Category: book review

Personal Space and the Need for a Hug

Posted in blended families, book review, Bridge Meadows, flying eye books, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, picture book6 Comments
A few days ago, my 6 year old neighbor, Karishma, wanted me to help her with her homework.  We did a little math, a little letter and word recognition, and a little reading.  She wanted to read her new favorite book, Hug Me, by Simona Ciraolo, published by Flying Eye Books, 2014.
I read it to her a few weeks ago when she was here with her 12 year old sister.  The sister didn’t think she’d be interested, but as I started reading, she sat beside us and wanted to see the pictures, too.  She was moved enough by it to say, “Awww,” more than once.
Hug Me is a remarkable book that tells a complex tale in charming drawings and poetic prose. “Felipe was descended from an old and famous family who liked to look good and always behaved properly.”
It’s the story of the universal need for affection and friendship, even if we are somewhat prickly.  Using a little cactus as the main character puts an interesting spin on it.  He’s prickly because of he descended from a prickly family.  Who hasn’t felt estranged from their family of origin?  Who hasn’t felt at least somewhat trapped by their ancestry?
I live in Bridge Meadows, a community made up of blended families that are adopting children out of the foster care system.  Some families have all adopted children.  Some have adopted children in addition to their birth children.  I live in the senior housing component, and we elders serve as helpers to the families.  I mentor kids, teach them art, and read with them. 
She sounds out all the words, even “uaahhh.”
I’ve read this story over a dozen times in the past few weeks to kids from ages 2 to 12, and they’re all gripped by it.  I now keep it in the book-bag I carry with me when I’m in the community center or else I’m chastised for not having it.  
Since many of the kids have been in foster care and counselling, they love that the Ciraolo uses the term “personal space.”  Many have had their personal space violated in the past, but they still want to be close to family and friends.
They love that in the end, Felipe knows exactly what to do.  His past loneliness has made him a better person.  (In his honor, a few of the kids and I may start a cactus and rock  garden this summer.)   They also LOVE the pictures.  It’s amazing to me, too, how much expression Ciraolo creates in her characters.  Even a simple dandelion has a personality in this story.
Karishma happens to be one of the children who has been with her birth family for her whole life.  She has foster sisters and her mom had a baby a little over a year ago.  When we read the book together, I asked her if she ever felt like she needed a hug and didn’t get one.  She first said no.  Then she flipped through the book again, and said, “Well, since my sister was born.  Sometimes she won’t hug me and sometimes everyone hugs her and forgets me.”
I told her the same thing happened to me when my little brother was born.  Now I know how important hugs are. 
“Me, too,” Karishma said.  “That’s why we’re so happy.”
I’m pretty sure if you read Hug Me, you’ll be happy, too.
Hug Me has been on numerous best book lists of 2014. You can read more about Simona Ciraolo on her website here. 

Flying Eye Books is based in England and publishes innovative books that introduce children to great graphics and compelling stories.  They published the inspiring Welcome to Your Awesome Robot by Viviane Schwarz, which you can read about in this blog post.   

Thanks for reading my blog.  If you’d like, leave a comment.

The Hole Story

Posted in book review, Enchanted Lion Books, picture book, visual literacy, wordless book6 Comments

What happens when you drill a hole through your book?  Oyvind Torseter has done a remarkable thing and made a hole a fully developed character in his charming book The Hole, published by EnchantedLion Books (2012).  It’s an almost entirely wordless book, but Torseter’s visual storytelling creates a page turning adventure.  Most of the pleasure is seeing where the hole has got to – because even though it’s in the center of the book, in the illustrations it moves around dramatically.  My scans don’t do it justice, you really want to see this book up close and personal.
In deceptively simple line drawings, Torseter introduces a character moving boxes into an apartment.  When he sits down to dinner he discovers a hole in the wall.

 

When he investigates further, he finds the hole has moved.  This hole is a little devilish.
Suddenly we’re in a surreal world where there are people who can help with renegade holes.

After the hole is captured, it has to be transported to a lab.

