Interview #16: Lane Smith

 

Out of literally hundreds of newly released picture books that I read in 2011, my favorite of the year was "Grandpa Green" by Lane Smith.  Clearly it was a favorite for many because it received a Caldecott Honor, announced in January and presented in ceremony just last week.  The kids and I are delighted that Lane Smith set aside some time to have a conversation with us about his latest achievement!  Author and illustrator of many books, Mr. Smith is probably best known for "The Stinky Cheese Man" (also a Caldecott recipient) which he made with Jon Scieszka.  Another family favorite is "The Happy Hocky Family" which the kiddos reviewed a couple years ago.  Thanks so much to Mr. Smith for the fun conversation!  
(Portrait provided by Gracie)

We'll start with a Bookie Woogie review of Grandpa Green: 

Dad:  At first glance, what does this book appear to be about?

Gracie (age 11):  A little boy and a bunch of trees.

Dad:  But what do you find if you look closer?

Isaac (age 13):  The grandpa's life story.

Dad:  And if you look even closer, what do you discover?

Gracie:  Symbolism.  I think the book is about time passing and about memories.

Isaac:  It's a deep story.  Very deep.

Gracie:  And it's gorgeous.  It has really amazing artwork.

Isaac:  The art tells more of the story than the words do.  The words alone might be boring without the pictures.  But the art turns the story into something awesome.

Gracie:  The book is about this nice old guy who keeps forgetting things.  But he starts telling his life story through his garden.

Lily (age 9):  He had a big life.  The grandpa put his story into all the bushes that he carved.

Gracie:  And the little boy gets to run through the garden and figure the story out.

Lily:  He shows his life through leaves...  A lovely life through leaves.

Isaac:  That's why there is an elephant on the cover.  Because an elephant never forgets.

Gracie:  And the garden doesn't forget either.

Dad:  How did the story make you feel?

Gracie:  Like old people are freaking awesome.

Isaac:  The art in "Grandpa Green" is very different than in Lane Smith's other books.  I didn't even know this book was by the same dude at first.  His older books look bold and solid with lots of shading.  This book is more open and spaced out with lots of spots left white.

Gracie: (flipping through the book)  I LOVE this picture.  I love that tree.

Lily:  It's the best climbing tree ever.

Gracie:  No two trees in this book are alike.

Lily:  Some are loose and hangy. 

Gracie:  But I love this tree.  It's all old and you can see the roots sticking up out of the ground.  It's so detailed.  The branches are all twisty. 

Lily:  They go every-which-way.

Gracie:  It makes me want to jump into the book and make a tree house.  It's the perfect tree for a tree house!  It's the world's best climbing tree, freaking-ever!

And now a Bookie Woogie conversation with Lane Smith:

Lily:  Hi!!!

Lane Smith:  Well hey! 

Gracie:  Congratulations on winning your Caldecott Honor!

Lane Smith:  Yeah, that was cool!  They gave me one 20 years ago for "The Stinky Cheese Man," so I figure if they just give me one every 20 years I'll be happy.

Kids:  Ha ha ha hee ha!

Gracie:  Were you really excited when you got the phone call and found out you'd won?

Lane Smith:  Actually when they called I wasn't there.  I was outside playing with my two cats, Noodle and Pretzel.

Gracie:  Noodle and Pretzel!

Lane Smith:  Then I remembered it was announcement day, so I went into my office and found the voicemail saying that I'd won and had missed their call.  So I had to call them back and admit that I wasn't waiting breathlessly by the phone.

Dad:  And you attended the Caldecott award ceremony just last week, right?

Lane Smith:  Yeah.  This year it was held in Anaheim, and 35 years ago I used to work in Anaheim - I was a janitor at Disneyland.

Isaac:  Cool!

Lane Smith:  I used to walk around with my pan and broom and sweep up popcorn outside It's a Small World.  I remember seeing those topiaries in front of the ride, studying how they were made and how they grew.  Who would think that 35 years later I'd do a book called "Grandpa Green" about topiaries and that when they gave me the award, I'd be back in Disneyland Country picking it up.  That was kind of fun.

Gracie:  When you win a Caldecott, do they give you an actual medal?  Or a certificate?  Or do they just give you stickers on your book?

Lane Smith:  You get a sticker on your book, which is very cool.  But also, on award night the gold medal winner gets a big gold medal.  Then the Honor winners get a shiny plaque with a silver sticker on it.  But the plaque is pretty cool.  And you also get free cake and free chicken and all kinds of good stuff.  Ha ha...

Isaac:  Where are you going to keep your plaque?

Lane Smith:  The first plaque I won for "The Stinky Cheese Man" I gave to my mom.  And the new one I got for "Grandpa Green" I gave to my wife Molly who does all the typography on my books with me.  She has a separate office near mine, so I gave her the plaque.

