The Magician’s Elephant by Kate diCamillo, illustrated by Yoko Tanaka

This is a beautiful book from the first sentence to the last. DiCamillo somehow manages to evoke a sense of warmth despite the chill gloom of the book’s atmosphere, and Tanaka’s subdued illustrations perfectly complement the beautiful prose. Together, pictures and text render the whole book dreamlike and magical, lyrical and hopeful. Truly a must-read.

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

I haven’t read this book since junior high, which is (scarily) almost 25 years ago. I liked it well enough then. I loved it now. Tolkien’s language is so beautiful in places that I wanted to eat it.

Several times, I stopped and made the kids listen to sentences a second time, just because they were so fabulous. They humored me. I didn’t push my luck and make them listen a third time (though I often wanted to): they might have mutinied. After all, they wanted to find out what happened. And what happened was wonderful. Another book everyone should read (or maybe eat).

Since my reading list this month is so thin, I thought I’d round it out with a few riddles Doug, Jack, and I made up. Call it our little tribute to Tolkien. (For those of you who aren’t Tolkien readers, riddles figure crucially in The Hobbit; it’s how Bilbo escapes from Gollum and re-discovers the all-important ring.)

We’ll start with a couple easy ones:

Rings around eyes, rings around tail,
Scavenges garbage without fail.

***

Mute companion by day
At night fades away.

A harder one:

Around you by day, though straight at night,
Animal skin, a daily sight.

And my favorite:

A baseball team
Certain flowers
Roman cubs
Stars and towers. 

I’ll post the answers on Friday in the comments, but in the meantime, go ahead and take a stab at them.

Photo by Doug Ireton via Instagram.

Since I was rummaging around in the Advent box, I grabbed a dozen or so of our favorite Christmas books and brought them upstairs, too. As I looked through them, it was like catching up with dear friends I haven’t seen all year, remembering all over again why I like them so much.

And Jack and Jane are getting old enough now to remember some of the books.

“Ooh, Mama.” Jane holds up The Witness. “Can you read this?”

“Oh!” Jack grabs One Wintry Night. “I love this book! Can we read it? Right now?”

In our house, December is all about candles and books.

You’re on your own finding candles, but I’ve listed the kids’ and my favorite Christmas books in the hope that you’ll find a new book or two to love.

*****

The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey by Susan Wojciechowski, illustrated by P.J. Lynch

One of my favorite Christmas stories, this book brings a glad smile to my face each and every time I read it. P.J. Lynch’s gorgeous illustrations illuminate this story of hope and transformation.

Christmas Day in the Morning by Pearl S. Buck, illustrated by Mark Buehner

Every time I read this book, I get teary or choked up or both. My kids don’t get why, but that’s okay; they like the book even if it does make Mama cry. It’s a beautiful story, and I was thrilled when I learned several years ago that it had been made into a picture book. Lovely, all the way around.

One Wintry Night by Ruth Bell Graham, illustrated by Richard Jesse Watson

I’m not sure this is technically a Christmas book, but we’ve read it every year during Advent since Jack was three. The story weaves between a boy lost in an Appalachian blizzard and the whole sweep of the Biblical narrative, from creation to crucifixion. And the illustrations – oh my. They’re simply stunning:

The Witness by Robert Westall, illustrated by Sophy Williams

Okay, so this book takes some liberties with the Nativity story. Purists will be appalled. For the rest of us, though, this lovely book tells the story of Jesus’ birth through the eyes of an Egyptian temple-cat who’s been captured and sold to a Judean shopkeeper. Though it’s long for a picture book, it’s compelling: Jane sat through it, to my utter surprise, when she was just two.

The Story of Christmas, illustrated by Pamela Dalton

The kids and I have read a dozen brand new Christmas books (as in just published in the past month or so) these past few weeks, and this is the only one we’re buying. That’s not to say some of the others weren’t enjoyable, but this one was exquisite.

The text is the Christmas story from the King James Version, which is unparalleled for the beauty of its language. Dalton’s cut-paper-and-watercolor illustrations, which stand out dramatically on black backgrounds, are nearly edible in their deliciousness.

Other Christmas books we enjoy:

The Donkey’s Dream by Barbara Helen Berger. A weary donkey dreams some seriously beautiful and richly symbolic dreams.

The Friendly Beasts, illustrated by Sarah Chamberlain. This is unfortunately out of print, but there’s also a version by Tomie dePaola.