Our innocent man thinks the hole is safe in his box, but the hole is having its own adventure. Page after page shows the hole touring around the city and having a great time.
It continues to do so, even after it’s been studied by experts.
I’ve shared this book with some young friends in the Bridge Meadowscommunity, and they, too, were amazed by the way the hole seemed to move around.  The story is loopy and unique and inspired great conversations about how art can play visual tricks on you.
Reba’s amazed by the hole’s trickery

 

It’s a well bound book that lies flat and invites investigation

This is a great book for all ages – although it’s marketed for children, it’s really a book for anyone who loves illustration. It sparked our imaginations about what the hole would do after the book was closed.

Lydia studies the drawings and tries to figure out how the hole gets around so well

 
Both Lydia and Reba thought it was cool enough to want to read it again.  We loved that a complex story could be told in this unique way.

When I read it, I thought of artist Paul Klee’s statement that “a line is a dot that went for a walk.”   This hole goes for a walk and a ride and it takes flight. My sense of wonder took flight, too.

Øyvind Torseter is a Norwegian artist, illustrator, comic book artist, and author. In addition to his own books, books illustrated by Torseter include the beautiful and poignant My Father’s Arms Are A Boatby Stein Erik Lunde. During his career, Torseter has emerged as one of Norway’s foremost illustrators.   We hope his books keep getting published here in America.
Enchanted Lion publishes unique and amazing books from all over the world.  Check out their website to find great books:  http://www.enchantedlionbooks.com/node/2
The most intriguing hole you’ll ever look through

Thanks for reading my blog.  I welcome any comments.

How to Build a Robot

Posted in book review, Bridge Meadows, cardboard robots, crafts for kids, flying eye books, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Welcome To Your Awesome Robot review1 Comment
Noah Tanatchangsang is a 10 year old boy who lives in my neighborhood, Bridge Meadows. We are set up to help children being adopted out of the foster care system.  He’s one of 4 brothers who regularly come to my all ages art class in the community center.  I’ll never forget the day he came to me with the idea of building a robot.  We were drawing at a table with his rambunctious 4 and 2 year old brothers. 

Noah jumped up and said, “I forgot to bring something!”

His brothers were a little alarmed, but he said he’d be back soon.  To console themselves, the brothers wandered over to the ping pong table and tried to figure out how to play, even though both of them were shorter than the table. 
About 5 minutes later, I heard a muffled knock on the door.  I opened it to find a tall box at the door.  The box shuffled in and bumped into the ping pong table.  The boys laughed and began to beat the box with their ping pong paddles. 

“Stop, stop!” cried Noah from within the box. 

I got the boys under control while Noah wiggled out. 

“We could make a robot out of this box.  My mom was just going to throw it away.”

The younger boys couldn’t leave the box alone, so we decided it was best to keep it in my apartment.  That was in the spring.  For the next few months, when Noah was free from school work, after school activities, camping and traveling with his family, soccer games and home work, we built a robot. 
It was a  project that engaged his mind and fired his imagination.  A few days after he delivered the first box, he was at the door with another smaller box with clear plastic panels, perfect for the robot’s head.  Again, he said, “My mom was just going to throw it away.”



I tried to explain that we sometimes have to throw things away because there isn’t enough room to keep everything, but he’s not entirely convinced.  But it’s truly inspiring to watch a kid build things from things what would otherwise be thrown away.  It lets them see the magic of transformation in a way nothing else can.  You can read a post about how Noah first became aware that things can be fixed and transformed here.  We made a prosthetic leg for his Godzilla toy.

So I hope I’m inspiring an artist and not a hoarder.  I had a bag of odds and ends including pill bottle caps we could use as dials, paper towel tubes for the rockets, and fabric scraps for the cape.



Just as we were getting close to the end of the project, I found the book, Welcome to Your Awesome Robot, by Viviane Schwarz, Flying EyeBooks, a book I wish we’d had when we started.  It’s both a story and a manual, and it’s perfect for creating a project with a kid.  I love that it features a girl.  Noah loved that it came with cut-out decals, and instructions on how to make fuel input additions and functioning dials.  




