I've said it before, but I keep finding new evidence: There's something special about Australian-born picture-book authors and illustrators. (For anyone who hasn't read my prior encomiums on this subject, the short version: Check out the work of Martine Murray, Sophie Blackall, and Freya Blackwood for starters.)
The most recent example is a new favorite of our three-year-old's, No Bears, written by Meg McKinlay and illustrated by Leila Rudge, in which a girl named Ella—one of those matter-of-fact, feisty girls Australia is apparently full of, given how perfectly the nation's authors capture the type—tells us about the book she's writing. It's an adventure story about a princess, but this narrator wants to make things clear from the start: There will be no bears in this tale, because "I'm tired of bears. Every time you read a book, it's just BEARS BEARS BEARS—horrible furry bears slurping honey in awful little caves. You don't need BEARS for a book."
And she goes on to prove the point: Her princess is kidnapped by a terrible monster, then rescued by a fairy godmother, without a bear to be seen. Well, except for that one outside the "frame" of the illustrations, who seems to be helping Ella create both the story and the art. And who also seems to step into the story herself momentarily to save the day when that fairy godmother has misplaced her wand. And who can be seen at the end telling all Ella's characters what really happened. But other than that, nope, no bears here at all.
No Bears is sweet, it's funny, it's clever, and it's visually imaginative. In other words, it's everything I've come to expect from a picture book from Australians!
I'm starting to be grateful that my kids and I speak the same language Australians do, and can thus easily enjoy the uniquely imaginative creative works natives of that country are creating for children. The Upside Down Show,Martine Murray's Henrietta series, the illustrations of Sophie Blackall and Freya Blackwood—the list goes on and on.
Australian writer Libby Gleeson's Half a World Away(which was illustrated by Blackwood), a lovely, dreamy treatment of the childhood-friend-moves-away trope, is another product of Down Under that's become a family favorite. So we were eager to read her latest, The Great Bear, which features dark, evocative illustrations by Armin Greder, as you can see from the cover.
And that's appropriate, for this is a far darker book than Half a World Away. Set in an ambiguous time and place that feels like Europe before the Industrial Revolution, it's about a circus bear whose existence is not pleasant. The bear is dragged from town to town, then made to dance in front of jeering, often abusive crowds. Until one day, that is, when he decides he's had enough—and lets out a huge roar that frightens the audience away before simply floating up into the sky to join the stars, in a series of wordless pages reminiscent of the art-only sections of The Invention of Hugo Cabret. (Though in fact, The Great Bear's use of this technique came first—it first appeared in Australia back in 1999.)
The book's end notes explain that this story is based on a dream Gleeson had (dreams played a significant role in Half a World Away as well), and Greder's illustrations reflect that, going from slightly nightmarish to open reverie as the plot unfolds. The dark setting is a bit eyebrow-raising for a children's picture book, and I can imagine some of the younger set finding it all frightening, but our three-year-old was riveted (in a good way). And the surreal denouement is quite beautiful to watch unfold, for child and parent alike.
Like Gleeson's earlier book, The Great Bear uses words and images to express a combination of consciousness and subconsciousness, in a unique way. I think many kids—and many adults—will be irresistibly drawn to it, as we've been.
You know how, at certain points in parenthood, you foolishly think you have it all down? Having covered this beat in its various forms for more than five years now, I was pretty sure I knew all the good children's shows currently on TV. In fact, I figured that everyone else knew about them too, and that posts on this blog singing the praises of The Backyardigans, say, would be at best preaching to the choir, and at worst pointlessly redundant.
But as often happens in parenting—at least, to me—a recent event has shocked me out of confident complacency. Having long been vaguely aware of something called The Upside Down Show amid the sea of Nick Jr. programming, we finally stopped long enough to watch an episode. (No surprise: This adventure into the unknown was entirely kid-driven.) In an instant, it became everyone's new favorite kids' TV show.
To the similarly uninitiated: The Upside Down Show, a live-action program, stars two Australian "brothers," Shane and David (their real names, though they're not real brothers). They live in a house full of unusual rooms and creatures that they themselves haven’t fully explored; each episode is based around their efforts to find a specific room, which they do with some difficulty.
