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the September/October 2003 issue of The Horn Book Magazine Recommended
Reissues: “‘ I can still recall how irresistible my ten-year-old self found those opening lines from the first Trixie Belden mystery. A mystery, a girl sleuth, and horses to boot! You couldn’t ask for a more appealing combination. Like most avid readers, at that age I read whatever came my way without worrying about literary merit or whether or not I was improving myself. However, it was already clear to me that the series books I loved — Nancy Drew, Cherry Ames, the Boxcar Children — were not considered by teachers and librarians to be literature. No school or public library owned them, they were certainly not book report material, and adults tended to speak of them slightingly, if at all. And yet how my friends and I loved them! We developed an elaborate system of buying and trading so that we could read as many titles as possible. The fact that it wasn’t easy to get our hands on them made them all the more enticing. Rumors flew that a seventh grader owned a complete set of Nancy Drew and wouldn’t share. We wished her shelf of books would fall on her. Of all the series I read, I think my favorite was the Trixie Belden series. Unlike the cool, sophisticated Nancy Drew, Trixie was one of us. At thirteen, she was chronically short of money and had to do chores to earn extra cash, rode her bike everywhere, was teased mercilessly by her older brothers Mart and Brian, and often got stuck babysitting for her exasperating little brother Bobby. She tended to act impulsively, with dire consequences, but her heart was in the right place. And most encouraging of all, it was clear that she wasn’t as pretty as her best friend Honey. Random House, which now owns the rights to Trixie Belden through its Golden Books division, has just embarked on a program of reissuing the long-out-of-print series. Books 1 through 4 are appearing this year, with 5 and 6 slated for next summer. I couldn’t be more pleased, since it means that I can re-read them in a professional, guilt-free capacity. And judging by the reaction I get when I mention their imminent return to customers and colleagues, there are a lot of other closet Trixie fans out there as well. Trixie Belden and the Secret of the Mansion appeared in 1948, the first of thirty-nine titles (the last was published in 1986). The first six books in the series were written by Julie Campbell; subsequently, they were written by a changing stable of Golden Books authors all using the pseudonym Kathryn Kenny. The books went through a dizzying array of editions and revisions — one has only to look at the plethora of Trixie Belden sites on the Internet with their discussions of “deluxe,” “cameo,” and “ugly” editions to start feeling faint. For these latest reissues, Random House has wisely decided to remain as faithful as possible to the original editions, using the original text and line drawings that place the action firmly in the late forties and early fifties. The books are set near the village of Sleepyside-on-Hudson, where Trixie and her family live in a small white house called Crabapple Farm. Their property is bounded by two huge estates: the elegant Manor House, which has been empty for years, and the crumbling mansion of the reclusive old Mr. Frayne. In The Secret of the Mansion Trixie, facing the prospect of a long, boring summer with her older brothers off at camp, is overjoyed when Honey Wheeler and her parents move into the empty manor. Honey is the classic poor little rich girl, pale and timid, and it is up to the robust, practical Trixie to help her get over her fears and introduce her to such simple pleasures as bike-riding and wearing dungarees. Besides becoming Trixie’s best friend, Honey provides a marvelous plot device: Trixie, whose humble origins are continually emphasized, can nonetheless enjoy horseback riding, swimming, and expensive vacations as Honey’s guest, vastly increasing her chances of happening upon a mystery to solve. Trixie and Honey befriend orphan Jim Frayne, the long-lost grandnephew and heir of old man Frayne. During the course of the book Mr. Frayne is hospitalized and dies, but Jim is being pursued by his evil stepfather and runs away before learning that he has inherited half a million dollars. The Red Trailer Mystery (1950) finds Trixie and Honey on a trailer trip with Honey’s estimable governess Miss Trask, trying to track Jim down before he can ship off on a cattle boat as threatened. While looking for him they also manage to break up a gang of desperate trailer thieves. Jim is eventually found, and (surprise, surprise) adopted by Honey’s parents. Trixie’s brothers Mart and Brian are back from camp in The Gatehouse Mystery (1951), and the group forms a secret club called the Bob-Whites of the Glen (BWG). While exploring an abandoned gatehouse on the Wheelers’ estate that they hope to use as a clubhouse, Trixie and Honey find a huge diamond, obviously dropped by reckless thieves, and decide to solve the mystery of how it got there