Love is a four letter word

Usually, I like to go ahead an finish a book before I write the review, but time is short and this book is undeniably awesome.

I’m rushing this post because, as many of you are painfully aware, Valentines Day is today. It occurred to me today that some of you might like a heads up on a book that would make a nifty last-minute gift for a significant other with a literary bent. Or a gift for yourself, at that. Only make sure that, if you give this book to yourself, you include a bottle of good wine. Go ahead, you deserve it.

The book is called Four Letter Word: Invented Correspondence from the Edge of Modern Romance. It’s an anthology of fictional love letters written by some of today’s best authors, such as Margaret Atwood, Ursula K. Le Guin, Jonathan Lethem, Audrey Niffenegger, and Neil Gaiman. And as you might predict from a roster like that, these are not sappy letters, noooooo. Gaiman’s is suitably creepy, Lethem’s predictably weird, and Atwood’s (my favorite) side-splittingly hilarious. And that’s just the start—but I’ll let you read it and see what I mean.

Four Letter Word is such a treat, not just because of the embarrassing amount of talent among the contributors, but because they’ve poured that talent into the powerful format of a love letter. The resulting book would make a fine gift for any occasion.

* * * * *

Oh, and if you are looking for a real mush-fest, I highly recommend Pablo Neruda’s 100 Love Sonnets. Gorgeous, sensual poetry that will knock your socks off.

A bit from one of my favorites:

Sonnet XI

I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.
Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets.
Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day
I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps.

(…)

And I pace around hungry, sniffing the twilight,
hunting for you, for your hot heart,
like a puma in the barrens of Quitratue.

Wooo, pretty hot stuff, no? Mr. Chapman got major, major brownie points when he bought me this book for Valentine’s Day one year.

Discuss: Do you all have a favorite love poem/love song? Let’s have a link, then.

Book review: The Secret Life of Walter Kitty

The coolest little book came across my desk recently, and it’s just right for the preschool-kindergarten set to enjoy. It’s also just the right length for a good, absorbing bedtime story; brightly illustrated and interesting enough to keep the kids involved, but not so exciting that they’ll stay wired when they ought to be going to sleep.

It’s called The Secret Life of Walter Kitty, by Barbara Jean Hicks, a zany tale about a put-upon cat named Walter. The astute reader will have noticed that the title references the classic James Thurber short story, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, about the henpecked husband with the runaway imagination (See what they did there with the title? Right there? It is clever).

In the children’s book, though, poor Walter Kitty suffers the indignity of being chased away when he’s trying to “help” (read: destroying things and getting in the way), or alternately being babied too much by his beloved Mrs. Biddle (though sometimes he doesn’t mind). And though his vivid imagination helps him deal with his boring life, it’s also often the reason he gets in trouble in the first place.

No wonder the Sprog loves this book so much. Most preschoolers are in the same boat as poor Walter Kitty—constantly tempted to escape into an imaginary world where they’re the heroes, but sometimes at the expense of real-life concerns. It’s no coincidence that the Sprog got in trouble today for dumping all his dirty laundry on the floor just so he could put the plastic hamper over his head and pretend to be a robot.

So kids can identify with Walter Kitty, and what’s more, the construct of the story helps children understand the concept of characters thinking about possible events (rather than those events really happening); the Sprog was quite confused at first, and thought that all of Walter’s imaginings could be seen and heard by Mrs. Biddle, but after a few re-reads and some gentle explanation, he figured it out. By the same token, Walter’s skewed perception of events introduces to children to the idea of the unreliable narrator–an important tool in critical reading skills.

And anyway, how can you not love a book where a cat digging up flowers in the garden imagines himself dressed as Indiana Jones, proclaiming, “Eureka! The skull of the mad monkey king of Mombasa!” See? You just can’t hate it.

Poetry that kids will actually read

There was an episode of Arthur on the other day in which Arthur’s friend Buster could not be convinced to read a book, no matter how his friends begged. That is, until he stumbled upon a copy of Robin Hood, which he finished in no time flat. When asked, Buster shrugged and said that maybe he just needed to find something he liked reading.

It’s in that spirit that I’m giving you all the heads up on these two books of poetry for children. I know a lot of kids who adore reading, but not so many who love to read poetry. Which is such a shame, you know? A short, punchy poem can smack you in the face like no prose you’ll ever read.

That really good stuff, it’ll make you hum and curl your toes and tap out the rhythm with your fingers. It’ll turn over and over in your brain like a strange stone in a rock tumbler. And best of all, it’ll make you love language. The problem is getting kids into it, but once you sell them on that first dime bag of verse, it’s all over but the crying.

