Reviews #131-135: mid-year Favorites of 2014

A few months ago we shared some of our early favorite 2014 picture books.  The year continues on!  Many more delightful titles have crossed our paths.  Here's a look at the 2014 favorites that we discovered in the middle of the year.  Out of hundreds of books we've read, each kid is going to choose and highlight a personal favorite here, all in one post.  And to kick things off, for the first time we've got our youngest reviewer ever, joining in with a book she adores:

Dad:  Alright Maggie!  Tell me about your book.  
(pointing) Who is this little guy?  Up at the top, the book says “Jonny Duddle.”  Is that little guy’s name Jonny Duddle? 
Magdalena (age 3):  No! 
Dad:  At the bottom it says “Gigantosaurus.”  Is that little guy’s name Gigantosaurs?

Magdalena:  No!!
Dad:  Then who is it? 
Magdalena:  Bonehead!!!
Dad:  You love Bonehead!  What kind of creature is he?
Magdalena:  He’s Bonehead!!!!
Dad:  But what kind of animals is he?
Magdalena:  I don’t know these guys.
Dad:  Are they squirrels?  Raccoons?
Magdalena:  Noooo! 
Dad:  Dinosaurs?
Magdalena:  Yeah!  Little dinosaurs.  Kid dinosaurs. 
Dad:  Is Bonehead good or naughty?
Magdalena:  Naughty.  There’s his mom.  The mommy is sooooo long.  But Bonehead is littler.
Dad:  What does the mama say?  “Watch out for…
Magdalena: ...Gigantosaurus!”  He eats guys!  Ahhhhh!
Dad:  Is Bonehead scared of Gigantosaurus? 
Magdalena:  He’s not.  Bonehead says “Gigantosaurus is coming!  Watch out!  Run!”
Dad:  He was playing tricks on his friends.  And are they scared? 
Magdalena:  Yeah.  That’s not nice. 
Dad:  Then what does Bonehead say?
Magdalena:  “There was no Gigantosaurus, you guys!”  There was no stomp.  There was no crunch.  Heeheehee…
Dad:  But at the end of the book, who did finally come? 
Magdalena:  Gigantosaurus.  Uh-oh!  Footprints, footprints, he’s right there.  There’s his tail...
Dad:  Do you like Gigantosaurus?
Magdalena:  No.  He has a big head.  He is grumpy.  I like Bonehead!  I like his name. 
Dad:  What would you do if Gigantosaurus was coming? 
Magdalena:  Hide.  Behind the couch.
Dad:  Do you think Dad would keep you safe?
Magdalena:  I think you would play a trick on me.
Dad:  So, what’s the best thing about this book?
Magdalena:  Bonehead!
Dad:  And why do you like this book?
Magdalena:  It’s funny.
Dad:  What is funny about it?
Magdalena:  Bonehead!!!

Dad:  Okay Evie, what is your book called? 

Evangeline (age 6):  “SHH! We have a plan”

