Security Blanket: Mad at Mommy

I don't know if Komako Sakai's 2010 picture book Mad at Mommy will be considered a classic or not, but as far as we're concerned, it oughta be. Our four-year-old has recently rediscovered it and taken it very much to heart.

In a way, the title (along with one's expectations that a picture book for young kids will generally have a happy ending) reveals all you need to know about the plot: Our protagonist, a young bunny, is angry at his mommy bunny for...well, all sorts of terribly unjust things. She sleeps late sometimes and makes him wait for breakfast. She hogs the TV for boring adult programs so he can't watch cartoons. She even says he can't marry her when he grows up. In fact, he's so mad at her that he decides to leave home. Which he does. For a minute, anyway.

This is, of course, well-travelled territory for kids' picture books, with Where the Wild Things Are

the most famous example. As always in such cases, it's the author's execution that makes a take on the standard exceptional; Sakai is particularly talented at imbuing her bunny characters with emotion via their facial expressions—the slow burn of the seething kid bunny, the sympathetic-but-not-without-effort mommy bunny. The effect is to give Mad at Mommy a realistic feel—since we've all, parents and kids, been there many, many times—that brings a smile to recognition to all and, thanks to the expected turn at the end, still delivers on the warm fuzzies.

As for why Griff has suddenly taken hard to Sakai's book...well, we're just going to leave that one alone as long as we can.

[Cover image courtesy of Arthur A. Levine Books]

Security Blanket: Lego Harry Potter for iPad

Well, I had intended, in advance of our family's recent vacation in western Ontario (where, I was warned by my in-laws, Internet service might be spotty at best), to bank a number of posts to be automatically posted while I was gone. But amid the frenetic planning that always precedes family vacations, those intentions fell by the wayside, and the result has been a long gap between posts, even by my fairly laid-back standards.

So I'm going to be posting a little more frequently than usual for what remains of July, to try to make up for that (as well as to get my total posts for the month in the column on the right to a slightly less embarrassing number). I'll plunge into the new stuff—of which there's plenty to catch up on—a little later this week, but today I'd like to simply express my gratitude to a video game.

You see, thanks to the joint efforts of our original major airline (which canceled our 6 a.m. flight at about 11 p.m. the night before, well after we'd gone to bed in preparation for a very early trip to the airport, and thus too late to notify us in time to prevent us from getting up at 3 a.m.) and the other major airline we were then transferred to (which, after several hours of weather-related delays, boarded us onto a plane that, as the pilots discovered while taxiing to the runway, had a mechanical problem that required another couple of hours to fix, and apparently had no other planes on hand that could be substituted for it), we spent a bit over 10 hours in the Minneapolis airport before finally taking off in a functioning aircraft. (I leave the major carriers nameless because, let's face it, these days it could have happened—does happen, routinely—on any of them.)

All of which, with a seven-year-old and a three-year-old in tow, could have been a complete nightmare—but for my iPad and the LEGO Harry Potter game I'd loaded onto it a while back, for just such occasions. It kept our older son mesmerized for most of those hours, and our younger one (mostly just watching!) for a decent number of them as well. It was still not exactly a fun day, of course, for any of us, but it could have—and not that long ago would have—been far worse. And for that, makers of Lego Harry Potter (ooh, I see the second game in the series has come to iOS now as well!), we cannot thank you enough.

[Image courtesy of TT Games]

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Security Blanket: Hands

We've recently reached yet another fascinating stage (aren't they all, really?) of parenting: Our three-year-old, Griffin, is starting to pick his way through many of the books his older brother, Dash, read back when he was three. It's interesting to see which he loves more than Dash did, and which of the old favorites he has little time for; there are ample examples of both. But the best endorsement our family can now give a children's book is that both kids have independently taken it to their hearts.

Hands: Growing Up to Be an Artist, by Lois Ehlert, is a 2004 book we'd almost forgotten about—it's been that long since Dash read it much. But Griff picked it off the shelf recently, and now it's again one of the new regulars at bedtime.

It's written from the perspective of a girl whose mother and father both work around the house in various handy, crafty ways—painting, sewing, building, planting. Ehlert illustrates this abstractly with busy close-up photo-collages of the materials and items being worked on, and cutouts of the different types of work gloves they use. The narrator then explain how she's been allowed to pitch in and learn how to do all these tasks, with a work space and tools of her own. The book ends with a series of work gloves that tie mother, father, and daughter together: one big crafty family.

This message of family creativity is, of course, nearly irresistible to parents of a certain bent, and this could have been one of those books that the adults adore but the kids are bored by. But Dash seized upon it as a toddler and didn't let go for years; it was a recurring favorite for a long, long time. Now Griff has done the same, and despite being a very different personality, seems to respond just the same way Dash did to Ehlert's simple text and multifaceted collages. 

The book also seems to magically survive toddler reads in a way most books with cutouts don't—somehow, mysteriously, those work-glove pages don't have torn fingers. Since Hands is not made of heavy-duty cardboard or anything like that, I can only attribute this to a weird respect the boys have for the book...realizing as I type it how very bizarre that statement is!

[Cover image courtesy of Harcourt Children's Books]

Security Blanket: 365 Penguins

Three-year-old Griffin is at the stage with books where I can hardly keep up with his current favorites—they literally seem to change every day. But there are a handful I can always rely on his continuing to ask to be read to him at bedtime. One is the oversize 2006 instant classic 365 Penguins, by the French team of Jean-Luc Fromental and Joelle Jolivet.

I remember being struck by the book when it first came out—it was a favorite of Griff's older brother, Dash, back then—and thinking that it has a lot going for it. First, there's the design: huge spreads of graphic black, white, and orange, depicting an ever-growing population of penguins sent, day by day over the course of a year, to an unsuspecting nuclear family's home. There's the learning aspect: The whole book is in fact a beautifully designed series of multiplication lessons, as the family uses math to figure out the best way to efficiently house, feed, and just plain deal with their new avian companions. There's the surprise environmentalist ending, featuring the eccentric ecologist Uncle Victor and a polar bear. There's even the Where's Waldo?-esque game the author and illustrator subtly slip in, involving a single blue-footed penguin named Chilly.

Thanks to all of that, 365 Penguins grabbed us from the start, and it's never let go. Dash still enjoys leafing through it at seven, and by the time Griff got to it, it was already on the hallowed Sendak-Dr. Seuss shelf. Which is exactly where it belongs, I think.