all by themselves. The Mysterious Visitor (1954) introduces a sixth BWG member, Diana Lynch, who suspects that the man who has suddenly appeared claiming to be her mother’s long-lost brother is an imposter. The books are full of all sorts of practical information. To this day I know exactly what to do for a venomous snakebite, how to rescue a struggling swimmer, and, most usefully, how to forge a signature. Re-reading the books, I was struck by how much of Trixie’s mystery-solving seems to involve breaking and entering, and by the number of mysterious strangers and long-lost relatives floating around out there. There is never any ambiguity about who is good and who is bad — even if the others are taken in by the handsome new chauffeur or the fast-talking uncle, Trixie always has a suspicion (“I still think he looks like a weasel”) that later proves to be well-founded. Do the books stand up over time? Well, yes and no. The plots are formulaic, the writing is workmanlike at best, and you can drive a truck through the plot gaps. Still, I found myself laughing out loud and reading passages to anyone who would listen, perhaps more because of the kitsch factor than any intentional humor. They’re just so endearingly goofy. Although there’s a huge group of Trixie Belden fanatics out there already, I will be most interested to see whether today’s pre-teens respond to the books in any significant way. I’m hoping that Trixie can give Nancy Drew a run for her money. I certainly can’t predict what today’s readers will think about the Annette mysteries, four books starring Annette Funicello (yes, the Mouseketeer/Beach Blanket Bingo Annette) that have just been reissued by Disney Press in a slipcased edition. Originally published by Whitman in the early sixties, and intended to capitalize on Annette’s then-enormous popularity, the four titles are Annette: Sierra Summer, Annette: The Desert Inn Mystery, Annette and the Mystery at Moonstone Bay, and Annette and the Mystery at Smugglers’ Cove. The aim of these reissues is obviously high camp, with the box proclaiming “Four Swell Stories in One Super Slipcase,” and the original cover art and interior illustrations kept intact. The fictional Annette has been conveniently orphaned and lives in Hollywood with her often-absent aunt and uncle. Although reference is made to her high school crowd, she seems to be on perpetual vacation and spends her time tooling around in her white convertible, solving mysteries, and nudging her many friends along in their budding romances. Levelheaded Annette, who seems to excel at everything, also manages to be just one of the gang: hanging out at the malt shop, going on horseback rides, and organizing a genuine luau, complete with a ukulele sing-along. I must admit that reading these books for the first time was extremely entertaining. It’s impossible to resist Annette in her hat and gloves and sweater set, gently explaining to a friend that heavy makeup and mink coats aren’t appropriate at their age. The books provide a snapshot of an impossibly innocent time — was life ever this breezy? I have a feeling that any contemporary children picking up these novels will feel as though they’re written in another language. On the other hand, my staff members, all twenty-something, are fighting over who gets to read them next. So who is the intended audience? As long as I’m confessing my lowbrow reading tastes, I might as well come clean and admit that as a high schooler I discovered the Regency romances of Georgette Heyer and read them all voraciously over the course of a summer. I adored them then and still turn to them in moments of stress when escapism is the only solution. Imagine my delight, then, to discover this season’s reissue of Sorcery & Cecelia, or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot (1988) by Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer. This highly unusual novel combines the elements of a Regency romance with those of a fantasy. It takes place in England after the Napoleonic Wars, but this is an alternate universe England where magic is an accepted element of daily life. The novel is told in the form of letters between two cousins: Kate, who has gone to London for the Season, and Cecy, who has to stay behind in the country. Wrede and Stevermer, obviously devoted Regency fans themselves, have concocted an effervescent brew of magic and romance as the high-spirited cousins thwart a power-crazed magician and (in more ways than one) meet their matches as they spar with the infuriating James Tarleton and the sardonic Marquis of Schofield. It’s all most satisfying, and a refreshing break from standard young adult fare. Wrede, best known for her popular Enchanted Forest Chronicles, went on to write two more Regency/fantasy titles, Mairelon the Magician (1991) and Magician’s Ward (1997), which both have enthusiastic followings. And, happily, a sequel to Sorcery & Cecelia is in the works. Several other novels being reissued this season will also be useful in filling the current insatiable demand for fantasy and science fiction. In 