Dad:  Are you shushing me?
Evangeline: (whispering)  I’m telling you the name of the book. 
Dad:  (whispering)  Oh… do we have to whisper while we review this book?
Evangeline:  Yes.
Dad:  Why do you like this book?
Evangeline:  I like the little person.  The big persons are trying to grab a bird with a net and stick it in a cage.  But it doesn’t work.  The big ones don’t ever catch it.  They fall.  And splash.  They are like, “Aahhhhhh!”  It’s kind of fun.  “Aahhhhhhg!”  They scare the bird away.
Dad:  But the little one says, “Hi Birdie!”
Evangeline:  The little one always talks.  And the big ones tell her “SHH!”   But she knows better than the big ones.  The little one gives the bird some bread.  Definitely the bread works better.  She is the one who gets all the birds.  She got a BUNCH -- like “lavishing.”
Dad:  Ohhhh!  You are trying out a new a word!
Evangeline:  “Lavishing.”
Dad:  What does that mean?
Evangeline:  Lavishing means “a bunch.”
Dad:  The little one is lavished with birds.
Evangeline:  Yeah.
Dad:  So, who had the smartest plan? 
Evangeline:  The little one, the little one, the little one.
Dad:  It’s almost like the little one wants to be a friend to the bird instead.
Evangeline:  The big ones want to be friends too, but in a different way. 
Dad:  Oh you think so?
Evangeline:  Yeah.  The little one is trying to make a friend the nice way.  And the big ones are trying to make a friend a mean way.  They are trying to catch it with a net.
Dad:  If you go out to the playground and want to make a friend, it’s probably not the best idea to bring a net.
Evangeline:  No. 
Dad:  Will you be my friend? 
Evangeline:  Yes.
Dad:  Do I have to use a net, or can I just use bread?
Evangeline:  You don’t have to use any of that stuff. 
Dad:  But isn’t that the lesson?  If you want to make a friend… use food!  You want fat friends!
Evangeline:  No.
Dad:  Find hungry friends!
Evangeline:  No.  Kindness.
Dad:  Oh – so kindness is a good idea?
Evangeline:  Yes.  And the little one shares.
Dad:  Kindness and sharing.  No sneaking.  No nets.  Anything else?
Evangeline:  You could say “Hi” to the new friend.  I would probably do this: If you were just sitting here, I would ask you if you want to play with me.  And then we would start playing together.
Dad:  So communication is best.  And that’s what the little one had been trying!  He was trying to use words all along.
Evangeline:  Sometimes you can learn stuff from little ones.
Dad:  So, Evie... out of all the books in the whooooole world, what is your favorite book?
Evangeline:  The owl one.  The one where the owl gets lost from his mommy.
Dad:  Right, “Little Owl Lost.”   And guess what.  The same guy made this book!  Chris Haughton.  Out of all the new 2014 books you had to choose from, you picked a book by the same guy who wrote your favorite book.  And you didn’t even know it. 
Evangeline:  I can see it now. 
Dad:  You must like his books, huh?
Evangeline:  If I could meet him, I would tell him I love all his books.

Dad:  Elijah, what books are you going to tell me about?
Elijah (age 8):  Ricky Ricotta and his Mighty Robot.  There’s this mouse named Ricky Ricotta.  He’s just a normal kid who goes to school.
Dad:  A normal kid?
Elijah:  Well, just a normal mouse kid.  He gets bullied every day.  There is a bad rat named Dr. Stinky who built a robot, but the robot turns nice.  Dr. Stinky was like, “Destroy those squirrels!” but they looked too cute for him... too harmless… I don’t know.  The robot just didn’t want to do it.
Dad:  So Ricky becomes the robot’s new master.  But he didn’t create the robot – he’s not an inventor.
Elijah:  No.  Just a normal mouse kid.
Dad:  I think the amount of art in these books is amazing.  Really well done, and there are over 100 pages of it per book.
Elijah:  There are two versions of these books.
Dad:  Okay, tell us about that…
Elijah:  In the first version that was made along time ago, the pictures are just like circles and squares.  But the new versions that just came out are more detailed and have color – a LOT of color, on every page.  The art shows a lot of action.
Dad:  So you like the full-color illustrations.
Elijah:  Yeah, the illustrator also did that book “Oh No.”
Dad:  Dan Santat.  And he did “Sidekicks.” 
Elijah:  Oh yeah!  I can see that now.  I like Sidekicks also.
Dad:  Dav Pilkey wrote these books.
Elijah:  And I know that he also did Captain Underpants.  At school we had to tell our favorite book, and I did Ricky Ricotta - of course.  We had to write the author’s name, and my friend Ethan said “That’s the guy who did Captain Underpants!”
Dad:  So how would you describe this series? 
Elijah:  It’s exciting.  Ricky and his robot are always going on adventures, fighting a different villain in every book.
Dad:  These aren’t like the books that we have to make you read for school.
Elijah:  These ones are fun - I want to read them.  I can’t WAIT until the next four come out.
Dad:  You and I have been reading lots of different books together for a while…
Elijah:  I really like that.
Dad:  But it’s been hard to get you to read on your own.  UNTIL we discovered these books.
Elijah:  Yep!
Dad:  Then you went crazy.  You don’t even wait for me!  You raced on without me.  These are the books that turned you into a “Reader.”
Elijah:  I’ve been like, “When are the next ones coming out?  When are the next ones coming out?  They look so cool!”  I can’t wait until the new ones come out.
Dad:  So who would these be good books for? 
Elijah:  Me.
Dad:  Haa ha hah ha… And?
Elijah:  Other kids that are like me.
Dad:  Kids that…
Elijah: ...like adventures and fighting and this kind of art.  It looks like it’s animated.  I can’t believe he drew this.  He’s a really good artist.
Dad:  The covers look like movie posters.
Elijah:  I would DEFINITELY watch if they turned this into a tv show.