To that end, here are two books I’ve come across lately, both of which feature cool poetry that elementary school-aged kids could really sink their teeth into.

The first is Behold the Bold Umbrellaphant by Jack Prelutsky.

This book is a collection of poems about different creatures that are animal-object hybrids. It struck me as very Alice in Wonderland-ish, both in the conception of absurd inventions like Pop-up Toadsters (toasters + toads), and in the delicious portmanteaus coined to describe them. The verse itself is silliness incarnate, but very witty and rhythmic. Here’s a sample from the poem The Lynx of Chain:

The Lynx of Chain must not forget
To vanish when the weather’s wet,
For water soon would make it rust,
Reducing it to orange dust.

It keeps a sharp and watchful eye
On every cloud that happens by.
And that is why the Lynx of Chain
Is never spotted in the rain.

Ooh, that’s a rotten pun in the last line there (I love it). Also worth noting are Carin Berger’s illustrations, all done in collage with textured materials both interesting and apropos (such as, the elephant-hybrid is cut from pages of what looks to be a Thai manuscript).

Publishers Weekly recommends this book for ages 4 and up, but I don’t know if many 4-year-olds can appreciate the kind of wordplay this book hinges on. But I think 6- and 7-year-olds could probably enjoy it a great deal.

Aaaaand … onward and upward! The second book of poetry is Central Heating: Poems About Fire and Warmth by prolific children’s author Margaret Singer.

It’s one in a series of poetry books Singer has written, each about a different element such as earth or water. All of the poems in this book are, surprise, about fire and heat.

The imagery is more complex here, inviting kids to start thinking in metaphor, but it stays fresh and accessible throughout. And Meilo So’s inventive lino cut and line drawings, all in fire-engine red, provide interest to the page without taking focus away from the poems.

I admit, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, and look forward to when my son is old enough to appreciate it himself.

Here’s an excerpt from the poem Landmark:

The old house next door
sat boring, ignored
until the fire came
and threw a peculiar party.
Neighbors in hats and coats
gathered on the sidewalk, spilled into the street,
gawking, talking to folks they’d never greeted before,
watching flames light up windows too long dark,
listening to the loud music of sirens, cell phones, radios,
cheering the firemen in shiny striped coats
spraying water like silver holiday streamers.

Central Heating would probably be appropriate for a slightly older crowd, say, 4th- and 5th-graders with a decent reading vocabulary. Younger children could enjoy an adult reading it to them, as long as they’re old enough to not to lean on illustrations for reading comprehension.

So anyway, I highly encourage you all to take a look at these two fine books. I think your kids will really like them.

Bonus: The Institute of Making Up Convenient Statistics says that introducing kids to good poetry early in life means a 73% reduction in the likelihood of them writing hateful poetry about alienation when they get to the 9th grade. See? Everybody wins.

Book review: ‘The Second Child’

April is National Poetry Month, and much as I adore the stuff (Neruda, you make me swoon), I’ve been shamefully remiss in not posting about it here.

Thankfully, Deborah Garrison has given me the perfect excuse. She worked for many years on the editorial staff of the New Yorker, but she first gained recognition for A Working Girl Can’t Win, an anthology of poetry about the life of a young woman living in New York.

Fast-forward nine years: Garrison, now an editor for Alfred A. Knopf and Pantheon Books, has three young children and lives in New Jersey with her husband. In her newest book of poetry, The Second Child, she explores motherhood with all the astonishment of someone who’s viewing life through a totally different lens.

Motherhood has been done half to death as a subject for poetry, and often not very well. (Seriously, Google for “poetry” and “motherhood,” and you will find syrup fit to pour on pancakes). Garrison’s poetry has most commonly been described as “accessible” (sometimes as a compliment, sometimes not), but it is not syrup. And honestly, neither is it art for the ages. But it is some pretty darn good stuff.

Her poetry covers a lot of everyday subject matter — breastfeeding; bedtime stories; tired, fumbling sex — but it’s laced with generous samples of the neurotic guilt-fest that parenthood can sometimes be. She expresses her shame over wanting badly to get pregnant again as a gut reaction to 9/11; worries over how to tell her children that people die; agonizes over whether to throw away her daughter’s scribbly artwork. Now that’s some subject matter I can relate to.

The imagery is excellent, and though some of her stuff is a little too talky, I liked the conversational tone.

