text:

We are all in the dumps, for diamonds are trumps, the kittens are gone to St. Pauls! The Baby is Bit, the moon’s in a fit, and the houses are built without walls.

Jack and Guy went out in the rye and the found a little boy with one black eye. “Come,” says Jack. “Let’s knock him on the head.” “No,” says Guy. “Let’s buy him some bread. You buy one loaf, and I’ll buy two, and we’ll bring him up as other folks do.”

If that sounds like a mother goose rhyme, that’s because it is. Two mother goose rhymes, completely unrelated, strung together and narratively linked by Mr. Sendak. This was an experiment he’d last done in 1965 with the book Hector Protector and As I Went Over the Water.

With these two nonsensical rhymes, Sendak was able to produce over fifty full-color pages of full, deep, rich and textured narrative illustration. Except, as fun as they first appear to be, the reader may be momentarily taken aback to realize that these fun cartoonish drawings are, in fact, homeless encampments populated by dirty, malnourished, barefoot children. There are no adults present. No authority figures. It’s as though Max from Where the Wild Things Are finally got his wish, only with disastrous, real-world consequences.

With this book, people have seen a message about AIDS. They have seen a message about homelessness and poverty, pollution and capitalism. It was suggested to me recently that it also works as a fable for gay adoption.

It could be all of those things and more. All I can say for sure is that after two monstrous rats straight out of E.T.A. Hoffman’s The Nutcracker (which Sendak illustrated in 1984) steal a young boy and whisk him away to a bread factory in middle of St. Paul, Minnesota, it is up to our heroes – the eponymous Jack and Guy – to rescue him. They play cards, the moon transforms into a glowing, ferocious cat, and then it begins to get pretty surreal.

The houses are built without walls. That’s the line that got Sendak, from which the rest of the story unfolded. He thought unwanted kids and of the shanty towns in Rio de Janeiro. As fanciful as the story gets, it uses this as its real-world baseline. The houses are built without walls.

I’ve read reviews from well-meaning parents warning against giving this book to children, as they found the social messages far too heavy-hitting. That’s bunk, of course. Arlo loved it, for it also works simultaneously as an adventure story, with every page filled with fantastic creatures and bizarre transformations, escapes and chases. For myself, I could appreciate those New York Times-reading angelic host, fluttering about the stratosphere, and the silent image of Jack and Guy removing the slumbering child from the surface of the moon, his arms outstretched and his head hung like Christ on a cross. There is a lot happening here for both grown-up and child to enjoy equally.

There were moments, however, which we could both share, and grow closer to each other’s worlds and perceptions.

That final page, for example, after the dramatic rescue, the adventure, the fantasia, after Jack and Guy return to their shanty town, curl up within their cardboard boxes and their newspaper-blankets, Arlo wanted to know why they didn’t just go home.

“Well,” I said. “This is their home. This is where they live.”

“No, their real home!”

“I guess there aren’t any real homes.”

He rolled his eyes. “Yes, there are! Look!” And he pointed to the large, stone monolithic highrise which overshadowed the tiny encampment, like something out of Stonehenge, only more so.

Dear Mili (1988)

2012-05-15T13:44:00.000-07:00

Written by Wilhelm Grimm

Illustrated by Maurice Sendak

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

On September 28, 1983, the front page story of the New York Times was the discovery of a new tale by Wilhelm Grimm.

Wilhelm was born in Germany in 1796. He was only 9 years old when he and his brother Jacob began collecting folktales, and was 16 when their first collection was published. Over the next few years, they published many hundreds of found and collected stories.

While they were enjoying their success, the story goes that in 1816 – when Wilhelm would have been 20 – he wrote a letter to a young girl named Mili. Strangely, I couldn’t find anything about who this Mili was. Was her identity intentionally kept private, or is it truly an unknown? Regardless, within the letter was a story he had written. It was not, so far as I can tell, a retelling of a folktale which he had collected, but an original piece from his own imagination.