Silent Night, illustrated by Susan Jeffers. The late 1970′s hair on the angels is worth the price of the book. It makes me giggle, but Jane thinks it’s beautiful. To each her own.

Great Joy by Kate diCamillo, illustrated by Bagram Ibatoulline. An organ grinder, his monkey, a little girl, and a Christmas pageant add up to great joy in this sparely written and lushly illustrated book.

One Starry Night by Lauren Thompson, illustrated by Jonathan Bean. The rhymed text is fine, but it’s the stylized illustrations that make this book.

Lighthouse Christmas by Toni Buzzeo, illustrated by Nancy Carpenter. It’s pretty hard to resist the allure of a lighthouse, a one-eared cat, two endearing children, and Carpenter’s pen-and-ink art.

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson. But of course. How could you have Christmas without the Herdmans?

If you have favorite Christmas books that I’ve not listed here, will you please let me know? I’m always up for a good book! (Or two. Or ten…)

#4 Cindy

and

#6 Amy

Just a reminder to those of you who are in the Seattle area: you’re welcome to join Helen for her book launch this Wednesday (December 14) at 7 p.m. at The Secret Garden Bookshop.

Whether you come to the launch or not, I hope you’ll support a local author and pick up a copy of the book.

I met Helen just as she was getting ready to give up on her novel, but a few months later, she took her courage in hand and sent it to one more agent.

He offered her representation. He found her a publisher. And now, her book is hot off the presses.

Flyaway is the story of one summer in the life of 15-year-old Stevie Calhoun. When her mom disappears for several days, her annoying Aunt Mindy insists that Stevie come stay with her. She also insists on a tutor and chores and other conventional things that Stevie’s mom never gave a rat’s hind end for. And Stevie doesn’t care about them, either.

She just wants her mom back. But her mom’s been hanging out with Drake, and Drake gives Stevie the creeps. Then she learns why – he’s a meth-dealer – and her stay at Aunt Mindy’s just got a whole lot longer.

She kills the time working at an urban bird rehab center and daydreaming about the house she and her mom are going to get just as soon as Mom gets out of rehab.

But nothing this particular summer is going according to plan.

Flyaway deals with some pretty gritty issues, and though it’s hard, even heartbreaking, it’s ultimately hopeful.

But enough about what I think about it. Let’s hear from Helen.

*****

KCI: Where did the inspiration for this novel come from?

HL: There were a couple of inspirations for this novel. The first was a conversation I had with a teen-and-family therapist long before I started writing the book. He remarked to me that he’d seen many cases where kids who had been neglected, abandoned, and even abused remained fiercely loyal to their parents and made excuses for their behavior. His comment really stuck with me, and that kind of unconditional loyalty to a parent became the core of Stevie’s character.

The second inspiration came from seeing my next-door neighbor, a single woman in her forties, take in her teenaged niece. When I asked my neighbor why her niece had come to live with her, she said, “My sister can’t take care of her any more.” I didn’t delve further, but I began to play “what if?”, imagining what situations might require a mom to give up her child to her sister. The combination of these two inspirations were the seed for the main plot of Flyaway.

KCI: Stevie has such a strong clear voice, and yet her character changes a great deal from beginning to end. How did you capture her voice? And how did you maintain its integrity through the whole book, especially through her character’s growth?

HL: Right from the beginning, Stevie spoke to me. I heard her voice in my head as I wrote, to the point that sometimes I felt as if I were taking dictation. In my first drafts, Stevie’s voice was very direct: she told the reader exactly what she was feeling and what was happening.

It was my agent who encouraged me to make her more of an unreliable narrator, to have her hide her vulnerability at the beginning of the book and reveal it bit by bit as she learned and grew. He also guided me in showing Aunt Mindy through Stevie’s eyes and trusting that the reader would be able to see beyond Stevie’s resentment and recognize the love and caring that Aunt Mindy was offering her niece.

KCI: My favorite part of the book is the subplot in which Stevie learns to care for injured birds. What prompted you to include that as part of your story?

HL: One day, shortly after I had started writing the novel, I was walking along and saw a baby bird that had fallen from its nest. It looked so vulnerable and helpless that I was immediately struck by the parallel between the bird’s situation and Stevie’s. I knew right away that bird rescue would have to be an element in my book.

KCI: I watched you revise this book several times. Can you tell us how the final version is different from your original vision for the book?

