I’ve been wanting to share more comprehensive lists, and this seems like a good time to start. Favorites lists are always difficult, though. There are so many books to choose from, and I know I’m leaving many great ones off the list.
Part 2, coming soon, will include non-fiction books and book selections for teen boys.
For now, we’ll start with these family favorites!
Animals
The Great Mouse Detective by Eve Titus [This is a great easy chapter book series for beginning readers.]
Babe: The Gallant Pig by Dick King-Smith [Dick King-Smith wrote a bunch of wonderful easy chapter books for beginning readers, but Babe is my personal favorite.]
Dominic by William Steig [Many readers are familiar with Steig’s picture books (Amos and Boris is a personal favorite), but few people have read his three short chapter books. Dominic is one of my most favorite children’s books, but The Real Thief and Abel’s Island are wonderful as well. Steig’s vocabulary is incredible.]
Benjamin West and His Cat Grimalkin by Marguerite Henry [This simple chapter book is a historical narrative about the artist Benjamin West’s childhood.]
Freddy the Pig by Walter Brooks [This series about a detective pig is incredibly witty and humorous.]
Humor
Little Pear by Eleanor Frances Lattimore [Follow along with Little Pear’s adventures and capers in this easy chapter book for beginning readers.]
Hank the Cowdog by John R. Erickson [This series is hilarious. The audio books read by the author are worthy listening.]
Half Magic (and others) by Edward Eager [Delightful and witty.]
Homer Price (and Centerburg Tales) by Robert McCloskey [Homer Price is always my first suggestion when someone asks me for book recommendations for boys! Homer is resourceful and always finds himself in the middle of adventures.]
Henry Reed, Inc. by Keith Robertson [More vintage schemes and adventures!]
Owls in the Family by Farley Mowat [Laugh-out-loud adventures of a boy and his pet menagerie.]
The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster [This hilarious book is full of word play humor and a love of words and numbers.]
The Knights’ Tales by Gerald Morris [The four books in this series are perfect for knight-loving boys. Humor and chivalry make a great combination.]
Cheaper by the Dozen by Frank B. Gilbreth and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey [Hilarious stories of the Gilbreth family, but a tear-jerker warning for the ending!]
Realistic and Survival
The Sign of the Beaver by Elizabeth George Speare [A thirteen-year-old boy is left to tend his family’s cabin in the wilderness.]
My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George [A boy leaves the city and survives alone in the wilderness with a falcon and weasel for company.]
Hatchet (and others) by Gary Paulsen [A thirteen-year-old boy finds himself alone in a wilderness after a plane crash.]
Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls [A young boy and his two dogs become a hunting team. Tear-jerker warning!]
Little Britches and series by Ralph Moody [This autobiographical series is a family favorite.]
The Lonesome Gods by Louis L’Amour [Perfect for slightly older readers, this novel is full of adventure and survival—and a love of books.]
I Am David by Anne Holm [A twelve-year-old boy escapes from a labor camp and makes his way alone across Europe. This is one of my childhood favorites.]
The House of Sixty Fathers by Meindert DeJong [A young Chinese boy is separated from his family during the Japanese invasion. He must begin a dangerous journey in order to be reunited.]
Fantasy
The Ranger’s Apprentice by John Flanagan [This fantasy series is a top favorite for all three of my boys.]
The Squire’s Tales series by Gerald Morris [This series is at the top of my own favorites list, and my boys have loved them as well. Hilarious, witty, simple, stirring, and profound. Strong male and female characters. Full of virtue, chivalry, and what it means to be human (along with foils to show the opposite). Parental warning: these are retellings of Arthurian legends, so they contain romantic situations both positive and negative, including several affairs. The author treats the negative relationships appropriately, never explicit and always showing the steep consequences for actions.]
Outlaws of Time (and others) by N.D. Wilson [I personally love the Western fantasy adventure of Outlaws of Time, but Wilson’s other books are worthy reading as well.]
Watership Down by Richard Adams [Watership Down may be a book about rabbits, but it probably belongs in the realistic survival genre. This is an excellent novel for slightly older readers as it explores the nature of leadership and various societal structures. Adams is a master at world-building. A classic!]
Siblings
The Moffats (series) by Eleanor Estes [Meet Sylvie, Joey, Janey, and Rufus in this classic family adventure.]
The Saturdays (Melendy Quartet) by Elizabeth Enright [Mona, Rush, Randy, and Oliver go for independent adventures in New York City circa 1940s.]
Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome [This 1930 gem tells the story of the Walker siblings and their parent-less sailing trip to an uninhabited island.]
“Girl Books” Loved by (My) Boys
Jenny and the Cat Club (series) by Esther Averill [Jenny the darling black cat may be the main character, but her cat club friends are just as personable.]
I’m thrilled to have a child in the Jenny and the Cat Club stage again! These were Luke’s favorites, and now Lola is devouring them.