The letter remained in the girl’s possession for her entire life and was passed down through the family for more than a century and a half. In 1983, then, the letter was made public. Once translated and rights were settled, the great publishing house Farrar, Straus, and Giroux was set to publish the letter in book form, and succeeded in securing Maurice Sendak as the illustrator.

It begins thus:

Dear Mili;

I’m sure you have gone walking in the woods or in the green meadows, and passed a clear, flowing brook. And you’ve tossed a flower in the brook, a red one, a blue one, or a snow-white one. It drifted away, and you followed it with your eyes as far as you could. And it went quietly away with the little waves, farther and farther, all day long and all night too, by the light of the moon or the stars. It didn’t need much light, for it knew the way and didn’t get lost. When it had traveled for three days without stopping to rest, another flower came along on another brook. A child like you, but far far away from here, had tossed it into a brook at the same time. The two flowers kissed, and went their way together and stayed together until they both sank to the bottom.

This opening is essentially a metaphorical microcosm of the entire tale. We begin with a journey, climax with a mysterious rendezvous, and in the end: the exceedingly romantic deaths of the main characters.

Visually speaking, there is a great deal linking Dear Mili with Outside Over There, though they were done more than seven years apart. Both stories concern the fate of very young heroines. In both, there are no father-figures present, and the mothers have the same drawn and quartered look about them, seated at the same arbor, surrounded by lush plant life. In both, the same faithful German shepherd is yet seated at her side.

In Dear Mili, war has broken out in their small village, and the widowed mother must send her only child far into the woods where no enemy can harm her. “God in His mercy will show you the way,” she says. The child then embarks on a trek through a treacherous, overgrown terrain, dressed in only her slippers and her nightshirt, praying to her God to help her go on.

When it rains, she says, “God and my heart are weeping together.” Then, later, when the sky clears and the stars come out, she observes, “How bright are the nails on the great door of heaven!”

I was surprised at the strong religious tone of the story. I would have imagined the Grimms channeling much darker spirits. When the young girl comes to a house where an old, bearded man lives, the narrative informs us that this was “Saint Joseph, who long ago had cared for the Christ Child here on earth.”

For three days she stays at the home of the old man, cooks and cleans for him, while he sends her out to pick herbs and roots. After the third day, he tells her that it is time for her to return home. As a parting gift, he hands her a rosebud and says, “When this rose blooms, you will be with me again.”

The young girl is helped on her return journey by a mysterious young girl who could be her identical twin. They have the same pigtails, the same nightshirt, the same blue ribbons. The doppelganger leads the young girl to the edge of the forest, then points the rest of the way.

The last image of the book is a picture spread out over two pages. It is of the same village seen at the beginning, stone ruins, a gorgeous sunset filling the sky with color. On the left hand side steps the young girl. On the far right side sits an old woman, wrinkled and arthritic, looking nearly blind. Her frail arms are outstretched.

It has not been three days since she sent her daughter off to hide in the woods, it has been thirty years. The mother has been hoping against hope all these years that God would grant her the wish to see her little girl one last time before she dies.

All evening they sat happily together. Then they went to bed calmly and cheerfully, and next morning the neighbors found them dead. They had fallen happily asleep, and between them lay Saint Joseph’s rose in full bloom.

Outside Over There (1981)

2012-05-11T21:08:00.000-07:00

Written and Illustrated by Maurice Sendak

Harper Collins

Well, as everyone knows, Maurice Sendak is no more - at least in physical form. Two years ago I wrote a column for The Critical Masses about three Sendak books which are - perhaps - not as well known as some of his others. I thought I would reproduce them here, one at a time, beginning with one of my absolute favorite picture books of all time, Outside Over There (1981).

Outside Over There has a lot in common with a certain major cult film of yesteryear. It was in the back of my mind the first time I read it, years ago: I know this story. I’ve read this before. (This is a very common thought to have while reading children’s literature).

The elements of the book are these:

A young girl, Ida by name, forced to tend her unwanted and unwelcome baby sister.

The goblins, who sneak in through the rear window, carting off with baby sister and leaving – in her place – a changeling made of ice, melting slowly and hideously.

