New Books: Farmy Farm

It's not easy to find board books that stand out from the (huge!) crowd—it's another of those subgenres that has many good options but few great ones in it. But Chris Raschka's new Farmy Farm is most definitely an exception, for several reasons. First of all, it's called "Farmy Farm." I mean, really, I could just stop there.

Second, it's a felt board book. Yes, the entire thing is made of and designed in felt, making it not only pleasantly soft for little hands, but also unexpectedly and unusually lovely to look at. Third, parents and grandparents will be pleased by the author-illustrator's nod to 1950s children's books, in both the art and the simple rhymed couplets about cow, duck, pig, sheep, etc.

And finally, it's by Raschka, and so it introduced toddlers to an author who'll be delighting them for the rest of their from the can't-recommend-it-highly-enough Charlie Parker Played Be Bop to the Caldecott-winning Yo! Yes? to this year's wordless A Ball for Daisy. So if you're looking for a truly irresistible and special little board book, look no further.

[Cover image courtesy of Scholastic]

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]

Security Blanket: Charlie Parker Played Be Bop

I have to admit it: I’m favoring my eldest. At least, in terms of writing about (and, OK, thinking about) his books and DVDs and such. While five-year-old Dash’s horizons are expanding and exploding, 21-month-old Griffin is still in the board-book phase. Worse still, Griff also suffers from the usual second-child “been there, done that” syndrome: Most of his current books are hand-me downs from Dash. Let’s just say I’m having a tough time summoning the proper tone of wonder for “Goodnight nobody” these days.

Happily, there are exceptions. Most are long-established classics that just never get old, the Sendaks and such. But we’re fortunate that Griff’s absolute favorite book, the one he asks for every single night, happens to...well, also never get old: the board-book version of Chris Raschka’s Charlie Parker Played Be Bop.

We first discovered the wonders of this book (originally written in 1992) when Dash was about this age, and a quick troll of the Internet shows we were by no means alone. It’s wonderfully nonlinear, managing to capture the feel of jazz in its illustrations and the pacing of its minimal text. Raschka plays off real words and context-less phrases against scat sounds in a fashion that wouldn’t feel out of place in actual jazz vocals, and the effect is marvelous: “Be-bop/Fisk, fisk/Lollipop/Boomba, boomba/Bus stop/Znnn Znnn/Boppity, bippity, bop. Bang!” (All right, I suppose it’s a little more marvelous next to Raschka’s suitably fuzzy drawings.)

Charlie Parker Played Be Bop essentially forces parents to perform it—the book doesn’t work nearly as well when read “straight.” I’m among those awkward souls for whom even this minimal level of performance doesn’t come naturally, and I often find myself resenting children’s books that require it. But Raschka makes it all so organic that I never resisted; in short order, Whitney and I had created our own sung version of the book, one that’s survived through all our readings with Dash into Griff’s current obsession with it.

This is another of the book’s charms: As with so many children’s classics (the wordless “wild rumpus” pages of Where the Wild Things Are come to mind), every family can have its own unique interpretation. Ours begins with a little hi-hat riff, which Griff (who still has only a few real words at this point) now uses to indicate he wants us to read this book. And I’m sure it’s largely because he’s my toddler, but there’s something especially radiant about a beaming toddler doing a hi-hat riff: “Tssss ts-ts tssss ts-ts tssss...”

I’m sometimes surprised even now that we never tire of Charlie Parker, given how relentlessly Griff requires us to read it (and how relentlessly Dash did for years before him). It’s hard to put my finger on exactly why. But I think it’s that Raschka didn’t write a children’s book about Charlie Parker; he wrote a jazz book for kids, a fact as remarkable as it sounds. It’s a delight to read, and by all appearances a delight to listen to.

[Photo: Courtesy of Orchard Books.]