1967 John Christopher (the pseudonym of British writer Christopher Samuel Youd) published The White Mountains, the first volume in his groundbreaking Tripods trilogy. It was followed almost immediately by The City of Gold and Lead (1967) and The Pool of Fire (1968). Although these remarkable science fiction novels have never been out of print, revised editions that Christopher published in England in 1995 were not published in the United States. Now Simon and Schuster has produced a uniform thirty-fifth anniversary edition, with the revised texts and informative introductions that Christopher has written for each volume. The appearance of The White Mountains signaled a change in the way science fiction for children was viewed. For the first time, emphasis was placed not just on technological gadgetry but on character development and the moral dilemmas presented by “advanced” societies. In The White Mountains, Christopher envisions a twenty-first-century Earth that has been conquered by alien forces who enslave the human population by means of steel plates embedded in their skulls at puberty. Society has reverted to feudal times, with the Tripods — enormous three-legged machines — imposing order from above on a compliant populace. Watching the change that comes over his beloved cousin after his Capping ceremony, thirteen-year-old Will Parker begins to question the world order. He hears rumors of a land where men are still free, and with his friends Henry and Beanpole begins an arduous journey to the White Mountains of Switzerland, where they intend to join forces with the rebels and fight to rid the world of the Tripods. In City of Gold and Lead, Will infiltrates one of the three cities of the Tripods and gains valuable information that the rebels will need to destroy the invaders. Their plan is put into effect in Pool of Fire and the Tripods are destroyed, but the trilogy ends on an uneasy note as the men who have worked together feverishly to save the Earth now turn on one another in disagreement about how the post-Tripod world is to be governed. Will has to decide where his loyalties lie, and whether he will devote his life to making sure that men live in harmony with one another. The books remain as compelling as they were when they first appeared, and the questions Christopher raises about society and free will are as intriguing as ever. Another thought-provoking science fiction title also returns this season. Sylvia Louise Engdahl’s The Far Side of Evil (1971) is being published by Walker in an edition revised by the author. Billed as a companion novel to last year’s Enchantress from the Stars, The Far Side of Evil is an altogether darker and more disturbing book. Elana from Enchantress has just graduated from the Anthropological Service Academy and is sent to the planet Toris, whose civilization has reached what is known as the Critical Stage: the point at which a civilization has developed the technology that will allow it to explore and colonize space but also the nuclear capacity to destroy itself. No one has ever been able to determine what tips a planet’s balance in favor of expansion or destruction, and Elana’s mission is to observe the process and report back to the Federation. She watches in horror as a fellow agent falls in love with a Torisian and jeopardizes the entire mission by disregarding the Federation’s strict policy of noninterference with emerging civilizations. Engdahl’s faith in the importance of space exploration and the questions she poses about the nature of “progress” and the dangers of well-intentioned intervention will amply reward the careful reader. On a lighter note, the late Anne Lindbergh, in whose name a biennial fantasy award is given, produced a number of entertaining middle-grade novels. Now Candlewick Press has reissued two of her fantasies, in hardcover and paperback editions: The People in Pineapple Place (1982) and its sequel The Prisoner of Pineapple Place (1988). In the first, August Brown, a lonely boy who has just moved to Washington, D.C., with his newly divorced mother, discovers a strange little side street inhabited by six families who have been frozen in time since 1939. One of their number, afraid that the United States would get involved in the war, devised a way to conceal and move the street from city to city, where they settle in for extended stays, visible only to a select few on the outside. August is befriended by the seven children who live on the street, most particularly a girl named April, and has several marvelous excursions with them around Washington during his spring vacation week as he waits to enroll in his new school. Before Pineapple Place has to move on once again, April helps him to find a contemporary friend of his own. Jeremiah, one of the children of Pineapple Place, is the focus of The Prisoner of Pineapple Place. After fifty years of being home-schooled in the fourth grade, he begins to chafe at his never-changing life (shades of Tuck Everlasting) and dares to sneak out and go to school in the real world, albeit invisibly. A friendship