HL: I revised this novel (which, by the way, was originally titled Broken Wings), six times before I submitted it to an agent. Then I did two major revisions with my agent and a lighter one with my editor. So all in all, the book has been revised nine times!

Many things about the book are different from my original vision. I had initially visualized Alan as a much more damaged character, a young man with fetal alcohol syndrome. Stevie’s drug-using friend, Tonya, was originally an upper-class girl named Darla, and The Professor wasn’t part of the story.

KCI: How is the story the same one you envisioned when you first started writing it?

HL: Through all the revisions, the core of the book has remained the same. It has always been about Stevie’s struggle to reconcile her idealized vision of her mom with the reality of who her mom is – and isn’t – and to recognize the real sources of love in her life.

KCI: Last but never least, in the movie version of your book, who plays Stevie and why? Any other characters you’d like to cast?

HL: For the movie version of Flyaway (wouldn’t that be cool!), I’d cast Ellen Page, the actress who starred in “Juno,” as Stevie. She projects that dry, sarcastic sense of humor that is part of who Stevie is, and I think she could pull off the vulnerability-masked-by-hardness that the character demands.

I’m not sure about the other characters, but I definitely see Rick as a young Denzel Washington!

 ****

Flyaway‘s launch party is next Wednesday (at 7 p.m. at The Secret Garden, if any Seattle readers want to come). In honor of the occasion, I’m hosting a book giveaway – of two books. Just leave a comment by Sunday at midnight, and my random number generators (aka Jack and Jane) will each choose a lucky reader. I’ll announce the winners on Monday.

Though the kids and I have read far more books this month than I’ve listed here, these are the ones that belong in our florilegium, the ones truly worth sharing with you.

Once A Mouse… by Marcia Brown

This is a fabulous book, an old Indian story story about big and little and the importance of gratitude, without being a bit pedantic. Brown’s tri-color woodcut illustrations are captivating. The characters’ facial expressions alone are worth reading the book for.

Sable by Karen Hesse, illustrated by Marcia Sewell

A sweet story about a girl and her dog. As I read it aloud to Jane, Jack of course joined us, the lure of the sofa and a book to listen to being pretty much irresistible to him. Though it’s a middle grade novel, for the young end of that range (ages 7-10), Jane followed it easily, and while I doubt Jack would have read it on his own (he’s more of an action-adventure kind of guy when it comes to the books he reads himself), he enjoyed it as a read-aloud.

Ox-Cart Man by Donald Hall, illustrated by Barbara Cooney

I love this book. I have to read it every fall, and I make the kids listen. More than once. They don’t seem to mind. Donald Hall’s poetry is beautiful, and Barbara Cooney’s illustrations complement it perfectly.

Tumtum and Nutmeg by Emily Bearns, illustrated by Nick Price

Oh, my. We’ve fallen in love with a new series. This volume contains the first three Tumtum and Nutmeg books, illustrated novels about the eponymouse Mr. and Mrs. Nutmouse and their various adventures. Jack and Jane beg me for “just one more chapter pleeeeeeease,” and at one point in the first book, they laughed so hard Jack fell off the sofa. Need I say more?

The Penderwicks at Point Mouette by Jeanne Birdsall

You didn’t really think you’d get to read a book post without my mentioning the Penderwicks, did you? Our family read-aloud for several weeks, we all loved this book (of course). I hope my boys grow up to be like Jeffrey, my girl like whichever of the Penderwicks she chooses.

A Grain of Rice by Helena Clare Pittman

This wonderful little math story was a Jack-requested re-read for us. A math story? you say. Oh yes, a math story, a love story, a rags-to-riches story, all rolled into one. When Doug saw the book lying on the sideboard the morning after I’d read it to the kids, he said, “Oh, I love this book!” Then he sat down and read the whole thing. Made himself late for work. It’s that good.

Redwoods by Jason Chin

I’m not much of a non-fiction reader, especially of picture books, but if more non-fiction read like this book, I surely would be. Beautiful illustrations and an element of fantasy create the narrative structure for this fact-filled and fascinating book about redwood trees.

And I have to mention one last book, the first book my boys have ever sat through while I read every word: the colorful Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Bill Martin, Jr., illustrated by Eric Carle.

Ben keeps bringing me this book to read to him, and he actually sits through it. Every time.

There is hope for my future.

But she didn’t look past the cover of the book. If she had, she would have seen that it’s not just illustrated. It’s adapted. Usually this is a euphemism for dumbed down. And boy, this one is.

