Collected Miscellany

Another great book I came across at the library with my kids was The Wee Christmas Cabin of Carn-na-ween. As I love folklore and Christmas this was a perfect story for me.  Here is Publishers Weekly:

Readers will want to pull up a creepie (stool) and gather ’round a roaring peat fire to hear every lilting word of Sawyer’s magical and haunting Irish folktale, first published in 1941. Orphan girl Oona, abandoned by her tinker kin, grows into a lonely, ostracized old woman longing for a home of her own. On Christmas Eve, as the legend goes, the wee people to whom Oona has always been kind oblige her in a special way. Gauzy, evocative mixed-media paintings convey a quiet yet powerful energy.

We didn’t have a peat fire but we did gather on the couch and read this charming story. It has that classic Irish blend of melancholy, magic, tragedy and hope. And as noted by PW, the illustrations add to the evocative story.

So if your family loves to read stories out loud together this would be a great choice this holiday season. Of course , you and your older readers could read it too (I read it again after the family reading).

I have become something of a Neil Gaiman fan.  Not an acolyte of anything, but I do enjoy checking out his latest project.  So when I spotted Odd and the Frost Giants at the library I quickly added to the pile.  After all, it fit right into my recent children’s and young adult kick.

Rather than stealing PW’s plot summary, how about we have Neil himself introduce the book?

I can’t get away, however, without a quote from School Libary Journal, as I like their description of the book.  They describe it as a “thoughtful and quietly humorous fantasy.”  Which was my reaction as well.

As is typical of Gaiman, there is a simplicity to the story but also a playfulness to the prose and  a sense of deeper and darker things lurking behind the scenes.  Odd has that infuriating smile that adds an edge, and a sense of mystery, to this partially lame but brave and generous boy.

While nothing is too dark or scary for young readers, Gaiman hints at the darker and capricious side of the gods and includes an element that will bring a smile to the adults in his portrayal of the relationship between the Frost Giant and the goddess Freya.

This slim volume, originally written for World Book Day in the UK and sold there as par of that charitable endeavor, has the feel of a fable; simple yet hinting at deeper things.  Obviously a must have for Gaiman fans – and fans of Norse mythology – but worth checking out for anyone who enjoys a simple yet well done tale.

Cover of Ottoline Goes to School

For those of you keeping score at home, I have been exploring what you might call the graphic novel side of children’s and young adult literature.  Works that are more than picture books; chapter books with a heavy visual aspect to them.

The latest book I stumbled upon at the library, Ottoline Goes to School, is actually the second book in a series but I didn’t know that at the time.  Regardless, it is a witty, silly, and visually stimulating story.

Here is School Journal’s plot summary:

In this second story about Ottoline, who lives with her faithful, hairy best friend, Mr. Monroe, readers are visually thrust into her Big City life, as she befriends Cecily, who is quite a storyteller, and decides to accompany her to the Alice B. Smith School for the Differently Gifted. There the students, each with an outlandish and noteworthy pet, seek out their talents in origami curtain-making, plate-spinning, tea-sipping, and other different arts. Ottoline flounders, unable to find her special talent, but is drawn to the mystery of the curse of the Horse of Hammersteins. In the end, she proves to be a fine sleuth.

I am most familiar with Riddell from his collaboration with Paul Stewart in The Edge Chronicles.  And the illustrations here will stand out to anyone familiar with that series.  But this series is much more playful and more of a graphic novel than a straightforward illustrated story.

I read this story to my daughter in one sitting and she really enjoyed it.  I did as well. The illustrations are fun and full of surprises and the humor is dry and witty.  The text illustration combination pack a lot into this slim volume.

As School Journal also noted:

This is an outstanding example of a picture book-cum-graphic novel, in which Riddell dazzles readers with visual detail and comical oddities and language that is rich, zany, and imaginative. It will satisfy visually needy and visually discerning readers.

To use a cliche, this includes readers young and old.

So if you are looking for something different to read at bed time, or to have your young reader tackle themselves, this fun series is a good choice.

Cover via Amazon

As regular readers know, I have long had an interest in both well written and/or beautifully illustrated children’s books and chapter books/young adult fiction.  Lately I have been checking out some books that fit in between picture type books you read to your kids and full fledged fiction they read themselves.

One such example, I picked up at a local library sale was Extraordinary Adventures of Ordinary Basil written by the creator of the Non Sequitor comic strip Wiley Miller.  Allow me to steal the plot description from the School Library Journal:

It’s 1899, and 12-year-old Basil lives in a lighthouse on the coast of Maine. A dour, gnomish lad with an oversize head, he longs for adventure. When a balloon piloted by a kindly, mysterious man appears outside his window, the boy leaps aboard and soars off to a fantastic city in the sky. Professor Angus McGookin has brought him to Helios, the home of a secret, advanced society, and Basil is soon caught up in an adventure involving evil scientists, pteranodons, and mechanical armies.

I read the book to my daughter who is almost five years old and she enjoyed it enough to sit still and listen to it over the course of two nights.  I found it clever and interesting.