with an outcast girl who can see him in mirrors gives him the courage to question his life in Pineapple Place and ensures that things change for the better by novel’s end. Although lacking in the internal logic successful fantasy requires — no attempt is made to explain how the street can move, why the inhabitants don’t age, or why they are sometimes visible to outsiders, sometimes not — the books feature appealing characters and clever situations. Many of my customers remember them fondly and are pleased to see them back in print. Lindbergh didn’t write only fantasy. This summer David R. Godine published a new paperback edition of The Worry Week (1985), with black-and-white illustrations by Kevin Hawkes. This engaging family comedy is also a valentine to Maine. As Allegra Sloane, the narrator, puts it: “There are twelve long months in every year, but we spend only one of them in Maine. As far as I’m concerned, that means that eleven-twelfths of my life is wasted.” When a family emergency threatens to cut short their island vacation, the three Sloane sisters devise a plan to stay behind surreptitiously while their parents head back to Boston. Practical Allegra recounts the disastrous reality of what they imagined would be a glorious week without parental supervision. It’s every child’s dream turned nightmare, as one thing after another goes wrong and Allegra spends most of her waking hours trying to keep her irresponsible sisters fed and out of trouble. The squabbling sisters are expertly drawn; Lindbergh has a keen ear for dialogue and a refreshingly unsentimental view of family dynamics. Family ties of a very different sort are at the heart of It Ain’t All for Nothin’ (1978), an early work by Walter Dean Myers, now reissued in paperback by HarperCollins. When his grandmother becomes too ill to take care of him, twelve-year-old Tippy is forced to go and live with his shiftless father Lonnie, a petty criminal whose idea of fatherhood swings between boasting about making Tippy a man and beating him for a perceived lack of respect. Without his grandmother’s steadying presence, Tippy is drawn into his father’s world of street crime, finding it alternately terrifying and strangely exciting. The novel’s power comes from the sympathy we feel for Tippy: even though he does despicable things, we know that he is at heart worth saving. His agonizing choice to turn his father in to the police ends the novel on a heartbreaking but hopeful note. A real treat this season is the publication of Moon, Have You Met My Mother?: The Collected Poems of Karla Kuskin. The celebrated poet has published more than thirty-five books for children, and this handsome volume collects many of her previously published poems in one pleasantly hefty tome. The poems range from snappy one-liners (“Spiders are all right, I guess, / or would be / if their legs were less”) to longer poems like “A Boy Had a Mother Who Bought Him a Hat,” which was originally published as a picture book in 1976. No matter where I open the book, I immediately want to start reading aloud, as the words fairly skip off the pages. Sergio Ruzzier’s deceptively simple line drawings are a perfect complement to these child-centered poems; I can’t think of a better way to introduce a child to the pleasures of language. As Kuskin writes, “What separates each one of us / from all the beasts and bugs and birds? / Well they have feathers, fur and wings / but we have words, / and words, / and words.” Like series books for older readers, many of the best-loved picture books of all time received no critical attention when they were first published, and also were conspicuously absent from library shelves. Little Golden Books, with their cardboard covers and distinctive gold foil spines, have been read and loved wholeheartedly by millions of children since the series began in 1942. Golden Book titles still top the yearly charts of children’s bestsellers. Many talented authors and illustrators got their start with Golden Books, producing small masterpieces aimed directly at children. In recent years, Golden Books has been publishing “deluxe” editions of some of its all-time bestsellers. These large format jacketed hardcovers lend an air of respectability to titles that were initially distributed through grocery stores and pharmacies. I love having these new editions in my bookstore, since customers who are overwhelmed and intimidated by the sheer number of children’s books now available are generally able to relax when they see a familiar title from their childhood featured on our shelves. This season’s reissues include I Can Fly (1951) by Ruth Krauss, Tibor Gergely’s The Great Big Fire Engine Book (1950), and The Friendly Book (1954) and The Wonderful House (1950), both by Margaret Wise Brown. The utterly charming I Can Fly features an imaginative little girl imitating a host of animals: “A cow can moo. I can too. I can squirm like a worm. I can grab like a crab.” The exuberant illustrations by Mary Blair are just as energetic as the book’s heroine. A board book version with only half the text and