[Cover image courtesy of Abrams Books for Young Readers]

Security Blanket: Some Things Are Scary

Good picture books—all books, really, I suppose—are usually equal parts brilliant concept and brilliant execution, but most lean more heavily on one or the other. The concept of Some Things Are Scary, a book originally released in 1969 but recently reissued, is simple enough: It's a book about scary things (real-life ones; this is not, as I misunderstood from the title at first, a Halloween book!). But it has a leg up on most of its subgenre: it was written by Florence Parry Heide, veteran author of classics like the Treehorn trilogy, and illustrated by Jules Feiffer, whose work on The Phantom Tollbooth and many other children's books is just one portion of an iconic career.

What this means in practice is that a seemingly straightforward idea is surprisingly clever, imaginative, and expressive. Each sentence of the book is simply something a kid would find scary—say, discovering the hand you're holding isn't Mommy's after all—but Heide keeps the throughline unpredictable, jumping smartly from personal, concrete fears (strange food on the dinner plate) to social anxieties (worry over being the last kid picked in pickup team sports) to kid existential angst (finding out your best friend has...another best friend) and then back to the concrete again.

Meanwhile, Feiffer visualizes every one of these fears in his inimitable fashion, capturing the feeling behind each with uncanny precision. (Click on the image below to see better what I mean.) He also imparts his usual wry humor, somehow without ever undercutting the validity of the feelings he's portraying. He's laughing with, not at, the situations, which allows parents to smile in recognition (and even personal remembrance in many cases), while kids can see that they're not the only ones who feel the way they feel.

It's nothing fancy—just a breath of fresh air in what could have been just another stale go at a common picture-book subject. And it's a testament to what kid-lit royalty is capable of. Indeed, it's evidence of why and how they became royalty in the first place.

[Photos: Whitney Webster]

Security Blanket: Franklin's Big Dreams

It seems all our two-year-old's favorite books right now are about dreams. (It's really kind of fascinating.) Maurice Sendak's In the Night Kitchen—always a favorite of mine back when I was around his age, too—has become a nightly event before bedtime, along with another similarly magical book that came out last year: Franklin's Big Dreams, by David Teague, with illustrations by Boris Kulikov.

It's about a young boy who, upon going to bed one night, is confronted with a construction crew (shades of the opening of Time Bandits, though with more purely benign results). He's understandably surprised, but the workmen ignore him and proceed with their work laying tracks; when they finish, a train roars through the room. After it passes, the crew disassembles the track and our hero is left to dream of trains. The next week, it happens again, this time with a runway and a plane, and the following week it's a canal and a cruise ship. Each time, Franklin notices familiar figures on the various vehicles that he can't quite make out, including one very familiar one. Finally he gleans what's happening and is able to use the mysterious occurrences to go somewhere he's always dreamed of going.

Teague's text and Kulikov's suitably dreamy art work together marvelously. The words are as simple and matter-of-fact as dreams usually are in tone (that feeling that even when nothing makes any sense, everything is also somehow normal), while the illustrations are warmly dramatic and mysterious, full of possibility. There's a magic to Franklin's Big Dreams that's spot-on for this subject matter, and as with Sendak's classic, Griffin clearly finds that invigorating, asking for it to be read to him over and over again before settling in for his own evening of dreamscapes.

[Cover image courtesy of Hyperion Books.]

Security Blanket: Pictures from Our Vacation

There are kids' books that you just know are going to be family favorites from the get-go, the ones whose covers grab you and never let you go. Then there are the quiet ones that get into the inner circle gradually, hanging on for renewed wave after wave of bedtimes as your kids get older, remaining favorites even as they lose interest in the rest. These are the survivors, and like old teddy bears, they become the most treasured items your kids' rooms.

For our family, Lynne Rae Perkins's Pictures from Our Vacation is one of those. It's a picture book (naturally), narrated by a girl whose nuclear family is heading off to an old family farm in the Midwest via multiday car trip for its vacation. The conceit is that the book we're reading is her diary of sorts from the trip, containing her own drawings and Polaroids (though they're really illustrated too) of her experiences. It works marvelously, lending the story a realism that escapes most picture books.

And Perkins captures the voice and point of view of a child on such a journey perfectly—the boredom interrupted by sudden flights of imagination, the mostly here-and-now perspective. (We don't find out until quite late in the book that part of the reason for the the trip is a memorial service for a remarkable great-aunt. since our narrator only mentions it herself right before it's about to happen.)

The whole structure of the book—the framing mechanism, the narrative voice, the art—works together to create a vivid, fully developed portrayal of the whole family. It's a warm, gentle sort of read, in a matter-of-fact sort of way, without actively trying to be. (Very Midwestern, I suppose.)

And that's a big reason our six-year-old son keeps bringing it back into the bedtime rotation, I'm sure, but there's another: Perkins's flashes of unforgettable imagery. At one point near the book's end, for example, the girl looks out the car window and sees a line of huge metal power-line towers. She whimsically imagines them to be giant robots walking through the countryside, and in an illustration, we see them transformed into just that. It's a great channeling of a child's creativity, and the image has stuck with Dash since the moment he first read that page. (To this day, we casually refer to those towers, when we see them on drives of our own, as giant robots.)

In short, Pictures from Our Vacation is a magical book, in its understated way. I think we'll have it on the shelf for years.

[Photos: Whitney Webster]

Security Blanket: Classic Silent Movies

Back when I was a kid, seeing old movies at the various repertory houses conveniently scattered around the Upper West Side of Manhattan, silent movies were still working their way back to respectability. Somehow over half a century of talkies, even the very best of the genre—Charlie Chaplin, say—had at some point become, in the national psyche, movies fit only for children.

This had started to turn around well before I was born, but the stigma was still around by the time I discovered them, and as I grew into a young adult I got kind of indignant about it. Classics like Chaplin's City Lights, Buster Keaton's The General, and Harold Lloyd's The Freshman were at least as smart, as well-made, and as funny as anything at the cineplexes—for adults. That anyone considered these movies were merely "kids' stuff" was ridiculous, I felt.

In the years since, the great work of the silent comedians has fully retaken its rightful place in the film pantheon, thanks to devoted film archivists (and, in large part, the cable channel Turner Classic Movies). Certainly there's no sense that the films of Chaplin and Keaton are the equivalent of Saturday-morning cartoons anymore. So it's with some amusement that I find myself on the other side of the fence now, selling these movies…as great to watch with your kids. (The key consistency, I tell myself, is that I'd still also sell them as great to watch without your kids, too....)

