Flashback Friday: Richard Scarry's Cars and Trucks and Things That Go

The first time I stumbled upon Richard Scarry was way back in my babysitting days about 25 years ago. I remember that whichever small child I was watching at the time was completely mesmerized by all the bits of action, intricate details, and many, many captions attached to the various objects. I remember thinking, even at age 13ish, what a brilliant concept for a young children's book. Tiny vehicles, animals that drive, labels on everything...a perfect reading companion for nearly any toddler or preschooler.

Fast forward 20 years to my youngest child's toddlerhood, a child whose first word was car, who played with Matchbox cars religiously from less than one year old. Richard Scarry's Cars and Trucks and Things that Go arrived for his second birthday and remained close at hand for years. I can't even tell you how many times I read that long, long book at bedtime. (It takes serious time to read ALL. those. labels.) Richard Scarry's Cars and Trucks and Things that Go is still a favorite that makes a frequent appearance. And I can definitely foresee it being one of those beloved books that remains on his teenage bookshelf and eventually is carried off to his adulthood to be saved for his own children someday.

I Kill the Mockingbird

If there was ever a novel written for the spark of a 12 year old who remains inside me, it might be I Kill the Mockingbird. A book written about a classic with references to many other books in nearly every chapter, love. I Kill the Mockingbird details the rather ordinary lives of 3 young teens. The each love classic literature; a love not shared by many in their English class especially when the summer reading list is delivered. In homage to a former (deceased) English teacher who planned to only assign To Kill a Mockingbird for summer reading, they search for ways to bring the spotlight back to this beloved American classic, including reshelving copies of the book in their local bookstores and libraries and starting a website titled IKillTheMockingbird.com. Once social media begins chattering about I Kill the Mockingbird, their scheming moves like wildfire beyond the borders of their state and through various parts of the country. Ultimately, these young teens must decide how to handle the firestorm they've created and keep To Kill a Mockingbird from disappearing from bookstores altogether.

I Kill the Mockingbird perfectly blends humor and thoughtfulness bringing alive young teens in a novel that's not quite middle grade and not quite YA, a nice bridge actually for 7th-9th graders who might have moved beyond standard MG but not be quite ready for the heady topics often present in YA novels. The two quotes I'm posting below are perfect examples of the witty, intelligent writing that make IKM a page-turning, fun read:

"We will speak for the books." 
... 
"Like the Lorax?" 
"The Lorax speaks for the trees," I remind her. 
"Books are made out of paper. Paper is made out of trees." 
"What about e-books?" 
"We can speak for them too." 
"Audiobooks?" 
"Audiobooks speak for themselves." She grins. "Get it?" 

"Where did you hide your Mockingbirds?" he asks. 
"Ornithology," she replies. 
"You hid TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD with the bird books?" I ask. 
Elena shrugs. "I was being ironic."

Flashback Friday: Rikki Tikki Tavi

I think we'll start a new series here on The Book Children. There are so many great classics and otherwise unknown or forgotten books written many moons ago. Each Friday, we'll feature one of those oldie-but-goodie books here on Flashback Friday.

I admit to never having heard the story of Rikki Tikki Tavi before about 18 months ago. I happened to be hunting through Audible.com for inexpensive classics for my audiobook-loving kids. I found Rikki Tikki Tavi for less than a buck and decided to buy it. Apparently that was a wise decision; they've listened to it approximately 39,837 times since then.

Rikki Tikki Tavi is the thrilling adventure of a brave mongoose who defends his human family from the garden cobras. The language in this story beautifully rolls off the tongue, just begging to be read aloud. Rikki Tikki prevents the garden cobras from harming the family he lives with in the jungles of India. Aside from a few harrowing scenes of animal violence (the mongoose kills cobra eggs, agitating the mother cobra, and the human child is threatened by one of the cobras), the tale superbly depicts loyalty, courage, and bravery while accurately portraying animal behaviors and the wilds of India.

