What’s hard for kids to recognize – hell, what’s hard for people to recognize – is that we’re living through history right this minute. That, someday, there’s going to be a kid, bored of his mind, doodling in the margins of his brain tablet (or whatever space technology kids are learning on in the future), barely listening to his teacher drone on and on about ‘the geopolitical ramifications of US drone strikes in 2014’ or – in deference to today’s book – ‘Let’s compare and […]
Cannonball Accomplished :)
It’s the summer of 1927, and Winter Magnusson is one of San Francisco’s top bootleggers. He runs both quality fish and top-shelf booze in from the California coast, and it’s worth the top dollar he can charge for it – no bathtub gin to be found here. He seems well-known and respected in the community, even if he’s got a suspicious accident in his past, and a scar on his face as a constant reminder. He’s also got a supernatural hit out on him, and […]
The simplest of illustrations, and a book’s worth of confusion is born.
In Amy Krouse Rosenthal and Tom Lichtenheld’s Duck! Rabbit!, we start off with an unusual conundrum: Nobody is really sure what the main character actually is. We’re pretty sure it’s an animal. Of some sort. We’ve got it narrowed down to two, but that’s as close as we can guess. S/he could be a duck – see there? The bill, and the bread eating? or S/he could be a rabbit – only witness the carrot snack and the long, pointed ears. There’s really no telling, […]
Futher adventures in children’s poetry
I think the best part about books of poems written for children is that the poets allow themselves to be unabashedly inspirational or absurd. They let themselves go past the limits of ‘ordinary’, into territory that’s considered too sentimental or ridiculous for grown-ups: When it comes to writing for children – particularly writing poems for children – there are no such boundaries. The less ‘normal’ the better, the more sweet or shocking, the more relate-able, it seems. And someone who’s figured this out pretty well […]