Books that help transition kids from early readers to chapter books are hard to find—especially quality transition books—but these books by Esther Averill are the best of the best.
Meet Jenny and her Cat Club:
Jenny Linsky is a small black orphan cat. She lives with the kind Captain Tinker, who knitted her a red woolen scarf. When she is too shy to join the Cat Club, in which each cat has a clever skill, Captain Tinker makes her a pair of silver ice skates and gives them to her on Christmas Eve. When all the other cats see her skating, they are enchanted and invite her to be a member of the Cat Club.
Jenny and the Cat Club is a selection of shorter stories: The Cat Club, Jenny’s First Party, When Jenny Lost Her Scarf, Jenny’s Adopted Brothers, and How the Brothers Joined the Cat Club. Each two-page spread has at least one small illustration, and the pictures are darling. Each cat has oodles of personality. The tender and quirky stories are accessible for young children, but they are beautifully written and full of wonderful vocabulary.
In the second story, Jenny’s First Party, readers meet Pickles, the Fire Cat. If younger readers have the good fortune to read The Fire Cat by Averill when they are in the early readers stage, they will be delighted to meet Pickles again in The Cat Club. Lola was so excited to see Pickles that she went back to The Fire Cat and discovered that Jenny appeared in a picture in that book as well!
[I received a free copy of this book for review purposes; opinions are my own.]
While I do love a charming fiction picture book, I often gravitate toward beautiful biographical picture books or picture books that help explain a variety of ideas in ways that help kids engage with the concepts. My shelves are abundently loaded with picture books about science, art, music, history, geography, bible, and math. I’m always on the lookout for new titles to add to my collection.
Granddaddy Parallelogram is a picture book introduction to parallelograms, rhombuses, rectangles, right angles, and perpendicular diagonals. The illustrations are bright and simple. Geometry was not my strong suit in high school, and I learned a thing or two from this one! The story is silly and appeals to my six year old. I found her reading it in bed, way past her bedtime.
The author invented a clever way to show that rhomuses have perpendicular diagonals which make right angles.
Parents and teachers will appreciate the full page of tips and interactive ideas at the end of the book, including discussion questions, activities, and helpful explanations. The book also includes a page of math vocabulary and definitions.
Reading the book aloud, I found some of the conversation awkward. The main character has an eight syllable name. Paired with all the synonyms for “said” (interjected, suggested, grumbled, asserted, assured, pronounced), this was quite a mouthful. Also, some parents may not appreciate the sibling squabbling or school atmosphere (friends laughing and pointing when the rhombus trips and falls), though kids will likely relate!
I’m looking forward to trying some of the math activity suggestions with Lola.
Autumn did seem to arrive suddenly this year. It was on the first day of autumn during our brief morning walk that Leif brought the apples to my attention.
We have two ornamental crabapple trees (I think that’s what they are—I’m a poor naturalist), but one decided to grow an apple tree from the graft site at the base. Half of this tree is now crabapple, and half is apple. Surprise! It is a young tree, and this is the first year we’ve received a small crop of apples. The kids were delighted and had apples for morning snack after drawing them in their nature journals.
Connect
Lola immediately searched her books and found How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World. She read through it, stopping to sing her continents song on the map page (naturally integrating her CC Foundations memory work, hurrah!). This book is similar to another favorite, Pancakes, Pancakes! by Eric Carle.
While traveling the world to gather ingredients for apple pie may be a bit unrealistic, I love that she knows where and how we get ingredients. She has picked fruit, ground wheat for flour, and watched a how-to video on milking cows (we’ve had cows grazing in our field before, but it’s more difficult to find someone with milking cows!). Next on our list are gathering eggs (maybe we can bribe Aunt Holly) and churning butter.
Create
We had to make an apple pie, of course, so Lola helped me pick apples this morning and we managed to get a pie made.
[Now, for the realistic version: I did manage to get the pie made, even though I’m sick with a cold and all four children were disobeying and I finally told the two youngest to leave the kitchen because they were driving me crazy. The apples were little and a pain to peel and slice. I also managed to peel the skin off my finger and slice my thumb with a cardboard box. My crust turned out so flaky that it didn’t hold together well. I tried to use a form for cutting out cute little apples on the top crust, but they just looked like holes. After baking, the crust was browned, but the apples weren’t soft, and everything fell apart when I cut into it. The kitchen (and house) looked like a war zone. I ended up going back to bed to avoid it while the kids watched television instead of doing what they were supposed to be doing. The end.]
[Scroll down if you want to skip this conversation and just see a few more pictures of our trip to Mount Angel Abbey, our local Benedictine Monastery. CC Friends, sing it with me: “Benedict and Monasticism…” Can you stop there?]
.
Metaphor is POWERFUL. It ignites the imagination. It allows us to form images, to “picture to oneself.” It allows us to hold an image in our heads that is simple and concrete but so profound and nuanced that we can contemplate its meaning for a long period of time.