In addition to the paperback version offered at The Book Children Store, you can purchase a Kindle version for free or an Audible (mp3) version for less than $2.

a Mother's Day book list

To celebrate Mother's Day, I'd like to share a list of my favorite books about mothers and their special relationship with their children. Although there are many lovely books in publication depicting mothers, these are a few of my person favorites. I hope you find an old favorite or a new gem among this list.

Time for Bed - Although this book doesn't specifically address mothers, the pictures depict a sweet interaction between an animal mother and her baby on each double page spread. The text on each is a rhyming lullaby to help baby to sleep and expresses a lovely sentiment. All of my babies loved this bedtime story, and I always enjoyed reading it to them.

Owl Babies - I didn't discover this gem until my youngest was a baby, but it quickly became a favorite. It succinctly addresses the fear of many little ones when mommy is gone, whether it's to the store for a quick trip, or to the bathroom with--horror of horrors--the door closed. Even though my baby is now 7, he still reaches for this book on occasion.

Are You My Mother? - This is the only book on the list that I remember and love from my own childhood. A baby bird's search for his mother is complicated by the fact that he isn't quite sure what she looks like. Hilarity ensues and makes for a perfect first reader for the preschool or early elementary set.

The Kissing Hand - My daughter discovered this book when she was 3, and it became a nightly read for her. Although the separation mentioned in this book is because of school, many children relate to the notion of holding onto their mother's kisses regardless of why they are separated. My youngest did a unit of this during kindergarten, and it quickly became a favorite of his as well.

Ramona and Her Mother - Ramona is 7 (and a half!) in this Ramona book and struggling a bit with growing up. She's jealous of her older sister and discovering that families occasionally have problems. Her relationship with her mother is going through some changes as well, and Ramona can't understand why she can't just remain her mother's little girl. Fortunately, Cleary provides hope for all children who feel misunderstood. As children grow older and the relationship with their mothers evolve, Ramona and Her Mother does an excellent job of helping them navigate those sometimes turbulent years.

Little Women - Little Women. How could any list of books about motherhood not include the loving, progressive Marmee. A pillar of strength in time of trouble, Marmee represents the best attributes of all of our mothers. Marmee is wise, steadfast, hard-working, a counsellor in time of trouble. She has strong principles and believes that the poorest members of society are just as important as the wealthiest. She raises her daughters to chase their dreams and believe in their talents. In my opinion, Marmee is the perfect role model of motherhood, yet even she admits she used to have a temper.

Betsy-Tacy

For more than a year now, Elizabeth and I have been slowly reading through the Betsy-Tacy series, whenever we have a few minutes to read together. The book begins in the early 1900s when Betsy and Tacy are 5 years old. Elizabeth was 11 when we began reading the first book, and I feared that she might think the book about 5 year old friends too juvenile for her advanced 11 years. I needn't have worried. She and I both were immediately caught up in the delight of Betsy's and Tacy's world.

Hill Street came to regard them almost as one person. Betsy’s brown braids went with Tacy’s curls, Betsy’s plump legs with Tacy’s spindly ones, to school and from school, up hill and down, on errands and in play. So that when Tacy had the mumps and Betsy was obliged to journey alone, saucy boys would tease her: Where’s the cheese, apple pie?” Where’s the mush, milk?” As though she didn’t feel lonesome already! ~ Betsy-Tacy

The language is beautiful, full of colorful early-1900s phrases and descriptions, and the illustrations by Lois Lenski fit the characters perfectly. The entire Betsy-Tacy series reminds me of what the Little House books might have been if the Ingalls family lived in a town instead of on the prairie.