The viewer is invited to help them by using an imaginary remote control, about which David gives instructions at the start of each show. (The overall interactive effect is much like Blue's Clues as reimagined by Pee-wee Herman.) This "remote" provides the impetus for physical comedy: Sometimes the viewer is asked to use the traditional buttons—fast-forward, pause, rewind, etc.—and the duo responds accordingly. Sometimes David discovers a previously unknown button that has a special effect of its own—say, “humongous,” which makes everything really big. And always, there’s the button Shane warns the viewer not to push, which of course inevitably does get pushed. (Personal favorite: the “Irish dancing” button.)
I should add that Shane Dundas and David Collins originally made their name worldwide as the Umbilical Brothers, a comedy stage show for adults that was known for its imagination, stagecraft, and showmanship—precisely the qualities that make The Upside Down Show so remarkable. Their execution of the remote-related antics makes this the kind of kids' TV that stops parents in our tracks, mesmerizing us just as it does our children. I'm pretty sure our boys are more obsessed with the show than we are—we find them laughing over Shane and David's routines randomly at the breakfast table sometimes—but occasionally I do wonder.
And as if it weren't already hip enough, The Upside Down Show also has classic cult cred. Despite critical acclaim on its debut in 2006, it wasn't renewed, and so the one season of 13 sparkling episodes is all there is; it's just those 13 reruns that are turning up now on Nick Jr. (As the time slots it gets on the network become more and more desirable, I'm thinking that, like many a lauded but underwatched show, this one is having a successful afterlife; it's of course also available now on video.)
So, to sum up: endlessly clever and imaginative writing; performances that kids flip over; smart slapstick and humor that will make the adults in the room laugh out loud; and you can feel as cool and in-the-know for watching it as you did as an early adopter of Arrested Development (well, almost). How did it take us so long to find this show?
(Here's a short taste of the duo—from their Umbilical Brothers guise, but it'll give you a good idea what the kids' stuff is like too:)
The last of my trends relating to books I encountered last year builds on a discovery from my Cookie magazine years: Australian author Martine Murray's Henrietta: There's No One Better. (Say it with an Australian accent and it rhymes!) In a first-person-narrated stream of consciousness without any real plot, Murray crystalizes perfectly the energy, the randomly logical thought patterns, of a certain type of preschool girl we've all run across. Her accompanying illustrations, best described as "childlike with attitude," are equally spot-on. Often laugh-out-loud funny, with dazzling wordplay that always remains true to its protagonist's age and personality, the book remains among the best I've seen at capturing the essence of a child's character. (It shares something with Lauren Child's Charlie & Lola and Clarice Bean series in this regard.)
So I was thrilled to see two sequels from Murray arriving on these shores last year. And while the surprise factor—just at the author's amazing ability to pull this voice off so well—may be a thing of the past, both Henrietta the Great Go-Getter and Henrietta Gets a Letterare otherwise as delightful as the original, giving readers craving more of Henrietta exactly that.
Now, while I did notice that Henrietta shares certain of the more effusive, enthusiastic aspects of her personality with my Australian friends (there's one in particular I'm thinking of; she probably knows who she is on the off chance she's reading this), I had not at first thought of the qualities that set Murray's books apart as quintessentially Australian. Until, that is, a bit later last year, when I ran across Chris McKimmie's Two Peas in a Pod, on the surface a very different book from the Henrietta ones. For one thing, it has a plot—it's an entry in the classic "best friend moves away" genre. But it features an undeniably similar energy, and it likewise captures the mindset and point of view of a child marvelously through McKimmie's writing and vivid, expressive, often page-packing illustrations.
Combine this revelation with my previously expressed regard for Australian illustrators like Sophie Blackall and Freya Blackwood (whose lovely Half a World Away even covers the same subject as McKimmie's book; I guess friends' moving far away is a particularly common issue for Australian kids?), and I'm fully expecting a full-scale Australian invasion in kid lit any day now.
And that does it for my meandering path through my favorite new kids' books of 2010!
[Images: Courtesy of Independent Publishers Group]
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