The bright fun color illustrations add some zip and visual excitement to the story. The story itself is certainly not all that unique (boy finds secret world, has been chosen to play a role, bad guy threatens all that is good, etc.) but I found it entertaining and a nice mix of adventure and mystery. There is sense throughout that not only is a sequel in the works but there is a whole lot to the story that isn’t being told.

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One of the best things about being a “book blogger” is finding new books and authors.  Pretty basic right?  But it is particularly fun when you get something new and exciting in the mail from a publisher out of the blue.  It is like Christmas or your birthday.

The other day I experienced this when Kids Go! by They Might Be Giants arrived in the mail

(Formal FTC disclosure: this means I got a free copy, OK?).

Normally, my kids are excited when a package comes in the mail but soon disappointed when it is just another adult book of no interest to them. So when a book came that they could look at, I could read to them and had a DVD to sing along to they were pretty excited.

So what is Kids Go! exactly? Well, it is a sing along book authored by the band They Might Be Giants.  Here is the publisher’s explanation:

Once upon a time there were two sleepy kids. Then they heard a distant sound, a beat that got louder and louder. They had to move their feet. They got up off the couch and started to move their legs. Then, with the help of a few unexpected friends, they learned how to move like a monkey, move like a jumping bean, move like a jack-in-the-box and go! go! GO! This very special book is both a story and a song.

So watch the animated DVD, move like a monkey, and sing along!

I have to agree.  This is a fun book and you will certainly want to watch the video and sing along.  Not surprisingly given the authors, it is a very catchy tune that will have you singing and dancing with your kids.

The illustrations, by Pascal Campion, match the fun and simplicity of the music. To me they have a retro feel; a riff on post-war children’s books. But whatever they are they match the carefree and slightly silly sensibility of the music and authors.  They will keep the younger kids entertained but I think the book really works best with the music.

I would have to think this would be a handy thing to have around. Any time you needed to break up the monotony a little, you could pull out this book and pop in the DVD and watch your kids “move like a monkey, move like a jumping bean, move like a jack-in-the-box and go! go! GO!”

I have been reading a lot of young adult fiction of late and have also found myself interested in children’s stories; new and old, classic and experimental, picture books and longer stories.  (Having small children will  do that to you I guess.)

So when I heard about The Little General and the Giant Snowflake I was intrigued.  Here is the publisher’s blurb:

The Little General and the Giant Snowflake is a beautifully illustrated allegory by a leading poet, perfect for children and adults alike. The little general heads an army called the Realists, and every day he and his troops practice battle formations on a field, while the Dreamers use it to play strange, peaceful games. His soldiers include Sergeant Samantha, wishes the general would pay attention to her, and Lieutenant Lyle, who always seems to get into trouble. One day the little general sees a giant snowflake hovering in his garden. Ashamed, he pretends not to see it, but eventually he discovers that everyone in his army has a similar problem. What magical message is the snowflake trying to bring to the general, and to the world?

It turned out to be a sort of mix between an idealistic – almost naive – allegory and an absurdest story.

You have the appropriately named Little General who has suppressed his imagination and the rather tall Sergeant Samantha who has a crush on him.  And there is Lieutenant Lyle who likes to sing silly songs but is not very good at military marches.

The General leads the realist army while the idealists play make believe with imaginary animals nearby.  There is no real war or battle just two camps side by side.  The Realists do practive various marches under the general’s guidance but they have never actually engaged the enemy.

But this regimen is interrupted when the general encounters a large snowflake and starts dreaming about lemmings.

Spoiler Alert!

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Laura Miller had a problem.  When she was young she was absolutely captivated and enthralled with the Chronicles of Narnia series by C.S. Lewis.  Given a copy of The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe by a school teacher she dove in an entered a new world.  Things would never be the same.

But eventually she grew older and began to find out things about Lewis and Narnia that changed her relationship with the series: the Christian underpinnings of the story, Lewis’s world view and political opinions, etc.  But as she pursued a career as a literary critic she decided to return to these books and she found there was still much about them that she loved.

The road that had once seemed to lead to free and open country had in reality doubled back to church.  Now I was trying to explain why my damning adolescent assessment of Chronicles wasn’t entirely sufficient, either.  As an adult, I’d discovered that I could follow Lewis pretty far without feeling obliged to return to Christianity, and that the old sensations of freedom, of wilderness in Narnia, remained.

She sets out to make sense of this journey.  The Magician’s Book: A Skeptic’s Adventures in Narnia is her answer in book form.

I guess you would have to put Magician’s Book into the category of creative non-fiction.  Good thing too, because otherwise it would be hard to categorize.  Part memoir, literary criticism, biography, and current events reporting it frequently slides between childhood memories, academic criticism, Freudian analysis, personal opinion, and interviews with other authors.

Sometimes this manages to flow and hold together in a coherent way and at others the transitions are a little rough.  I found the sections dealing with Lewis’s faith and politics were the least convincing – but perhaps that is my bias – but the book as a whole remains an insightful and engaging look at Lewis and Narnia.

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