Now that we are on the 5th book in the series, I can really appreciate how Maud Hart Lovelace expands their world over the years, from just their homes and street at ages 5-6 to the neighborhood beyond theirs at age 8 to the high school with its expansion of friends and activities. I also appreciate that it gives me a gentle book to introduce my own fledgling teenage girl to the world of boys and relationships with the innocence of that time. When we read the line, "she tried to conceal her gratification at having a masculine escort", Elizabeth and I laughed and laughed. Some of the language and even the perspective of that time just sounds so foreign and humorous to us now.

We didn't begin reading with a nice vintage set like some of the photos I've seen, but after an inexpensive Kindle purchase for the first book, we bought the Betsy-Tacy Treasury for the next few books. Since then we've stuck with that printing of the series, although you can get the first book, which I would highly recommend as a read aloud for any boy or girl between the ages of 5-10, for a bargain at Amazon right now.

Thornton Burgess treasures

If you were to ask my mother what books stand out most from her childhood, I'm willing to bet that she would start regaling you with stories of Thornton Burgess' Old Mother West Wind and her many animal friends. Her father used to read the stories to her as a young child, many of them published when he was a young child, and they clearly held a special place in her childhood. I'm not sure how then it came to be that I remember no Thornton Burgess books from my own childhood. Nevertheless, the tales of my grandfather reading these stories and my mother loving them stuck with me and about the time my first child was born, I decided to scour ebay and find a few copies of Thornton Burgess books for my own library.

Of course, what I ended up with, since I found them on ebay, were books a little too old and fragile for a small child to handle, and since I read the books on my own, and loved them, I decided to find a more user-friendly copy for my children to handle. Lo and behold, now you can buy this little tidy set of Old Mother West Wind and 6 Other Stories for a song in a slim, reprinted set.

I began reading them to my older children several years ago, and of course they adored each story, each character, each insight into the animal world, each sly trick the animals would play on each other. What depth, charisma and sweetness Burgess gave to these adorable, intriguing characters with names like Johnny Chuck, Bobby Coon, and Red Fox.

Now that Finn has started enjoying just listening to books that don't always have pictures, I've started reading the books aloud to him at naptimes. He's always full of questions about why the animals act a certain way or how the Merry Little Breezes pull Johnny Chuck's whiskers. I'm so glad he enjoys them. Maybe one day he'll even tell his own children how much he enjoyed reading Thornton Burgess curled up next to his mama at naptime. That's a nice full circle to envision.

Ruth Krauss favorites

The first time I remember seeing this book was as an adult and it caught my eye because the boy on the cover so closely resembled the boy from my beloved The Little Fish That Got Away. There's a very good reason for that! It turns out that Crockett Johnson illustrated both books. Not only that, but he was married to Ruth Krauss, the author of The Carrot Seed, which is one of the longest published children's book. This lovely classic has been in print continuously since 1945!

Once I fell in love with the boy character similarity, I realized the text of the book is amazingly similar in style to the fishing book as well. I really like that simple repetitious text of many early children's books. It makes for a great first reading book.

The artwork is quite lovely in it's simplicity as well. I think you can really concentrate on the important points when you aren't bombarded by thousands of pictorial details on a single page. (Not that those books don't have their place too, as evidenced by Finn's love of Findus and Pettson.)

Another one of my favorite Ruth Krauss books is The Backward Day. Most children seem to love to see the ordinary turned extraordinary and having an entirely backward day is certainly extraordinary!

Finn giggles with glee when we get to the page where the boy puts his underwear on over his clothes. Oh, the humor of it all!

The illustration in this book is classic 1950s from the tablecloth to the hairstyles to the narrow variety of color. I love it! I also think it's very special to see the family of this little boy participate in his backward day and not just stare oddly at him. How refreshing for little readers to think they can mix up life and have their family joyously participate.

And "when backward day is done, backward day is done." And everyone just goes about their business like it's an ordinary day after all.

Mary Poppins

Elizabeth and I read Mary Poppins together a few months ago and I'm not sure why it's taken me so long to post it here. I hadn't read the book before although the movie was a childhood favorite. Elizabeth has also seen the movie many times so it was fun to discover the book together.