Lily (age 11):  I like this book.
Dad:  You’ve picked “Toucan Can.”
Lily:  I put the words in this book to a tune.
Dad:  So the poem must have really good rhythm to do that.
Lily:  Yeah, it’s like snapping.  (starts singing) “Toucan can do lots of things! Toucan dances! Toucan sings! Toucan bangs a frying pan! Can YOU do what Toucan can?”
Dad:  What would you say is the point of the story? 
Lily:  It’s just playing with words.
Dad:  Just a fun romp.  Fun for your tongue.
Lily: (singing again) “Toucan can do lots of things!  Toucan dances!  Toucan sings!”  Or we could make it into a Rap.  Ready, Dad, you give a beat.
Dad: (makes beat noises)
Lily: (rapping) “Toucan - can do - lots of things… Toucan dances - Toucan sings”
Dad:  Or you could do it like Opera…
Lily:  Oh gosh.  Let’s do it… “Toucan can dooooOOOOO… Lots of thiiiiiiIIIINGS…”
Dad:  What else?  Can you sing it Country?
Lily: (twangy) “Tou-can can do-oo lots of thaings…  Tou-can dances and tou- can- saings…”  There we go.  What else?  Rock?  You’d basically just scream it.
Dad:  What is your favorite part?
Lily:  The best part is close to the end.  The words gets REALLY confusing, and I just like it.
Dad:  Would you call it a tongue twister?
Lily:  The end part, yeah.  It’s the best: “Aunty Anne and Candy can, and Aunty Candy’s panda can, with Aunt Amanda’s salamander, Sandy’s goose and Andy’s gander…”  I’ve read this book a couple times, and I’m really bad at it. (tries saying it again)
Dad:  Woo!  Now you’re getting it.
Lily:  But I can’t do it fast. (tries again faster)
Dad:  Now you’re flying!  Does it remind you of Dr. Seuss?
Lily:  I like this better than Dr. Seuss.  I’m not saying Dr. Seuss is bad.  I just like this better.
Dad:  And the characters have a lot of personality to them.
Lily:  Yeah!  I like the aunts.  Ha ha ha… The aunts and uncles are, like – what the heck?  They are so weird.  And look at his face!  Ha ha ha…
Dad:  And the book is so colorful.
Lily:  Yeah, it has very fun pictures.  I really love all of the flowers and branches and leaves.  They got a good artist for this book.  Let’s see who the artist is…
Dad:  Sarah Davis.  And Juliette MacIver wrote it.  Two girls.
Lily:  I could tell.
Dad:  You could?
Lily:  The words sound like a girl’s words.  And the flowers look like a girl painted them.
Dad:  Really?  How would a boy paint flowers?
Lily:  A lot different.
Dad:  Some of the most famous pictures of flowers have been painted by dudes. 
Lily:  I know. 
Dad:  Van Gogh’s sunflowers… Monet’s gardens…
Lily:  But when you look a picture of a boy who did a flower and a girl who did a flower, you can tell the difference. 
Dad:  Maybe you can.
Lily:  You can’t, but I can.
Dad:  BUT “can Toucan do what YOU can do?”
Lily:  Ha ha ha…

Dad:  Gracie, you’ve got “Fox’s Garden.”  What attracted you to this book?