Armed only with her Mama’s yellow rain cloak and a golden hornpipe, Ida must find and retrieve said baby sister before the young one is married off in a wretched goblin ceremony.

Outside Over There was published a full five years before the Jim Henson film, Labyrinth. There are no shifting corridors in the Sendak tale, no immersive M.C. Escher environments, no pop singers in fright wigs and spandex, but the two share both plot-points and also tone.

In neither is there the usual grappling with the fantastic, but rather a matter-of-fact acceptance which somehow makes it all the more appalling. Ida, gripping the dripping remains of her sister’s changeling, immediately knows the score. She seems to have a pre-cognition of the rules of the game. Yes, the goblins came and will marry her sister off. Yes, the hornpipe must be blown. These are not presented as fantastic elements, but a part of the very real world which Ida seems to be inexplicably aware. Normally, we expect to identify with the main character, but when we realize that Ida knows more about this world than we do, she suddenly becomes as mysterious and other as the goblins themselves.

Is that too much? Have I overstated the case?

When I showed the book to Arlo, he immediately balked. “That looks dumb,” is how he put it.

I didn’t blame him. The cover shows Ida wearing a blue nightgown, holding hands with her baby sister. They are standing in the arbor of a garden, and the baby is reaching out a pink, pudgy hand toward a blooming sunflower, a look of wonder upon her face. Surely a charming, pastoral tale which I would most likely not want to get within a hundred feet of, were I a four-year old boy.

“Come on!” I prodded, opening the book. “Give it a chance!”

The title page is quite similar: Ida is now helping the baby take her first steps. Behind them is the white fence, nearly overgrown with majestic blooming sunflowers.

And off to the left-hand side, sitting hunched with knees drawn to its chest, sits a small, hooded figure, its face obscured by shadow.

Arlo stared at this image for a long time.

Then, “Read it,” he said.

The next page intensifies the scenario. We are still standing in front of the sunflower-strewn arbor. But now Ida clutches her baby sister to her more tightly, looking in wide-eyed concern as the seated goblin has now stood and three more identically hooded figures are approaching from stage right. One carries a ladder. One carries a hornpipe.

The story doesn’t properly begin until the following page:

“When Papa was away at sea, and Mama in the arbor, Ida played her wonder horn to rock the baby still – but never watched. So the goblins came.”

One clue that this is a Sendak book is the way he likes to spread out his sentences. Those opening two sentences are broken up into chunks and spread out over the course of 6 gorgeous, full color paintings which cram narrative information galore.

In these opening pages, a full day has passed. The sun has risen over a rocky coast, at which old, mighty ships are moored. Ida and her mother and baby sister stand with their backs to us, dresses rippling.

Next we are at the arbor, in which Ida’s mother sits with dark lines beneath her eyes, a dead look about her, not caring that her baby is now screaming in anguish, writhing in Ida’s arms. Papa has gone to sea – we can still see the boat in the background – and his absence has destroyed this family.

Off to the side, goblins scurry, still clutching their ladder.

Later that evening, Ida stands by her window, playing her horn as the sunflowers creep into her room. The baby nearly leaps out of her crib in joy, but that joy is short-lived. The goblins have pushed open the window, and as darkness falls, the baby is carted away, screaming in terror.

An entire world of story is contained within these drawings. Again, the narrative is simply this:

“When Papa was away at sea, and Mama in the arbor, Ida played her wonder horn to rock the baby still – but never watched. So the goblins came.”

Indeed.

Sendak considered this to be the third volume of a trilogy that began with Where the Wild Things Are(1963) and continuing with In the Night Kitchen (1970). They may not at first seem to have a great deal in common, but he says that they are all about moments in which a parent has turned their back and in that moment, the child must make a decision by themselves.

If you own the former two, you owe it to yourself to pick up this one as well. You may find that it casts Max and his wild things in a new light. And the next time you watch Labyrinth, look for it displayed prominently on Jennifer Connelly’s bookshelf near the beginning of the film.