About 2 chapters in, Elizabeth told me that she didn't really want to read the book because "the book Mary Poppins is mean." I have to say that I kind of agreed with her. Not to mention she was a bit confused that the musical completely excluded the twin baby siblings of Jane and Michael. I think Disney (for all their failures..ahem..Little Mermaid) did a good thing by softening the personality of Mary Poppins for the musical. Mary Poppins, of the musical, was the adult caretaker of my childhood dreams, whereas the P.L. Travers-created character was coarse, gruff and not particularly nice, really. Ultimately, Elizabeth and I are both glad that we stuck through the book for a few reasons.

We were both fascinated to hear the specific stories that meant the most to us (the arrival of Mary Poppins for me, and the bird lady for Elizabeth) through the lens of the book, with Mary's true personality intact.

We also found a great many stories of Mary's time with the Banks' children, that were missing from the musical version, to be fun and engaging, like the late night visit to the zoo. Interestingly, despite the harsher character of Mary Poppins in the book, when I asked Elizabeth if she preferred the book to the movie, she chose the book because of the extra stories like the zoo and the laughing gas which were excluded from the movie.

Little House on the Prairie

What is the first thought that enters your head when you hear the words, "Little House on the Prairie"? I can scarcely ever hear those words without the theme song from the tv show entering my head. I know that not much can be written about Little House that hasn't been written before, but my kids are very much in a Little House phase right now, so here we are.

This evening during our family reading time, we will finish On The Banks of Plum Creek. We have been wading through the Little House series for more than a year now, with breaks between each book to bounce around to other literature. Last night, when I asked the kids what they would like to read next, all 3 of the older kids immediately replied, "the next Little House book."

And so I wondered, what is it about these books that remains timeless and appealing to my 21st century family. Even though we choose to live more simply than many folks in this day and age, we are a far cry from uprooting our family to travel via horse-drawn wagon across the countryside, living in a wagon until a new house can be built, and foraging/planting/hunting all of our own foods. Is it the real-life adventures by children so similar to them, yet so foreign in experiences? Is it the unflagging earnestness with which the Ingalls faced each hardship? Is it the secret naughtiness that Laura sometimes wishes she could express that they can identify with?

What do you think? What in this series still holds appeal for you and your children?

As a side note, the My First Little House books are a wonderful introduction to the magic of the Ingalls family for young children. We've purchased several used and they are all thoroughly enjoyed.

The illustrations are very true to the original style of Garth Williams' illustrations which lends a level of authenticity to the picture books that might be otherwise lacking.

Even though we buy these with Finn in mind, I often catch the older kids reading them and pouring over the illustrations. I think they wish they could visit this unusually magical, yet sometimes stark and frightening, place in time.

Shakespeare...comic book style?

Shakespeare doesn't strike me as the type of stuff you read via comic strip, but I'm willing to give it a fair shake if my kids become interested in Shakespeare as a result. So when I saw this book on the shelf at our favorite local used bookstore, I was intrigued to put it mildly. Elizabeth, who attends an art school which instills a love of Shakespeare at an early age anyway, practically squealed when I handed it to her.

Marcia Williams apparently has quite the repertoire of comic book style illustrated classics, which I discovered after googling this book. What a fun introduction to the classics for the millennial generation, raised on Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Ugly Doll comics. With quotes from the plays and her own narration at the bottom of the pictures, Williams does a great job bringing the text to elementary level without making the style seem compromised.

I really love the illustration of Macbeth. The darker haze as a backdrop to each illustration really lends the perfect mood.

Elizabeth was particularly excited that A Midsummer Night's Dream was included since next year as a fifth grader she'll be performing this play with her class at school. Because each section of the comic strip is made to look like the staged play, I think it really gives them a good feel for watching the play performed, but in a kid-friendly manner.

Are any classics popular in your house right now?