Lily:  How do you work on the books with your wife...  Do you sit right next to each other, or do you send each other stuff?

Lane Smith:  When we lived in New York City, we had our little desks side by side.  But I think my music was driving her crazy.  So when we bought a new house in Connecticut, she made sure I had a whole separate building to work in.  Ha ha ha... 

Dad:  She likes it quiet?

Lane Smith:  No...  She doesn't like it quiet...  She just doesn't like my music!

Kids:  Ha ha ha hah...

Lane Smith:  If I'm working on a book about sailors, I like to play old sea chanteys.  And if I'm working on a book about the West, I like to play old cowboy music.  It drives her a little nuts.  But in her office she has a t.v. with the Food Network playing all day long, and that drives me crazy.

Dad:  That might be good accompaniment for Stinky Cheese Man paintings.

Lane Smith:  Right, programs about cheese and olives and bacon.  Well, I now work in a 100 year old schoolhouse...

Isaac:  That's pretty cool.

Lane Smith:  And she works in another building a field away.  Each day we email our work back and forth.  Then at some point I call her up and say, "Hey, let's go to lunch."  Ha ha... That's when we get together.

Isaac:  When you were working on "Grandpa Green," did it feel different -- were you thinking it could win an award?

Lane Smith:  No, I really didn't.  You never know which books will catch on and which ones won't.  You just have to keep on doing them.  I got lucky with one.  Woo hoo! 

Dad:  Hopefully with many more to come!

Lane Smith:  It was a nice surprise to win an award.  Those committees have 15 different judges that have to agree on your book.  My work is always so weird, I just figure it's never going to win anything.  I love the Caldecotts, and I love the books that get picked every year, but I just figure those aren't the kind of books that I do.

Gracie:  We noticed that Grandpa Green is different from your other books.  It is deeper and more serious.

Lane Smith:  Yeah, it was more serious than my other goofy books.  So I suppose it had that in it's favor.

Gracie:  What inspired that change?  Why did you decide to do a book like this?

Lane Smith:  Hmmm, I don't really know where that came from.  I'm getting older now... so maybe I was thinking more seriously about life.  About one life.  About putting a whole life into one book.  How could I do that symbolically?  Instead of literally showing a picture of a little boy and then a picture of a teenager and then a man, I thought it would be interesting to show it all through trees and plants.  Visually it's more interesting. 

Isaac:  So the grandpa's life was the starting point for the book and not the trees?

Lane Smith:  Well, it was probably a combination.  From the visual standpoint, I've always wanted to do something with topiaries.  And I've always wanted to try a book with one color throughout, so I wanted to keep the palette all green.

Gracie:  We loved that.

Lane Smith:  It was an interesting challenge.  Because I also wanted to keep the boy in simple, uncolored outlines.  But in order to achieve that, I could never put him in front of a bush or he would look like a white ghost.  I always had to figure out a way to leave a white space open on the page for the boy so I could draw him in an outline.

Isaac:  That's cool...

Dad:  We'll look for that when we read it now!

Lily:  If you could trim your own real hedge, what shape would you make it?

Lane Smith:  When we moved to the country and got a big backyard, I always thought I was going to make a giant Stinky Cheese Man topiary.  But I never got around to it.

Isaac:  That would be awesome!

Gracie:  Hee hee hee!

Isaac:  Does the Stinky Cheese Man stalk you everywhere you go?  Do you enjoy that he's still so popular, or does it start getting annoying that he always keeps coming up?

Lane Smith:  You can't get away from stinky cheese...  it stinks too bad.  No, it's really an honor to have done a book that is over 20 years old, is still in print, and people still know about it.  I'm happy. 

Isaac:  That's good.

Lane Smith:  When you meet people for the first time, they'll say, "Well, what do you do."  And - you probably get this, Aaron - you say, "I do kids books."  And they'll say, "Do I know any of them? Name some!"  And I'll start naming them...  "Never heard of it.  Never heard of it.  Never heard of it."  But if I say "Stinky Cheese Man," most of them will say, "Oh, I know that one!"

Gracie:  That happens to Daddy with "The Hiccupotamus."

Dad:  Ha ha, Oh, I wish...

Lane Smith:  Yeah!  Everyone knows that book, come on!

Dad:  Yesterday when we were preparing for this interview, I gathered up all your books that we have in the house.  The kids and I were about to go over "The Stinky Cheese Man" again, and my wife came over from the other side of the room.  She knows about the book, but had never read it.  She said, in sort of a challenge, "Okay, I'm going to listen to this one and see if it's worthy of all the hype it gets."

Gracie:  She started cracking up when we were reading "The Stinky Cheese Man."  My Mom was laughing her head off.

Lane Smith:  Oh, that's good that it still holds up!