At any rate, we return to these classics again and again for family movie nights when my wife and I are feeling a bit tired of animation. We spent a recent weekend evening watching Keaton's Steamboat Bill, Jr. en masse. I can't think of a time when each member of our family, from the 42-year-old to the two-year old, enjoyed a movie so much, so equally.

The reason silents work so well for family viewing, I think, is that they were originally made to be watched by adults—but at a time when that didn't more or less require subject matter either inappropriate for or uninteresting to kids. So the best work of the masters is fully engrossing to parents—again, as funny and as dramatically moving as any movie ever made—while giving the kids plenty of slapstick to giggle at. (Okay, I giggle at it too.)

There are, of course, moments in some of these movies that reflect the prejudices of the time, especially racial ones. While such ugly scenes are rarer in the silent comedies than in the silent dramas (say, Birth of a Nation, a film I do not recommend watching with your four-year-old), they do show up from time to time, and many parents will either want to vet carefully or be ready with some historical explanations. (But frankly, there are fewer of these issues in these silent comedies than you find in the Tintin books, say.)

To me, the rewards make that effort worth it. Pixar films are rightfully lauded as movies for children that are fully enjoyable for adults, even to the point that many adults see them without the kids. Classic silents are much the same thing, except the other way around: They're perfectly enjoyable for kids...but they were made for us adults. For once, we get to turn the tables, and yet everyone's happy. It's a win-win!

[Photograph: Library of Congress, via Wikimedia Commons.]

Security Blanket: Garibaldi's Biscuits

When I was writing the other day about historical-fiction picture books, one of the elite slipped my mind: Ralph Steadman's Garibaldi's Biscuits. Anytime a celebrated artist or illustrator delves into children's books, it's worth a look, but we've been a Steadman fan in particular since his work on the imagery surrounding my wife's favorite movie, Withnail and I. (Those less well versed in moderately culty British cinema of the 1980s may know Steadman's unique style—"chaos focused into expression" is the best way I can sum it up—from his Hunter S. Thompson illustrations, as well as his work in the New Yorker and other U.S. magazines.)

Garibaldi's Biscuits presents itself as a tale of the origin of a cookie, and while this currant-studded delicacy is much better known in Steadman's native England than in the U.S., that matters little for one's enjoyment of the book. For the author uses the real history of Garibaldi's return to Italy to fight for its freedom merely as a leaping-off point into flights of wonderful fantasy, involving a pants-wearing pet woodpecker named Pecorino, battles fought with water balloons, and the like. (It feels a lot like a picture book from Monty Python.) The reader's first hint that Steadman may be going for a more imaginative than actual origin tale here comes when he says the belt buckles worn by Garibaldi and his troops were as large as pizzas, then reconsiders and follows that up with "In fact, they <>were pizzas." And off we go...

We're in experienced and expert hands here, so the offbeat narrative, much like the rip-roaring ink-spotted art itself, is delightful rather than unsettling. (And for those who want to sort out truth from fiction, the author takes a page from Lane Smith with a brief run through the details at the end.) The grounded surrealism of Garibaldi's Biscuits has been pretty much irresistible to my six-year-old since we got it a couple of years back, with staying power, and it's always an enjoyable bedtime read for us parents, too.

[Photos: Whitney Webster]

Security Blanket: Here Comes the Garbage Barge!

I feel like this choice is cheating a little, since it came out only last year, and got plenty of well-deserved coverage then (including a spot on the New York Times' list of the best children's books of the year, which it most certainly was). But Here Comes the Garbage Barge!, a collaboration between Jonah Winter and Red Nose Studio (the working name of artist-illustrator Chris Sickels), truly is the current obsession of my two-year-old, so I suppose it satisfies my, er, categorical imperative.

At any rate, it's pretty amazing. Winter, whose family I seem to be writing a lot about these days, shares lordship over the small but wonderful historical-fiction-picture-book genre with Lane Smith. This time, he's chosen as his inspiration a tale New Yorkers of a certain age will remember well: The barge full of garbage from Long Island that, after being refused landing in various locations in the hemisphere, sadly steamed around New York Harbor in 1987 for several months, the Flying Dutchman of trash. As usual, Winter frames his narrative with the true story while adding his own flights of fancy, and giving a tale that ends with a rather stern moral ("Don't make so much trash!") a light, jaunty, and always entertaining air.

It's the art, though, that's downright astonishing. The odyssey of the tugboat captain tasked with dragging the barge around North and Central America is portrayed in images (they're actually photographs) of 3-D sculpture scenes, essentially—all made of found objects. That is, trash. Each image is dazzling: remarkable for its complexity and for its simple, essential beauty, all at once. And the artist is able to make his story's characters as expressive as those in the best stop-motion animated films (with no assistance from voiceover artists!).

It's by far the best "you should recycle more" children's book I've ever seen. No, that's far-too-faint praise: It's among the best children's books I've seen, period. If by some chance, like me, you missed the rave reviews when it came out last year, give it a look. (Also, check out this cool video from the publisher, below, which shows how the illustrations were created!)



[Cover image courtesy of Random House.]

Security Blanket: Flip Ultra

I am, I know, way behind the curve in my appreciation of Flip cameras, which I first remember hearing colleagues at Cookie rave about three or so years ago. I believed them, but it never seemed like the most important gap in our technology world to fill; after all, we had a perfectly functional video camera already.

Then last year, Grandpa, having learned of our six-year-old's fascination not only with movies in general but with how they're made (he's started watching the "making of" extras on every DVD intently), decided to buy Dash his own Flip Ultra for Christmas. We complemented the generous gift with the popular kids’ Movie Maker kit, and Dash was off and running.

To be honest, in yet another sign that I'm getting old, it felt kind of weird to be giving a six-year-old a serious video camera aimed at adults. I'll even admit to worrying that taking care of real technology would be too much to ask of our somewhat klutzy child. But either my initial imprecations that he be especially careful with the camera took root for once, or I was overestimating the danger in the first place. (Yes, I know which of those the smart money is on.)

Dash was enthralled by the chance to use technology by himself, of course, but that phase faded more quickly than I'd expected. It was replaced by the drive to get working on a film of his own—which, thanks to the excellent kit, a great primer, he knew meant preparing a script. (His project is a version of Dickens's A Christmas Carol, with all the parts played by stuffed animals and monster puppets. Which at least means we have most of the dialogue written already—the kid is savvy, beginning with an adaptation, and one with the rights in public domain, to boot!)