Metaphors are VIVID.
One of the ways in which we create metaphors is to ask comparison questions.
How is _______ like _________.
Comparison is one of the 5 Common Topics. You do not have to compare two seemingly similar things. Metaphor, particularly, is the comparison of two unlike things. A pen is like a pencil is not a metaphor. A pen is like a sword is a metaphor.
Recently Andrew Kern asked "If the model for a school isn't the home, what is it?" He's known for his ambiguous, open-ended questions, but I had been pondering this a bit after watching The Liturgical Classroom and Virtue Formation with Jenny Rallens, so I timidly answered "a monastery?" Dr. Christopher Perrin chimed in a bit later with "A garden, museum, table and church--which is to say a monastery." This is a much fuller and more beautiful (and certainly less timid) answer. (And he tagged me in his answer, so I know I've "arrived." [wink])
I've been avoiding organizing and planning for the coming school year (paralyzed, really), but those four words have been running though my mind and heart: a garden, museum, table, and church. What do these mean? How would you model a school after these four elements? How would they inform your day or the content of your lessons? Are they physical realities or metaphorical? Both? How?
As these questions were swirling in my brain, I asked them on my Facebook page. Many friends joined in the discussion, and I wanted to share a bit of it here so that I could return to it again and again. It’s a long discussion, and I’ve only shared a portion here, but I hope it speaks into your life as you learn and teach your children (whether you homeschool or not).
[After this Facebook conversation I attended a Lost Tools of Writing workshop with Matt Bianco. He began our day by asking each attendee to share a metaphor for education. There was no time for explanation or discussion, but just reading all the metaphors on the board (more than thirty) was a powerful beginning to our day. We were able to make our own images and thoughts from the words. Journey, garden, window, feast. Climbing a mountain.]
.
One of the questions that came up in discussion is whether the home is a better model for a school and whether a monastery is modeled after a home.
I realized that the reason “a monastery” feeds my imagination in ways that “home” does not is that it is outside of my own reality.
For me, the idea of home is maybe too close to home—it’s more difficult for me to be metaphorical and imaginative about something that is so much a part of my every waking moment that I can't see it from the outside. Harder to make a model out of home when I'm not currently "doing home" in the way that I should.
I do struggle with my own disobedience and the messiness of ordinary life. I feel like I need an image in my head to inspire and encourage me despite my failings. When I picture a home, it's either my home with its failings or a home that is not my home. When I picture a garden, a table, a museum, a church in the context of a monastery, they are not my home but can be applied to my home. It is a vivid metaphor for me.
My friend questioned whether those things are metaphors or real things.
I think they are both metaphorical and physical realities. The metaphorical meaning of garden might be a right relationship with all of creation, but certainly we could also have a physical garden at our own home and that may be the best way to practice interacting with nature rightly.
Sara Masarik:
I think that the metaphors are correct because when the esoteric or imaginative value is applied properly, we get a physical result that resembles the original idea.
Say a garden, for example. When I am taking care of my garden, I am doing physical work with living organisms. I am stewarding all of the life that is in my care. That is a physical act of obedience for a spiritual or metaphysical principle. So part of why I garden, because I do, is because that physical work puts me in touch with the metaphysical truth, in both physical and spiritual ways.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that it is a spiral. By physically caring for the garden, I am honing the spiritual principle which then further enables me to be a better caretaker of the physical obligations.
What I am not communicating effectively is that I loved it when he mentioned monastery because I think that's what monasteries do. They seek to pair the physical realities with the metaphysical realities in a way that is deeply obedient.
Me:
I think you just hit the nail on the head, Sara Masarik. A monastery takes the physical model and realities of home and connects them to the metaphysical realities. In that way, I think a monastery is a perfect model for a school (particularly a classical school) with a student moving from the concrete to the abstract, his studies culminating in philosophy and theology.
Sara Masarik:
Yes! That! A monastery is a garden. And a home. And a school. And a hospital. But all for the soul as well as the body. A monastery strives to serve with feet on earth and hearts and heads in heaven. And that, I think, is what our homes can be as well.
Jennifer Bascom:
I've noticed in my faith that the monasteries seem to represent a place between Heaven and Earth. The monks and nuns are like intercessors, praying all the time. They do some light work to keep things going but their main focus is prayer. In a home we can imitate that ideal by praying the hours and everyone pitching in to make the work light on everyone, and we can follow the same calendar and fasting/feasting rhythm but there will be more of a focus on worldly things like working outside the home and activities that accompany family life. The home is a perfect place to imitate some of the aspects of a monastery for peaceful godly living and a perfect place for school and learning I think.
Stacy LaPointe:
I don't think of a monastery as involving light work. Maybe I'm wrong, but I see it as very much about the discipline of hard work in the important aspects of life—in personal habits and labor, in relationships and seeking godly ways to be with your fellow community members, and in spiritual study and prayer. That is exactly like a family, or it can be. I like the idea of imagining it in that setting too because it helps me to abstract it from my very messy home monastery.