Go to Sleep, Gecko! (2006)

2012-04-30T21:46:00.001-07:00

Retold by Margaret Read MacDonald

Illustrated by Geraldo Valerio

Acrylic

August House

The interconnectedness of all things! Buffalo poop! High brow and low brow, all at once!

This Balinese folktale concerns a gecko who cannot for the life of him get to sleep because the infernal fireflies which are "blinking their lights on and off... on and off..." He goes to find the ruler of the jungle, Elephant, and demand that action be taken!

A simple request, perhaps, but little does either animal suspect, in the tapestry of life, one thing is connected to another. The fireflies absolutely cannot cease their blinking ways, for if they did, someone might accidentally step in the buffalo poop left in piles all over the road.

Fine then. Elephant finds Buffalo.

Some things you just have to put up with.

"Is it true you have been dropping poop all over the road?"

"Oh, yes. Rain washes holes in the road every afternoon. I just fill them up the best way I know how. If I didn't do that, someone could stumble in the holes and get hurt."

Well then. If Gecko is to be satiated, then it is to the Rain that Elephant must appeal.

Eventually, events wind full-cycle, as both Gecko and Elephant come to understand that if one doesn't allow the fireflies to blink at night, then after a series of cause-and-effect, there might not be any mosquitoes for Gecko to eat at night. Or, as Elephant puts it, "This world is all connected. Some things you just have to put up with. Now go home and go to sleep."

Odysseus and the Cyclops (1995)

2012-04-20T20:52:00.002-07:00

Retold and Illustrated by Warwick Hutton

Watercolor and pen on paper

Text set in Palatino

Margaret K. McElderry Books

I’ve said before that Warwick Hutton enjoys showing how small humans are in comparison to larger forces. This book is no different.

In other stories in which a protagonist faces a giant, the protagonist is often drawn normally, while the giant is enormous and fills the page. Or perhaps we only see the foot of the beast, or the eye.

In Hutton’s illustrative world, the giant is the normal-sized one, and it is the rest of the humans which are puny. In fact, we can often barely make out their expressions.

"I don't care a fig about Zeus, and I don't
care for travelers. You might be good
enough to eat, though."

This cyclops is not nearly so monstrous. Were it not for his size and his single eye, he might not even be considered a monster. He is rather sensibly dressed and well-kempt, and appears to make his livelihood as a shepherd. We see him with his shepherding staff and flock of sheep, being led in and out of his cave. In fact, he seems so sensible, that Odysseus at first attempts to reason with him.

“Good sir, we are travelers on our way home. The great god Zeus respects all those who help travelers, and we wonder if you will sell us some of your cheese and let us go on our way?”

Polyphemus the Cyclops does not take Odysseus up on this good natured offer, however, adding as an afterthought, “You might be good enough to eat, though.”

I counted six men consumed over the course of the next two days of entrapment, two at a time, so that the bones decorating the cave floor gradually increase. The dwindling men must make their escape, and they must do so using their cunning. I got a real sense of the claustrophobia the men felt, their powerlessness. The only thing they have going for them is the fact that after two men, the cyclops seems too full to eat any more.

So. You have a jar of wine, a burning fire, a flock of sheep, and only one entrance with a cyclops guarding it. How would you escape?

Hint: Go for the eye.

Tales and Their Tellers 13: A Conversation with Pegi Deitz Shea

2012-04-16T10:24:00.002-07:00

Hello there. I have just posted an interview I did with award winning YA and picture book author Pegi Deitz Shea on the Critical Masses website as part of my Tales and Their Tellers column. Originally, the interview was posted here, as part of my Conversations with Storytellers, but it has now been updated with a few questions and answers about her latest book, Stitch in Time! Check it out.

http://criticalmassesmedia.com/2012/04/tales-and-their-tellers-13-a-conversation-with-pegi-deitz-shea/

The Uglified Ducky: A Maynard Moose Tale (2008)

2012-04-13T21:09:00.002-07:00

As told to Willy Claflin

Illustrated by James Stimson

August House

Maynard Moose again, telling his Mother Moose tales about the campfire, surrounded by all of his wildlife buddies, leaning in close for another good story. In Rapunzel and the Seven Dwarfs, I noted one of the big jokes at the end was that Maynard was not certain what the moral of the story was. In this one, not only does he know the moral, but he even leads off with it:

Do you ever feel like maybe you have been borned into the wrong fambly? Like maybe you feel like you are a little porcupine being raised by a fambly of kangaroos... Or maybe you feel like you are a little bunny rabbit being raised by a fambly of rhinoceroses... Well, this is the story of a poor moose who was raised by duckies.