Gracie (age 14):  The storyline is sweet.  The art is epic.  The pictures are made out of cut paper, and WOAH.  It must have taken forever to cut out.  I made a shadow box a couple weeks ago -- it took me hours and hours, and it wasn’t even detailed.  So this must have been crazy hard to do.
Dad:  I love cut paper.  I’ve been wanting to try making a cut paper book for years.
Gracie: (pointing)  Look at that!  Look at how detailed she cuts out the tiny little things!  Oh man!
Dad:  Do you like the images too, or are you mostly impressed by the materials? 
Gracie:  If the exact same pictures were painted instead, it would still be cool -- but not AS cool.  She does a lot of things with light and shadow that you couldn’t do otherwise.  She illuminates the town so you can see there is life there.  And she casts shadows in the forest so it looks dark and deserted.  So you know the fox wants to go where there is warmth and life to give birth and raise her babies.  See, I’m getting all insightful and junk.  Ha ha…
Dad:  So when she gets to the town, does it turn out to be warm and inviting?
Gracie:  No, there’s a mean dude.  And a mean woman.  They are kicking her.  Poor fox.  Then a boy brings her something in a basket?  I’m assuming food.
Dad:  What does the fox say?
Gracie:  DON'T.  YOU.  Don’t you even bring that song up. 
Dad:  Well, we’re safe because the fox doesn’t say anything in this book.
Gracie:  It’s a wordless book, which is cool.  I feel like words could have ruined the book.  I like wordless books - they are like silent movies.
Dad:  And the book is almost black and white like a silent movie.
Gracie:  Almost.  The only things in color in the book are the fox and the child.  And the kid is red just like the fox.
Dad:  I think it shows their connection.
Gracie:  It wasn’t a very realistic book though.  That kid is going into a room with a mother fox.  That’s not a good idea.  He’s not very smart.  If I was the fox, I would attack the child.
Dad:  Would this have been better if it was realistic?
Gracie: Ha hah heh ha…  No, because then there would be kid limbs everywhere.
Dad:  Do you think it would have been fun or torture to make this book? 
Gracie:  I feel like it could be fun at the beginning… “Aw this could be awesome, look what I made, yeah!”  But I feel like after cutting out one tree I’d be like, “okay, I’m done with this.”
Dad:  I love the fact that this little constructed scene actually exists somewhere in the world.  If I was able, I could go and look around this 3D paper room.
Gracie:  It’s like a tiny world.  If I spent that much time making little worlds this intricate, I wouldn’t pitch them.  I’d build another room onto my house just to display them all.
Dad:  Anything else you like about this book?
Gracie:  I also love it because I think foxes are the coolest creature in the whole world.  They are elegant.  And powerful.  It’s an elegant creature that can still fend for itself.
Dad:  And they say “ring-ding-ding-ding…” 
Gracie:  STOP IT.  I said we are NOT going to bring up that song.
Dad:  Did you see the name of the person who made this book?
Gracie: (reading)  Princesse Camcam?  That’s awesome!  Oh my gosh.  That’s the best name in the whole world.

Bonehead and the Gigantosaurus, by Magdalena

little one and bird, by Evangeline

Dr. Stinky and Ricky Ricotta, by Elijah

Toucan and friends, by Lily

child and foxes, by Gracie

And bonus!  Here are 5 more favorite 2014 titles:


Julia's House for Lost Creatures
by Ben Hatke


Gaijin
by Matt Faulkner


Hannah's Night
by Komako Sakai


How to Wash a Wooly Mammoth
by Michelle Robinson and Kate Hindley 


Lost for Words
by Natalie Russell 


Gigantosaurus
Author/Illustrator: Jonny Duddle
Published, 2014: Templar Books 
Like it?  Here it is 


Shh! We have a Plan
Author/Illustrator Chris Haughton
Published, 2014: Candlewick Press
Like it?  Here it is



Ricky Ricotta's Mighty Robot
Author: Dav Pilkey
Illustrator: Dan Santat
Published, 2014: Scholastic
Like it?  Here they are


Toucan Can
Author: Juliette MacIver
Illustrator: Sarah Davis
Published, 2014: Gecko Press
Like it?  Here it is   


Fox's Garden
Author/Illustrator:  Princesse Camcam
Published, 2014: Enchanted Lion
Like it?  Here it is 

Reviews #126-130: early Favorites of 2014

We’re trying a new approach today!  We’ve read tons of 2014 titles already this year.  (Of course there are many more yet to see.)  Out of those that have crossed our paths so far in the first half of the year, here are some favorites, all in one post!  The kids are each going to pick one of the books to highlight... 

Dad:  Evie, why don’t you get us started.  What is your favorite book of the year so far?
Evangeline (age 6):  I like the pictures in this book.  I like how it’s 3D!

Dad:  This is “Jim Curious” by Matthias Picard.

Elijah (age 8):  Oh my gosh.  This book is so cool.

Isaac (age 15):  Dude.  It’s amazing.

Gracie (age 13):  Anything we say is not going to do it justice. 

Evangeline:  I need the goggles. (Puts on the 3D glasses)  Woah, it’s so cool!!!

Dad:  So tell everyone what it’s like to read a 3D book…

Evangeline:  The glasses make it look like this fish is swimming towards you.  It comes closer to you. The fish is coming out at my face!  Oh my word, can I touch this?  I want to stick my hand right under the fish… but it’s not working.