Jessi Caca:
Our Home: A garden, museum, table and church. I feel comfortable leaving school out completely with those five words connected. Home, garden, museum, table, church. That's what we're doing. We're not homeschooling, we're lifeliving. And what is that? "A garden, museum, table and church."
I admit I'd not naturally have ever come to the idea of museum, had I thought about this for my whole life, but I do see it fits. Or I want it to fit. We are concerned with treasuring the best of civilization and curating the beautiful, true, and good. That's museuming.
Mindy Pickens:
Rudy and I are discussing this in the car on our way to star watching. He says he thinks garden, museum, table, and church make him think of categories of learning: learn with your hands, from labor and observation, nurturing and growth in a garden; Learn from the past, and particularly beautiful things from the past as in a museum; learn from each other, from community and relationship being nourished at a table; and learn from God, from sacred history and tradition and scripture as in a church.
Tracy Evans:
The garden...Creation that points to a creator. The table....fellowship, communion. A museum...history..standing on the shoulders of those who came before us, traditions. The Church..living the liturgy in our homes.
Danielle Cyrus:
[Regarding resistance] And then I think, creating the vision amongst my little people (or students in a school) maybe starts with these images? Invitation to the table; invitation into the garden to cultivate beauty and order; invitation into worship; invitation to look into the past?
Lynn Wilcox:
A monastery is PERFECT, just as a home from a previous era, as both were expected to be self-sufficient from income, to food, to education, to worship, etc.
Joellen Armstrong:
Surrounding the kids with beauty from nature, giving them guidance to the Father, giving them good things for life (table - food, stories, knowledge rooted in Truth, friendship), and being, & providing for them, spiritual mentorship...
Holly Karstens:
Cultivate, contemplate, nourish and glorify. Cultivate wisdom, contemplate beauty, nourish the soul and glorify God through it all.
Me:
Charlotte Mason says that there are three branches of knowledge: knowledge of man, creation, and God. Philosophy is split into three branches: moral, natural, and divine. Maybe a museum, a garden, a church correspond respectively. And a table represents community, communion, and celebration. All of these are practiced in obedience and worship.
Stacy LaPointe:
“In my literature classes we look at books through these philosophical lenses here--man versus self, man versus society, and man versus God.”
Rebecca McAllister:
“If school is a garden, a museum, a table and a church, then learning is to grow, to observe, to partake and to worship. How often do we neglect one or more of those components when attempting to teach?”
Rachel Goodman:
We often we find great truth in what *isn't* as well as what *is*. So...wee brainstorm...what does a monastery NOT have? I think the similarity is a good start to begin intentionally adding those things to our home and home education but I'm thoughtful about what intentionally needs to go.
In TLAT it says "The musical (coming from the same root word as "museum") education was an education in wonder. It formed the heart and the moral imagination of the youth... They taught passions more than skills and content. They sowed the seeds which would grow into a lifelong love of learning." "It is a total education including the heart—the memory and passions and imagination" and it is "an education in wonder through engagement with reality as a delightful living museum—engagement with...the songs, stories, and art of human culture."
The word museum comes from the "muses," right? And the muses deal with human endeavor/creativity. This video names 9 muses: history, poetry, epic poetry, astronomy, song, dance, tragedy, comedy, history, and hymns.
Imagine a table lacking no good thing: beautiful in its own right.
But man shall not live by bread alone. As indispensable as physical nourishment is, we need more. Our appetites yearn for more than meat and drink, for more than bread and cheese. Our natures yearn for knowledge and understanding, for something to learn and something to say.
“At the heart of any culture worthy of the name is not work but leisure, schole in Greek, a word that lies at the root of the English word ‘school.’ At its highest, leisure is contemplation. It is an activity that is its own justification, the pure expression of what it is to be human. It is what we do. The ‘purpose’ of the quadrivium was to prepare us to contemplate God in an ordered fashion, to take delight in the source of all truth, beauty, and goodness, while the purpose of the trivium was to prepare us for the quadrivium. The ‘purpose’ of the Liberal Arts is therefore to purify the soul, to discipline the attention so that it becomes capable of devotion to God; that is, prayer.”
"Liturgy therefore starts with remembrance. We do not make ourselves from nothing. To be here at all is a gift... The liturgy...is the ultimate school of thanks. In the circle of giving, receiving, and being given, the one divine essence is revealed as an eternal threefold liturgy of love, prayer, and praise. When we come to Mass--or to the nearest equivalent of that liturgy our faith permits--we should be able to experience a sense that here, at last, all the threads of our education are being brought together. If we don't, something is wrong with our education or our liturgy. Science and art, mathematics and ethics, history and psychology, the worlds of nature and the spirit, are all present in a liturgy that gives them a home and a meaning."