The uglified duckling is not a duckling at all, but a young moose who inadvertently wanders into a nest of duck eggs just as they are about to hatch, to the incredulity of the returning mother. "Boy, that's the most uglified ducky I never see!" she exclaims.

The uglified duckling attempts to quack.

It might be nice if she loved the young moose regardless, but that is not the case. She has a job to do, and that's to teach these baby ducklings to survive in the world. She doesn't have time to spend on this grotesque duckling covered in brown fur who can't even master a little waddling. "This is waddle practice! This is not practice for trip and stumble!" she tells him.

Most of the story is comprised of these lessons, and the moose's inability to keep up. He can't waddle, he can't quack, he can't swim, and - most depressingly of all - he can't fly. He can only stare all forlorn as his adopted brothers and sisters fly off, leaving him "all d'abandoned and left alone."

It is only at the end, after he has wandered alone through the wilderness, that he comes upon a family of actual moose, and realizes his true nature. "And he is bounding joyfully through the forest ever still, happy to be the moose that he would be!"

The book is beautifully illustrated by James Stimson, and includes a glossary of "Moose words and their English equivalents." My favorite is "Quadrapedagogy: the state or condition of having four feet."

Rapunzel and the Seven Dwarfs (2011)

2012-03-23T21:34:00.000-07:00

By Willie Claflin

Illustrated by James Stimson

August House

Not just a fairy-tale mashup, but also a story-within-a-story. We begin in the Northern Piney Woods, and are told that every full moon, all of the animals come out to hear the 'old Mother Moose Tales,' as related by Maynard Moose. James Stimson depicts the scene with much lushness, the flames of the small campfire glowing against Maynard's antlers, the full moon shining down from above, I could have spent the whole story out in these environs. Yet soon enough, we venture into the world of the tale.

Her hair was so long that it drag out from behind of her along the ground. It get dragged through mud puddles, and kids run over it on their bicycles, and it becomes distremely filthified - all full of sticks and twigs and little nastified wudgies of glop.

Poor Punzel

The whole story is told in this strange vernacular, what we are told it was translated from the original Moose. Certain words are listed in the glossary, should the context prove unclear. Filthified means, "repulsively and disgustingly unclean." Glop is, "mysterious, disgusting, foul-smelling sticky stuff."

In this story, she is locked away in a tower by a wicked witch, and when the handsome prince attempts to mount Punzel's golden hair - being a bit chubbified - he instead yanks her from the tower and sends her flying into the forest, where she meets the eight or nine seven drawfs: Clumsy, Snoozy, Cheerful, Fearful, Hyper, Hungry, Grizelda, Ambidextrous and sometimes Bewildered.

Once in the care of the eight or nine Dwarfs, her head is shaved clean as a bowling ball in order than she may best untangle herself form the clutches of the wooded branglebush, which also doubles as a keen way to disguise her identity (in my opinion), but more plot-pertinent, allows for some cranial nueromancy on the part of the dwarfs, who crowd around the shorn noggin and inquire,

Mirror, mirror on Punzel’s head

Is the witch alive or dead?

Clumsy, Snoozy, Cheerful, Fearful, Hyper, Hungry, Grizelda, Ambidextrous and sometimes Bewildered.

From here, the story fairly gives way to Snow White, albeit with Rhinocerous costumes and poisoned watermelons and the creation of the Sleeping Punzel Museum and amusement park to house her camotose self. Only 75 cents to see her! And is it the handsome yet chubbified prince who will thus awaken her with a single kiss and prance on off into the sunset? Is it?!