Lily (age 11):  Woah!  Woah!  I keep trying to reach out to grab it.

Dad:  What is the story about?

Evangeline:  It is about “under the sea.”  This guy is swimming.  

Lily:  The pages have a lot of action.  It’s like a movie.

Isaac:  It’s a visual spectacle. The art would still be cool even if it wasn’t 3D.

Evangeline:  It looks like you can try to stick your head into the pictures.  Like I can go under this water and swim with this person and look at this cool stuff.  For real. 
Gracie:  It feels like you shouldn’t be able to turn the pages – because it looks more like staring into a shadow box than a book. 

Evangeline:  But when you take the glasses off, it looks plain.

Dad:  Then when you put the glasses back on...

Evangeline:  KAPOW! 

Dad:  Ka-pow!  Kapoof!

Evangeline:  Not kapoof.  Only kapow.  Kapoof sounds weird.

Dad:  How would you feel if we ever lost the glasses?

Evangeline:  I’d be, like, (voice trembling) "I want to stick my hand under the fish, but now I can't!"

Gracie:  I would cry.

Evangeline:  Only the first half of this book is my favorite book.   At the end there is an underwater tornado.  And it makes me feel like, "Oh cwap.  This tornado is going to make me go into it."

Dad:  Cwap?  Can we say ‘cwap’ on Bookie Woogie?

Evangeline:  Yeah.

Dad:  I’ve never heard you say ‘cwap’ before.

Evangeline:  "Cwap."

Dad:  Now I’ve heard you say it twice.  Let’s wash your mouth out with some of this 3D water.

Evangeline:  It’s actually not wet.

Dad:  Okay Elijah, your turn.  What book do you want to share?

Elijah (age 8):  This book is about dinosaurs. 

Dad:  "The Greatest Dinosaur Ever" by Brenda Guiberson and Gennady Spirin.

Elijah:  One of the dinosaurs said it was the fastest.  One of them said it was the biggest.  One of them said ‘I’ve got armored plates.’  They all thought they were the best.  But I don’t know who was right.

Dad:  How did you do with reading all these dinosaur names?

Elijah:  Heheheheheh…  That’s the tricky part.

Dad:  Why don’t scientists just name dinos things like Bob… and Ed… and Poofer.

Elijah:  Poofer?

Dad:  I don’t know.  It’s better than… Leaellynasura.

Elijah:  All dinosaurs are named weird things.  Like, Spinosaurus.  Actually that’s the easiest name of all of them.

Gracie:  I saw that guy on Jurassic Park… that was freaky.

Lily:  (reading names beneath the pictures)  "Oviraptor..." Gasp!  It’s a chicken-lion-dragon!  You know those chicken-lion-dragon things?  Cockatrice!  Maybe that’s where they got the cockatrice myth from.  Gasp!  That makes so much sense. 

Evangeline:  I don’t like dinosaurs.  Every night I think about dinosaurs.

Dad:  Every night?  I didn’t know that.

Evangeline:  Yeah.  At night I think their heads are going to open and eat me.  But I do think it would be fun to ride a baby dinosaur.

Dad:  Elijah, would you like to have a dinosaur for a pet?

Elijah:  That probably would not be a good idea.

Gracie:  I don’t want him to have one.

Elijah:  I’d accidentally kill everyone with it.

Gracie:  Elijah walks around with a stuffed alligator, beaning people in the head.  Imagine what he would do with a real live predator at his disposal.  That would be horrific.

Isaac:  This book has very detailed art.  The illustrator has a very cool style - you can still see the pencil beneath the paint.

Dad:  This illustrator is one of my favorites.  As soon as I saw that he’d been tapped to do a book about dinosaurs, I thought, That is BRILLIANT!  Why has that never happened before?   Gennady Spirin.  Dinosaurs.  Of course someone needs to put them together.  It’s awesome.

Elijah: (singing to the tune of a Frozen song)  Gennady and dinos… they’re both so intense… put them together… it just makes sense!  Rat da dat, da da dada da doo... 

Dad:  Okay, Lily, pick a book!

Lily (age 11):  “Oliver’s Tree.”

Dad:  By Kit Chase.

Gracie:  This one is really cute.

Lily:  Oliver is an elephant, and he was playing with his friends, a bunny and an owl.  Oliver saw his friend in a tree, but he was too big to climb up with her.  So they try to find a tree that Oliver can climb.  One had bigger branches, but it was too high.  One was too small.  They found a perfect tree, but when he got in it, the branch broke. 

