2011 Wrap: Books, Part I (Picture & Board Books)

I'm generally of the opinion that blogging, like love for Harvard undergrads, means never having to say you're sorry, but I feel I really ought to apologize for the even-lighter-than-usual posting over the November and December holidays. The regular winter-holiday excuses apply, but are as always no real excuse, since it's not as if I didn't know they were coming.

Anyway, it's time for my second annual belated best-of-last-year posts. This time, so as not to get bogged down with stuff I've already written about for a month, I'll alternate them with brand, spanking new-material posts. (And now that I've made that promise, I will endeavor to keep it.)

As I look over my favorite picture books and board books of last year, I see that they fall, sensibly enough, into two categories: the clever and the gorgeous. (OK, there's some overlap.)

THE CLEVER
This category is led by one of my finalists for best children's book of the year overall (admittedly, I haven't gone beyond finalists yet), Jon Klassen's marvelous, ever-so-slightly shocking I Want My Hat Back, about a bear who really, really wants his lost hat back. Though come to think of it, I was no less enthusiastic about the brilliant concept and execution of Hervé Tullet's remarkable meta-interactive print book, Press Here, while Ido Vaginsky's Spin displayed actual interactivity of the clever paper-engineering kind.

Rounding out the category were three sweet-clever titles. Both I and my three-year-old vacillate daily on which of them we love most, so I'll list them in alphabetical order to avoid false momentary favoritism. (And truly, we love them all equally.) Edwin Speaks Up, by April Stevens and the beloved-of-this blog Sophie Blackall, struck a chord with all toddlers who know they're the only sensible people in the family. In her Hopper and Wilson, Maria Van Lieshout channeled the warmth and poignance of A. A. Milne. And Diane Kredensor's Ollie & Moon combined illustrations with Sandra Kress's photography in a charming, evocative, and, yes, clever way.

THE GORGEOUS
This list is shorter, encompassing just two titles: Laura Carlin's stunning illustrative interpretation of the Ted Hughes classic The Iron Giant, and Sylvia Long's breathtaking nature illustrations accompanying Diana Hutts Aston's text in A Butterfly Is Patient. What it lacks in length, though, it makes up for in beauty. (And heck, the Hughes story is rather clever as well. So much for categorization?)

In my next 2011 wrap-up post (i.e., my post after next), I'll look at the year's top graphic-novels for kids, including a fantastic compilation I forgot to write about first time around.

[Cover image courtesy of Random House]

New Books: Ollie & Moon

I know reinvention is at the heart of many forms of creativity, but sometimes I can't help being amazed at how often I see something in a children’s book that I've never seen done before, quite in that way. Take first-time children’s author-illustrator Diane Kredensor's Ollie & Moon. At one level, it's simply a cute puzzle of a picture book, with the offbeat sensibility of much of today's animated TV (the field in which Kredensor has made her name to this point, as an animation artist on shows like Pinky and the Brain and WordWorld). Ollie and Moon, our protagonist cats, are best friends, and since Moon loves surprises, Ollie loves to surprise her; for her birthday, he has a big one planned.

As he leads her through the streets of their native Paris, Moon makes guess after guess about what her surprise might be. But while she is able to find out a lot about it (that it's round, and has both hooves and feathers, for instance), she can't seem to put all the pieces together. Young readers get to guess right along with her, of course, and the ever-longer and -stranger list of descriptions will soon have them giggling; the humor and pacing make this book a perfect bedtime read.

But there's one more aspect that takes Ollie & Moon from fun debut to one of the coolest picture books I've seen this year: Kredensor uses as the backdrop for her illustrated characters real photographs of Parisian streets by Sandra Kress. They’re by no means the first picture-book creators to combine illustration and photography, but the execution is fairly novel—they let the vibrant background images to dominate each page, so the Paris setting becomes part of the magic of Moon's surprise. (The final reveal even makes glorious use of the location.)

It all adds up to a picture book that's not only a lot of fun, but feels like none other out there—the elements of an instant classic. And so far, to our two-year-old, that's exactly what it is.

[Cover image courtesy of Random House; interior photo by Whitney Webster.]