illustrations has been a perennial favorite at my bookstore, and we’re all thrilled to welcome back this complete edition. In The Great Big Fire Engine Book, all eyes are on the hose car, the hook-and-ladder truck, and the black-coated, red-helmeted firemen as they answer an alarm, race to put out a fire, and head back wearily to the firehouse when the job is done. The text is simple enough for two-year-olds: “Chop, chop, chop! go the axes. Crash! go the windows,” and the delightfully retro illustrations are full of details to explore again and again. The Friendly Book was one of several Golden Book collaborations between Margaret Wise Brown and illustrator Garth Williams. Here Williams’s trademark animals crowd double-page spreads enumerating things the narrator likes: “I like trains / Express trains / Toy trains / Streamline trains / Freight trains / Old trains / Milk trains” as well as cars, snow, bugs, fish, whistles, and several other categories of favorite things. Here, too, the illustrations are packed with details for children to pore over, making it an altogether satisfying experience. The Wonderful House, illustrated by J. P. Miller, is a guessing game about which creatures live in a wide array of homes, culminating with a fabulous flying house piloted by a girl and boy who sail through the air “to where they want to go.” It’s not unusual to see several offerings from the prolific Margaret Wise Brown among the new editions and reissues in a season. Publishers never seem to tire of packaging and repackaging her books, as well as scouring the archives for unpublished treasures, one assumes in pursuit of another Goodnight Moon. Besides the Golden Books offerings, this season sees the publication of Sneakers, the Seaside Cat, illustrated by Anne Mortimer, adapted from the 1955 collection Sneakers: Seven Stories about a Cat. The lyrical text follows “a little fat cat” on his first visit to the seashore. Nothing momentous happens, but his surroundings are observed with the sensory detail that Brown excelled at depicting. “It was low tide and all around was seaweed. Then Sneakers heard a little sound. It was like creaky breathing. It was the seaweed popping. ’My, I’m glad I heard that,’ said Sneakers.” The fog rolls in, a crab pinches his paw, and the family goes home tired and happy after their time at the beach. No one has ever bettered Margaret Wise Brown at replicating a little slice-of-life experience. Books by several other well-loved picture book creators are back in print. Charlotte Zolotow, whose gentle stories go straight to the heart of childhood experiences, is represented by A Tiger Called Thomas (1963), with appealing new illustrations by Diana Cain Bluthenthal. After moving to a new neighborhood, Thomas has a hard time fitting in, taking it into his head that no one will like him. “So he never left his stoop” despite his mother’s reassurances that everybody wants to meet him. It takes the supposed anonymity of his Halloween tiger costume to help him see how welcoming his neighbors really are. As ever, the loony world of James Marshall is a delight to visit, this time in Wings: A Tale of Two Chickens (1986). Friends Harriet and Winnie, “as different as two chickens could possibly be,” co-exist peacefully until the flighty Winnie is lured away by a smooth-talking fox and Harriet has to mount a rescue operation. The action accelerates to a true cliffhanger ending, and the expressions on the face of the clueless Winnie are priceless. In Jennie’s Hat (1966) by Ezra Jack Keats, Jennie’s excitement at getting a new hat from her aunt evaporates when she sees how plain it is. However, with the help of the birds she regularly feeds in the park, she is able to decorate her hat to rival the elaborate confections she sees in church. Keats’s clever use of collage makes Jennie’s hat a wonder to behold, sure to captivate any little girl who loves to dress up. Leo Lionni’s The Greentail Mouse (1973) is a fable about a colony of mice who hear about the Mardi Gras celebration and decide to have one of their own. Hidden behind their fierce Mardi Gras masks, they gradually forget that they are playacting and begin to believe that they really are ferocious animals. Their community is filled with hate and suspicion until a mouse from outside convinces them to take off their masks and become themselves again. I have to admit that while the art is gorgeous, I’m not sure what the message here is supposed to be. I don’t see this title supplanting Frederick or Swimmy any time soon. One of our all-time Book Shop favorites is back in print, and we’re busy introducing it to a whole new group of vehicle-crazed two-year-olds. Big Wheels (1986) by Anne Rockwell is the perfect combination of clean, crisp pictures of working machines and simple, descriptive text: “Big wheels work for us. Front loaders lift dirt. Bulldozers push it.” Cheerful pigs operate the machinery in a book that truck lovers are sure to cherish. We’re also quite excited about The Complete Adventures of Big Dog and Little Dog by Dav Pilkey. Originally published as