Review #19: A Book

Dad:  Alright, who's excited?
Kids:  MEEEEEE!
Dad:  Oh for the love...
Kids:  We got a new book!  We got a new book for Bookie Woogie!
Dad:  What does it say on the package?  It says "Gerstein."  Do you remember who Mordicai Gerstein is?
Gracie (age 8):  "How to Paint the Portrait of a Bird!"
Dad:  Do you remember what Mr. Gerstein said in the email he wrote to you?
Gracie:  He liked our review, and he would send us his new book!  This must be it!
Dad:  Let's see what it's called... (opening package)  It's called...
Isaac (age 10):  "A Book."
Dad:  Of course it's a book.
Lily (age 6):  It's called "A Book."
Gracie:  It has a whole bunch of crazy guys on the cover.
Isaac:  A clown, a goose, a parrot...
Gracie: ...the "I'm-late-I'm-late-for-a-very-important-date" Rabbit.
Dad:  Alright, let's read it!

Reading commences....
...Reading concludes.

Dad:  So what do you think?
Gracie:  This is a funny book.  I liked it a lot!
Isaac:  The story is a story of a girl finding a story in her story!
Gracie:  That's a lot of "stories."
Dad:  A family of characters lives in this book, and each person has their own story.
Gracie:  But the girl didn't know what her story is.  So she tries to find it.
Dad:  She visits different kinds of stories to see if any of them are a good fit.  What kinds of stories did she check out?
Isaac:  Fairytales, a pirate story, a mystery story, a historical story, a science fiction story with aliens...
Lily:  The aliens are funny.
Isaac:  One of them says "Pipick" and the other one says "Pupick."
Lily:  I like the pink one -- it's a girl.
Isaac:  They look like little suns and they have one eyeball.
Dad:  Do you know what a "historical" book is?
Isaac:  From a long time ago.  Like "Little House on the Prairie."
Gracie:  Like me!
Dad:  Like you!  I think you belong in the historical story.  Tell everyone how you were dressed when the book arrived.
Gracie:  I'm wearing a dress that looks like it's from olden days, and an apron, and a bonnet!
Isaac:  Try jumping into the book!
Dad:  It's cool because the characters know they live in a book.  How did the girl find out that there are people reading about her?
Isaac:  The goose said to look up.
Gracie:  And the girl screamed "Ahh!  What's that big blobby thing that looks like a face!"
Dad:  You almost started crying when she said that!
Gracie:  I'm not a blobby thing...
Dad:  Maybe she was looking at Lily.
Lily:  No, you!
Dad:  Me?
Lily:  Yeah, because you were reading it!
Dad:  True enough.  I probably have the blobby head.  Besides, if she had been looking at Gracie she would have said, "What's that thing in a baby bonnet?"
Gracie:  It's a Little House on the Prairie bonnet!
Isaac:  She couldn't see me - I hid behind the book.
Lily:  I don't want to be seen.
Dad:  What do you think about the illustrations?
Isaac:  The pictures in this book are cool!  They look like 3-D popping up.
Lily:  The people look like they are walking on the pages.
Isaac:  One of the ways he makes it look like 3-D is with shadows.
Dad: ...cast shadows.
Isaac:  And he kind of makes the people look like they are tilted, coming up at you.
Gracie:  And when he makes speech bubbles, he makes them look like they're popping up too.
Dad:  If our family lived in a book, who do you think the main character would be?
Gracie:  All of us.  Or... probably Lily.  She's the one who is most interesting in our family.
Lily:  I am?
Isaac:  She is?
Lily:  I would like to be in the story of Cinderella because there was a prince in there.  All those kinds of stories are princess stories, so I would be a princess.
Gracie:  I want to be in a comedy story.  About candy.
Isaac:  I want to be in a book about cool stuff like how to build tree forts and how to make bows and arrows.
Dad:  You guys are kind of in a story every week through Bookie Woogie.  And you have Readers.  We just can't see them.  Or their blobby heads.
Gracie:  I know what story we are in.  We are in a story about an artist family.  A family where everyone is an artist - except Mom.
Mom:  I want to be in a book about a clean house.
Dad:  Anything else you want to say?
Gracie:  Thank-you Mordicai Gerstein!
Isaac:  We really love the book!
Dad:  "A Book" hits shelves in April.  Be on the lookout!

pipick, pupick, pepick, papick, popick, by Gracie

mysterious scene, by Isaac

hitchin' a ride, by Lily

Author/Illustrator: Mordicai Gerstein
Published, April 2009: Roaring Brook Press
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Review #16: How to Paint the Portrait of a Bird

