Bookmaking With Kids

Once upon a time, in a kingdom by the sea, there lived a little Princess named Lenore. She was ten years old, going on eleven. One day Lenore fell ill of a surfeit of raspberry tarts and took to her bed.

That third sen-
tence may be a puzzlement to young listen-
ers—surfeit after all is hardly com-
mon parlance. But it’s also tantalizing, and all the more reason to keep reading aloud. The book is James Thurber’s Many Moons, a wise and quirky fable published in 1943 about the fuss that befalls when the Princess says she’ll get well if only she can have the moon.

Accustomed to quick results for his every command, the king finds himself thwarted first by the Lord High Chamberlain, then the Royal Wizard and then the Royal Mathematician—three wise men who aren’t really wise at all. It takes the Court Jester, a fool who isn’t really foolish, to conjure a happy ending thanks to his knack of looking at the world through a child’s eyes. more…

I’m grateful to the bookstores and libraries that have thoughtfully created little booklists as an aid to gift-givers over the next few overly commercial weeks. They’re the size of bookmarks or postcards, and usually titled New & Notable. But what I’d like to do instead is post a series of blog entries dedicated to not-so-new, still-notable books. My picks are minor classics, I think. They’re great for reading aloud. They have no seasonal hook whatsoever. And they deserve new listeners, new readers, new admirers, eager to be caught in their spell.
This illustration is from Mudpies and Other Recipes, a quirky, pretend cookbook from 1961 that sends children to scavenge for “ingred-
ients” in the backyard, at the beach, up a tree, in a leaf pile, on new-
mown grass, in a patch of weeds and other succulent spots.

The drawing shows Leaves En Brochette, a main dish, particularly tasty in autumn, that calls for a variety of leaves, skewered on a pencil, and turned patiently in the sun. Like any cookbook, this one ranges from appetizers to desserts. Here’s an example of each:

WOOD CHIP DIP
In a little bowl mix dirt with water until it is as thick as paste. Place this bowl on a platter surrounded by wood shavings. Scoop the dip with the chips.

PENCIL SHARPENER PUDDING
Pour the contents of a pencil sharpener into a bowl. Add enough puddle water to soften and stir with a sharp pencil. Allow to set in the shade, either in the bowl or individual dishes.

The deadpan recipes were written by Marjorie Winslow, with drawings by Erik Blegvad. And although the book is subtitled A Cookbook for Dolls, affectionate adults, a child’s stuffed animals or make-believe playmates would be perfect guests at this feast.

This is the second in what seems to be turning into a series of posts with an underlying theme: that allowing kids to be silly encourages them to write.

Last week I made a case for googly eyes. This week, the spur to silliness is the photography of William Wegman. He’s made a career out of photographing his Weimaraners, always intent, staring straight into the camera, in perfectly ludicrous situations. I believe there’s not a kid alive who can look at pictures like the two above and not want to make up a story, instantly.

I clipped these two pictures from magazine ads, and Wegman’s Weimaraners abound in calendars, postcards, notecards and more. SCRAP likely will have lots of calendars early in the new year, when publishers get rid of excess inventory. Wegman calendars have shown up there before so perhaps they will again.

I occasionally try to suggest an alternate Thanksgiving menu. Why not pork roast stuffed with dried pluots in a port sauce or butternut squash ravioli dusted with hazelnuts and sage, for a change? But no. Children (of all ages) are all for tradition. So too with cherished books. One word amiss, and I’m in trouble.

But I think the 3- to 6-year-old set will forgive and enjoy the transformation that Alison Jackson has worked on I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly. Her version is called I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Pie. With a knack for rhyme and absurdity, Jackson makes a delightful hash of one family’s Thanksgiving.

Instead of a spider that wiggled and jiggled and tickled inside her, the old lady washes down the pie with cider that “rumbled and mumbled and grumbled inside her.” Next come a roll and a squash, and then my favorite:

I know an old lady who swallowed a salad.
She was looking quite pallid from eating that salad!
She swallowed the salad to go with the squash. …

Lively illustrations by Judith Byron Schachner add to the fun. The ravenous and increasingly rotund old lady is something to behold. But each page also holds sly details for eagle-eyed kids. The cat that accompanies the old lady, for instance, arrives with a mouse firmly clamped in its jaws. But the mouse soon escapes, reappearing here, disappearing, then reappearing there. Kids should also keep a sharp eye on the baby’s antics, his resourceful big sister and the play of emotions on their parents’ faces.

By the time the old lady has swallowed a cake (”For goodness sake, a ten-layer cake!”), she’s wondrously inflated but happy, as are the baby and the cat who are bouncing on her. When she swallows some bread, young listeners with an ear for the obvious rhyme may fear the worst. But Jackson’s book departs from tradition with a happy ending.

Being silly can help kids be smart.

How about that for a sweeping, outrageous statement? But I do have one of the best authorities on silly on my side—Dr. Seuss. Here’s how he put it:

“I like nonsense; it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living.”

Now, kids don’t need much help to be silly. But to be silly and thoughtfully engaged in schoolwork at the same time…now that can be a challenge. And that’s where googly eyes come in.

Just add googly eyes, and you instantly pump up the fun factor in practically any book-related project. Just look at the before-and-after pictures of this giraffe. One of them is practically begging kids to put it in a tall tale.

Here are some other ideas:

November 15th is Dictionary Day in the San Francisco public schools, a day when every 3rd grader
gets a free dictionary.

Kudos to the San Francisco School Volunteers for orchestrating the giveaway, and to the California Dictionary Project for supplying thousands of books.

I loved reading the dictionary as a child and I love it still. I can never simply look up a word: I dally along the way, anticipating the pleasure of discovery, of what Neruda called the marvel of

words exploding in the light
like dormant seeds waiting
in the vaults of vocabulary,
alive again, and giving life.

I love old dictionaries, too. And ones that are going to pieces are especially appealing for classroom fun, both with words and art. In the pocket of book arts known as altered books, dictionary pages are fertile ground for artwork.

Consider disbinding an old dictionary (and yes, disbinding is a real word), and giving everyone in class a page. Then send students on a “scavenger hunt” through their page to find such things as

• The guide words
• Three verbs
• Five nouns
• Two words that can serve as more than one part of speech
• The number of syllables for the 10th word on the page
• The definition of the 5th word
• A word derivation
• Three words you’d like to illustrate

Over the next few days, kids can create illustrations for their chosen words—right on their dictionary page—using any (or all!) art materials you have on hand. And even though they end up everywhere, collage materials can really add pizzazz to the pages.

The glamorous dictionary page above is the work of book artist Elaine Benjamin. At her Blue Chair Press web site, she has a whole selection of Dictionary Prints, pages she has embellished with numerous art and printing techniques. I like Elaine’s work because her prints are as much about the words on the page and a reader’s pleasures—encountering definitions, appreciating derivations, finding oddities—as they are about her spare and elegant artwork.

Click the link to find more pictures of Elaine’s work and other places to see altered-dictionary pages. more…