He didn’t want to cut things out of the book, although we could have.  He wanted to keep it intact for future use.  And it’s a lovely book.  It’s like a large Moleskine sketchbook with a gray paper flexible cover, and embossed print.  The illustrations are energetic and charming.  I’m so glad to have discovered Viviane Shwarz’s whimsical world.  Her website has a video of her reading her book, Is There a Dog in this Book, a fun one with foldouts and surprises.  She also has a place to post any awesome robots you make.  


Great End Papers


You watch a kid and her adult assistant build the ‘bot



We copied and enlarged the Death Ray decal and pasted it by the robot dials to warn off any enemies.

We made a magic wand with an old outdoor light and the light from another toy

We got to  make certificates, too!

While we were working on the robot, Noah became enchanted by my reading light.


He wanted to make an angler fish with it.  I was reluctant to give it up and on a trip to the hardware store to buy robot arms (dryer vent tubes) we found another light that would work even better.  We’d learned a lot about cardboard with the robot, but with the angler fish, we learned how to bend it and shape it. 

Making Teeth

to welcome little fishies in with gently smiling jaws





When Noah made his debut at the community Halloween party last week, we had a story about the robot going to the bottom of the sea to bring back the angler fish. 




Kids of all ages at Bridge Meadows Halloween party


Between our own projects and what we learned from the Awesome Robot book, we’re ready to teach other kids how to build their own robots.  We figure the best time will be in January. As long as the other kids keep the boxes that their Christmas presents come in, we’ll have plenty of material to work with.  Now all we have to do is convince the parents not to throw all those cool boxes away.


Reuse and recycle!


Special thanks to Flying Eye books for Welcome to Your Awesome Robot.  Check out their website, they publish lots of amazing books for kids.  Their committed to sustainable manufacturing and encouraging creativity.  They’re publishing new authors and helping children discover the joys of well made books.  

Thanks for reading my blog!


Tara Books: Slender Art Galleries on the Book Shelf

Posted in Alone in the Forest, book arts, book review, Following My Paint Brush, Gobble You Up, Hope is a Girl Selling Fruit, http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post, Night Life of Trees, Stories, Tara Books4 Comments
Ever since the internet and inexpensive computers and e-readers came into existence, people have been speculating on the death of the book.  From where I sit, though, books are flourishing.  Instead of killing off the book, I think new technologies have allowed more people to produce more kinds of books and find an audience.
One of the newer presses I’m particularly grateful for is Tara Books.  I’m pretty sure I would never have even found out about them if it weren’t for modern networking through the internet.  Tara Books was started in Chennai, India, by visionary publisher Gita Wolf over 10 years ago.  Here’s an excerpt from an article by the Christian Science Monitor, July, 2014:
“Over the past 10 years, she (Gita Wolf) has collaborated with women tribal artists to create award-winning publications. In doing so, she’s helped the women step across the gulf that divides preliterate societies from the modern world of arts and letters.
”She had a young son and was dissatisfied with the available children’s books. She wanted to see bold illustrations that showed children the world of India, and she enlisted friends who were writers and designers to help create them.
“She was also active in the feminist and anti-caste movements. Five years ago she turned Tara into a worker-owned collective.”
The first book I bought from Tara was The Night Life of the Trees, by artists Durga Bai, Bhajju Shyam, and Ram Singh Urveti of the Gond tribe.  It was a pleasure to read, touch and see.  The art was exquisite line work in bright colors on black handmade paper.  The ink had a presence: it had what artist Tom Sarmo calls a “thingness.”  The narrative was poetic and told tales that blurred the borders between trees, humans, and creatures.  It was true work of art, handbound, and I could purchase it here in Portland for about $30.  Anyone anywhere could purchase it from Amazon.

