Color in the City
by Anne Boles Levy, Book Buds
The Sound of Colors: A Journey of the Imagination
By Jimmy Liao
A pity that Hollywood has ruined so many story endings by making them all so darned
uplifting. What’s wrong with a little melancholy?
A year ago
I began to notice
that my sight was slipping away.
I sat home alone
and felt the darkness settle around me.
In Liao’s bittersweet telling, a blind narrator ventures forth into the subway, searching
for an unnamed something or someone. It quickly becomes clear that nothing can restore her
eyesight, but acquiring vision is another, more heartfelt, matter.
Originally written in Chinese, the translation is set in New York, but it could well be any
teeming, multi-ethnic city. At each subway station the girl alights onto an imagined
landscape; dolphins frisk at one, clouds drift below another.
Liao pays subtle homage to some of Modern Art’s great colorists; watch for visual
references to Matisse, Mondrian, Chagall and even Escher’s monochromatic dreamscapes as she
descends and ascends, again and again, tap-tapping out the new terrain where memory and
wishfulness intersect.
The narrator’s endearing for her refusal to let darkness define her world or narrow her
possibilities, an important example for shy children especially. This story dares them to
be brave and independent, to explore and feel and hear and really see.
For the Young Herpetologist
by Susan Thomsen, Chicken Spaghetti
A Gathering of Garter Snakes
by Bianca Lavies
Why do we pick the books we do? I chose A Gathering of Garter Snakes, with text and photographs by Bianca Lavies,
at the library because:
1. The youngest member of our family asked for a picture book about snakes.
2. The cluster of garter snakes on the cover completely grossed me out, making it likely that it would appeal to the
family member in #1, above.
3. A higher-than-usual eccentricity factor makes good reading. Examples:
a) On one page, the text reads, "...Mrs. Margaret Lillequist does not have a problem with snakes. She likes them.
In fact, she prepares dinner while a red-sided garter snake she calls George looks on." George is lying on some
carrots.
b) The book is dedicated to the author's pet garter snake Frederica.
Aimed at a slightly older crowd (6- to 10-year-olds), Lavies’s Gathering concerns a place in Manitoba where ten thousand or
so garter snakes spend the winter in a big pit. This mass hibernation is unusual, as you'll find out. Your and yours will
also take in "the physical characteristics, behavior, and life cycle of the red-sided garter snake," as the book's
description promises. The full-page photographs are vivid, to say the least: snake births, shedded skins, and a glimpse of
a frog arm disappearing down a snake gullet. The snake aficionado at your house is likely to love it.
Eight months after our first encounter with A Gathering of Garter Snakes, one of us is still talking about visiting
Manitoba to see the snake pits.
The Discreet Charm of the Pill Bug
by Susan Thomsen, Chicken Spaghetti
I’m a Pill Bug
by Yukihisa Tokuda, with illustrations by Kiyoshi Takahashi
Here’s a picture book for the 4- to 8-year-old backyard scientist: a simple study of the tiny, many-legged bugs who roll up
into a ball when they are scared. (You may know them as roly-polies.) As written by Yukihisa Tokuda, the bugs speak
directly to the reader, and the effect, while somewhat amusing to an adult, heightens the interest for a child. Tokuda
knows his audience; on a page about the devouring of a large leaf, the pill bug says, “Our appetite is huge. We can eat
leaves as big as this. As soon as we eat, we poop (lots and lots of square-shaped poop).” The picture on the following page
is a leaf carcass and lots of you-know-what. Such information and illustration will be greeted with jubilation if your
elementary-school scientist is anything like mine. But Tokuda’s book isn’t all pill-bug bathroom talk; that’s just a small
part. We also learn that the itty-bitty pill bug needs to eat stones and concrete to stay healthy. Awesome, right? Pill
bugs aren’t insects, but are instead related to crabs and shrimp. And you’re certainly not likely to see them around in the
winter: they do not like the cold. We even find out how pill bug mothers carry their little ones. Sharp-eyed youngsters may
ask a question or two about the pill bugs making the beast with two backs on the page about mating and babies, but for the
younger crowd, the bugs’ own explanation, “When we’re grown up, we find mates and lay eggs,” will likely suffice. (If it
doesn’t, you’re on your own.)
Kiyoshi Takahashi’s uncluttered illustrations—made with colorful cut and torn paper, collage, and colored-pencil
drawings—are complemented by the amount of words per page: only twenty or so. In addition to previously mentioned
activities, we see pill bugs marching under a night sky, hiding from ants, and shedding their shells. Originally published
in Japan in 2003, this quirky, interesting examination of a familiar subject—a creature that almost anyone can track down
quickly—makes a fine addition to a nature lover’s library.
Hope Flies
by Kelly Herold, Big A little a
Learning to Fly
by Sebastian Meschenmoser
Penguins are the "it-animal" of recent children's literature. And the star of Learning to Fly, a new picture book
by Sebastian Meschenmoser, is a credit to his colony.
The penguin hero of Learning to Fly falls out of the sky one day when other birds tell him, "Penguins can't fly."
He crashes to the ground and is rescued by a kindly young man who takes him home, feeds him, cleans him up, and gives him a
place to sleep. Together the man and the penguin begin training for flight. They exercise, read about flight, and try just
about anything to get the penguin back in the air.
Meschenmoser's illustrations are deceptively straightforward. Sketched in pencil with only minimal color added, the
illustrations are warm and often laugh-out-loud funny. The penguin dressed as batman is quiety hilarious, as are the sketches
of our team's creative attempts to launch into the air. Learning to Fly appeals not only to its intended audience—young children—but to adults as well. It would make an excellent gift for a recent graduate from junior or senior high
school.
Learning to Fly was published in 2005 as Fliegen lernen in Germany. This charming picture book is a
simple reminder to never give up on your dreams.
The Sound of Colors: A Journey of the Imagination, by Jimmy Liao. Little, Brown, 2006. ISBN: 0-3169-3992-7.
A Gathering of Garter Snakes, by Bianca Lavies. Dutton Children’s Books, 1993. ISBN: 0-525450-99-8.
I’m a Pill Bug, by Yukihisa Tokuda. Illustrations by Kiyoshi Takahashi. Kane/Miller, 2006.
ISBN: 1-929132-95-6.
Learning to Fly, written by Sebastian Meschenmoser. Kane/Miller, 2006. ISBN: 1-9291-3293-X.
|