I’ve read the original Anne books half a dozen times at least. I’d read them again, but the last time I read them, shortly before Jane was born, I promised myself that I’d wait to read them again until I could read them to her. We’re getting close.

When I showed my mother-in-law that the book she’d given us was adapted, she said, “Well, you could still read it to her. I’m sure Jane would enjoy it.”

Maybe Jane would. But I wouldn’t – because it’s not just the story that I love. It’s the words themselves. L.M. Montgomery’s language is rich and evocative, her sentences complex, her humor delightfully understated.

The adapted version dumps all of that nuance and beauty in favor of ease of reading. I hate that.

Here, for example, is the first sentence of the adapted version:

Mrs. Rachel Lynde was a busybody who lived in Avonlea, a town on beautiful Prince Edward Island off Canada’s Atlantic coast.

This grossly violates rule number one of good story telling – show; don’t tell – and it reads more like a geography lesson than a story. Bleh.

Now here is the first sentence of Montgomery’s book (it’s long, I know, but please read it; it’s delightful):

Mrs. Rachel Lynde lived just where the Avonlea main road dipped down into a little hollow, fringed with alders and ladies’ eardrops and traversed by a brook that had its source away back in the woods of the old Cuthbert place; it was reputed to be an intricate, headlong brook in its earlier course through those woods, with dark secrets of pool and cascade; but by the time it reached Lynde’s Hollow, it was a quiet, well-conducted little stream, for not even a brook could run past Mrs. Rachel Lynde’s door without due regard for decency and decorum.

Yes, it’s complex. Yes, it might be hard for young readers to read on their own. But the language is so interesting and paints such a vivid picture of that brook and, more to the point, of Mrs. Rachel Lynde that it’s worth whatever extra effort is required to read it.

I tire of publishers thinking that children (and adults, too) are too stupid to understand rich, complex language. I tire of finding books that spoon feed children as if they are imbeciles. I tire of bland generic prose posing as a “classic.”

Why do we even need these easy reader versions of classics? Why fill a child’s mind with paltry language that only serves to create an appetite for more paltry language? Why not simply wait to read the original until she is old enough and mature enough to appreciate it?

I first read Anne of Green Gables when I was twelve, and I fell in love with it – with Anne, with the language – and went on to read all eight books in the series.

But my best friend growing up – her father read it to her when she was six, and she loved it, too. Kids can hear and understand language that is too complex for them to read on their own.

So if a parent wants her child to read Anne of Green Gables (or whatever classic she loves and wants to share with him) when he’s six or seven, why give him a shoddy adaptation to read on his own? Why not give him the real deal, and read it to him yourself? You get to share the words of a story you love with him, and you get the bonding experience of reading and enjoying it together. What’s not to like about that?

I figure when Jane’s six, she’ll enjoy Anne as much my friend did (only one more year!). If I could find an unabridged illustrated version, I bet she’d enjoy it now. But until someone publishes that book, I’m willing to wait.

So begins Jacqueline Briggs Martin’s beautiful picture book biography of Wilson Bentley, who devoted his life from boyhood till his death to the study of moisture, particularly of snowflakes.

Born in 1865 in the snowbelt of Vermont, Bentley saw an average of 10 feet of snow each winter, but he never tired of it.

The winter he was 15, he drew a hundred snow crystals, looking at them through a microscope and trying to capture their beautiful shapes on paper before they melted. He discovered that no matter how many snowflakes he looked at, he never saw a replicated design.

You knew that, right? That each snowflake is unique? I knew that, too, learned it in grade school science. But in 1880, no one knew that. Wilson Bentley discovered it, capturing this knowledge one snow crystal at a time through his microscope.

“I found snowflakes that were masterpieces of design,” he wrote. “No one design was ever repeated. When a snowflake melted, just that much beauty was gone, without leaving any record behind.”

He dedicated his life to trying to preserve those designs. When he was 17, his parents spent their life savings and bought him a microscope-camera. It cost as much his father’s entire herd of cows.

It took Bentley two winters of painstaking experimentation before he discovered how to capture the image of a snowflake on film.

But when he shared his discoveries with his friends and neighbors, no one cared. This was the snowbelt, after all, where snow was “as common as dirt.”

But Bentley persevered. His photographs of snow crystals would be his gift to the world. He just knew it.

As he photographed the crystals, he learned how they formed and why each one was unique.

Over the years, he spent $15,000 on his work – and earned only $4000 from the sale of photographs and slides.