Now, I don't want to exaggerate his dedication or focus here—Dash is still six, and we move forward with the project only in fits and starts; we shot our first scenes only last weekend. But he keeps asking to return to it weekend after weekend, which has kind of amazed me. What amazes me even more, when I stop to think about it, is that a six-year-old and his not particularly tech-savvy parents actually can shoot and edit their own Dickens adaptation in our own home. My own six-year-old self is very jealous.

The only problem, really, is that we always want to use the Flip for ourselves instead of our own video camera (which recently, and conveniently, died anyway). While this hasn’t yet led to any conflict, I'm thinking that we ought to get our own soon….


[Image courtesy of Cisco]

Security Blanket: Neil Gaiman Novels

As I've mentioned before (endlessly, I know), my son Dash, now six, is a big fan of all things spooky and scary—ghosts, witches, vampires. The Nightmare Before Christmas has been a favorite movie since age three. So on reputation and subject matter alone, it was a no-brainer that he would, sooner or later, enjoy the children’s novels of Neil Gaiman.

Now, Dash devoured several of Gaiman's picture books—the macabre The Dangerous Alphabet, the sweet Blueberry Girl (out in paperback in March!)—the moment they came out. Both are standouts for their cleverness, but also feature a light touch that I found surprising, having only read Gaiman's early graphic-novel work (mainly Sandman) to that point. But even in Dangerous Alphabet, the writer demonstrates that he doesn't believe in sheltering young readers.

The novel Coraline, which I first encountered in perhaps its most frightening version, the P. Craig Russell–illustrated graphic novel (at left), even scared me a little. (The animated film is a Dora episode by comparison, drained of a good deal of the book's creepiness; I found it a little disappointing.) I was blown away by this book—by the storytelling skill, sure, but also by the seamless way Gaiman folds psychology into the tale: Is all this magical, creepy stuff really happening, or is it in the mind of a lonely, creative girl who's furious at her parents for neglecting her and flirting with the idea of an “other” mother and father, then realizing you have to be careful what you wish for? As with most great writing of this kind, the answer is up to the reader—and either way, the ending is deeply satisfying.

But Dash had just turned three when I finished Coraline, and it isn't scary in a playful way—it's really scary! (Even the original chapter-book version, which is slightly less vivid for not being explicitly illustrated, can induce chills—plus, at the time it was a bit ahead of Dash’s reading level anyway.) So while I was convinced of Gaiman's brilliance as a writer for kids, and I knew my son would eventually love his work, I felt I had to put this one off.

Not too long afterward, I got a copy of Gaiman's kid novella Odd and the Frost Giants, a Norse-mythology tale about an self-exiled boy and some anthropomorphic forest animals who need his help. (Gaiman’s work for children often seems to focus on kids forced, for one reason or another, to cope with difficult circumstances without parental help, at least of the traditional kind.) This was the perfect introduction: gentler and far less creepy than Coraline, it allows the author a chance to show off his lyrical side. It's a lovely book, the one that convinced my wife of Gaiman’s preeminence among active writers for children, as Coraline had done for me. And Dash took to its tone—offbeat and calmly proud of it—instantly.

I'm not sure if there was a teaser on our copy of Odd, or if Dash found out about it somewhere else, but he became obsessed with Gaiman's The Graveyard Book about this time, just based on the title. (The 19th-century graveyard one must walk through to get from our house to our town library might have had something to do with it, too.) I’d heard particularly great things about this one, including that it had won a Newbery, so I picked up a copy...and then discovered that it opens with the methodical murder of all the members of a family except their infant boy. (The better to set up the child-on-his-own trope, of course.)

I froze for a while. Dash hadn't encountered anything like this grim, realistic violence in his reading so far. Could he handle it? (Or was the question really, as so often, Could I handle it?) I mentally hemmed and hawed for a while, and Dash conveniently forgot about The Graveyard Book for a bit, allowing me some time to flip through the book some more on my own. I soon found that after the difficult setup, it settles into a gentler place; it wasn’t without frightening moments now and then, but it didn’t dwell in them, either.

Eventually Dash’s mind turned back to The Graveyard Book, and shortly after his sixth birthday I finally agreed to embark during his bedtime reading—fully aware that I might be launching a series of nightmares, and ready to stop at any time. And he was, no doubt, taken aback by the harshness of the book’s beginning. But I made sure we got past that part and through the true establishment of the premise—the infant is named Nobody and raised properly by the ghosts of all those buried in the titular graveyard—before he went to sleep the first night. No bad dreams resulted. And predictably, Dash was hooked.

So was I. Everything Gaiman had shown himself capable of in the books we’d read before was here in spades. The dark story is handled again with that surprisingly light touch, and it’s a true page-turner. The writing has depth, too, touching on philosophy, poetry, and other “serious” matters without getting bogging down in any. And just when you’re immersed in the thriller, Gaiman gives you a surprise gift—a beautifully lyrical chapter about a once-in-a-generation night when ghosts and the living dance together. (The living, naturally, don’t remember it.) It’s a breath in the middle of the book, a short lift that advances the plot not a whit. And it’s just perfect.

As it turns out, The Graveyard Book is closely based on—in fact, is Gaiman’s homage to—Kipling’s The Jungle Book, with the ghosts in the city graveyard taking the place of the animals who raise Mowgli. As always, Gaiman is subtle about this (I know the Kipling pretty well, and I didn’t even see the connection at first), and he never lets his references to the classic overwhelm his own narrative. You could read his book with no knowledge of Kipling and be perfectly satisfied.

But those familiar with The Jungle Book will find that Gaiman weaves a special magic in reference to it: His book makes you appreciate Kipling’s all the more, shearing it of the weight of Disney associations and “Bare Necessities,” and reminding you that for Mowgli, as for Nobody, this is life-and-death stuff, in the end. This ain’t old-fashioned Disney. (Now, a Pixar take on The Graveyard Book…that I’d pay to see!)

So I’ve learned two things in the course of this long story. First: Neil Gaiman is indeed at the very top level of writers for kids today, and we will continue to seek out and devour everything he produces. (Actually, we can start with Coraline; it wasn’t until I was writing this post that I remembered that I forgot to ever return to it with Dash!)

And second: As seems to usually happen, it’s the books and movies I’m most concerned will freak Dash out that become his very favorites. (And often mine.)

