Battle of the Kids Books Round 2

A new week, a new round of battles in SLJ's entertaining and enlightening literary smack-down. After reading another outstanding commentary, I can see that I will have to break down and read this match's winner eventually. Especially considering my delight in long, book-stop sized books--and I don't mean poorly edited fantasies which could probably weigh in at 200-250 pages if given a proper look-over before they hit the press. I mean leisurely books, written with underutilized words like "vexed" and plenty of space for ideas to develop and characters to muse. I think of Anthony Trollope, who of course was not a children's writer, but who gave his books plenty of room to breathe. To me, a tome is the intellectual equivalent of a soak in a bubble bath, giving a tired over accelerated brain the chance to slow down, unwind, and enjoy a massage, which you can't do when operating in a world of tweets and scroll bars on the bottom of a TV screen. Judge Tim Wynne-Jones put it quite well when he writes, "And yes, it’s a marathon to read, by today’s standards, but that’s why it’s a book, rather than, let’s say a video game or a tweet. Books are what we turn to for the heavy lifting!"

Time to get in shape.

Opening Horizons

Story time this evening saw us enjoying The Pink Refrigerator by Tim Egan, one of my favorite cerebral picture book authors. (Check out Serious Farm.) This wise story about the complacent Dodsworth who "loved to do nothing" until he discovers a magic pink refrigerator with other plans, put me in mind of a couple of other picture books where the small world of the central character is slowly opened wide enough so that real life magic can find its way in.

Hey Al! (Yorinks, Arthur) This 1987 Caldecott Medal winner is one of my all time favorite picture books. One over-worked custodian and his dog Eddie discover that the grass is neither greener, nor, necessarily, on the other side.

Mole Music (McPhail, David) Mole works all day and watches TV all night, until he decides to learn how to play the violin. Practice makes perfect, and changes the world, too.

The Magic Bed (Burningham, John) Georgie has outgrown his crib and is ready for a big boy bed. And he doesn't choose just any old bed as a replacement. Magic and imagination are interchangeable in this story about moving on.