Nope. It is a moose, of course.

And the moral of that story is, if you have long, long goldie hairs that drag out from behind of you along the ground, then you should always... um… The moral of the story is… there ain’t no moral to some stories at all!

Thus sayeth Maynard.

Tales and Their Tellers 12: Jon J. Muth's Stillwater Trilogy

2012-03-15T10:08:00.000-07:00

Hello, please visit The Critical Masses to read my new column about Jon J. Muth's trilogy of Zen Panda stories.

“My work in children’s books really grew out of a desire to explore what I was feeling as a new father,” he writes. “At the time, I was working in comics — a natural forum for expressions of angst and questioning one’s place in the universe. With the births of my children, there was a kind of seismic shift in where my work seemed appropriate — it became important to say other things about the world.”

Crossing Bok Chitto (2006)

2012-03-09T10:49:00.000-08:00

Written by Tim Tingle

Illustrated by Jeanne Rorex Bridges

Cinco Puntos Press

There is a river called Bok Chitto that cuts through Mississippi. In the days before the War Between the States, in the days before the Trail of Tears, Bok Chitto was a boundary. On one side of the river lived the Choctaws, a nation of Indian people. On the other side lived the plantation owners and their slaves. If a slave escaped and made his way across Bok Chitto, the slave was free. The slave owner could not follow. That was the law.

This opening paragraph sets up the time period, the environment and the tone of this tale. This is a downbeat, yet elegant story and quite a contrast to Tingle's previous book which I had just discussed, When Turtle Grew Feathers. There's no jaunty talking animals this time, though there is a fantasy-device running through the narrative, the ability for African Americans to render themselves invisible.

"Son, son, it's about time you learned. There is a way to move amongst them where they won't even notice you. You move not too fast, not too slow, eyes to the ground, away you go!"

That's the father of Little Mo, giving his son advice on sneaking past the white plantation owners in order to help a young Choctaw girl named Martha Tom back across the river. This is a story about their friendship, and takes place over several years, as the two grow and age within their respective cultures, separated by the Bok Chitto.

Maybe the white people tell it best. They talk about the night their
forefathers witnessed seven black spirits, walking on the water
- to their freedom!

It struck me how I am used to reading stories of Native American befriending the whites, and stories of black slaves befriending the whites, and on and on with so-called "unlikely" friendships between a minority and a white. In this story, however, the whites are always the other, and are never humanized. They represent a common adversary for the Choctaw and the black slaves.

Jeanne Bridges' art is wonderful. We begin very naturally, very downbeat, figures cast very plainly, but with just a subtle variation in tone, and the artwork takes on mystical tones. The Choctaw women, dressed in long white robes, holding candles out before them under the full moon, seemingly gliding across the surface of the river. "When they reached the Choctaw side of the river, they blew the candles out and disappeared into the fog, never to be seen on the slave side again." I felt it, I felt all the mystery and the beauty and the elegant mysticism of it.

Really beautiful book trailer made by a fan.

When Turtle Grew Feathers (2007)

2012-03-02T06:02:00.000-08:00

Retold by Tim Tingle

Illustrated by Stacey Schuett

Acrylic

August House

I remember way back when, when I had first become interested in storytelling, a Texan girlfriend gave me a set of "audio cassettes" - a bygone device upon which sound is captured on thin strips of tape - of stories by Choctaw storyteller Tim Tingle. He's been around for a long time, and so it was great to find this beautifully illustrated, vibrant edition of one of his tales, "When Turtle Grew Feathers."

Of course, it's not really his tale. The last page of the book includes a list of his sources in rendering this here telling. David Bushnells's Myths of the Louisiana Choctaws from 1909, very nice, followed by this entry: "Jones, Charley. Oral interview. August 1992." Following that, "McAlvin, Jay. Tape-recorded interview. November 1992." Wow. Lest no man audit Tingle's cultural memory!

"How about you, Turtle? How about a little race?"