Overall, I enjoyed The Second Child. It was a good read: easily ingested, but not so easily digested. Something about her poems makes me keep thinking about them later.

Here’s an excerpt from one of her poems. (For the full version scroll down to the bottom on this page):

Play Your Hand

And if the worst thing imaginable
were to happen
where does the happiness
go?

The melody flown
(where?), you think you wouldn’t
live one more day.
But you would.

Days don’t stop.
You toss your glove at the moon,
you don’t know what
may come down.

Children’s book review: ‘Why Mommy is a Democrat’

Words fail me.

That doesn’t happen often (ask my husband), but I just don’t even know how to express how appalled I am at this book I just came across. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you: Why Mommy is a Democrat.

In a nutshell, the book talks about all the good things the Democratic party stands for, and why a Mommy squirrel believes in them. From the sample pages (shown here): “Democrats make sure we are always safe, just like Mommy does.” The illustration? A mother squirrel protecting her young ones from a lumbering elephant. Way subtle, there.

Another sample page: “Democrats make sure we all share our toys, just like Mommy does.” The illustration: happy squirrel children share blocks as the mommy squirrel looks on fondly. In the background, two obviously wealthy people sashay past a homeless guy holding out his hat.

Are you kidding me? Look, it doesn’t matter what party you vote for–this book is an equal-opportunity offender. It does Democrats no favors by so grossly simplifying Democratic talking points that they’re nearly parodies. And Republicans would be justified in being angry at the nasty jabs hurled at them– because when you say something like “Democrats make sure we are always safe”, then you imply that Republicans don’t, and that isn’t fair. And it’s so generalized that it’s hardly debatable. Democrats want to keep us safe from what? Nuclear war? Food poisoning? Ill-tempered possums? It’s just too broad.

I think the real danger in this book is that it doesn’t exactly invite critical thinking. Which may be the point, I suppose–paint the Republicans with a broad brush and make the kiddies hate them, and that’s all that matters. Very Machiavellian.

Is this what we want to teach our kids? Do we really want to pollute their minds with gross caricatures of people who hold different beliefs? Because, yeah, that’s all we need is more partisan hard-liners who can’t empathize or work with those they disagree with. It’s worked so well in our state’s General Assembly.

Discuss: To what extent have you/do you plan to talk about politics with your children? Do you hope to convince your children to be loyal to a particular political party? And please, do me a favor here–can we refrain from turning this into a Republican/Democrat bashing session? Would be so appreciated.

Book review: Uno’s Garden

Now this just has to be said: Graeme Base is simply the best thing going on in children’s picture books today. The illustrations are unfailingly gorgeous, the text is simple but effective, and the stories often serve to raise awareness on conservation issues.

Base’s latest book, Uno’s Garden, is a prime example. It’s not out in paperback yet, but it’s worth every last cent. The Sprog can’t get enough of it.

The story goes like this: Uno goes hiking in a jungle and likes it so much, he decides to live there. But as more and more people start moving there too, they see fewer and fewer of the beautiful plants and animals that drew them there in the first place. Then one day, when the city is sterile metal as far as the eye can see, all the residents ask themselves, “Why do we live in a place like this? There are no trees.” And they move away and leave the city to crumble.

The only person who sticks around is Uno, who has grown old nurturing a few surviving jungle plants in his tiny back yard. With him is the little snortlepig, once as common as a house cat but now the last of his kind. Slowly, over the next couple generations, Uno’s descendants help the jungle plants and animals to come back, all while keeping their city’s growth firmly in check. At the end of the book, the jungle and the city are in perfect harmony.

The only dark note is that the little snortlepig is nowhere to be found (apparently Uno’s pal was the last of its kind), so the book closes with children sitting around a campfire breathlessly listening to tales of the exotic snortlepig that had once lived in the jungle.

The Sprog was pretty sad when the book got to that part, but I’m okay with that kind of sad — it gets kids thinking about world issues.

And even if kids don’t get on board with the conservation lesson, it’s still a beautiful, fun book for preschoolers up through elementary school age.

BTW: If you want to buy other Graeme Base books, I highly recommend The Water Hole. It examines the conservation/extinction issue from a different angle, and the illustrations are far and away the best I have ever seen in a children’s book. Ever. You’ll see what I mean if you get it.

If you like the art but don’t want to join the Sierra Club, his alphabet book Animalia is also great. Bonus for Dr. Who fans: on the page for things that start with “D”, there’s a tiny Dalek. No kidding.