“Education begins in the Trinity. Praise (of beauty), service (of goodness), and contemplation (of truth) are essential to the full expression of our humanity. The cosmos is liturgical by its very nature.”
Each pair consists of one male and one female, and the set contains 25 pairs. It is surprising how different a male and female of the same species can appear, so it’s a bit more sophisticated than your average matching game. I was thrilled at how quickly Lola caught on and how much excitement she had over this game. The cards are beautiful and quite thick, and the drawings are absolutely lovely. [I think we may need the bingo game in this series next. Maybe Bugs!]
Just today, she was looking at another book and immediately recognized a puffin. Excitedly, she got out her bird cards and found the matching puffin card. I absolutely love these connections!
After enjoying the bird matching game, I decided to get out our very simple picture book About Birds (pictured above and below). Each page has very little text, but the illustrations are beautiful and each bird is identified. Several of the bird cards match up, so we had to get them out to compare.
At the end of the book, the authors provide a few pages with additional details about each bird.
Now we are reading An Egg is Quiet (pictured below). This whole series by Dianna Hutts Aston is exquisite, and A Nest Is Noisy is another perfect bird-love companion. They are like taking a peek into an incredible nature journal, with watercolor illustrations and charming text.
Each page gives details about eggs (bird and other kinds): shapes, textures, patterns, and more.
On the very last page, we see a two-page spread of animals that come from eggs. It looks like we have more matching to do tomorrow!
This delightful history of the alphabet belongs on every child’s book shelf next to The History of Counting (unattractive cover, but wonderful book) and About Time: A First Look at Time and Clocks. Ox, House, Stick details (with gobs of text and helpful, attractive illustrations) the history of our alphabet beginning with picture writing (Chinese, Sumerian, and Egyptian) and the various cultures from which we borrowed our alphabet (Rome, Greece, Phoenicia, Sinai Peninsula, and Egypt). The history of each letter of the English alphabet is then covered in surprising depth for a picture book! Tucked in with the history of each letter are short explanatory notes on topics such as the origin of the name “alphabet,” the order of the alphabet, consonants and vowels, reading left to right, writing materials, and Johannes Gutenberg.)
A step up from Ox, House, Stick, we have The Word Snoop. This is an illustrated chapter book that will enthrall any language-lover, young or old. Invent your own alphabet, find out why English is so strange, play games, crack codes, solve puzzles, and explore punctuation, anagrams, palindromes, oxymorons, puns, onomatopoeia, euphemisms, cliches, tautology, malapropisms, and so much more. My boys think this book is great fun!
Now that we have words, which one shall we use? The right one!
I can relate to Peter Roget. As a boy he loved books and he loved to write, but he didn’t write stories. He wrote lists! [My favorite assignment in my high school creative writing class was a list of things that made me smile.] Peter wrote lists of Latin words. Inspired by Linnaeus, Peter wrote lists of plants and animals. (Are you listening, CC students?) He saw Napoleon lead his troops through Paris. Peter (shy, though he was) had to give a presentation in front of a crowded room. He managed to speak “concisely, with clarity and conviction!” (Hello, alliteration!)
“In 1852, Roget published his Thesaurus, a word that means ‘treasure house’ in Greek.” Now everyone can find the right word whenever they need it!
This beautiful picture book is illustrated in a scrapbook style by one of my favorites, Melissa Sweet.
When the right words are put together, what do we have? creativity. poetry. magic.
In this gorgeous picture book, we meet e.e. cummings. E.E., Estlin, said his first poem at the age of three. His mother began writing down his poems.
“As Estlin grew, he drew many pictures from the great circus of his imagination. But even more than drawing elephants, trees, and birds, Estlin LOVED WORDS. What words say and how they sound and look. He loved the way them hum, buzz, pop, and swish.”
I can’t help it. Diagramming sentences is a blast. It’s a combination of word puzzle, language, logic, and art. What could be better? This book is an entertaining romp through the English language via the history of sentence diagramming and a wide variety of sentences (Groucho Marx, Lewis Carroll, Gertrude Stein, Henry James, Hemmingway, James Fenimore Cooper, Twain, Updike, Fitzgerald, and more).
“I do believe that clarity in speech and precision and consistency in writing will never cease to be important. Language exists so that we can communicate with each other, and surely it continues to be true that…we communicate better when we speak and write clearly, and that when we communicate better, we understand each other, and that when we understand each other, life in general is greatly improved.”
Yes, I realize it is the day before Thanksgiving. I’m so thankful for our relaxing Thanksgiving celebrations at my parents’ house just down the road. I’m making my traditional Orange Cream Souffle (mousse-like jell-o dessert) and baking Swedish Limpa (bread) today in preparation. I’m also taking pictures of my best friend’s kids this afternoon when we’ve finished with a few school lessons.