five separate board books, these endearing stories about dog buddies have now been combined into one hardcover volume that’s perfect for reading aloud. The text is also simple enough for early readers to master, and the visual jokes extend the deadpan text. Harcourt is to be congratulated for finding an effective new format for these well-loved books. The same can’t be said for the new HarperCollins edition of Emmett’s Pig (1959) by Mary Stolz, or several other reissues that have come across my desk lately. I fervently wish that publishing houses didn’t have such a strong urge to tinker with backlist titles — I’m a firm believer in the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mindset. There’s nothing wrong with redesigning jackets or making minor changes in format, but it’s a small step from there to colorizing illustrations and amending texts. Where will it all end? It’s particularly troubling when the original writer or illustrator is not part of the decision to “update” a work. Emmett’s Pig is a case in point. This touching story of a city boy obsessed with pigs who gets his heart’s desire when his parents give him a pig for his birthday was originally published as a Harper I-Can-Read Book, with two-color illustrations by Garth Williams. The new edition has been re-formatted as a full-size picture book, and Williams’s illustrations have been colorized by Rosemary Wells, whose afterword carefully explains that the new edition was created “to bring some of this great genius’s work to a new generation of readers.” The implication seems to be that this new edition would never have seen the light of day if these changes had not been made, and that Garth Williams is somehow in danger of being forgotten. I beg to differ. Quite an impressive number of his books are still in print, with more appearing every season. While of course I would rather have this book available in some form than not at all, I feel obliged to point out that the new trim size is not an enhancement, and the colorization, no matter how respectfully done, still looks like paint-by-numbers and not an integrated whole. Like the colorization of old black-and-white movies, it isn’t intentionally evil, just completely unnecessary. Great illustrations should be allowed to stand on their own. If the trend isn’t stopped, how long will Make Way for Ducklings and Millions of Cats remain untouched? Two titles by David McPhail have also been subjected to the colorization process. I’m even more puzzled by these, because although David McPhail is alive and well, in both cases the hand-coloring has been done by someone else. Fortunately, McPhail’s pen-and-ink style adapts more readily to colorization than the pencil drawings of Garth Williams, so the overall effect is less jarring. Sisters (1984) is a joyful tribute to sisterhood, and remains a sweet celebration of the ways sisters are alike and how they differ, and how in the end “the way they were most alike was the most special way of all. Because, you see, they loved each other so very much.” Henry Bear’s Park (1976) has been given a full-blown makeover; it’s now much larger, and the original black-and-white illustrations are in full color. The fanciful story of Henry Bear and his yearning for his absent father comes perilously close to sinking under the weight of its new look, but the underpinnings are solid and it can certainly hold its own among some of the flashier new picture books these days. If I’m uneasy about the colorized versions of old favorites, I’m utterly baffled by the new edition of Emily Arnold McCully’s Picnic (1984). This was the first of a series of at least five wordless picture books featuring an extended family of mice having adventures together: going on a picnic, playing in the snow, welcoming a new baby. The genius of the books was that the drawings were so clever that you could always tell which mouse was which, and the stories unfolded in such a logical way that even the smallest children could follow the action and tell the story themselves. As every librarian and bookseller knows, people are always asking for wordless picture books, and good ones are hard to find. It’s now become even harder, since this new larger format version of Picnic has inexplicably added words. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry, but it’s hard not to feel that my intelligence is being insulted. Plans are in the works to reissue two more titles in the series; I can only hope that common sense will prevail and the books won’t be loaded down with words they don’t need. The last three books on my list are about as far from mass market series books as it is possible to get. Each one is a minor masterpiece, and each ones defies categorization. The first, The Gingerbread Rabbit (1964), is by the distinguished poet Randall Jarrell. Jarrell produced only four books for children, but all four are timeless, unforgettable tales, particularly the hauntingly lovely Animal Family. The Gingerbread Rabbit, his first children’s book, is an alternative take on the story of the Gingerbread Man. A