[Cover images courtesy of HarperCollins.]

Security Blanket: Dashiell's Halloween Picks

My almost-six-year-old has, from a remarkably early age, been fascinated by all things scary and spooky, and by Halloween in particular. I don’t know if it’s an association with his birthday (which falls just five days later), or pure temperament, but it sometimes borders on obsession—he spends much of the year counting the months not till Christmas, but till the end of October, and he has for some years now had his costumes selected for every upcoming Halloween until about 2025.

Accordingly, he has a large and ever-growing section of Halloween- and otherwise spooky-themed books and videos. Seeing as the holiday approaches, I thought I’d post a list of his favorites of the moment (as of 8 p.m. on October 26, at any rate—favorites lists move fast at this age!).

BOOKS
The Monsterologist: A Memoir in Rhyme, by Bobbi Katz, illustrated by Adam McCauley. A collection of whimsical monster-themed poems, kind of Shel Silverstein–style, framed as a series of recollections by a professional studier of monster. It’s packaged marvelously with foldouts and evocative illustrations that assist in the illusion.

That Terrible Halloween Night, by James Stevenson. A recent library discovery (as it will have to be for others; it appears to be out of print)—a fun little picture book from 1980 on which a grandfather explains why, ever since a certain Halloween long ago, nothing really scares him anymore. Stevenson, a former New Yorker writer and cartoonist who’s written literally hundreds of children’s books (What’s Under My Bed? being perhaps the most famous), displays his usual gentle humor throughout.

The Dangerous Alphabet, by Neil Gaiman, illustrated by Gris Grimley. The darkest, creepiest, most macabre ABC book since Edward Gorey’s Gashleycrumb Tinies. No actual demises here, but a lot of creepy, disturbing (but very clever) imagery alongside the smart writing—Gaiman and Grimley manage to pack a remarkable amount of storytelling into the usually limiting alphabet framework. It might be a bit too disturbing for many kids of the age to be reading even very sophisticated ABC picture books. Dash, of course, took to it immediately and loves it still.

Vunce upon a Time, by J. Otto Seibold and Siobhan Vivian, illustrated by J. Otto Seibold. Author-illustrator Seibold’s trademark vivid, trippy aesthetic makes this story of a shy vegetarian vampire named Dagmar, who learns to face his fear of humans, memorable indeed.

Tell Me Another Scary Story...but Not Too Scary!, by Carl Reiner, illustrated by James Bennett. I mentioned this book in this space not long ago, and it’s still in heavy rotation, largely thanks to the included CD with the author’s own evocative reading of his tale.

VIDEOS
The Nightmare Before Christmas. It’s not like it was a surprise that would be one of Dash’s favorites. But we were a bit taken aback at how early in his life it happened—he saw a preview for it on another DVD when he was just three, and would not stop pestering us until we agreed to let him see it. Thinking he might be too young, we had remote in hand should anything prove too scary. But, as always seems to happen in such cases, he loved it passionately start to finish, and wasn’t frightened a bit. In what’s probably news to exactly no one, this is a fantastic movie to enjoy with the entire family this time of year; for a 17-year-old animated film, it holds up amazingly well.

The Teacher from the Black Lagoon…and More Slightly Scary Stories. An entry in the vast and excellent Scholastic Storybook Treasures collection of classic kids’s books turned into lightly animated videos, it became a go-to almost immediately. This one is an adaptation of a classic fear-of-school book, in which a kid’s worries about his new teacher turn out to be somewhat...overblown. The DVD also includes versions of Mike Thaler and Jared Lee’s several sequels (in which the same boy’s similar angst about the librarian, gym teacher, etc., is dispelled), and Dash loves them all.

Monsters vs. Aliens. This big-budget animated blockbuster from last year isn’t all that Halloween-y (though I suppose the old B horror flicks that inspired it were), but Dash insisted that I include it. It’s funny, it’s well-acted by the usual dazzling roster of Hollywood stars performing in today’s animated fare (here it’s Reese Witherspoon, Hugh Laurie, Will Arnett, Seth Rogan, and Paul Rudd, among others), and it features monsters. what’s not to like?

REALLY SILLY, UNNECESSARY, BUT HILARIOUS OTHER PRODUCT
Thriller Mummy Doll. What can I say? We saw it in the store (I think it was Michaels), and it got us. We are suckers. I think it’s the head twitch that does it. Still makes me laugh every time:



[Photo: Whitney Webster]

Security Blanket: Dinosaur Train

For his first year-plus, it seemed as if our younger son, Griffin, had no interest in television whatsoever. This was one of those facts that was great in the abstract (“He’ll spend all his free time on reading and active play!”) but actually kind of a problem on a daily basis, at least once he started walking. You couldn’t distract him with videos or TV shows for a few minutes to cook dinner or take care of a necessary task or phone call. Since he’s the kind of kid who has the knack for finding the most dangerous item in any room to play with, this was not good.

Luckily for the bad parents in us, it was only a phrase. Griffin began watching PBS and Nickelodeon shows along with his five-year-old brother a few months back, first intermittently, then more enthusiastically. (Like the Body Snatchers, TV gets us all in the end.) He likes several of the same ones Dash is fond of, from Charlie and Lola to Super Why!, but there’s no question he has his very own favorite now: Dinosaur Train.

This program, which premiered on PBS in 2009, admittedly sounds like the cynical result of a Hollywood-style children’s-TV pitch meeting—“It’s got dinosaurs…and trains! Greenlight it, baby!” But this CGI-animation program is a product of the Jim Henson Company, and accordingly very sharp. Dinosaur Train’s main character is a young T. rex named Buddy, who has been adopted by a family of Pteranodons. He and his siblings are fascinated by the differences between dinosaur species, so each episode, their parents take them on, yes, the Dinosaur Train. The train takes them magically across the globe and through time to meet other dinosaurs from various lands and eras, allowing them to explore the entire span of the species's existence.

Kids get a basic background in the science behind each episode’s dinosaur, especially from short live-action segments with a real, live paleontologist. And the show’s writing is unfailingly informative and clever; the Archaeopteryx the family meets, for instance, has a German accent suitable to its actual dwelling place in what is now southern Germany. (The show follows this pattern throughout.)

Griffin, a typical two-year-old boy who loves both trains and dinosaurs, is this right in the forefront of the program’s target demographic; by now, he’s singing along with the theme song the moment it comes on. While watching, he is as dead to the world as any soap-opera addict; he will not be distracted from  his Dinosaur Train. And as disturbing as that may be, well, at least we can change a load of laundry without worrying Griff will scale the bookshelves before we return. Parenting is all about small victories, right?