BUT, this is also the weekend for pulling all our Christmas books off the shelf! I cannot wait. I look forward to the Christmas books more than the decorating and music.
I noticed with excitement that two of my favorite out-of-print Christmas books are available used on Amazon for reasonable prices right at this moment (they’ve often been available only at much higher prices!). Snatch them up before they’re gone!
I’m slightly shocked that I made it to the end, since I’m not all that great at follow-through.
I hope that these Book Detectives posts have been helpful for a few of you. If nothing else, I hope it has taken a little of the intimidation out of analyzing picture books.
Remember, I don’t have the “right” answers. Literary analysis is not about right and wrong but about exploring the ideas in a book. You may come up with different conclusions about the conflict or the climax or the themes in a story, and that’s okay. I could be way off base on a few of these. [grin] The most important thing is that you go back to the text to support your ideas.
I tried to share a wide variety of styles and stories. In the coming year, I will try to share more chapter books as well as analysis using the 5 Common Topics and an ANI chart.
Did you have a favorite book that I shared? Did you try to go through the story and come up with your own analysis? I’d love to hear about it, especially if we have different ideas about the book!
I had to sneak in one more Barbara Cooney book before our series came to an end. In The Story of Holly & Ivy, a doll wishes for a girl, an orphan girl wishes for a doll and a grandmother, and a woman wishes for a girl. Fate brings them together on Christmas day. Cooney’s illustrations are a delight paired with the lengthy text.
“This is a story about wishing. It is also about a doll and a little girl. It begins with the doll.”
Crime Scene [Setting]
Where?
Mr. Blossom’s toy shop—window was lit and warm and decorated, in a little country town
St. Agnes’s—big house in the city, where 30 boys and girls had to live together
Mrs. Jones’s home
When?
Christmas Eve
1930s? (Judging by clothing)
Suspects [Characters]
Who?
Holly—doll, dressed for Christmas, 12 inches high, real gold hair, brown eyes that could open and shut, teeth like tiny china pearls, newest toy in toy shop, lonely
The other toys: Mallow and Wallow the baby hippopotamuses, Abracadabra the owl, Crumple the elephant, other dolls
Mr. Blossom—toy shop owner
Peter—shop boy, fifteen, red cheeks and a wide smile; he took good care of the toys; helpful
Ivy—little girl six years old with straight hair cut in a fringe, blue-gray eyes, and a turned-up nose; lonely, orphan
I cannot complete a series of picture books without including a book illustrated by Barbara Cooney. Not only is Barbara Cooney my favorite children’s book author-illustrator, but The Year of the Perfect Christmas Tree: An Appalachian Story is my favorite Christmas book. (And clearly I have a thing for books about Christmas trees!)
If Ruthie is the protagonist in this story, I think the conflict would be man vs. fate because she is praying and hoping her wishes come true (and Papa coming home is her biggest wish). Mama certainly is the one driving the action forward, though. Other than Papa’s homecoming, she works hard to meet everyone’s expectations. So is it man vs. self and Mama is the protagonist? I chose the moment they found the balsam tree on the ridge as the climax because the book is titled “The Year of the Perfect Christmas Tree.”
Last year I added Christmas Farm to our gigantic Christmas book collection, and it is now one of my favorites. I want to hop right into the dreamy world the illustrator has created, and the friendship between Wilma and her five-year-old neighbor, Parker, is absolutely lovely. Using the comparison in age between Parker and the trees is a brilliant way to illustrate the passage of time, and I love watching the tree farm grow through the various seasons.
This is a wonderful Book Detectives selection for younger kids during the holiday season, and evergreen seedlings would make a fantastic Christmas gift!
Crime Scene [Setting]
Where?
Wilma’s back hill
Charming countryside in northern USA (somewhere with four seasons and fireflies, whip-poor-wills, deer, bobolinks, and moose)
Real world—dreamy, cheerful, idealistic
When?
Modern world
Five years, through each season
The childhood of Parker (adulthood of Wilma)
Suspects [Characters]
Who?
Wilma—adult woman, doesn’t seem to have a family but looks older with her hair and clothing, kind, loves to garden, entrepreneur, enjoys celebrating
Parker—five year old boy (to ten years old), hard worker, patient, enjoys being and working outside
Yesterday I introduced author and illustrator Allen Say. Today we’ll explore his picture book Tree of Cranes as we segue into a few Christmas-themed picture books before ending this 31 Days series with a few simple chapter books.
This story is told in the 1st person, and we assume that the author is telling a story from his childhood. The scenery of a traditional Japanese home may fascinate children.
Origami cranes are an obvious craft to pair with this story, and children may be interested to know the 1000 Cranes Legend.
Is the protagonist the son or is it the mother? I think the mother needs to share her memories with her son.
Are traditions and memories important? Are they important to share with our children?
Is Christmas about more than trees and lights and gifts and love and peace?