Dad:  Today's review is for "How to Paint the Portrait of a Bird."
Isaac (age 10):  I had a feeling it would be about a bird.
Dad:  Did the book tell you how to paint the portrait of a bird?
Isaac:  No.
Dad:  But that's what the book is called.  Well... DID it tell you how to paint the portrait of a bird?
Isaac:  It did.  But not the real way.
Gracie (age 8):  This way is more fun.
Lily (age 5):  It was about a bird and a boy and, well, the bird got into a picture.  The boy painted all the stuff besides the bird.
Gracie:  The cage...  The tree...
Lily:  And the bird flew inside the paint.
Dad:  So, the boy paints a picture of a cage with an open door, a bird flies into the cage, he erases the door, and... ta-da!  The portrait of a bird.
Isaac:  But you have to wait for years and years behind a tree, hiding...
Gracie:  With no food.
Isaac:  ...waiting for a bird to fly into the picture, and you don't even know for sure if it's going to come or not.
Gracie:  The boy imagines he might be waiting there until he's an old man with a beard and super long grass all around him and cobwebs on his head!
Lily:  It could have been really funny if the bird had a beard too!
Gracie:  "I'm an old man with cobwebs on my head!"
Lily:  I think the boy was trying to keep a pet.  Maybe he was trying to get the bird to stay in his picture and be his pet.  And then he tried to make it sing, and it sang!
Gracie:  It was funny when the bird was singing, because it was
like: "TWEET!"  Ye-haw, baby!
Isaac:  The page is all full of music notes.
Lily:  Tweet tweet tweet tweet tweet tweet tweet!
Dad:  Did anyone feel sad for the bird when it flew into the painting?  I did.
Lily:  Me too.  But then it got free.
Gracie:  Then I didn't feel sad.
Lily:  Me either!
Dad:  Would it be worth it?  Waiting that long to paint the portrait of a bird?
Isaac:  Then only keep it for, like, a day!
Lily:  And the next morning the boy had to do it all over again.
Gracie:  That would be hard.
Isaac:  He stayed there for a YEAR.  Behind a tree.  Hiding.  Waiting for a bird.  And then he has to do it for another year to catch another bird!
Dad:  Yeah, you guys seemed pretty freaked out over the realization that if the boy wanted to keep a portrait of a bird, he would have to go through the whole process again when the bird flies out...
Isaac:  That would be frustrating.  You would just do it over again.  Then over.  And over and over and over and over.
Dad: (opening to a spread)  Now, you all really liked this page didn't you...
Isaac:  OH yeah!
Gracie:  It's so full of color!  And it's beautiful.
Lily:  Yeah!
Gracie:  The sun has tons of color shining out of it.
Isaac:  I like how he made the butterflies...
Gracie:  The butterflies are so pretty.
Lily:  I want a summer like that in our front yard!
Dad:  When the boy signs his name he writes: Mordicai Gerstein.  Do you know who Mordicai Gerstein is?
Isaac:  No.  Is it the guy who made the book?
Dad:  Yep.  So the illustrator imagined himself as a character in the book.
Gracie:  Once Mr. Murphy put me in a story he told about a big red monster who lost his blankie.
Dad:  How about Isaac?
Gracie:  I know!  He's in that book Mr. Sandford made of the guy who cooks...
Dad:  To get Isaac in that book, first Mr. Sandford had to paint a cage...  then he had to wait for Isaac to crawl into the cage...
Gracie:  Ha ha ha ha...
Isaac:  No.  I had to pose for an hour...
Dad:  So when we make our pictures at the end of this Bookie Woogie, are we going to have to paint cages and run outside to look for birds to fly into them?
Isaac:  That would be strange.
Gracie:  That would be cool!
Dad:  We might have to wait until Gracie is old and has a beard.
Whack!
Dad:  Um, you just whacked me.
Gracie:  I don't grow beards...  You have a beard!
Dad:  Final verdict - how was this book?
Isaac:  Love it!  Good!  Great!  All of those combined into a little ball of birdies!
Hysterical laughter by all
Dad:  Sooooo...  I'll take that as a thumbs up?
Isaac:  YES!

portrait of a bird, by Gracie

old, waiting, and covered in cobwebs, by Isaac

catching a bird, by Lily

Author: Jacques Prevert
Illustrator: Mordicai Gerstein
Published, 2007: Roaring Brook Press
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