New Books: Oh No, George!

Many great picture books for young children are existential at root. (The works of the late Maurice Sendak are merely one notable example.) Of course, it's the point at which that existentialism meets the characteristics of your actual kid that's most joyful—and, when the kid himself seems to recognize the concurrence, interesting as well.

A new favorite of our three-year-old's is a title that came out a couple of months ago: U.K.-based illustrator Chris Haughton's Oh No, George! It's as simple as is it expressive: Before going out for a while, the owner of George the dog tells him to be good. And George determines that he will be good. He so wants to be good, after all.

But with that tasty-looking cake on the table and the cat to be chased and all, temptation ends up winning out again and again—and before long, George has trashed the place. But he feels terrible about it—Haughton's rendering of ashamed George is particularly evocative—and after promising his owner to do better next time, he does manage to proudly resist temptation...for a while, anyway...

Now, the previous two paragraphs would also serve, more or less, as a description of a day with three-year-old Griffin this spring. (Even some of the specifics are awfully similar.) So it's been fascinating to watch Griff slowly but surely fall in love with Oh No, George!, to the point where it's currently his favorite bedtime read. I suppose it's really the same throughout our reading lives: We look to find ourselves in the literature we love.

And sure, I'm allowing myself to hope he takes the lesson of the book to heart at some point. (Another part of me fears I'm missing the point and figures perhaps I should be the one learning a lesson here.) But either way, Oh No, George is a delight to both of us.

[Cover image courtesy of Candlewick Press]

New Books: Taka-chan and I

I'd mostly seen chapter books thus far from the New York Review Children's Collection, those masters of reissuing forgotten classics of children's lit. Not that this was a bad thing, mind you—we've discovered many of our favorite kids' books from the collection, from the infinitely charming "cookbook" Mud Pies and Other Recipes to the irresistible Terrible, Horrible Edie (part of a series I still can't believe isn't better known to modern audiences).

But while everything the NYRCC puts out is marvelous, I hadn't seen much in the way of your typical big, square children's picture book from them (perhaps because the classic picture books tend to stay in print in the first place far longer than the chapter books do?). I should have known it was only a matter of time: Taka-chan and I: A Dog's Journey to Japan, by Betty Jean Lifton and illustrated with photographs by Eikoh Hosoe, originally published in 1967, has arrived—and is equally marvelous.

The book tells the fable of Runcible, a Weimaraner from Massachusetts who gets especially forceful with his beach digging one day and tunnels through the earth to emerge in Japan. (Or rather, I should say, the fable is told by Runcible in first-person narration.) There he meets a little girl named Taka-chan, who has been taken captive by a sea dragon. When Runcible meets the dragon, it explains that it is angry because the girl's father and other local fishermen no longer pay their respects to him, but that it will let Taka-chan go if Runcible can find the most loyal creature in Japan. He accepts this quest, which leads dog and girl deep into the teeming crowds of Tokyo.

Each page is illustrated with a black-and-white photograph by Hosoe, a renowned Japanese artistic photographer and filmmaker who's worked with the likes of Yukio Mishima. While each obviously had to have been carefully staged and directed to fit the narrative, there's an inherent naturalism to Hosoe's images that clicks perfectly with this book's conceit. If Taka-chan and I feels at all dated, it's simply because there aren't many children's books using this kind of framework anymore—and even that effect is only noticeable to parents, I think. Both my sons took to the book, and its typically expressive Weimaraner (photographed some years before Wegman!), right off, much as they take to any other picture book.

In other words, the NYRCC has done it again. May it continue forever!

[Cover image courtesy of NYRCC]

New Books: A Ball for Daisy

I like words. A lot. Heck, I have to fight verbosity in my own writing. So why is it that so many of my favorite children's books of the last few years are wordless, or nearly wordless, picture books? And why does every single one of these I come across turn out to be so good? I have theories—only the best, most accomplished author-illustrators even attempt the challenge, or are allowed to attempt it by their publishers?—but no answers.

The latest is A Ball for Daisy, by Chris Raschka, who certainly fits into my “most accomplished” theory. He's been responsible for several of our family's most treasured children's books already, and his sparing use of words or even mere sounds has always been a trademark, from the Caldecott Honor winner Yo! Yes? to the concentrated encapsulation of jazz Charlie Parker Played Be Bop.

A Ball for Daisy is about a happy little dog and her beloved red ball. The first portion of the book shows us her pure joy in it as she bats it around, bounces it, even cuddles up to sleep with it. But on a playdate with another dog outside, tragedy strikes—the other dog runs off with it, and as she chases after to get it back, the ball is punctured and destroyed. Daisy is devastated, until her little-girl owner and her friend, the owner of the second dog, come up with a solution.

It's a very simple story, serving up a gentle but effective message of sympathy to kids who've lost a treasured toy themselves on the side. The reason it's so wonderful, of course, is the illustrations themselves; Raschka is marvelous at capturing every doggie emotion, from manic upbeat energy to big-eyed sadness and disappointment to overwhelmed gratitude and final satisfaction. This may not be one of those visually stunning wordless books—it isn't trying to blow you away with the sheer gorgeousness of the art, as many do—but it's a great example of how good storytelling doesn't always require words at all. And it's a sure bet for any young child who has a doggie herself—not to mention a guaranteed smile for her parents.

[Images courtesy of Schwartz & Wade Books]