Ah, Allen Say—yet another favorite picture book author and illustrator. He is best known and loved for his Caldecott Medal winner, Grandfather’s Journey. Say’s stories draw heavily from his own family background and childhood, which he shares in his mesmerizing illustrated autobiography, Drawing from Memory. As a child, he was shunned by his parents for following his dream of becoming an artist. This artistic tension is felt in each of his stories but perhaps most of all in The Sign Painter.
All of Allen Say’s picture books have a certain spare, quiet, mysterious, haunting, transient atmosphere, and The Sign Painter exhibits all of these qualities.
Who is the boy, where did he come from, and how old is he? Who is the sign painter? Where are they? Where are all the people? Who is the man who has hired them? Who is the woman? What is ArrowStar? Who will see the billboards? What is that strange construction in the desert? What is the mysterious man’s dream and will he succeed? Where is the boy going next?
We never know.
And we wonder, does an artist sacrifice his dream when he must answer to another man?
In Say’s books, characters often feel out of place, yearning for another home. In The Sign Painter we have the juxtaposition of two Japanese men in a remote Texas-like desert, billboards where no one will see them, a massive construction project (seemingly abandoned) where no one will travel, and a final scene from Edward Hopper’s famous painting Nighthawks (inspired by a diner in Manhattan).
I’d love to have a discussion with older students about the placement of the Edward Hopper painting at the end of the book.
Crime Scene [Setting]
Where?
Bus station, empty street, dark storefronts, sign shop
Remote desert (Texas? The sign painter wears a cowboy hat, belt buckle, denim jacket, and red scarf around his neck.)
A construction project in the middle of the desert—empty
Real world
When?
1900s (the truck and car are old-fashioned, Nighthawks was painted in 1942)
Suspects [Characters]
Who?
Young man/boy—Japanese, artist, painter, quiet
Sign painter—Japanese, quiet, minds his own business, kind
Benjamin West has a talent and a deep desire for drawing and painting, but the Quaker family and society into which he is born is very practical and Benjamin’s drawing leads him into mischief! Will they come to understand and value his abilities?
[This picture book includes three small reproductions of Benjamin West’s art, including his first painting, painted at age ten!]
Crime Scene [Setting]
Where?
Pennsylvania
West household
Real world, true story
When?
Colonial America
Mid-1700s, before the Revolutionary War
Benjamin’s whole boyhood
Suspects [Characters]
Who?
Benjamin West—young boy, loved to draw and paint, very talented, a little mischievous
The West family (Mama, Papa, John, Thomas, Samuel, Joseph, Rachel, Sarah, Hannah, Mary, and Elizabeth)—Quakers, stern
Baby Sally
Gray Wolf—Lanape “Indian,” lived in wigwam, sold baskets, kind and helpful
The Memory Coat by Elvira Woodruff tells the story of two young Jewish cousins, best friends and co-storytellers, who escape persecution in Russia by traveling to America with their family in the early 1900s.
I’m not at all certain I have the conflict correct. The family needs to pass inspection in America, and Grisha’s coat seems to be holding them back. But maybe I have it all backwards. Maybe Grisha is the protagonist and he needs to keep his coat (and with it, his memories to comfort him). However you look at it, Rachel propels the story forward and saves the day with her keen imagination. Her stories comfort friends, her stories solve conflicts, and her stories preserve memories. And yet, these stories seem to be made manifest in Grisha’s coat.
Crime Scene [Setting]
Where?
Russia, Jewish village (shtetl) with cobblestone streets and cold wooden houses
Ship
America, Ellis Island, NY—Inspection station
Real world
When?
1900ish
During reign of Nicholas I
Immigration to America
Months, winter?
On the ship for 14 days
Suspects [Characters]
Who?
Rachel—girl who loved to tell stories
Grisha—boy; cousin and friend to Rachel, adopted into her family; liked to draw pictures; quiet, sad; parents died
In our third book by Uri Shulevitz, The Treasure, a man named Isaac travels far only to find his treasure close to home. This brief, simple picture book is accessible for young children but deep enough for discussion with older students and adults.
Not only are the greatest treasures found where we least expect them, but how do we respond? In faith? With perseverance? In gratitude? Even towards those who seemed to stand in the way of the treasure we thought we wanted?
The repetition of words for his journey to the city and back home is lovely.
I’m not sure of the antagonist in this story. Is it man vs. fate (the voice in the dream and the unexpected messenger)? Is it man vs. self (believing in the dream and persevering to find the treasure)? You read it and decide.
Crime Scene [Setting]
Where?
A European village?
Countryside, forests, mountains
The capital city
When?
Long ago
Over a period of weeks?
Suspects [Characters]
Who?
Isaac—a poor man, hungry; full of faith, perseverance, and gratitude
And it’s a true story of a little boy torn from his home by the devastation of war—a true story about a hunger that bread cannot satisfy.