It’s almost miraculous that these beautiful books by tribal people from a remote area can be bought and treasured everywhere in the world.
Not all their books are silk screened and handmade, but all of them are beautifully presented.
The latest book I got from them is Hope is a Girl Selling Fruit by Amrita Das.  Das has painted in the Mithila tradition of art, which originated from women living in rural Bihar.  Das builds on traditional style and creates a compelling story.  Her art illustrates her personal journey and the journey she imagines of an impoverished girl she met on a train.  The story honors the traditions of women in her culture but also questions the confines of their lives.  Even the girl who represents hope is a mixed metaphor — the art beautiful, the life it portrays hard.
“This other girl was poor too, and her clothes were torn.  She had lost a leg, but she managed to push her cart around confidently.  Two boys pointed to her and laughed, but she wasn’t bothered….  She’s her own creature, I thought, she walking around, she’s earning and supporting her family.”
I learn more about human strength and dignity in a book like this than I can ever glean from the news or documentaries.  Tara doesn’t print books about artists, the artists speak for themselves.  And it turns out their personal stories are universal, with undertones of myth and magic.
In a similar vein, Following my Paintbrush by Dulari Deva, text by Gita Wolf, is done also in colorful vibrant Mithila art.  It starts out simply:
“I am an artist, but I wasn’t always one.  This is the story of how it happened.”
 She tells how she worked in rice fields, cooked and took care of brothers and sisters, sold fish, and washed other people’s dishes.  “Time passed and I grew up, but I still did the same work.  I had never gone to school, so I was not trained to do any other job.  Sometimes I wished I could do something else.  Everyday was the same, as it had been from the time I was a small girl.”
One day, she sees a group of children playing and makes a picture in her mind.  Next she paints a fish in the mud.  Then she finds out a lady she works for is an artist.  The artist encourages Deva and she begins to create not only gorgeous art but a new identity for herself
Tara publishes all sorts of stories.  They have both men and women artists and storytellers creating books.
Alone in the Forest, by Bhajju Shyam, Andrea Anastasio, and Gita Wolf, is a folk tale.  Musa has to gather firewood because his mother is sick.  “I’m grown up now, I’ll get the wood!”  But it isn’t long before the sounds of the forest convince him that he is being stalked by a wild boar.  His imagination runs wild as he hides in the hollow of a tree.
 The illustrations of his imaginings and fear are enchanting, even when they’re scary.  The text is integrated into the drawings and furthers the visual delight.  The colors are muted and natural; it feels like you’re looking into a forest. The style isn’t realistic but it portrays the chaos of feeling lost.  The trees and animals are highly detailed — imagination and traditional imagery are at play here. I love that a yellow cow comes to the rescue, in its peaceful way, and brings Musa home.
Gobble You Up,by Sunita and Gita Wolf, is another of Tara’s hand made books.  Printed on handmade brown paper with black and white drawings, it’s a captivating book in all regards.  An adaptation of an oral Rajasthani trickster tale, featuring a wily jackal who tricks and eats his friend the crane.  Then he proceeds to gobble up every animal he comes across.
Sunita is an artist from the Meena tribe in Rajasthan, who works in a traditional finger painting style called Mandna.  This book is the first time that this art form has been used to illustrate a children’s story.  To keep the feel of the art, it’s been silkscreen printed in two colors by hand on specially made kraft paper.  The drawings have a lacy, delicate feel that speaks of the transitory nature of all life.
I’ve loved introducing children here at Bridge Meadows to this book at Halloween time, when funny scary stories are in demand.  It’s a work of art they can touch.  They know a jackal can’t eat an elephant, but they also know greed can be insatiable.  It delights them to see all the animals in the bloated jackal’s belly and then see the animals come back to life. We love the off kilter rhymes and expressive texts.
And I, too, know that greed can be insatiable.  I feel insatiable about the books Tara is creating and encouraging.   I have to buy them rather than just check them out at the library.  I feel like they are little art galleries I can open and immerse myself in.  And when I’m done, I can slip them back onto the bookshelf in my small apartment, where they will wait til I need them again.  As I collect them, I’ll share what I find.
These books are available in some libraries.  The Multnomah County library has Following My Brush, Alone in the Forest, and, surprisingly, Gobble You Up!, a limited edition.  (They have #99 of 7000).  So, if you can’t afford them, check them out at the library.  Most libraries will help you get books from other libraries through their networking system.
You can learn more about Tara books here.
Here is a direct link to a video of their printing process: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=om6i3enGZ8c
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