Finally, when he was 66, his book, Snow Crystals, was published. Even today, 80 years later, people who want to learn about snowflakes start by reading Bentley’s book.

I do not know where to begin to sing my praises of this book. The text is lovely, and Mary Azarian’s woodcut-and-watercolor illustrations perfectly capture the beauty and wonder that Bentley feels in his study of snow. (She rightfully won a Caldecott for her work on this book.)

And the story inspires me.

I could write an entire post about Bentley’s perseverance.

Or his patience.

Or his belief in the beauty and treasure of snow in the face of others’ indifference.

Or his love of snow that made him joyfully endure the cold and raw of snowstorms.

But I won’t. I will simply, gently suggest that you get hold of a copy of this book and savor its words, its pictures, its story, and all the lessons it contains.

This is one we will be buying. Wilson Bentley is the kind of person I want my children to know and admire, maybe even emulate.

All quotes in this post are taken from Snowflake Bentley by Jacqueline Briggs Martin, illustrated by Mary Azarian.

The book’s language is rich and complex – and old: lots of words like marry (and merry) and forsooth and threescore and wot and varlet. I get new words for my vocab notebook every time I read this to the kids.

The most fun part is Jack’s narration of our reading afterward (he narrates; I type) in which he says things like, “Fivescore men went looking for Robin Hood,” or “They set the target sevenscore and ten yards away.”

The other week, after we’d read about the shooting-match in Nottingham Town, Jack said that “the beggar shot an arrow, and it smote one of the goose feathers from Gill of the Red Cap’s arrow.” Then he said, “No, no, Mama, delete that. No one would say ‘smote.’ Change it to ‘knocked.’”

I changed it, but I didn’t want to. Call me an insufferable know-it-all, but I love it when he uses words no other eight-year-old in America knows.

Our family read-aloud these days, of course, is The Penderwicks at Point Mouette. Doug, so far, has refrained from making predictions about how it will end. I doubt that will last much longer.

For history, we read Across a Dark and Wild Sea by Don Brown, a picture book biography of St. Columcille, an Irish monk who founded the first monastery in Scotland, on the remote island of Iona. I’ve been there. It was so beautiful, and peaceful – I remember collecting shells in the tidepools along the rocky shore. I want to go back, especially now that I know a little more about its book-loving founder.

We also read several new-to-us picture books that are destined, over time, to become old favorites:

The Midnight Farm by Reeve Lindbergh, illustrated by Susan Jeffers

It’s a bedtime book, a counting book, and an animal book all rolled into one. Lindbergh’s simple couplets, two per double page spread, and Jeffers’s quiet artwork combine to create a soothing before-bed read. I don’t think Luke and Ben, at 15-months, will sit through it yet, but soon.

The Keeping Quilt by Patricia Polacco

This is a beautiful story of Polacco’s own family and the quilt that’s been passed down through four generations of women. The drawings are in pencil, except for the keeping quilt, which is always in color.

A Sick Day for Amos McGee by Philip C. Stead, illustrated by Erin E. Stead

I was shocked to read the 2010 copyright on this book. A sweet and slowly unfolding story about a middle-aged zookeeper and his charges, Amos McGee reads like a much older book, and the subdued and quietly humorous illustrations add to the feeling of age – or timelessness. Definitely one for the to-buy list.

Luba and the Wren by Patricia Polacco

A retelling of the tale of “The Fisherman and his Wife,” this story is set in the Ukraine with a wren instead of a fish. Luba is a simple country girl with simple desires whose parents are as greedy as she is gracious.

It Could Always Be Worse by Margot Zemach

I didn’t know when I picked Zemach’s book up at the library that we’d listened to a retelling of this Yiddish fable on our road trip last May. It’s the story of “a poor unfortunate man” who lives with his wife, mother, and six children in a one-room hut.

Oh my, I couldn’t have timed my choosing of this book more perfectly if I’d tried (which I didn’t), as I’d just written my woe-is-me-in-my-small-house post not three days before we read Zemach’s delightfully written and even more delightfully illustrated book.

I think the laugh’s on me.

But, even though I’m not hawking a jeep today, I am selling something. And selling it cheap even.

You see, I have over 900 copies of a certain book sitting in boxes in my basement. I would love to see that number dwindle. I would love to have those books out in the world being read instead of moldering in a cinderblock room.