Dad:  So she's a fan of that one now too.

Gracie:  My Mom also says she has a great amount of respect for anyone who can think up something as awesome as "The Happy Hocky Family."

Lane Smith:  Excellent!  That's one of my favorites!

Gracie:  We love "The Happy Hocky Family!"

Lane Smith:  When I do a book signing, if there are 100 people in the line then maybe one out of that hundred will be a Happy Hocky fan.  But it's always the weirdest person in the line.  Which I like!

Dad:  Ha ha ha --We're in good company then.  That's definitely our "family favorite."

Gracie:  We have 14 of your books, and we noticed that 7 of them you made with Jon Scieszka, and 7 you made by yourself.  Half and Half.  What is the best part about working on books with other authors, and what is the best part about working on books by yourself?

Lane Smith:  When you read another author's manuscript for the first time, it's already a fully formed story.  So you can already start thinking about what style and shapes and colors you'd use.  It's fun to illustrate someone else's words... but you are interpreting their vision.  When you write your own work, it's 100% yourself.  The themes are more personal.  And it's more exciting because you are the writer, the director, the set designer, the actor, the producer.  That's the most rewarding.  When I work with other writers, I like the ones that have the same sense of humor as I do.  Jon definitely has that. 

Gracie:  Speaking of Jon Scieszka and collaborations... we thought of some other partnerships we know.  For each pair, we want you to tell us which one is you and which one is Jon Scieszka.

Lane Smith:  Okay...

Isaac:  Rocky and Bullwinkle.

Lane Smith:  Ah, ha ha!  Jon would be Bullwinkle.  I would be Rocky -- I think he was a little smarter than Bullwinkle even though he was shorter.

Gracie:  Peanut Butter and Jelly.

Lane Smith:  Oh, that's a good one.  I would be peanut butter.  I don't even think Jon likes peanut butter.  But I have to have it every day.  I would be peanut butter.  And I would be smooth...  Jif...  peanut butter.

Dad:  Absolutely!  That's the only real peanut butter there is, right?

Lane Smith:  You don't want that chunky Peter Pan!  No way.

Gracie:  Next one...  Legolas and Gimli.

Lane Smith:  Who???

Gracie:  From Lord of the Rings?

Lane Smith:  I never read those books!  In highschool, all the nerdy guys were reading Lord of the Rings and I thought I was too cool for that.  Of course they thought I was a nerd because I was reading Spiderman.  I'll have to pass on that one...

Isaac:  Calvin and Hobbes.

Lane Smith:  That's a tough one too.  I was always more of a Peanuts fan.

Gracie:  Gasp -- I LOVE PEANUTS!!!

Lane Smith:  Excellent!  They were a big influence on my work.

Gracie:  So I'm going to change the pair: Snoopy and Woodstock.

Lane Smith:  Excellent.  I want to be Snoopy.  He had the best imagination, pretending to be the Red Barron...  Jon can be Woodstock with the word balloon over his head full of "dit dit dit dit dit..."

Lily:  Are you Lucy or Ricky?

Lane Smith:  Ha ha!  Lucy or Ricky?  Is that what you asked?  I would be Ricky Ricardo.  But Jon wouldn't be Lucy, he'd be Fred Mertz. 

Dad:  And your reason....  Is it hairlines?

Lane Smith:  Ha ha ha hah ha...  No, he's the obnoxious neighbor coming over to bug me.  Ha ha ha...

Gracie:  Here's the last one...

Lily:  Pooh and Tigger.

Lane Smith:  Ha ha hah!  I'm going to say I would be Tigger.  And Jon would be Poo' - for obvious reasons.

Kids:  HAH ha ha hah ha haaa ha haaa!

Dad:  Well, thanks so much for talking with us!  And again, congratulations on your win.

Gracie:  You totally deserved it.  I love your "Grandpa Green" book.

Lane Smith:  Well thank-you.  I'll be looking for all of your books when you kids start publishing your own.  It was great talking with you guys.  Hey, where are you guys calling from?

Dad:  We're in Michigan.

Lane Smith:  Excellent.  That's the land of Scieszka. 

Dad:  Yep...  He grew up here.

Gracie:  I didn't know that.

Lane Smith:  And Laurie Keller is there, right?

Dad:  Yes.  Not far from us.  We run into her every once in a while.

Lane Smith:  She does good work.  The next time you see her, give her a doughnut from me.

Dad:  We actually went to her house once and she served us doughnuts.  It was the coolest thing ever.

Lane Smith:  Ha!  I think she has a doughnut factory hidden on her property.

Gracie:  If we visit you, will you give us stinky cheese?

Lane Smith:  Yeah, if you guys come visit me, I will personally give each of you a big chunk of stinky cheese and make sure you eat it.