Dad:  Poor guy.

Lily:  It’s so sad -- he just fell on his face.  So Oliver sat on a tree stump and went to sleep.  Then his friends built a tree house around him, and when he woke up -- POOF!  A tree house. 

Kids: (singing to the tune of a Frozen song) Do you wanna build a tree house…

Lily:  I would totally live in a tree house if I could.  Yeah.  If it was big enough.  And if it had electricity.  Except for bugs… I wouldn’t like termites.

Dad:  Do you like climbing trees too?

Lily:  Oh my gosh.  I LOVE climbing trees.  

Elijah:  I do.  I’m just not good at it unless there’s a low branch to start with.  I’m not very tall.

Lily:  I miss that climbing tree at our old house.  I remember when our neighbor Gina came over, we would climb it.  And we would pretend we were cheetahs.  Okay that part was weird.

Dad:  How about the illustrations in this book?

Gracie:  Everything about this book is adorable.  Really cute.

Isaac:  I have nothing against cute things.  People who do are kind of sad.  I like “cute” -- I’m a happy person.

Evangeline:  I like the owl best.  Owls are my favorite animal.  If I ever meet the person who made this book, I would like her very much.  I would want her to draw me 100 owls.  I would want her to make me a tattoo of an owl.

Dad:  Gracie!  What’s your favorite book?

Gracie (age 13):  “Sparky” by Jenny Offill and Chris Appelhans.  I really do like the storyline a lot, but the pictures – the pictures are so, so cool.  

Elijah:  Everybody likes this book.

Gracie:  Sparky is a sloth.  This girl wants a pet, but her mom says she has to get one that doesn’t need to be walked or fed or given a bath.  So she was like, “I’ll get a sloth.”  And she seems to love him... even though he can’t do anything. 

Elijah:  I’d rather have a pet fox. 

Gracie:  She tries to play games with him, but he doesn’t move.  The sloth is... a dud.

Isaac:  He’s a very cool looking sloth though.

Gracie:  Kudos, Chris Appelhans. 

Isaac:  Thumbs up.

Evangeline:  He’s kind of weird.  He looks weird.  He looks like a weird koala bear.

Dad:  Would you want a pet like that?

Evangeline:  No. I feel like he would eat me.

Elijah:  It’s not a very cool pet.

Dad:  Poor Sparky!

Lily:  I like this book because it has “me” in it.

Dad:  You?  I never thought about it…  I guess that does look like you.

Lily:  She looks like me a LOT.

Dad:  Yeah… 'cause you have a flat head, and a big dark nose, and you lay around…

Lily:  NOOOOO… the GIRL.  Ha haha ha…

Dad:  Ha ha... oh, the girl, you say?

Gracie:  The girl is adorable.  You can totally see she’s fun and spunky.  But the sloth just… fails.  Fails.  He doesn’t do anything.  And the book has no resolution to it at all.  The end scene is the girl, just sitting, sad in a tree, trying to play tag with a sloth.

Dad:  You think she’s sad?  Her face is turned away from us.

Gracie:  I don’t know.

Dad:  Or is she happy to accept him as he is?  The sloth looks happy there.

Gracie:  He just ate a cookie, Dad.

Dad:  Ha haa ha hah…

Gracie:  I don’t know, maybe she’s not sad.

Dad:  Maybe *she* just needs a cookie.

Gracie:  I guess it’s not really a sad ending.  That’s a bad word to describe it.

Dad:  So what’s a better way?

Gracie:  It’s kind of like... Life.

Dad:  Oh?

Gracie:  It is!  You can try to really impress people, but it doesn’t always work out, and sometimes you just have to accept that.  And that’s exactly what happened with the sloth. 

Dad:  Alright, Isaac.  Give us another one.

Isaac (age 15):  “Rules of Summer.”

Gracie:  Oh, we love Shaun Tan.

Isaac:  I like Shaun Tan’s work a lot.  Everything he does is cool.  He could do realistic work, but he chooses to make it crazy, just for fun.  And I like that.  I’m attracted to the randomness.

Dad:  What’s the book about?

Isaac:  It’s about these two brothers.  The little boy is probably the main character, but they are both very important.  It takes place in this crazy world where anything happens. 

Elijah:  I was like, “What is happening?  What.  What.  What.  I don’t know what is going on.”