Since Advent begins in just over a month, I thought now would be a good time to peddle some books on the church year. Through the end of November, I’m offering them for $3 each, including shipping (unless you live outside the U.S, in which case we’ll have to talk).

If you already have a copy, thank you thank you thank you. If you don’t, well then, you really should take me up on this offer. And you can buy more than one: they’d make a great gift, especially at this time of year (not to mention this price; did I say three dollars?).

I feel sort of shilly writing this post. I’m not a salesperson. If I had to live on a commission, I would die. Of starvation. Or exposure.

But I risk shilling because it would please my husband no end to see the number of books in our basement shrink. He’s not so keen on the box wall I’ve erected down there. (See how selfless I am? Thinking of him instead of myself?)

Seriously, though, friends, I would love to get this book into your hands, or the hands of your mom or friend or neighbor or pastor. I think it’s worth reading (I wouldn’t have spent a year and a half of my life writing it if I didn’t), and I hope it will deepen your relationship with Christ and your connection to Christians who have observed these seasons for the past two millenia.

I’m offering it to you for the cost of shipping as a way of saying thank you for your faithfulness in reading my blog. Your reading supports my writing: in the humbling face of boxes of remaindered books every time I go downstairs to toss in another load of laundry, I can laugh (most of the time), largely because you all encourage me so much simply by reading my words.

And if you feel inclined to shrink the number of boxes of remaindered books in my basement, that would also be very encouraging. Very, very encouraging.

So if you would like a copy or two (or ten or 80 or 900), please send me an email and let me know how many you’d like, if and to whom you’d like me to inscribe them, and your mailing address.

Let the book binge begin (I hope).

Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey

We used to own this book, but we read it so many times that it fell apart. When I saw it lying in a pile of books on a table at the library, I grabbed it and added it to my book bag.

I learned recently that this perennial favorite of ours isn’t universally loved: a children’s librarian tried to read it to young children during the library’s story time, and they protested that it looked “sick.” I can only guess they thought this because the drawings are in blue ink?

Blue ink notwithstanding, Jack, Jane, and I love this book. Jane pulled it off the library stack, and I wasn’t two pages in before Jack had curled up beside me on the sofa to read it with us.

I think I need to buy it again. I want the babies to grow up on these words, this story.

One Morning in Maine by Robert McCloskey

In this story, Sal (of Blueberries for Sal) is a little older, and she has a loose tooth. Since Jane lost her first tooth just over a week ago, this story immediately resonated with her.

Jack remembered a surprising number of details from the book, considering how long it’s been since we read it, a testament, I think, to McCloskey’s vivid writing.

Each Peach Pear Plum by Janet and Allan Ahlberg

It’s been several years since we read this seek-and-find mashup of various nursery rhymes and fairy tales. Jane brought it home from the library on Tuesday, and both kids liked it so much that they memorized it. Now they wander around the house chanting, “Tom Thumb in the cupboard. I spy Mother Hubbard…”

On Morning Wings by Reeve Lindbergh, illustrated by Holly Meade

With watercolor and collage, Meade tenderly illustrates Lindberg’s reworking of Psalm 139 in rhyming couplets. We’ve read this book many times.

We also discovered some fun and beautiful new books. First, beautiful:

The Lord’s Prayer illustrated by Richard Jesse Watson

Watson’s luminous illustrations of this most special of Christian prayers are gorgeous, almost edible.

And now fun:

Hunting the White Cow by Tres Seymour, illustrated by Wendy Anderson Halperin

Halperin’s subdued pencil and watercolor illustrations perfectly capture this delightful story of a persnickety runaway cow and the farmers who try to catch her, told in the smart-aleck voice of a young Kentucky farm girl.

This one is both:

Madlenka by Peter Sis

A little girl in New York City walks around her block, telling each of her neighbors about her loose tooth.

(I swear, I didn’t do the loose tooth thing on purpose; it’s just one of life’s delightful little serendipities that two of our books this week coincided with Jane’s first loose tooth.)

This trip around the block is more like a trip around the world, since each of her neighbors is from a different country, which Sis illustrates with both realism (on one page) and imagination (on the next). This is a fascinating picture book.

We also finished The Penderwicks on Gardam Street, our family read-aloud for the past couple weeks. Doug crowed because he correctly predicted (almost) everything that was going to happen.

Jack and Jane said, “Can we start the next one? Right now? Please?”

How could I say no?

*****

Just so you know: the links above aren’t affiliate links – not yet anyway. I’m still thinking about it.