I looked up this Charley Jones, curious to find out who he was. The best I could find was an interview with Tingle, in which he refers to Jones as being both a Choctaw tribal storyteller and his mentor. "Charley Jones says, 'Tell the stories,'" says Tingle. "But make sure the origin is acknowledged."

And so it is.

"Most everybody knows about the race between Turtle and Rabbit," the story begins. "But the Choctaw people tell the story differently..." which immediately got me wondering, was this an actual response to the old fable, and if so, when exactly did Aesop make its way over to those Choctaw? Or, was this yet another example of synchronous stories evolving independent of each other? Even good ol' Uncle Remus tells a story about a tricky turtle outwitting Brer Rabbit.

There is a fast, boastful rabbit, a slow turtle and a proposed race. After that initial set-up, however, it careens in wildly divergent ways, thanks to the interference of a oblivious turkey stepping on Turtle's shell, accusing him of "sleeping too low in the grass," and finally gathering together all of the ants to sew together Turtle's shell using the silk from the cornfield, yes indeed. What does that have to do with the race? Only that then Turkey decides to take up residence in the cozy, newly-sewn shell, and is thus mistaken for Turtle when he becomes the object of Rabbit's boasting:

Rabbit never challenged Turtle again.

"I feel real fast! I'm ready to race. Who wants a little mud in his face?"

Rabbit is in for a surprise, and Stacey Schuett does a great job illustrating that magnificent transformation, along with the various expressions of shock, bewilderment and shame on poor Rabbit.

Doesn't really have the same lesson as Aesop's Tortoise and the Hare, though, does it? Slow and steady definitely did not when the race this time around. Fortunately, Tingle enunciates the moral quite clearly:

Turtle learned you don't have to be the biggest, or the fastest, or the best. But it sure is nice to be friends with those that are!

In this video, Tim Tingle talks to a group of children.

I like that he addresses the difference between telling a story

and writing a story. Adjectives.

It Could Always be Worse (1976)

2012-02-27T11:39:00.000-08:00

Retold and Illustrated by Margot Zemach

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

This is a funny one, reads just like a well-told, well-timed joke, building and building until the release of the perfect punchline.

I suppose the subtitle, "A Yiddish Folktale," should have clued me in, but nonetheless, I did not at first realize that this was meant to be a humorous tale. I really thought I was going to be reading an overwrought tale of the suffering of a large Jewish family. The pages are filled with wonderful - yet garish - details, fighting, arguing, bare-bottomed babies toppling bowls. The patriarch of the chaotic family is only ever referred to as a "poor, unfortunate man." He does the only thing he knows to do - go to the rabbi and plead for some holy advice. So far, so desolate.

However, the rabbi's advice is rather peculiar. His solution to the overcrowding seems to be inviting the chickens to live in the house as well!

This does not at first appear to be the best idea in the world. In fact, as one would predict it only adds to the mayhem, and Zemach's chaotic illustrations add to this.

Three times the poor, unfortunate man comes to the rabbi, and three times the rabbi's advice is the same, adding more and more farm animals to the melee.

"Now with the crying and quarreling, with the honking, clucking,
and crowing, there are feathers in the soup! Rabbi, it couldn't be worse!"
"Tell me, do you happen to have a goat?"

And now with goats.

And now with cows.

Finally, exasperated, on the verge of a mental breakdown, the man once again journeys to the rabbi, imploring with him for some solution, any solution, the barest tidbit of halfway decent advice, anything! "The end of the world has come!" he in fact shrieks.

As you may perhaps have been able to predict, the Rabbi, in his esteemed wisdom, now commands his devoted follower to release the animals back outside. To this, the poor unfortunate man is only too eager to comply.

"Holy Rabbi, you have made life sweet for me.
It's so quiet, so roomy, so peaceful... What a pleasure!"

Cue drumroll and cymbal clash. The subtitle of the book is, "A Yiddish folk tale," but I didn't find any more information on the history or age of this particular tale, or how it came to become a part of Margot Zemach's storytelling arsenal, but it seems a real natural story to be adapted visually. Every page is filled with movement and a hundred details, with the final image of the snoozing, slumbering household one of satisfying tranquility.