[Images courtesy of the Jim Henson Company]

Security Blanket: Favorite Movies, Part 2

Continuing from my recent post: favorite kids’ DVDs, non-Pixar edition.

Wallace & Gromit. Another case in which the hype is entirely deserved. The bumbling, cheese-loving inventor and his silent, super-competent dog companion belong in the ranks of the all-time-great comedy duos. And yes, it’s astonishing that just about everything that Nick Park (shown above) achieves in these stories is accomplished via painstaking stop-motion animation—but the real wonder is the writing, tongue-in-cheek humor that isn’t above kids’ heads yet is clever enough to keep parents chuckling, too. Dash has been a fan from the start—at two, he would watch a series of W&G mini-shorts called Cracking Contraptions (available on this DVD) with almost religious fervor. Now Griffin is getting into them as well, and they’re the rare DVDs that appeal to both boys (and their parents, for that matter!) equally.
How Tall to Ride? We’ve found every one of them appealing and safe for all ages.

Happy Feet. Dash’s all-time favorite animated-film-from-Hollywood-but-not-from-Pixar—and one of his favorite movies, period—is this dancing-penguin extravaganza. Its creators cleverly used penguins’ individual mating “songs” as the jumping-off point for an Antarctica full of birds who each sing famous pop tunes of various genres, which reflect their personalities. (Think Moulin Rouge!, except they’re penguins, and you don’t want to punch them. Or is that just me…?) Except for Mumble (voiced by Elijah Wood), that is, who can’t seem to sing at all—but he’s gotta dance (tapping courtesy of dance genius Savion Glover). This just “isn’t penguin,” as Mumble’s Elvis-esque father (Hugh Jackman) puts it, and the youngster is ostracized, his heresy having been blamed for a dire shortage of fish. That he redeems himself by finding the real reason for the dearth of fish—humans—is predictable, but the way the plot expresses its message of tolerance is both exciting and, ultimately, moving. Dash still comes back to this DVD again and again, and continues to bring up dancing whenever penguins come up.
How Tall to Ride? There are a few mildly scary moments; all the penguin-mating is handled quite tastefully. Nothing that seems problematic for kids with the patience for features.

The Cat Returns. Yet another case of a great reputation proving true is that of Hayao Miyazaki—though while undeniably brilliant, his movies do tend to make me feel like I’m stoned when I watch them (or should be). Their imagination and creativity are nearly limitless, and I can almost see Dash’s mind expanding when they’re on: nothing is impossible to conceive, or express. This is his favorite of the genre, a tale of a girl (voiced by Anne Hathaway in the English-language version) who casually saves a prince of the Cat Kingdom from an oncoming truck, and is thereby drawn into an adventure in that kingdom. It’s not the trippiest of the movies from Miyazaki’s studio—in fact, it’s not even directed by the master, who executive-produced it—but it’ll do, and its dazzling storytelling and visuals just knock Dash out. (It probably doesn’t hurt that he really, really likes cats.)
How Tall to Ride? A little hard to say—probably depends a lot on your child’s individual temperament. I can see certain very young kids being fascinated, and others being scared or just bewildered. Dash first saw it at around four, and loved it instantly, for whatever that’s worth.

Curious George. Not the deepest movie, but very warm and sunshine-y. The plot veers far enough from its source to fill feature length, and a great cast of voice actors that includes Will Ferrell, Drew Barrymore, Dick Van Dyke, and David Cross does the rest. The sweetly pleasant Jack Johnson soundtrack (songs from which hit the adult pop charts) makes it all go down even more easily for any parents in the room. A particularly good movie for very young kids, it was a very early favorite of Dash’s, and Griffin is responding to it now in much the same way.
How Tall to Ride? I can’t think of anything objectionable for kids of any age at all.

Monsters vs. Aliens. I should preface this entry with a caveat: Dash has been, almost from the first moments he could express himself, absolutely obsessed with Halloween. He is also quite partial to aliens. So this effort from Dreamworks…pretty much had him at the title. He isn’t familiar with the 1950s B monster movies it’s a nod to, but those amusing parallels are aimed squarely at parents anyway. And he responded instantly to the characterizations achieved by the movie's voice talent—another of the de rigueur all-star rosters, featuring the likes of Reese Witherspoon, Will Arnett, Seth Rogan, and Hugh Laurie. In fact, Dash spent the weeks after his first viewing insisting that he was, in turn, each of the characters. The movie is silly, even for a kids’ animated film—Stephen Colbert’s U.S. president plays the ’80s synth-instrumental hit “Axel F” to welcome aliens to our planet, for example—but a little silliness never hurt anyone, least of all a five-year-old.
How Tall to Ride? By plot necessity, there’s some potentially frightening stuff here—you know, the usual threatened-destruction-of-the-planet stuff. It’s handled lightly and humorously throughout, but younger kids may well be a little traumatized by the constant danger and especially the apparent death (I'll spoil it: he comes back) of one of the heroes.

The Adventures of Milo and Otis. Really, Dash likes live-action movies, too! There are a number he’s been into lately, in fact, with Mary Poppins a predictable-enough favorite. But this is by far his favorite, both in intensity of passion and in staying power. (He first saw it when he wasn’t talking yet, I think, and he still loves watching it to this day.) I mentioned that Dash is a fan of cats; well, he likes dogs, too, and so the story of a pug who sets off cross-country to save his cat friend is irresistible. This movie also managed to cure me of a lifelong distate for Dudley Moore, who provides marvelous English-language narration, including the voices of all the live-action animals. (I have since recanted completely, having now seen more of his great work with Peter Cook.)
How Tall to Ride? Absolutely all ages; the adorable animals are occasionally in mild danger, but they always escape from it quickly. (Since it’s live action, it can’t be that dangerous to the animals!)

I could go on—Dash, and now Griffin as well, seem to find a new DVD to get excited about every couple of weeks—but these are the ones that both stand out in my memory and have stood the test of time with Dashiell, at least. But there’s tons of room for follow-up on this subject (they do keep making more movies, for one thing)—so please feel free to leave your own family’s favorites in comments; I’ll collect them, and recommendations from other friends, for a “part 3” post in the future.