The best part is the final page of the book where the author tells his history, of fleeing Poland in 1939 and moving all over the world. He tells us that the story takes place when he is four or five years old and living in Turkestan. He also shares a picture of himself in Turkestan at the age of seven, a beautiful map of Africa that he drew at the age of ten, and a drawing of the marketplace in Turkestan that he drew from memory at the age of thirteen (while living in Paris).
Readers discover that Uri knows, from personal experience, that knowledge feeds the imagination for a lifetime. He grew up to become an award-winning author and artist.
Few picture books are written in 1st person, so this may be a good book to use for a point of view discussion.
Crime Scene [Setting]
Where?
“Far, far east, where summers were hot and winters were cold, to a city of houses made of clay, straw, and camel dung, surrounded by dusty steppes, burned by the sun.”
(City of Turkestan, in what is now Kazakhstan)
Small room, dirt floor, with strangers and no toys or books.
Arthur Ransome (author of the delightful Swallows and Amazons series) retells this outlandish Russian (tall) tale. The Fool of the World and the Flying Ship is illustrated by Uri Shulevitz and is the winner of the 1969 Caldecott Medal. [I’ll be sharing two more books written and illustrated by Shulevitz in the following days.]
Children may be interested to know that Arthur Ransome was an English author and journalist who travelled to Russia to study Russian folklore. He became a foreign correspondent during WWI and witnessed the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917.
If you have Amazon Prime, you can watch the Rabbit Ears production of The Fool and the Flying Ship (the version retold by Eric Metaxas) on Amazon streaming for free. It is read by Robin Williams and the voices are fantastic, as you can well imagine.
Older children could compare this folktale to other stories about “fools” who aren’t as foolish as others might think, such as Many Moons.
The Fool of the World and the Flying Ship tips its hand on the very first page:
“But however it was with his father and mother, this is a story that shows that God loves simple folk, and turns things to their advantage in the end.”
Much happens after the first page, however, and the long narrative of comical events may cause kids to forget the moral of the story by the time they reach the end.
Crime Scene [Setting]
Where?
Russia
Countryside—lots of fields full of crops
The Czar’s Palace—ornate, colorful
Clearly a fairy tale world where characters have supernatural abilities
When?
Long ago?
Summer? (the fields look ready to harvest)
Over a period of days?
Suspects [Characters]
Who?
Old peasant and his wife—showed favoritism to clever sons, ignored or were unkind to “foolish” simple son
Two clever brothers—obviously not so clever since they were never heard of again
The Fool of the World—simple, never did harm, cheerful, didn’t complain, followed instructions, merry, friendly
Czar—a bit foolish to offer his daughter for a flying ship, didn’t have integrity to honor his promise, prejudiced
Past the half-way mark and on the downhill slope! Whew! Anyone still with me?
I fell in love with King Arthur legends while devouring The Squire’s Tales YA series by Gerald Morris. In one of my favorite books of the whole series, The Savage Damsel and the Dwarf, Morris puts his own spin on Sir Thomas Malory’s story of Sir Beaumains and Dame Lyonesse from Book VII of Le Morte D’Arthur.
Many of you may be familiar with the gorgeous picture book Saint George and the Dragon, an adaptation of a story from Edward Spencer’s The Fairie Queen, retold by Margaret Hodges and illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman, but you may not know that this author and illustrator pair also collaborated on an equally lovely version of Sir Beaumains and Dame Lyonesse, The Kitchen Knight: A Tale of King Arthur.
The illustrations are rich, detailed, and beautiful, as is the writing.
“Then the knight of the blue pavilions clad all in blue armor came against Gareth, and Gareth rode against him with such force that their spears broke in pieces and their horses fell to the earth. But the two knights sprang to their feet and drew their swords and gave many great strokes until their shields and their armor were hewn to bits. At last, Sir Gareth gave such a blow that the blue knight begged for mercy, saying, ‘I and my five hundred knights shall always be at your command.’”
King Arthur legends are full of adventure, action, and romance. This picture book is one of the few King Arthur retellings that is completely appropriate for all ages. It also contains a short historical note on the original tale.
Crime Scene [Setting]
Where?
Medieval England
King Arthur’s stately castle
Countryside
Castle Perilous
When?
When the Round Table was in its glory (Medieval times)
Begins in springtime
Young man works in kitchen for a year before setting off on his adventure (which seems to take place over a week or so, but it could be much longer)
Suspects [Characters]
Who?
King Arthur—Loves feasts and hearing about adventures, a good sport
Stranger/(Sir) Gareth of Orkney—Goodly young fellow, friendly, modest, mild, big, broad, handsome, humble, compliant, kitchen boy, strong and capable, nephew to King Arthur, brave
(Dwarf—Stranger’s squire?)
Sir Lancelot—Kind and helpful, gentle, courteous
Sir Kay—Rude, angry, ill-mannered, Knight of the Round Table