Gracie:  Awww....

Dad:  Afterward we'll trim your hedges for you.

garden, by Isaac

Lily hedge, by Lily

 

tree, by Gracie

Author/Illustrator: Lane Smith
Published, 2011: Roaring Brook Press

Like it?  Here it is

Review #59: If You Lived Here You'd Be Home By Now

Gracie (age 9):  Why in the world is this book called "If You Lived Here You'd Be Home By Now"?
Dad:  I was just going to ask you guys that.  What do you think?
Gracie:  I don't know.
Dad:  Usually when you see that phrase on signs or bumper stickers it means: "This is a good place to live -- don't you wish you lived here?  Ha ha, I live here, you don't."  That kind of thing.
Gracie:  What does that have to do with a giant monster?
Dad:  How about this...  we'll talk about the story first, and then maybe you'll be able to answer that question.
Gracie:  Okay.
Dad:  This book is by Ed Briant.  What did you guys think of the words in this story?
Lily (age 6):  They were blank.
Gracie:  There were no words!
Dad:  Yep, so it's a wordless book.
Gracie:  The characters do talk, but there are pictures inside the word bubbles instead of writing.
Isaac (age 11):  This was a graphic novel.
Dad:  I don't know about that...  It was kind of short for a graphic novel.  "Novel" usually signifies something longer...
Gracie:  It's a "Graphic Short-el"
Isaac:  The story is about this boy who reads a book about a forest.  He knows where that forest is, so he runs over there, but he can't find any animals.  Then he sees a giant leaf pile, so he jumps in it.  But it actually wasn't a leaf pile.  It was a Leafy Beast.
Lily:  A monster man!  A monster dude!
Gracie:  They jump in leaf piles together.  They read a book together.
Isaac:  Then he asked if the monster could show him where all the animals were.  They find the animals, but there was a boom and a crash and all the animals ran away.
Lily:  People were cutting down all the trees and turning it into buildings.  They were turning the forest into a town.
Gracie:  The boy tells his mom and dad "I found a Leafy Beast!"
Isaac:  The parents think their son is a weirdie.
Lily:  Then the boy grows up.  He doesn't remember about the leafy monster any more.
Isaac:  Now he has a kid.  He takes his kid to different forest, but they still can't find animals.  Then the kid hears something -- it was all the animals.  Then the kid turns around, and there was Leafy Beast.
Dad:  Why do you think only kids can see him?
Gracie:  He hides when adults come.
Dad:  Why?
Gracie:  They might scream and shoot their rifles at him.
Dad:  What did you like best about the book, Lily?
Lily:  My favorite part of the book was the leaf monster.
Dad:  Why?
Lily:  Because he's a monster.
Dad:  It's fun to create monsters.  You can design them any way you want.
Lily:  Yeah, because they are not real.  But they might be real.  No one knows...
Dad:  How about you, Gracie?
Gracie:  I like the way the illustrator paints.  He doesn't do it very careful.  Sometimes he gets a little bit out of the lines.  And sometimes he doesn't go all the way to the lines.
Dad:  Does that make you feel good knowing that grownups paint like that?
Gracie:  Yes.
Dad:  On purpose even!
Gracie:  There's something I didn't like.  I didn't like the fact that they had to turn the forest into a city.
Dad:  That happens sometimes, doesn't it.  I'm sure before our house was built here, this would have been a woodsy area.
Isaac:  Well, we have a little area in our backyard that is saved for nature.  Remember all those trees?  It's like a little tiny forest in our backyard.
Dad:  Yeah, it's good that the people who built this house didn't tear all the trees up.  Do you think there are any leaf monsters back there?
Isaac:  No.  I've been back there too often.  I would know.
Gracie:  I've searched every part of that forest, and there's not.  I wish there was though.
Dad:  So back to your original question...  Why do you think this book is called "If You Lived Here You'd Be Home By Now"?  Any ideas?
Lily:  Because I wish I lived with a leafy monster.
Isaac:  It has to do with the forest.  If you lived in the forest, you'd be there already.
Dad:  What about you guys?  Would you rather live in a big city, or out in nature?
Gracie:  I'd like to live out with animals.  But every year I would have to order twenty thousand shipments of bug spray.
Isaac:  These are mostly guesses about the title.
Gracie:  Maybe the author can tell us what it means.
Isaac:  Exactly what it means.
Gracie:  I have words for Mr. Ed Briant.  Can you, like, email us or something and tell us what in the world the title has to do with this book?  Or something?
Isaac:  We're still trying to figure it out.

leaves and leafy beast, by Isaac

boy riding leafy beast, by Lily

drawing with leafy beast, by Gracie

Author/Illustrator: Ed Briant
Published, 2009: Roaring Brook Press
Like it? Find it

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
Like it? Find it

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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