[Photo: Ferbr1, via Wikimedia Commons]

Security Blanket: Favorite Movies, Part 1

I haven’t posted much about kids’ movies since starting this blog, mainly because I haven’t felt I had much to say beyond the obvious. (Pixar is amazing...so is Nick Park...live-action adaptations of great children’s books are, with occasional exceptions, disappointing....)

But a recent conversation with a friend reminded me that while this may all be perfectly evident to me now, I was clueless when I first entered the world of parenthood. Yes, I had heard people praising Finding Nemo to the skies, and I knew of Wallace and Gromit’s existence (thanks, annual Oscar pools!), but I’d seen almost none of this stuff myself, and certainly had no inkling of, say, Nemo’s plot-establishing traumatic event.

So this one goes out to the first-time parents who are trying to figure out which are the best movies to watch with their young children, and what ages it might be best to watch them at: one family’s favorites over the last six or so years, all available on DVD. Since there’s quite a number of them, and a good chunk are from one studio, I’m going to break it into two posts—Pixar and non-Pixar divisions.

First, Pixar: Believe the hype, if you don’t already. Its films are uniformly excellent and often transcendent, head-and-shoulders above nearly every other animated film on the market. You can’t go wrong with any of them, but these have been our older son’s—and our—particular obsessions (so far):

Cars. This was one of Dash’s first favorite full-length movies. As city-dwelling (at the time) people unfamiliar with NASCAR, we weren’t really expecting much from the predictable-sounding story of a flashy race car who learns what’s important in life after he gets stranded in a small town. But the clever writing, along with great voiceover work from Owen Wilson, Bonnie Hunt, Larry the Cable Guy, Paul Newman, Tony Shalhoub, and many more, won us over quickly. Even if this is, in the end, one of Pixar’s less profound outings, that still puts it among the better animated-film options out there.
How Tall to Ride? The movie’s relative lack of depth is directly due to its having little in its plot that’s even potentially scary or disturbing to kids, so while I wouldn’t put Cars in the Pixar time capsule, it’s a perfect primer on the wonders of Pixar. (And yes, it’s a stereotype, but most of the young boys I know took to this film right away.)

The Incredibles. It was fated that this would be one of our family’s all-time faves. It came out the day after Dash was born, and one of the main characters is named Dash. But that’s not the only reason our son became obsessed with this movie (and remains so—it’s got the strongest staying power of any kids’ movie he’s seen). Brad Bird’s first masterpiece outshines most adult action movies by as cracklingly smart as it is fast-paced and exciting. And if its message—that it’s wrong for society to curb the abilities of the extraordinary out of notions of fairness—seems to veer uncomfortably into Ayn Rand territory at times, it’s in a way that confronts, rather than avoiding, a dilemma many parents will have to face sooner or later.
How Tall to Ride? There’s some scary stuff—the Parr family spends a good chunk of the movie in real mortal danger from a villain who has been killing off the world’s superheroes one by one. Kids generally don’t seem very fazed by that, though—most of the stressful scenes are probably harder for parents to watch (since they involve our primal anxiety about keeping their kids from harm) than for them.

Ratatouille. Bird’s second masterpiece will always hold a special place in our hearts, too, because it was the first movie Dash saw in a theater. Not that it needed that extra heartwarming aspect; this film is just stunning, probably my personal pick for Pixar’s very best work. (How does Bird follow these two?) The story of a Parisian rat with culinary aspirations is as entertaining, and as funny, as as any Pixar film, but it has a whole extra dimension: a beautiful, moving paean to creativity. The scene in which a taste of Remy’s signature dish sends Peter O’Toole’s icy food critic back to his childhood nearly brought me to tears the first time I saw it. As for Dash, he loved the movie so much that he actually tried ratatouille (well, once).
How Tall to Ride? Remy gets into some dangerous situations, as a rat in a kitchen will in our cruel world, but there’s nothing out-of-the-ordinary scary in this film.

WALL-E. I know, hackneyed, right? Everyone loves WALL-E. I remember seeing the previews and feeling a pang of disappointment that the next Pixar movie looked like an animated version of Short Circuit. (I was never much of a fan of the cute-robot genre, to be honest.) But the famous silent first half-hour of the movie is so brilliant, so wonderfully executed, that it melted my heart of stone—it’s worthy of the Chaplin films it’s a clear homage to. And from there on it had me, it had my wife, and it certainly had Dash, who was referring to himself as WALL-E for the next six months.
How Tall to Ride? The film’s premise is unrelentingly grim: Earth has been overrun by trash and abandoned by humanity, and the garbage-compactor robot hero (and his pet cockroach) are the only sentient beings left. That backdrop might give some parents a moment’s pause, but again, it seems to have much more effect on adults than on kids, for whom the upbeat but lonely robot’s cheerful actions are the focus. I haven’t heard of any kids bothered by anything in this movie one bit.

The Pixar shorts. You used to find these little gems only as extras on the various feature-film DVDs, but now you can get 13 of them on one DVD of their own. Each is its own crystallized version of what makes Pixar great. The shorts that are essentially little spinoffs from the company’s features, like the amusing Jack-Jack Attack (from The Incredibles), would be wonderful enough. But it’s the stand-alone shorts that are the most sublime: the lovely period-piece musical competition One-Man Band; the lightning-fast slapstick of Presto; and especially Bud Luckey’s little slice of instant happiness, Boundin’.
How Tall to Ride? There’s no reason not to show any of these shorts to kids of any age. Hurry up and Netflix the DVD already!

The fact that Finding Nemo isn’t even on the list just speaks to the overall quality of everything Pixar does. (We do love Nemo, too, for the record.) I admit I was momentarily perturbed that the studio seems hung up in sequel-land of late, with Toy Story 3 out this past year, and sequels to Cars and Monsters, Inc. in the pipeline. But Dash and Whitney really enjoyed TS3…and anyway, you’d think I’d have learned never to underestimate Pixar by now.

Coming soon: Part 2 of this post, the non-Pixar films.

[Photo: P.gobin, via Wikimedia Commons.]

Security Blanket: Jumpy Jack & Googily

Many picture books are what I call “concept” books, in which the author spins a tale around a specific childhood issue—say, anger over a sense of powerlessness (Where the Wild Things Are, and many others), or the anxiety of the first day of school (The Teacher From the Black Lagoon…and many others). The very best ones use the concept as an imaginative jumping-off point, successfully treating their subjects without harping on them too much.

