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Finding peace is not easy. Sometimes you have to work to make or find peace—peace with yourself,
peace in the world, peace with Mother Nature, and, even, enough peace to fall asleep.
This month The Edge of the Forest reviews picture books seeking
peace for their protagonists, the reader, or both at once.
Fletcher and the Falling Leaves
by Julia Rawlinson. Illustrations by Tiphanie Beeke
Reviewed by Kerry Millar
Ah, Fall… a time of picture book abundance, and, at the bookstore, the requisite Halloween & Harvest display. Don’t get me
wrong. Fall is a glorious season, especially for booksellers. It’s just that one autumn book can be so much like the next. We get it. Kids get it. Power to the pumpkins. To everything there is a season. Yup. Each year I wonder: How many books about pumpkins and the changing seasons can authors produce? More to the point, how many more can we possibly need?
This year, at least one. Meet Fletcher. Fletcher is a very small fox with very large ears. He is troubled. He can hardly
recognize the tree outside his den. The colour is all wrong. The tree’s “swishing sound of summer” has changed to a
“crinkly whisper.” Soon, its leaves begin to fall. Not on Fletcher’s watch. As his tree’s guardian, Fletcher sets about
the futile task of reattaching every fallen leaf. Of course, Fletcher learns he can’t stop Mother Nature. And at the
first frost, when Fletcher sees his tree lit with silvery icicles, he is somehow convinced in an instant that all of this
change has happened for a reason. A reason that is bigger and more mysterious than he can understand, but is reassuring
all the same.
My bookselling heart warmed instantly to Fletcher’s sweet determination, and to Tiphanie Beeke’s gentle, impressionistic
illustrations. You could buy this book just for the illustrations, but that would not be giving enough credit to the
story’s lovely simplicity. There’s something poetic and powerful behind the quietness of this book. I suppose you might
say that this tale explores how so much of the world is beyond what we know, in childhood especially. What we learn
sometimes comes to us all of a sudden. A little bit of the mystery makes sense and then life goes on.
If you like Max...Frog books, you’ll fall in love with Fletcher. I did. I’m off to search for other furry fall fables
hiding in the Harvest display.
Hippo! No, Rhino!
by Jeff Newman
Reviewed by Anne Boles Levy, Book Buds
Describing this book is going to take more words than are in it, all of
which more or less rhyme with “rhino.” And that's good, because there
aren't many books that manage to be uncomplicated and hilarious at the
same time.
See, there's this rhino. And a sign. But the sign says—you got it—
hippo! And it's all the zookeeper's fault. Probably a union guy. Or
maybe the summer intern. Then there are various hip-looking tourists,
who aren't much smarter.
And then, of course, there's one wise little boy who can read, just like
my little boy now, who loves this book to death. Literally. Atop the
watercolor and marker and ink, there's a smudge of toothpaste and what
looks like chocolate, though it could be gravy, and plenty of creases
and bends. I think it adds to the expressionistic feel, personally.
Because you'd have to be colorblind not to “read” the hues as the big,
blue hippo sinks into a dark funk, and various characters' green or
blue or yellow skin tones say a lot about them too. There's a '60s feel
to the art, maybe a touch of those Little Golden Books now making a
comeback, but the sensibility is entirely snarky post-modern.
I keep seeing this book atop bloggers' lists of favorites, which it
deserves, because you're never too young to feel for the oppressed
rhino in all of us.
What is Peace?
by Etan Boritzer
Reviewed by Anne Boles Levy, Book Buds
I contracted a serious case of the guilts recently after panning a
collection of poems about war. Did it make me a warmonger? A closet
Bushie? What was I trying to say, exactly?
Fortunately, Boritzer's book turned up in time to rescue me from too
much self-flagellation. What is Peace? tackles the subject head-on in a
way that's candid yet reassuring.
His flowing free verse doesn't nail a definition of peace so much as map
its territory, starting with a Zen-like quietude:
Do you have to go to a quiet place,
far from the city
with all the cars and people
and noise and crazy stuff going on,
in order to feel Peace?
He makes the terrain bumpier as the scope broadens from bratty behavior
at home to civil strife—a bad king is portrayed as a schoolyard
bully in a crown—while asking if it's always possible to "be both
brave and peaceful."
Although there's no storyline, there are numerous imaginary examples.
Throughout, Boritzer keeps returning the focus to the child's feelings,
peppering young readers with questions that are only daunting if they've
never had to articulate anything deeper than what they want for dinner.
Such probing will be familiar to fans of the What is series, which
explores such abstracts as love, money and beauty, and are designed to
launch kids on an exploration of personal ethics. Boritzer takes pains
not to step on any interfaith toes, urging kids to ask their parents
how they pray. Non-violent heroes aren't mentioned by name, be they
Buddha or Jesus, or someone contemporary like Gandhi or Martin Luther
King Jr., but parents and teachers can easily fill in those blanks.
I should also note that I met Etan Boritzer at the LA Times BookFest
last April and he's just about the most effusive purveyor of books you
can imagine. Sure, he was flogging his own stuff. But he's clearly on a
mission. How nice that it dovetails with my own efforts to wean my son
from his addiction to whacking his sister, not to mention what it does
for dinner conversations about that whole Middle East thing.
The Prince's Bedtime
by Joanne Oppenheim. Illustrations by Miriam Latimer
Reviewed by Kelly Herold, Big A little a
Some kids can't ever seem to fall asleep. I know. One of mine was like that, but I didn't have a kingdom to help me
out.
In Joanne Oppenheim's charming tale in rhyme, The Prince's Bedtime, the King and Queen are so exhausted by their young
prince, they put out a kingdom-wide call for help. The first to show up is a bearded physician, ready with a bottle of
sweet medicine. When the prince won't give it a try, the physician offers some to the Queen:
The Queen took a spoonful: "M-m-m," she said sweetly.
"Delicious!" She yawned, and was instantly sleepy.
The courtiers then followed their queen's fine example.
They each took one sip, and that one sip was ample.
The all licked their lips: "M-m-m, it's so sweet!"
Then, quick as a wink, they all fell asleep...
Except for the Prince, who heard them all snoring
And said with disgust, "How perfectly boring!"
Yep, the awake child. Everyone falls asleep around him, and still, he's awake. Life's just too interesting, especially
when your parents bring in dancers, hypnotists, professors, and horses to lull you to sleep.
Finally, an old woman with a bag appears at the castle. She has the perfect thing:
Reaching into her basket she pulled out a book,
And said to the Prince, "I'll read while you look."
"But where are the pictures? he asked in suprise,
"You'll see them," she said, "if you just close your eyes."
Well, you know what happens after that. The prince finally falls asleep and the castle rests.
The Prince's Bedtime is a perfect choice for bedtime read-aloud. Be warned, though: Miriam Latimer's vibrant, colorful,
and
dynamic illustrations will delight, but not inspire sleepiness. Follow with any article from The Economist, and
success will be yours.
Reviewed by Kelly Herold, Big A little a
Fletcher and the Falling Leaves by Julia Rawlinson. Illustrations Tiphanie Beeke. Greenwillow Books,
2006. ISBN: 0-0611-3401-5.
Hippo! No, Rhino!, by Jeff Newman. Little, Brown Young Readers, 2006. ISBN: 0-3161-5573-X.
What is Peace?, by Etan Boritzer. Veronica Lane Books, 2006. ISBN: 0-9762-7434-5.
The Prince's Bedtime, by Joanne Oppenheim. Illustrations by Miriam Latimer. Barefoot Books, 2006.
ISBN: 1-8414-8597-7.
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