mother, wanting to surprise her beloved daughter, decides to bake a gingerbread rabbit and is startled when it comes to life and runs off into the forest. The chase is on, with the naive rabbit encountering a series of animals, including a duplicitous fox bent on eating him, and the heartbroken mother trailing along behind to reclaim her daughter’s surprise. All ends happily as the gingerbread rabbit finds sanctuary and a home with two real rabbits (“We’ve always wanted to have a little rabbit of our own”) and the mother hits upon the idea of sewing a stuffed rabbit for her delighted daughter (“It’s the best surprise I’ve ever had in my whole life”). This is a marvelous book for reading aloud, with its rich language and entrancing illustrations by Garth Williams (thankfully not colorized). In Ellen’s Lion (1959), written and illustrated by Crockett Johnson, we are allowed to eavesdrop on lengthy conversations between Ellen and her stuffed lion. During the course of twelve short chapters, Ellen and her lion roam the world having adventures without ever leaving home. Johnson, whose illustrations of Ellen will be instantly familiar to fans of Harold and the Purple Crayon, provides an uncannily accurate picture of a child’s imagination at play. The down-to-earth lion, who has much in common with Eeyore, is a perfect foil for the quicksilver Ellen, making sure that her flights of fancy always land safely back on the playroom floor. And finally, there is the incomparable William Steig’s Yellow & Pink (1984), surely one of the wittiest and wisest children’s books ever published. Two wooden dolls, one painted yellow, the other pink, confront the mystery of who they are and where they might have come from. Pink thinks that “someone must have made us,” but Yellow scoffs at that: “How could anyone make something like me, so intricate, so perfect?” Their philosophical debate is off and running as they try to determine whether they are the products of accident or design. Just when they might have reached an amicable truce (“Some things will have to remain a mystery”), along comes a man (“Who is this guy?”) who starts them both pondering anew. Steig’s black-and-white illustrations, with splashes of yellow and pink, capture in just a few lines the essence of these two questing souls. From Trixie Belden to existential musings — the range and depth of this season’s reissues is truly staggering. Whether it’s escapist fluff or food for the soul, there’s something for everyone. Since there’s no predicting which book will affect what child, the best we can do is provide a wide range of choices and hope that every child can somehow experience the magic of being transported to other times and places. As Karla Kuskin describes it: “No one will come / when they call me. / I am not there / where they look. / I linger alone in a place of my own, / lost in a book.”
TITLES REVIEWED ABOVE Margaret Wise Brown The Friendly Book;
illus. by Garth Williams Margaret Wise Brown Sneakers, the Seaside Cat;
illus. by Anne Mortimer Margaret Wise Brown The Wonderful House;
illus. by J. P. Miller Julie Campbell The Gatehouse Mystery;
illus. by Mary Stevens Julie Campbell The Mysterious Visitor;
illus. by Mary Stevens Julie Campbell The Red Trailer Mystery;
illus. by Mary Stevens Julie Campbell The Secret of the Mansion;
illus. by Mary Stevens John Christopher The City of Gold and Lead John Christopher The Pool of Fire John Christopher The White Mountains Sylvia Louise Engdahl The Far Side of Evil Tibor Gergely, illustrator The Great Big Fire
Engine Book Randall Jarrell The Gingerbread Rabbit;
illus. by Garth Williams Crockett Johnson Ellen’s Lion; illus.
by the author Ezra Jack Keats Jennie’s Hat; illus.
by the author Ruth Krauss I Can Fly; illus. by Mary
Blair Karla Kuskin Moon, Have You Met My Mother?;
illus. by Sergio Ruzzier Anne Lindbergh The People in Pineapple Place Anne Lindbergh The Prisoner of Pineapple Place Anne Lindbergh The Worry Week; illus.
by Kevin Hawkes Leo Lionni The Greentail Mouse; illus.
by the author Emily Arnold McCully Picnic; illus. by
the author David McPhail Henry Bear’s Park;
illus. by the author; colored by John O’Connor David McPhail Sisters; illus. by the author;
colored by John O’Connor James Marshall Wings: A Tale of Two Chickens;
illus. by the author Walter Dean Myers It Ain’t All for Nothin’ Dav Pilkey The Complete Adventures of Big Dog
and Little Dog; illus. by the author Anne Rockwell Big Wheels; illus. by the
author Doris Schroeder Walt Disney Presents the Annette
Mysteries William Steig Yellow & Pink; illus.
by the author Mary Stolz Emmett’s Pig; illus.
by Garth Williams; watercolors by Rosemary Wells Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer Sorcery
& Cecelia, or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot Charlotte Zolotow A Tiger Called Thomas;
illus. by Diana Cain Bluthenthal
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h,
Moms,’ Trixie moaned, running her hands through her short,
sandy curls. ‘I’ll just die if I don’t have a
horse.’”
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