Well, allow me to nominate a newish classic in the well-established “monsters under the bed” category: Jumpy Jack & Googily, written by Meg Rosoff and illustrated by the marvelous Sophie Blackall. (I clearly have a thing for illustrators who come from Australia.) Jumpy Jack is a snail, and his name suits him—he’s a nervous type, constantly worried that fearsome things may be lurking behind and under such ominous things as doors, tables, and beds.

But Jack doesn’t freak out about his fears—he simply asks his best friend, an agreeable large, pointy-toothed fellow named Googily, to investigate these potentially dangerous places for him and reassure him his worries are unwarranted. When Googily inevitably responds that his friend is very silly to worry about these things, Jack sheepishly agrees, but says he’ll feel better if Googily checks them out anyway. And he’s right; it works every time ("Phew!"), despite the reader’s growing realization that the monster Jack describes as the object of his terror has a close resemblance to Googily himself. (This sounds like it might lead to a scary moment of realization for poor Jack, but the ending goes in a different direction, turning the tables by revealing what Googily is afraid of.)

Rosoff’s clever path through each iteration is truly endearing, mainly due to the polite respect the two friends have for each other; in just a few pages, she establishes a fully fleshed-out relationship reminiscent of classic children’s-book pairs like Arnold Lobel’s Frog and Toad. (Googily: “That is simply too far-fetched.” Jack: “No doubt.... Still, if you would only check, I’m sure I would sleep better.”) And Blackall’s beautiful, eccentric art matches the text’s kindly whimsical tone precisely—this is the kind of picture book where you’re surprised to find that the author and illustrator are not the same person.

Upon arrival in our home, Jumpy Jack & Googily immediately joined the short list of Dash’s very favorite picture books, and it’s also among those that Whitney and I love to read aloud to him—the voices of the characters are so strong, and the light humor makes it so much fun to read. I would place it among our favorite five or six books that have been published during our kids’ lifetimes. (Hmm…I feel a future list post coming on....) In fact, I’m earnestly hoping our two-year-old soon likes it just as much as Dash did, so we get to read it regularly for years to come!

[Photos: Whitney Webster]

Security Blanket: Lane Smith

This post is basically an appreciation, since I suspect not too many parents these days are unaware of the Lane Smith oeuvre. Even I, trying desperately before we had kids to remain as ignorant as possible about them, had heard about The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales, illustrator Smith's and writer Jon Scieszka's groundbreaking deconstruction of classic fairy tales. I also knew Smith's work from another of his collaborations, this one with George Saunders: the irresistibly wonderful The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip, the incredible art for which (see the example here) managed to attracted my wife's attention and interest years before children were in the picture.

So as we embarked on parenthood, we already had more than an inkling that we'd have a family favorite here. But adult appreciation is one thing; bedtime reading quite another. With our first round of Dash's board books, we quickly learned that tedium was a serious threat, first tows, and eventually even to Dash.

Like many parents before us, we turned to the classics to solve this problem—Seuss, Sendak, Silverstein. (They didn't all start with s, I'm certain, but those were the first three names that came to mind. And Smith does too! Freaky.) Before long, we turned to Lane Smith, too, especially since Dash also took to his smart, offbeat humor right away. (Genes or environment? You decide.) Frip was a little wordy for him back then, so we started with Stinky Cheese Man, as well as a Smith solo effort we like even more, if that's possible: Pinocchio, the Boy: Incognito in Collodi. He grounds his version of the classic in his usual wisecracking, modern sensibility, in this case via a little girl who notices all the strange things this poor boy is doing (trying to talk to a cricket, going to dance on a marionette stage). Yet the story still retains the charm and even the beauty of the original.

The super-clever humor would be enough to make an illustrator great, but there's a lot more to Smith as well. He's an imaginative master, both in the structures he devises to tell stories (a storyboard-style spread in the Pinocchio book to get the reader up to speed at the start, for instance) and in his amazingly atmospheric, one-of-a-kind art itself. (The word collage always comes to mind, and then immediately seems insufficient.) There's no question in my mind that familiarity with Smith's books has broadened Dash's view of the ways one can approach storytelling. Heck, they've certainly broadened mine.

We've since made our way through several more of his books, with his typically irreverent take on the history of the American Revolution, John, Paul, George, & Ben, a particular favorite of Dash's. (The title refers to Hancock, Revere, Washington, and Franklin, and Smith's angle is that the very characteristics that made each man a bit annoying as a child—Revere's penchant for yelling, say—ended up serving American history quite well.) And to this day, I'm never more pleased, or more eager to get started, at bedtime reading than when Dash chooses a Lane Smith book. Which, happily, he does quite often.

[Photos: Whitney Webster]

Security Blanket: Music Over Manhattan

Some of my friends call them “loveys”—the especially beloved items that can calm young children when nothing else can. Traditionally, they’re stuffed animals of one kind or another—those endearingly well-worn ones whose dilapidation is almost unbearably cute to all parents. (We know what it signifies, after all.)

Dash, our five-year-old, had (and even still has) traditional loveys, of course, but back in the day, the go-to was a picture book. It was one of his first books, actually, a gift from my sister-in-law: Music Over Manhattan, by Mark Karlins, with illustrations by Jack E. Davis. This was the book he insisted we read him at bedtime when he’d had a particularly rough day, or perhaps a particularly great one he wanted to cap off well, even before he could use real words to do so.

It’s about a Brooklyn kid, Bernie, who feels he can’t do anything right, and certainly not as well as his irritatingly perfect cousin Herbert. But he’s taken under the wing of his Uncle Louis, a professional musician who plays Bernie’s favorite song, “Moonlight Over Manhattan,” so beautifully that the music lifts people into the air. Louis sees talent in Bernie, and over time teaches him to play the trumpet, and before a family wedding he’s playing for, he asks Bernie to fill in for a sick trumpeter—including the solo on the magical song. Bernie is nervous, but in the end, he doesn’t disappoint.

It’s a charming little book, and Davis’s exaggerated style of illustration fits the modern New York caricatures in the tale wonderfully. But the story itself can’t have been much of a touchstone for an 18-month-old who didn’t really have perfect cousins or peers to be frustrated by. It seems to be that magical idea of music making people actually lift off the ground and fly that captured Dash’s imagination early.

That concept has lasted, too—while he’s since moved on to other reading favorites, he still pulls out Music Over Manhattan from time to time for a look. The other day, I noticed him reading it to his little brother, who’s just a little older now than he was when he first fell in love with it. Two-time lovey, perhaps?

[Photos by Whitney Webster]