Lily:  Like, where the heck did they get a steamboat-rocketship-car-thing?  And a giant red rabbit?

Evangeline:  That is a humungous bunny. 

Isaac:  There are random rules set to the awesome pictures.

Lily:  So, don’t leave a red sock on a clothesline… or a giant red rabbit will magically appear?

Dad:  See, it’s a good thing you read it here first.  You don’t want to learn that rule the hard way.

Gracie:  I want to go to that park with the magic glowing trees.

Isaac:  My favorite picture is the kids standing on these water tower things with really long nets, and they are trying to catch the stars in a meteor shower. 

Evangeline:  They look like sky jellyfish! 

Isaac:  The pictures seem random, but by the end they tell a story. 

Dad:  And what do you think the story is?

Isaac:  The little boy is making lots of mistakes... 

Evangeline:  He drops all the stuff.  I don’t like how he disobeys all the rules in this book!

Isaac:  He feels sad about it, the brothers get in a fight, the little boy get's trapped and goes away, his brother comes along with bolt cutters and saves him.  Then they are happy and it all resolves.

Dad:  Did you notice the crows?  I read this book a ton of times before I noticed the crow on each page.

Isaac:  I did notice actually.  I didn’t realize it was on every page.  But I noticed it.  At first I thought they were representing “anger.”  Now I’m not sure.  It’s more “sad.”  Like an angry… sad... remorse-ish feeling.  A down-low feeling.

Dad:  Here’s my thought.  I think they represent memories.   The kid screws up and a crow is watching.  The kid screws up and a crow is watching.  Over and over. 

Isaac:  But why are there lots of crow at the end then?

Dad:  Because each time it’s a different crow.  And all the memories are building.  The crows are keeping track, keeping record of all the mistakes, like "strikes," building up, and there’s this big weight of guilt growing.  And eventually it destroys their relationship -- it separates them.  He’s swarmed by all the negatives he’s done.  Then the brother comes along and forgives him.  Forgiveness sets him free.  And after that, there’s no more crows.

Gracie:  Guys… pick up your feet.  It’s getting deep in here.

Lily:  Gracie, I’m never fighting with you again!

Dad:  So think of someone in the family you might have problems with… What if you keep score and let disapproval build and build?

Gracie:  Then you’re just going to have a house full of crows.

Lily:  All that guilt.

Dad:  And what fixes it?

Gracie:  Bolt cutters.

Dad:  Which represented…

Gracie:  Bolt cutters.

Dad:  Or…

Lily:  Forgiveness!!!  I get angry at people, but it only lasts like 5 seconds.

Dad:  So you are very quick to pull out the bolt cutters.

Lily:  Yes.

Dad:  Forgiveness is wonderful.

Isaac:  You need to let it go.

Gracie and Lily: (singing to the tune of the Frozen song)  Let it go… let it go… Getting rid of all my crows!  Let it go…  Let it go… Let forgiveness grow…

Isaac:  Now everyone is going to have that tune stuck in their head.

Dad:  Good golly.  This whole post has turned into a Frozen sing-along.

Jim Curious under the sea, by Evangeline

spinosaurus, by Elijah

Oliver finds a new friend, by Lily

come, Sparky, by Gracie 

catching meteors, by Isaac

And bonus!  Here are five more favorite 2014 titles:


The Adventures of Beekle
by Dan Santat


Some Bugs
by Angela DiTerlizzi and Brendan Wenzel


Lindberg: the Tale of a Flying Mouse
by Torben Kuhlmann


Big Bad Bubble
by Adam Rubin and Daniel Salmieri


The Glorkian Warrior Delivers a Pizza
by James Kochalka

Jim Curious
Author/Illustrator: Matthias Picard
Published, 2014: Abrams Books
Like it?  Here it is!


The Greatest Dinosaur Ever
Author: Brenda Z. Guiberson 
Illustrator: Gennady Spirin
Published, 2014 (oops! 2013): Henry Holt
Like it?  Here it is!

Oliver's Tree
Author/Illustrator: Kit Chase
Published, 2014: Putnam
Like it?  Here it is!


Sparky
Author: JennyOffill
Illustrator: Chris Appelhans
Published, 2014: Schwartz & Wade
Like it?  Here it is!

Rules of Summer
Author/Illustrator: Shuan Tan
Published, 2014: Arthur Levine Books
Like it?  Here it is!